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God cannot be defined,
only lived.
God cannot be thought,
only breathed.
God cannot be contained,
only loved.
Text and image © 2017 by Dirk deVries. All rights reserved.
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May all your spiritual questing
be defined by gentleness,
not struggle,
not striving,
not achievement.
Let it be easy,
spontaneous,
effortless.
Spend less time seeking God
and more time receiving God;
let God's gentle presence
rise to the surface.
Ah, there it is.
Simple, after all.
Text and image © 2017 by Dirk deVries. All rights reserved.
Visit PhotosByDirk.com for fine-art photography.
Visit The60SecondSabbath.com, where spirit and image merge.
God is ordinary,
like the ordinary moments
of your ordinary day,
ordinary like the sound of chirping sparrows,
the honk of a distant horn,
like the smell of coffee brewing in the morning,
or fresh sheets as you climb into bed,
like the sight of kids waiting for their school bus,
or a city skyline,
like the feel of a fleece jacket on a fall day,
or your dog's moist snout welcoming you home,
like the sweetness of a chocolate-chip cookie,
or the bitterness of an unripe apple, bitten too soon.
God is ordinary
like this life,
this moment.
Text and image © 2017 by Dirk deVries. All rights reserved.
Visit PhotosByDirk.com for fine-art photography.
Visit The60SecondSabbath.com, where spirit and image merge.
The sole vending machine
in the waiting room
of the auto repair shop
reads:
HealthyVend
Stuck to the front,
a graphic of a big, red apple
promises the dispensing of fruit
and other healthy snacks.
Alas, nary an apple within.
They do offer:
potato chips and Chips Ahoy,
Milky Way, M&Ms, KitKat and Crunch,
Sour Patch, Pop Tarts, Skittles and Combos,
Rockstar and--
ah, yes, bottled water--
which I assume to be the "healthy" part of HealthyVend.
I bought the Pop Tarts
(brown sugar and cinnamon).
Text and image © 2017 by Dirk deVries. All rights reserved.
Visit PhotosByDirk.com for fine-art photography.
Visit The60SecondSabbath.com, where spirit and image merge.
There are things
we cannot grasp
with thought.
The mind--
even the most brilliant mind--
is incapable of understanding such things,
because they can only be known
with the heart,
with the soul.
They cannot be put into words,
but they are real,
perhaps more real
than all the ideas, concepts and knowledge
held in the world's libraries
(both physical and virtual).
They are the great and timeless truths
of faith and love and holiness.
We intuit these.
We receive them,
not as constructs,
but as knowing beyond knowing,
wonder beyond words,
intuition beyond articulation,
wisdom beyond discourse,
poetry beyond parley,
experience beyond abstraction...
Such unformed awareness
is the presence of God
being ever born within us.
Text and image © 2017 by Dirk deVries. All rights reserved.
Visit PhotosByDirk.com for fine-art photography.
Visit The60SecondSabbath.com, where spirit and image merge.
Eternal Mystery,
Help me die
to all illusions
about myself--
my superiority,
my deservedness,
my righteousness,
my inadequacy...
Help me die
to the illusion
of separateness.
Bring me
to the brink
of boundlessness.
There,
bereft, free-falling,
let me fall into you,
endlessly fall into you.
Amen
and amen.
Text and image © 2017 by Dirk deVries. All rights reserved.
Visit PhotosByDirk.com for fine-art photography.
Visit The60SecondSabbath.com, where spirit and image merge.
Only when you possess
nothing
do you possess
the infinite.
Text and image © 2017 by Dirk deVries. All rights reserved.
Visit PhotosByDirk.com for fine-art photography.
Visit The60SecondSabbath.com, where spirit and image merge.
All theology,
all spiritual discourse,
all religious language
is our weak (and finally futile) attempt
to describe what is ultimately
indescribable.
That's okay,
because this fundamental truth
helps us come to the point
of surrendering to
the indescribable,
which is where we meet God.
Our emptiness meets divine emptiness.
Our utter emptiness is filled with God.
Trying to capture God in words
is like trying to cram the stars
into your back pocket.
Text and image © 2017 by Dirk deVries. All rights reserved.
Visit PhotosByDirk.com for fine-art photography.
Visit The60SecondSabbath.com, where spirit and image merge.
You know what you know
by being what you know.
Want to know generosity?
Be generosity.
Want to know forgiveness?
Be forgiveness.
Want to know acceptance?
Be acceptance.
Want to know the Infinite?
Be the Infinite.
You only know what you know
because you have become what you know.
Text and image © 2017 by Dirk deVries. All rights reserved.
Visit PhotosByDirk.com for fine-art photography.
Visit The60SecondSabbath.com, where spirit and image merge.
From time to time
we get glimpses
of the boundlessness
that surrounds us.
You know these moments.
Such echoes of the infinite in daily life
keep us seeking,
keep us reaching toward
that greater thing
we know exists
just beyond the tips of our fingers.
Yet it isn't actual "out there";
it's "in here."
It is the Word
struggling to be born
in the soul.
God constantly gives birth to the Word,
in you,
in me,
in every aspect of creation.
You can't own this,
but in surrender,
you can receive it.
Text and image © 2017 by Dirk deVries. All rights reserved.
Visit PhotosByDirk.com for fine-art photography.
Visit The60SecondSabbath.com, where spirit and image merge.
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