I just love this woman, what she has to say as well as her artwork. It's weird how a role model can be a random stranger who doesn't feel like one at all. There's something about this one that grabs me at this uneasy time of feeling seen and unseen, known and unknown, yet thankfully not a stranger after all. To be...Known.

Help me become more like this woman, Jan Richardson, author of the blessing below as well as How the Light Comes.

Blessing in the Chaos

To all that is chaotic
in you,
let there come silence.

Let there be a calming
of the clamoring,
a stilling
of the voices that
have laid their claim
on you,
that have made their
home in you, 

that go with you
even to the holy places
but will not
let you rest,
will not let you
hear your life
with wholeness
or feel the grace
that fashioned you.

Let what distracts you
cease.
Let what divides you
cease.
Let there comes an end
to what diminishes
and demeans,
and let depart
all that keeps you
in its cage.

Let there be
an opening
into the quiet
that lies beneath
the chaos,
where you find
the peace
you did not think
possible
and see what shimmers
within the storm.