Wednesday, November 23rd, 2011
This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.
Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.
(Rumi was a 13th C Muslim poet. This reflection sounds like wisdom to many who experience depression, loss and heartache. Change happens only when acceptance precedes it. Ignoring one’s life — or worse, rejecting one’s life — is the surest way to non-change.)
Tags: change, emotions, wisdom
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Wednesday, November 23rd, 2011
Wash my hands in warm water always no matter how long it takes. Be a Canuck fan early in the season. Say to Carole “I love you” while holding her for 2 minutes. Ignore the “call” of Groupon emails and craigslist bargains. Get home on time and not bump into a bicyclist. Find 2 minutes every day to mindfully wonder. Respond more — react less. “Meet and greet the human condition” (I borrowed this from a poem by Kathi Wolfe.). Taste my breakfast. Remember what clothes I wore yesterday. Smile surreptisiously. Laugh with my heart-held convictions. Appreciatively wait at red lights. Move impulses from my limbic brain to my cerebral cortex. Wear orange.
Tags: differentiation, insight, wisdom
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Monday, June 13th, 2011
Of course it is true that marriage has its seasons. Carole and I have been married for 40 years this September. She still loves me and I cannot imagine my life without her. For both of us, life has been marked with difficulty as well as grace and that means marriage has been hard at times.
Earlier today, I found a few paragraphs that summed up the idea of a marriage that works. Entitled “The Best Kind of Love” it is a portrait of a maturing covenant relationship that has both purpose and friendship. Worth reading I think.
Tags: couples, marriage, wisdom
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Wednesday, April 6th, 2011
For those who know me, know that I think of perfectionism as an insidious disease infecting families, the work place and the church place, as well as political life, and anywhere people congregate. I think that “failing in the right direction” is the only sure way for people to grow and to become who they long to be.
Yes, you read that right. I believe in failing, planfully, playfully and purposefully. (Can you see the intended error in the last sentence?) The question about failure is more “what direction will you fail?” It is not about not failing. It is about choosing how you will fail in anticipation of a greater success, a better thing.
Trying to be perfect is doomed before the work has been initiated. And it is the least likely motivation to reach excellence (“You do know that excellence and perfection are quite different things, don’t you?”). And perfectionism is ethically questionable as well — like “cheating in the pursuit of excellence.”
Have I confused you sufficiently? Read from Richard Rohr who says much more and much more clearly than I can.
We grow spiritually much more by doing it wrong than by doing it right. That might just be the central message of how spiritual growth happens; yet nothing in us wants to believe it….
If there is such a thing as human perfection, it seems to emerge precisely from how we handle the imperfection that is everywhere, especially our own. What a clever place for God to hide holiness, so that only the humble and earnest will find it! A “perfect” person ends up being one who can consciously forgive and include imperfection rather than one who thinks he or she is totally above and beyond imperfection.
It becomes sort of obvious once you say it out loud. In fact, I would say that the demand for the perfect is the greatest enemy of the good. Perfection is a mathematical or divine concept, goodness is a beautiful human concept that includes us all.
To read more of Richard Rohr, see the “Center for Action and Contemplation.”
Tags: spirituality, wisdom
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