My word for 2016 is ATTEND.  

Although I don’t think attending is a superpower, some days I wish it was. On those days, I think if one more person promises that he or she has the superpower to right all wrongs and save US from THEM, I daydream about sticking a pencil in my (or someone else’s) eye. On my better days, however, I choose to acknowledge that while I have no superpowers and am responsible TO the World – I’m not responsible FOR it. I’m responsible FOR my life and how I choose to live it.

To that end, I will attend to what and whom I can. And I’ll remember that I don’t have to attend every argument, drama or political whack-o-doodleness to which I’m invited. Each Sunday , I’ll share something here – an image, a poem, a song or maybe even a story that’s helped me attend to what I can that week.

Joe Zarontonello, or Joe Z as most of his students/friends call him, is a teacher and poet who has spent the last 40 years practicing many different forms of meditation. Joe has studied with Buddhist teachers, and since 1982, with the Trappist monks at Gethsemani. Joe spends time on the road leading retreats, but most of the time he’s at home running Loose Leaf Hollow — a guesthouse for solitary or guided retreats in the rolling knobs
outside of Bardstown, Kentucky. In short, he lives his life in attendance.

Here’s his most recent Poem of the Week: