TUESDAY MAY 23RD, 2023
“How many bright faces, how many smiles, how many wrinkles, how many tears and scars reveal love around us! Let us learn to recognize them and to fill our hearts with them. And then let us set out in order to bring the light we have received to others through concrete acts of love (cf. 1 Jn 3:18), diving into our daily affairs more generously, loving, serving, and forgiving with greater earnestness and willingness.
The contemplation of God’s wonders, the contemplation of God’s face, of the Lord’s face, must move us to the service of others.”
Pope Francis
WEDNESDAY MAY 24TH, 2023
“Let us ask ourselves: Do we know how to recognize the light of God’s love in our lives? Do we recognize it with joy and gratitude on the faces of the people who love us? Do we look around us for the signs of this light that fills our heart and opens it to love and service? Or do we prefer the straw fires of idols that alienate us and lead us to withdraw into ourselves? The great light of the Lord and the false, artificial light of idols. Which do I prefer?
May Mary, who kept the light of her Son in her heart even in the darkness of Calvary, accompany us always on the way of love.”
Pope Francis
the great escape
by Charles Bukowski
listen, he said, you ever seen a bunch of crabs in a
bucket?
no, I told him.
well, what happens is that now and then one crab
will climb up on top of the others
and begin to climb toward the top of the bucket,
then, just as he’s about to escape
another crab grabs him and pulls him back
down.
really? I asked.
really, he said, and this job is just like that, none
of the others want anybody to get out of
here. that’s just the way it is
in the postal service!
I believe you, I said.
just then the supervisor walked up and said,
you fellows were talking.
there is no talking allowed on this
job.
I had been there for eleven and one-half
years.
I got up off my stool and climbed right up the
supervisor
and then I reached up and pulled myself right
out of there.
it was so easy it was unbelievable.
but none of the others followed me.
and after that, whenever I had crab legs
I thought about that place.
I must have thought about that place
maybe 5 or 6 times
before I switched to lobster.
“the great escape” by Charles Bukowski from Sifting Through the Madness for the Word, the Line, the Way. © Ecco Press, 2004. Reprinted with permission
The Vibrant Channeled Creator 