Beauty at Our Threshold

Beannacht

("Blessing")

On the day when the weight deadens on your shoulders and you stumble,
May the clay dance to balance you.

And when your eyes freeze behind the grey window
and the ghost of loss gets in to you,
May a flock of colours, indigo, red, green, and azure blue
come to awaken in you a meadow of delight.

When the canvas frays in the currach* of thought
and a stain of ocean blackens beneath you,
May there come across the waters a path of yellow moonlight
to bring you safely home.

May the nourishment of the earth be yours,
May the clarity of light be yours,
May the fluency of the ocean be yours,
May the protection of the ancestors be yours.
And so

May a slow wind work these words of love around you,
an invisible cloak to mind your life.

 ~ John O'Donohue ~

*a currach is an Irish boat, lightweight because it is made from canvas stretched over a wooden frame.

John O’Donohue wrote this for his mother on the occasion of his father’s death.  I heard him read it in an interview with Krista Tippett, an interview that kept me from writing yesterday.  Here’s a link to the audio  and one to the program page with several links 

I encourage you to listen and be stopped as well.  Doesn’t God use beauty to cross the threshold of our resistance to intimacy?