“When you give in to helplessness you collude with despair.”– John O’Donohue
I read from John O’Donohue’s To Bless the Space Between Us daily. It’s in a stack of prayer, poetry and essay books in the window seat where I begin my day with coffee and wise, comforting words. This is a survival technique. It is better than switching on the radio or looking at my phone first thing. It helps me, and I have this belief, weird as it may seem, that my intentions help others and maybe even the world.
This morning, I found this on a rather random page and knew I had to share it with you. A nudge from, who knows? ( I pick up the books and flip through and read where my eyes land. That too is a kind of act of faith.)
This morning, I read O’Donohue’s words that when the world seems dark, so dark, with forces way beyond our control, that the tendency is to retreat. To do nothing because we assume we are helpless. To cultivate our little plot of heart and home and call it good. Duck and cover. He says when we do that, “…we join the largest majority in the world. Those who acquiesce.” Instead, he says, “we live in times when the call to full and critically aware citizenship could not be more urgent.” We need to be like the little boy who cried that the emperor has no clothes. (This is also food for thought: O’Donohue died in 2008. This is not about now, but it still is, isn’t it? Then, the 2000s– there was the Iraq War, 9/11, more terrorist attacks, a deadly tsunami.)
How? If you are not a senator or judge or the Pope? He argues that the world is ruled by conscious spirit (Richard Rohr does too, and all contemplatives believe this.) O’Donohue says the way we live and act– kindness of course, holding a door, waving through the windshield, sending a note of gratitude, thinking, moving, speaking — that matters, and especially our intentions, you may call them prayers, what we feel and in our soul– what we dwell on — matters. (Trust your gut on this one, I say.)
“Your outlook actually and concretely affects what goes on.” It is not a private matter. “Even in your hidden life, you can become a powerful agent of transformation in a broken, darkened world. There is a huge force field that opens when attention focuses and directs itself toward transformation.”
I know this is pretty heavy and wise, but the teachers in my world have helped, and he is one, and they should be wise and brave, so I figured I’d share with you one of my sources for inspiration. I have learned a lot from reading O’Donohue.
Here is part of a morning blessing O’Donohue ( who was a former Catholic priest) titled Matins, that is worth memorizing:
May I live this day
Compassionate of heart,
Clear in word,
Gracious in awareness,
Courageous in thought,
Generous in love.
