Lenten Meditations: March 22

“It is the nature of a teacup to be broken. That is why it is so beautiful now, and why I appreciate it when I can still drink from it… When it is gone, it is gone.”

– Ruth Ozeki, The Book of Form and Emptiness

 

Reflection

I’ve been reflecting recently on aging, mortality, change, and loss. Grief. It can be so hard to lose people, animals, objects, or aspects of ourselves that we know well and love. I came across these lines in a work of fiction and they stopped me in my tracks. They recall these words from Ecclesiastes: “all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again.” Every moment spent in a non-dust state – this body, this relationship, this teacup, this moment – is a gift, fleeting and precious.

 

Prayer

Loving Creator, Source of Love: Thank you for this wondrous world, this cycle of life and death, creation and destruction, of rising up and falling away. Please help me ground my awareness in the now, to find the beauty and the blessing in this present moment.

Amen.