Live this day. Don’t live in the past. Regret for the past is a waste of spirit. The future is a season unborn. Don’t stare off into the east hoping for a
better day tomorrow. This moment is now. It is all we have.
Live this day. The rain has come after a mild winter and a
long drought. It flows through canyons
and stream beds that were dry only yesterday.
Things change. Impermanence. Suffering.
These are the companions accompanying us on our journey. Embrace them.
Live this day. Listen to the music and the silence. Dance, even when you are the only one who
hears the drumbeats in the distance.
Speak only when you can improve the silence. The way that can be spoken is not the way. Bear witness.
Live this day. We are all dying from the moment we are
born. All stories move to their inevitable
conclusions. In every death, a
resurrection. In every cross, a
redemption. Open the church of your
heart. See infinity in the eyes of the
other. The story is eternal; we are only
chapters in the greater narrative.
Live this day. The sky always loves you no matter what you’ve
done. There is no greater sin than to
have never lived. A boat longing for the
sea, yet afraid. Don’t let life be too
strong for you; it takes life to love life.
This is the distance we must travel, and in the end, we finish as we
were born, naked and alone.
Live this day. On cold and windy mornings it sometimes seems
as if our hearts might burst. Those who
have gone never truly leave us. The stone rests at the bottom of the river of
life. Its metallic taste flavors every
drop of water. The river is everywhere at
once; at the source, in the rushes and where a million drops fall into the
greater sea to become one with the force of completion. So we must live within the paradox—separate as
part of a greater whole. The river runs.
Live this day. There is no past, there is no future. There is just this moment. Become a wise child, a holy sinner, a loving
stranger. We are all travelers in a
foreign country. This world does not
belong to us. We are only passing
through this existence.
Live this day. To be a teacher, you must forget everything
and remember what it is like to be shrouded in darkness. Remember the absence. See every child as one who will spend 75
years being born and then die content having fought hard to come into this
world only to slip away on a whisper of a last breath. To live is to rage against the moon. To live is to feel every life as your own. To be a teacher means to see with the eyes of
a child and relish every chance to learn, realizing that wisdom is the only
treasure you’ll carry with you into the next life.
Live this day, in the
wind and rain and stars. In spring,
summer, fall, and winter. And when you
pass, we will all say that even though you’ve gone, your journey goes on in blessed
memory, in another place and time, another dimension, where you take the wings
of dawn to live another day.
Thank you: Walon Green