Beauty Beyond Preference
By David Norling
To pray is to look
With sustained and reverent attention
To attempt to picture the vision
Once it becomes visible
Like a chameleon
In plain view concealed
To notice what it evokes
Calls forth from within
To start with “people, places, and things”
And through loving attention
Come to know and see
Divine essence
Radiating from each particular thing
To listen for the music
In water, wind, and movement
To find one’s self worshiping
The gift and the giver
Because they are one
Beauty beyond preference
And finally to try
With sacrificial effort
Found only in gratitude and wonder
To make a poem/prayer
In honor of the unending particularity
The gifts that make a life
About The Author
David Norling
David Norling thinks of himself as becoming. The contexts within which the process of becoming takes place includes activities like owning and operating a carpet cleaning service, waking up with sentences that sometimes become poems, or apocalyptic aphorisms, and slow/walk/soaking in places of natural beauty. David dreams of Shalom and looks for opportunities to inspire others to consider possibilities that they’ve never imagined. He collects his poems, musing, and other writings in a website: awestruckdumbpilgrim.com
Re-sources
Re-Imagining Education
Empowering educators to take a deeper look at the stories told in our schools and to re-imagine them in transformative and
nurturing learning spaces.
Learning Opportunities
Classes, workshops, and lectures that help to empower people to re-imagine who they are and their place in the world.
CWP
The Chicago Wisdom Project offers a alternative to the industrial and corporate models of education that have become increasingly prevalent in the American educational landscape.