~ The Invitation ~

By Oriah Mountain Dreamer

It doesn't interest me what you do for a living.

I want to know what you ache for,

and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart's longing.

It doesn't interest me how old you are.

I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love,

for your dreams, for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn't interest me what planets are squaring your moon.

I want to know if you have touched the center of your sorrow.

If you have been opened by life's betrayals,

or have become shriveled and closed from fear of further pain.

I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own,

 without moving to hide it or fade it or fix it.

I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own.

If you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you

to the tips of your fingers and toes

without cautioning us to be careful, be realistic,

or to remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn't interest me if the story you are telling me is true.

I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself,

if you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own self.

I want to know if you can be faithful and therefore be trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see beauty even when it is not pretty everyday,

and if you can source your life from God's presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine,

and still stand on the edge of a lake

and shout to the silver of the full moon, "Yes!"

It doesn't interest me where you live or how much money you have.

 I want to know if you can get up after a night of grief and despair,

weary and bruised to the bone,

and do what needs to be done for the children.

It doesn't interest me who you are, how you came to be here.

I want to know if you will stand in the center of the fire with me

and not shrink back.

It doesn't interest me where or what or with whom you have studied.

I want to know what sustains you from the inside when all else falls away.

I want to know if you can be alone with yourself,

and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.

~~~~~~~~~

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~ Like Everyone Else ~

Author unknown

He always wanted to say things, but none understood.

He always wanted to explain things, but no-one cared.

So he drew.

Sometimes he would just draw and it wasn't anything.

He wanted to carve it in stone and write it in the sky.

He would lie out in the grass and look up in the sky 

and it would be only him and the sky

and the things inside him that needed saying.

And it was after that that he drew the picture.

He kept it under his pillow and would let no-one see it.

It was a beautiful picture.

And he would look at it every night and think about it.

And when it was dark and his eyes were closed, he could still see it.

When he started school he brought it with him.

Not to show anyone, but just to have it with him, like a friend.

It was funny about school.

He sat in a square brown desk

like all the other square brown desks

and he thought it should be red.

And his room was a square brown room

like all the other square brown rooms

and it was tight and close and stiff.

He hated to hold the pencil and the chalk

with his arm stiff and his feet flat on the floor, stiff,

with the teacher watching and waiting.

And then he had to write numbers.

And they weren't anything.

They were tight and square.

And he hated the whole thing.

The teacher came and spoke to him.

She told him to wear a tie like all the other boys.

He said he didn't like them, and she said it didn't matter.

After that he drew.

And he drew all yellow and it was the way he felt about the morning.

And it was beautiful.

The teacher came and smiled at him

"What's this?" she said .

"Why don't you draw something like Ken's drawing?

"Isn't that beautiful?"

And it was all questions.

After that his mother bought him a tie

and he always drew airplanes and rocket ships

like everyone else.

And he threw the old picture away.

And when he lay looking at the sky,

it was big and blue, and all of everything else

but he wasn't anymore.

He was square and brown,

and his hands were stiff

and he was like everyone else.

And the thing inside that needed saying didn't need saying anymore

It had stopped pushing.

It was crushed.

Stiff.

Like everyone else.

~~~~~~~~~

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~ Children ~

By Kahlil Gibran

Your children are not your children

They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself

They come through you but not from you,

And though they are with you yet they belong not to you

You may give them your love but not your thoughts

For they have their own thoughts

You may house their bodies but not their souls

For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow

Which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams

You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you

For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday

You are the bows from which your children as living arrows, are sent forth

The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite

And He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far

Let our bending in the archer's hand be for gladness

For even as He loves the arrow that flies,

so He loves also the bow that is stable.

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