Irish Blessing

May you be blessed in the name of Jesus, who took the cross up the hill so we may be transfigured, in His holy name, may your life be blessed. May deep within you the places of darkness turn towards the light.
When pain comes may you be given a stillness in it. May you be given the wisdom not to resist it, but to let it flow through you.
May you recognize in any suffering that comes to the door of your heart a guest who brings you special gifts and may you have the courage to open that door so that your lovely heart can become larger and more kind and more beautiful.

May you never forget or lose the fruits of light which your own suffering has brought you. May you go back in your mind to recover these lost bright candles of light that you sorely earned and that you now need and may you now be able to gather around you the wonderful shelters that you have received and earned through your own pain.
May you realize that you are sistered to every thing that is alive and that what ever you suffer brings new life to everything that is.
May you never be afraid of suffering because may you know that within the eye of the storm, that there is the stillness of the Divine voice whispering to you that you are safely held within the loving embrace of a great tenderness which will never let anything happen to you.

Though the storms may rage in your heart and all about you, you will never fall out of the tenderness and love and gentle protection of the Divine Embrace.

John O’Donohue

Rainbow

"May flowers always line your path and sunshine light your day.

May songbirds serenade you every step along the way.

May a rainbow run beside you in a sky that's always blue.

And may happiness fill your heart each day your whole life through."

- An Irish Blessing

Enlightened Poetry

IF….

IF you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ‘em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,‘
Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,
if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And - which is more - you’ll be a Man, my son!

By Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936).

What can we do about that last line? It seems a bit sexist to me. But considering all the meditation I've been doing lately, I have a suggestion:
You'll be ENLIGHTENED, my CHILD.

I make this suggestion, because while I was reading the poem, I was reminded of a Zen parable, which says that If you can meet a king or a beggar with the same equanimity, you have become enlightened!