Daily Meditation for May 26, 2023

What do you think when you hear the following words: “We need to compose our lives” or “Love across differences” or  “Don’t lose a sense of wonder”? Is there really music, poetry, creativity within each of us? Is it truly possible to value what is common among us as well as value our differences? Can we see anew the beauty in a colored leaf, a friend of color, a complicated world, a seemingly unsolvable problem? Yes, to these challenges. Although it takes time and practice, if done from a stance of delight and openness, we can find the music, poetry, and creativity necessary to change and compose our lives! In a letter, penned in 1948, the universally revered wise man Black Elk manifested his own firm stance not only in his sad reality but in Wahan Tanka’s greater reality: “Now my heart is getting sad—but my heart will never turn bad. Ever since Wahan Tanka (Lakota name for God) gave light to my heart, yes, it stands in light without end.”

By Renée Domeier, OSB