Failure

[Guest guest]

" If you call one thing vile and another precious, if you praise success and

blame failure, you will fill the world with thieves, soldiers, and

businessmen. I have praised the saints and I have told at what cost they

strove to surpass lesser men. What madness have I not preached in sermons! "

( Merton)

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God fixes a passionate desire in you,

and then disappoints you.

God does that a hundred times!

God breaks the wings of one intention

and then gives you another,

cuts the rope of contriving,

so you'll remember your dependence.

But sometimes your plans work out!~

You feel fulfilled and in control.

That's because, if you were always failing

you might give up. But remember

it is by failures that lovers

stay aware of how they're loved.

FAILURE IS THE KEY

to the kingdom within.

(Rumi/Barks. Feeling the shoulder of the Lion p.62)

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I wish I knew what you wanted

You block the road and won't give me rest.

You pull my lead rope one way, then the other

(Rumi/Barks. Like This. P42)

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" All that this man had not lived began to be written down. His failures took

shape, but in flowers, and mountains, and in words of love, which he had

never before expressed, and which for that reason, had the truth of

innocence. When his poem was written, it was burning on the paper. At last he

had done this " .

( White. Voss.)

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I scatter to the right and to the left the good seed that the good God puts

into my little hand for my little birds. What happens then is its own

business. I do not concern myself with that at all.....The good God says to

me, " Give, give, always give, without bothering yourself at all about the

results "

(Therese of Lisieux)

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Desperation, let me always know

How to welcome you

And put in your hands the torch

to burn down the house.

(Rumi/Harvey. The Way of Passion. p.70)

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" When the house is burned down

You own a better view

Of the rising moon "

(Basho)

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Whatever you have in your mind - forget it;

Whatever you have in your hand - give it;

Whatever is to be your fate - face it!

(Abu Sa'id ibn Abi-l-Khayr)

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Live to give everything away,

So nothing keeps us apart......

I am trampled grapes...

(Rumi/Harvey. The Way of Passion p.271

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Heaven is made from the smoke of hearts who burn away.

Blessed is the one who burns away like this.

(Rumi/Harvey p.279)