LOVE

http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2012/01/28/my-faith-what-people-talk-about-before-they-die/?hpt=hp_c1

I found this article poignant and interesting. Why is it so difficult for humans to love freely, compassionately, and unconditionally? Why is it so challenging to love ourselves? Why do we often wait until the bitter sweet end to confess short comings, to attempt to make amends, to wish we had lived and expressed ourselves differently? Love is something we humans struggle to share, to understand, to define, and to manifest. Perhaps this is why it is such a challenge for us to truly know God. Perhaps this is why falling in love is such a powerful indescribable experience. Maybe falling in love brings us closer to God.

I don't know much about religion. I know little of all the theology and rhetoric enveloping Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, etc, but I do know, and I have always known, God. God, which I can only define as a universal benevolent omnipresent energy, lives in my heart and has filled me with unseen unconditional love more times than many humans. I know that this so called invisible presence has reached out to me in kindness and compassion on many occasions. I know that over my life I have wrestled with the desire to connect in love with friends and family, but that I have never wanted for the love of, or for a connection with, God. When I call to God he comes straight away bearing tenderness, strength, and guidance, but above all else he arrives with warmth and love.  With God I can be myself.  I don't have to worry if something I say or do is going to push another away.  With God I can be imperfect.  Sadly, most often I can't do this with humanity.

So I have come to know God not through words spoken or through sacred scripture, but through my heart. I have come to understand God as a love larger than we as a race of people are capable of fully comprehending. I have come to understand, rudimentarily, that God is love and it is through this understanding that I awkwardly move to navigate my life. I hope when I vacate my body and my life on this Earth, that I feel at peace with the depth to which I have loved.

"The hunger for love is much more difficult to remove than the hunger for bread". ~Mother Teresa

"Love is patient, love is kind. Love does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. Love is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the Truth. Love always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails." Corinthians 13:4

"So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love." Corinthians 13:13

They Were Holding Hands

"Leap" by Brian Doyle 2002

A couple leaped from the south tower, hand in hand. They reached for each other and their hands met and they jumped. Jennifer Brickhouse saw them falling, hand in hand. Many people jumped. Perhaps hundreds. No one knows. They struck the pavement with such force that there was a pink mist in the air. The mayor reported the mist. A kindergarten boy who saw people falling in flames told his teacher that the birds were on fire. She ran with him on her shoulders out of the ashes. Tiffany Keeling saw fireballs falling that she later realized were people. Jennifer Griffin saw people falling and wept as she told the story. Niko Winstral saw people free-falling backwards with their hands out, like they were parachuting. Joe Duncan on his roof on Duane Street looked up and saw people jumping. Henry Weintraub saw people "leaping as they flew out." John Carson saw six people fall, "falling over themselves, falling, they were somersaulting." Steve Miller saw people jumping from a thousand feet in the air. Kirk Kjeldsen saw people flailing on the way down, people lining up and jumping, "too many people falling." Jane Tedder saw people leaping and the sight haunts her at night. Steve Tamas counted fourteen people jumping and then he stopped counting. Stuart DeHann saw one woman's dress billowing as she fell, and he saw a shirtless man falling end over end, and he too saw the couple leaping hand in hand.    Several pedestrians were killed by people falling from the sky. A fireman was killed by a body falling from the sky. But he reached for her hand and she reached for his hand and they leaped out the window holding hands. I try to whisper prayers for the sudden dead and the harrowed families of the dead and the screaming souls of the murderers but I keep coming back to his hand and her hand nestled in each other with such extraordinary ordinary succinct ancient naked stunning perfect simple ferocious love. Their hands reaching and joining are the most powerful prayer I can imagine, the most eloquent, the most graceful. It is everything that we are capable of against horror and loss and death. It is what makes me believe that we are not craven fools and charlatans to believe in God, to believe that human beings have greatness and holiness within them like seeds that open only under great fires, to believe that some unimaginable essence of who we are persists past the dissolution of what we were, to believe against such evil hourly evidence that love is why we are here. No one knows who they were: husband and wife, lovers, dear friends, colleagues, strangers thrown together at the window there at the lip of hell. Maybe they didn't even reach for each other consciously, maybe it was instinctive, a reflex, as they both decided at the same time to take two running steps and jump out the shattered window, but they did reach for each other, and they held on tight, and leaped, and fell endlessly into the smoking canyon, at two hundred miles an hour, falling so far and so fast that they would have blacked out before they hit the pavement near Liberty Street so hard that there was a pink mist in the air. Jennifer Brickhouse saw them holding hands, and Stuart DeHann saw them holding hands, and I hold onto that. Thank you Mr. Doyle.  Thank you from the bottom of my heart for the words you chose to share about That Day. That Day, seared into the hearts of the world, and branded into the fiber of a nation.  Thank you for bearing witness, and for reminding us that love prevails. God is watching us, and God knows the truth.

Crescent

The crescent moon
Doth speak to me
Shares its glow so eloquently
Filters down through branches and leaves
Ethereal lace born of the trees.

Darkest night, so tenderly
You beckon me to dance with thee
Twinkling stars adorn my fingers
With the only diamonds I pray to linger.

My lover is the night, you see
Arriving sweet and stealthily
Sneaking up as twilight opens
A world of magic, divine and holy.

