Making a Choice to Help

A few weeks back, I was walking down a snow covered Granville. I saw a pigeon looking like it was caught on some ice on the side walk. I bent over the poor thing and touched it with my glove. It wasn't stuck but injured. I couldn't just leave it there to die. So I picked it up with both gloves and held the bird gently as I walked two block to the vet office. It's little heart was beating quickly..as I walked along suddenly the bird stopped moving. I think it died in my arms. I got to the vet practically in tears. I lay the pigeon gently on the floor of the office and walked away after letting the office clerk know. I wasn't positive that the bird was dead but it sure felt like it. It hit close to home for me. I remembered holding my dog childhood friend Flower as she was put to sleep eighteen years ago. I remembered standing in Lake Michigan with my Rabbi spreading the ashes of my beloved cat Ezzy three years ago. I was reminded of how animals touch our lives even if just a few seconds. Thoughts of guilt rang through me, maybe I killed it, I thought to myself as I left the vet's office. A friend reminded me later that maybe the bird was already dying and I just gave him/her some comfort. That thought gives me comfort.

Hardest to Love

Usually the hardest folks to love are the ones most in need of it.

Gift From The Sea

The sea does not reward those who are too anxious, too greedy, or too

impatient. To dig for treasures shows not only impatience and greed, but lack of faith. Patience, patience, patience, is what the sea teaches. Patience and faith. One should lie empty, open, choiceless as a beach -- waiting for a gift from the sea.”

From: Gift from the Sea

by Anne Morrow Lindbergh

Love Is..

I want to love you without clutching,
Appreciate you without judging,
Join you without invading,
Invite you without demanding,
Leave you without guilt,
Criticize you without blaming,
And help you without insulting.
If I can have the same from you,
Then we can truly meet and enrich each other.
-- Virginia Satir


You and I... We meet as strangers,
Each carrying a mystery within us.
I cannot say who you are:
I may never know you completely.
But I trust that you are a person
In your own right,
Possessed of a beauty and value
That are the earth's richest treasures.
So I make this promise to you: 
 I will impose no identities upon you, 
 But will invite you to become yourself 
 Without shame or fear. 

I will hold open a space for you in the world 
 And defend your right to fill it 
 With an authentic vocation. 
 For as long as your search takes, 
 You have my loyalty. 


--- Theodore Roszak