One
of the greatest privileges of the human being is to become
midwife to the birth of another person.
Plato
BEANNACHT (Blessing)
On the day when the weight deadens on our 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 into 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 your 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 Earth
be yours,
May the clarity of the 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
Prayer of St. Francis
Lord, make me an instrument
of your peace,
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
Where there is injury, pardon;
Where there is doubt, faith;
Where there is despair, hope;
Where there is darkness, light;
Where there is sadness, joy;
O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be
Consoled as to console;
To be understood as to understand;
To be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive;
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
And it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
We are one after all, you
and I. Together we suffer, together exist and forever will recreate
each other.
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
