The DAILY SPARK Blog

COMFORTABLE..UNCOMFORTABLE

Takahe Bird seen while hiking in Abel Tasman National Park, New Zealand

Normality is a paved road; it’s comfortable to walk but no flowers grow on it.

Quote by Vincent Van Gogh

REFLECTION:

  • Do you stay in your comfort zone?
  • Much of our time, we need to stay on the paved road but too much of comfort may result in a very small world.  
  • Is there an unpaved road you can take to find some flowers… to grow, to go beyond a paved road?

OUR HUMAN CONDITION

View hiking to the summit of Fiordland National Park New Zealand

Many people suffer because of the false supposition on which they have based their lives.  That supposition is that there should be no fear or loneliness, no confusion or doubt.  But these sufferings can only be dealt with creatively when they are understood as wounds integral to our human condition.

Quote by Henri J. Nouwen from his book  The Wounded Healer

Check out this book: https://henrinouwen.org/read/the-wounded-healer/

REFLECTION:

  • Do you believe you should not struggle with loneliness, doubt, fear?
  • Are you able to accept these as part of the human condition?
  • When have you experienced some of these conditions in the past? Was there a creative way you dealt with them?
  • Is there a struggle you are dealing with now?  
  • Can you see this as an integral wound that makes you human?
  • How can you creatively deal with loneliness, fear, doubt or confusion that is present now?

STAY AWHILE

Trail on the Milford Track, Fiordland National Park, New Zealand

WHEN I AM AMONG THE TREES

When I am among the trees, especially the willows and the honey locust, equally the beech, the oaks and the pines, they give off such hints of gladness.  I would almost say that they save me and daily.  I am so distant from the hope of myself, in which I have goodness, and discernment, and never hurry through the world but walk slowly, and bow often.  Around me the trees stir their leaves and call out, “Stay awhile.”  The light flows from their branches.  And they call again, “It’s simple,” they say, “and you too have come into the world to do this, to go easy, to be filled with light and to shine.”

Poem by Mary Oliver

REFLECTION:

  • Always in a rush… on to the next task?  When was the last time you took a walk among the trees?
  • The trees have a message:  Go easy… you have come into the world to be filled with light and shine.
  • Is today a day to take a walk among the willows, the oaks the pines?
  • Listen for the trees as they call out “stay awhile.”
  • If not today, when?