Prose by Andrea Hanson Kelley


Image: unknown artist, public domain

"Moses Supposes His Toeses are Roses..."

The ever delightful and amazingly talented Gene Kelly and Donald O'Connor. Wow! Show me a pair today who can cut a rug like this and I'll eat my hat!

Click on the title for a blast from the past .

Robin Williams 1951-2014

Thank you Robin Williams, for making this world a brighter place, for sharing your immeasurable gifts.   Thank you for all the lessons you offered us; lessons of compassion, kindness, love and laughter!  Thank you for encouraging us to feel, and to think outside the box.  You left our world too soon, and I will never forget you. "Fly and be free!!"

Grey Area

When forming an opinion, it is often wise to consider the following:  rarely, if ever, does one have all the facts, and rarely, if ever, is one privy to the entire account.

Nelson Mandela July 18th, 1918 – December 5th, 2013

"We can change the world and make it a better place.  It is in your hands to make a difference."

Thank you for your courage, your wisdom, your strength and conviction.  Thank you for your humanity, your perfect imperfection, and the example you set for our world.  Thank you for your brilliant light.  May it shine all the more from the other side and continue to guide us in finding balance, compassion, and equality.  Rest in peace Nelson Mandela, you will be missed.

Tapestry

Comes morning now
On bended knee
Bearing unexpected gifts.
Silky velvet threads
Meander lazily
Illuminating
Warm maple floors.

Comes morning now
Spilling
Fluttering
Invitations
Beckoning the dust to dance
Rejoice
Celebrate
This finely woven tapestry
A lifetime in one moment.



Prose by Andrea Hanson Kelley
Textile "Tree of Life" by William Morris

You

You
Amaze me.
Your strength, your heart
Humbles me
Elevates me
Inspires me.
You
Leave me speechless
And filled with love.
You
Lay joy at my feet
And breathe laughter into my smile.
You
Are who I desire
And
Who I admire.
You
Are truly a gift
Manna from Heaven.
You 
Are my beloved
Forever.


For my wonderful husband.  Thank you for falling from the sky and landing on my big purple sofa!

Child

Fear not I those salty testaments to pain or doubt, nor too proud am I to stumble through life’s follies, for my vulnerability bestows upon me unexpected gifts; the gifts of courage, wisdom, and empathy, and the blessings of an open heart. For better or worse, mine will forever be the heart of a child.

A Murmuration

In this short 2 minute video, found embeded in the title, two young girls are out canoeing on the Shannon River in Ireland and chance upon one of nature's true wonders, a murmuration, which is a giant flock of starling birds doing.......well, just watch it for yourself and marvel.

By Sophie Windsor Clive and Liberty Smith

Kool Aid

My name is Andrea Hanson Kelley and I don't drink the Kool Aid. Well, at least I try not to. I try not to drink the Kool Aid poured from the pitcher of religious dogma, be it Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, Judaism, or any ism for that matter. I avoid the ladles served up by Macrobiotics, or South Beach, or Atkins. I pass on the cups containing labels, such as "left" and "right", or "conservative" and "liberal". Political punch is one of the least palatable beverages, especially as of late. Honestly, Kool aid is just so unnatural, all that artificial color and flavor, marketed to be wholly and wholesomely great for every planet dwelling human. Kool Aid can taste great, can even be refreshing, but perhaps it can be most beneficial when it's carefully sipped and explored. Kool Aid begs to be examined by the critical thinker. Is not every body different, every food different, every botanical, every snowflake, every thought, every cell, every molecule, every soul different? Don't all ideologies, all paths, all beliefs contain kernels of wisdom which have at some point in time served in value and with merit? How can one way be the only way for everybody or everything? When exactly did health consciousness or faithfulness become synonymous with rigid inflexibility? If I were to believe that my way was the only way, and the only way for me was to associate with those who believed as I did, what kind of faith is this? How would I grow in my faith? How would I grow in my relationships with others, in my relationship with God if there is only one way for everybody? Do we seek a God synonymous with ourselves and where we are at presently in our evolution as human beings, or do we seek a God who is greater than or wiser than ourselves? Surly God is greater than our limited human experience? Didn't God make us all different for a reason? Could it be that God created diversity so that we could learn and grow from one another, so we could develop kindness, humility, and tolerance for each other and our differences, so that we could discover peace within ourselves and thus manifest peace throughout His kingdom? The next time we consider drinking the Kool Aid our brethren offers, or the next time we consider offering our sister a glass of our own, we might ask ourselves, "Will this quench our thirsts and bring us together in communion, or will this feed our insatiable human need to impose our beliefs and opinions onto others?" Why do humans feel the need to limit each other when God has provided us with such infinite possibilities?

Joy...

...y la luz fabulosa!

State Of the Nation

"Now the kids are all standing with their arms folded tight.
The kids are all standing with their arms folded tight.
Now some things are pure and some things are right
But the kids are still standing with their arms folded tight.
I said, some things are pure and some things are right
But the kids are still standing with their arms folded tight.

So young, so young
So much pain for someone so young, well
I know it's heavy, I know it ain't light
But how you gonna lift it with your
arms
folded
tight?"

Arcade Fire, "Month of May"

Fire

When I bought my home, there was one thing and one thing only that I insisted on having. That thing was fire. A space to burn, embers to heat, and flames to cook. Who needs diamonds? It's fire that's a girl's best friend.