Susan's Thursday morning note - August 1, 2024
“A singing bird will come...” Quotes by Hafez and quotes on faith
Good morning. Sound of silence and purring mixed. Smells of coffee. Thoughts trying to make their way to my fingertips. If I look outside long enough to focus into the blackness I can see the stars. So distant. Little dots giving me a glance at heaven on the other side. Encouraging me to keep an eternal perspective as I enter this day. Peering through the blackness I can see the eyes of my angel. My angel of dawn. Again she awoke before me to give me her gift. Her gift of faithfulness. Always there. Always. If you had the ability to hide inside a book this week and listen to conversations you would have heard an older woman tell me a quote she has kept her entire life in her mind that she can hear her mother telling her. A Chinese proverb that has stayed in my mind since she walked out of the store. “If you keep a green bough in your heart, the singing bird will come.” One sentence from her that only spanned a moment in time. The gift of her proverb now in my thoughts for a lifetime. Her quote reminded me of words by a Persian poet, Hafez, who lived from 1310-1390. Encouragement in his words to develop a mental ability to see good and beauty.
“And still, after all this time, the sun never says to the earth, “You owe Me.” Look what happens with a love like that, it lights the whole sky.”
“Stay close to anything that makes you glad you are alive.”
“Build a house for men and birds. Sit with them and play music. For a day, for just one day, talk about that which disturbs no one and brings some peace, my friend, into your beautiful eyes.”
“I once asked a bird, how is it that you fly in this gravity of darkness? The bird responded, ‘love lifts me.”
“Once a young woman said to me, “Hafiz, what is the sign of someone who knows God?” I became very quiet, and looked deep into her eyes, then replied, “My dear, they have dropped the knife. Someone who knows God has dropped the cruel knife that most so often use upon their tender self and others.”
“Ever since happiness heard your name it has been running through the streets trying to find you.”
“This place where you are right now God circled on a map for you.”
“I wish I could show you when you are lonely or in the darkness, the astonishing light of your own being.”
“Be kind to your sleeping heart. Take it out in the vast field of light and let it breathe.”
Again. My new Chinese proverb resonating in my mind. “If you keep a green bough in your heart, the singing bird will come.” Faith. Another word even stronger than hope. This word then brings to mind other quotes I’ve loved on faith. On knowing the singing bird will come, not hoping so.
“Faith is the bird that sings when the dawn is still dark.” Rabindranoth Tagore (1861-1914 1st non-European to win the Nobel Peace Prize in Literature)
“He who has faith has an inward reservoir of courage, hope, confidence, calmness, and assuring trust that all will come out well – even though to the world it may appear to come out most badly.” B.C. Forbes (1880-1954, founder of Forbes Magazine)
“Faithless is he who says farewell when the road darkens.” J.R.R. Tolkein
“Be like that bird that, passing on her flight awhile on boughs too slight, feels them give way beneath her, and yet sings, knowing that she hath wings.” Victor Hugo
My Faith is larger than the Hills -
So when the Hills decay
My Faith must take the Purple Wheel
To show the Sun the way.
‘Tis first He steps upon the Vane
And then – upon the Hill
And then abroad the World He go
To do His Golden Will.
And if His Yellow feet should miss
The Bird would not arise
The Flowers would slumber on their Stemps
No Bells have Paradise.
How dare I, therefore, stint a faith
On which so vast depends
Lest Firmament should fail for me
The Rivet in the Bands. Emily Dickinson 1863
The singing bird WILL come. What a beautiful truth. As constant as the word SPRING. Always arriving. Birds. Buds. Not just the word hope. The word faith. Truth. Reality. Singing birds. Spring. The sand in our timers constantly flowing. The sand in little infant timers already constantly flowing. Unceasing. Will we make a conscious effort to stop a grain mentally today as it passes through? Some sand grains will be so course. Some so fine and make us feel fragile. But amidst all of these grains there are small pieces of sand flowing through that if we stop and look and specific granules we will see the beautiful ones. The sand that keeps it all flowing. That keeps our life beautiful. The grains that are our birds. The grains that our buds. The grains that include the eyes of those we will see today. The grains of sand that hold laughter. The grains of sand that hold tears. The grains. All flowing making up our song. Our beautiful song called life. Susan
Latin for this week:
ramus - branch, bough, twig, spray, arbor
thallus – stalk, bough, branch
palmes – branch, bough
cantus – a singing bird-song