FINDING GOODNESS IN
THE MIDST OF DIFFICULTY
COURSE INTRODUCTION
This series explores how different aspects of life can bring a drop of goodness into a difficult day. You are invited to experiment with gratitude, awe, generosity and others, and discover what works for you.
Feel free to read the words and try out the invitations, or use the audio and video guided practices. You can print out and fill in the tick chart pdf to help keep track of what you are finding useful.
Use as much or as little feels helpful.
Inspirational Poem
Mary Oliver: The summer day
Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around
with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention,
how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?
Download Tick Chart PDF
