Practical Change

I am thinking lately about the things that shape us, the events in our lives that mold our behaviors and responses toward the future. My mother says that when we reconstruct the way we hold the past then we bring alive the possibility for a new future. New futures are a good thing they allow us to be free from the same old song and they change us…change is good, it is enlivening.

When you look back on the string of events that makes up your life, do you see certain things that caused a crack in you along the way? Once you locate the ‘cracks’ you sort of see how everything else was colored by them in a certain sense…the first heartbreak colored every relationship after that, the first death of someone you loved, the first job experience etc, etc.

Seems like all the cracks weave in and out of everything causing a shift in behaviors and responses, so that one day when you are older you look down the road you have traveled and question what has caused you to have the walls and defense mechanisms that now make-up your life. Somehow along the way you stop REAL living and being the TRUE you, you started accepting things that weren’t really acceptable and telling yourself that you had to. You gave up the chance to go after the career you wanted because, because, because…you didn’t go after the great love of your life because, because, because…

As a result of all that how many of us are truly living the life that we want to live? How many of us wake up every morning with our soul mate by our side with a job or career that we love and jump out of bed with the purpose of serving others?

How many of us wake up every morning into a situation that is lifeless and dry with circumstances around us that no longer serve what we want for our future?

Where is the point at which we will take the chance to change it up into what we really want? When do we finally put putty in the cracks and start taking risks on life again…if I told you that you had six remaining months to live in this life would you continue to live the way you are living…would you? Would you wait one more second to have it the way you want…

I want you to think about that…I have talked before here about being complete in every moment…if you left here tomorrow would it have been the way you wanted it? Would you have served enough, loved who you wanted enough, forgiven enough, contributed enough, would you have taught enough to your kids…would you have showed them what real love is, what real joy is?

What would your legacy be…what would we remember about you…would we see that you sacrificed real joy in your life to live in circumstances that stopped your spiritual growth or would we see that you lived every, single day to the fullest and that you were complete in every moment…

There are American soldiers overseas sacrificing themselves everyday so that we may have freedom of choice, are we using their sacrifice responsibly? Are we making the best life that we can or are we “putting up” with things and waiting for the right time to change? I have lived an interesting life thus far and I have discovered there is no “right” time to be different, the only time we have for sure is right NOW—this moment—are you using it wisely???

“This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap; the being a force of Nature instead of a feverish selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy. “

George Bernard Shaw

“People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I don’t believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and, if they can’t find them, make them.”

George Bernard Shaw

Webster’s defines bridge for my purposes here as “a thing that provides connection, contact or transition”. Sometimes Life provides us a bridge that we mistake as ‘the solution’…there are times when we need help, yet we are not truly ready for what’s next and in those times Life provides a bridge that transitions us from who we are to who we must become. Often in this process we mistake the ‘bridge’ as the solution especially when the bridge is a person.

There are times in our lives when moving to the next, higher stage of being is required and often we are so caught up in the circumstances of the moment that we can’t see our way clear to make the changes on our own. It is at these times that Life sends us a bridge to help us transition from who we are to who we must become…the bridge can look like a friend, a mentor, a boss, a lover, a husband, a wife…whatever way we need to have it to be effective, that is the way Life sends it.

When the desired transition is complete the bridge is no longer needed and often the loss of the bridge is mistaken as a hurtful experience, when in fact it is a blessing because it means we have transitioned and are ready for the next level which is a better place for us.

There is a teaching that says “the blessing comes before the challenge”—meaning that we create a gift for ourselves and then we must create a challenge to overcome so that we can readily receive it…in that same way we create a bridge to help us become who and what we need to be.

Understand that a bridge is a gift, just because something is utilized to get you from point A to point B doesn’t make it any less meaningful or worthy—it is just means that a bridge isn’t forever, it is a relationship that is meant to last for a certain period of time whether it is one week or 25 years. A bridge isn’t meant to build a life on; it is meant to cross you from one place to the other.

I had a dream last night in which I gained complete clarity of this concept. I saw clearly for the first time that a certain relationship was a bridge and that it was truly given to me to get where I needed to be. Waking up with this concept in my mind I also understood all the other bridges…the marriages, the jobs, the relationships…all of the things that haven’t worked out the way I thought they would or should…bridges, every, single one of them.

To see something as a bridge allows you to forgive yourself or someone else for what you previously may have labeled “failure”. To see a completed situation as a ‘bridge’ allows you to reconstruct the past in your mind and out of that you have the ability to create a different future. Imagine if you had an attitude of gratitude about your ‘bridges’ instead of a story of how horrible they all were…imagine turning a string of previously labeled ‘failures’ into a path of bridges that are taking you just where you need to go…there is a lot of freedom in that and a lot of power.

This morning I find myself to be empowered and grateful to finally understand this concept…

I would be remiss in my inspirational duties if I did not post a column for Valentine’s Day…my favorite holiday of the year. I encourage all of you today to be reminded of what real LOVE is…beyond the chocolate and the flowers and the sex and the diamonds and the dinners…real love is a growing up, it is a coming to terms with the fact that people are imperfect and they must be loved anyway. The things that are perfect about us are our GOD given abilities to love and to forgive and TO SERVE…

If you are not serving humanity in some way making other people’s lives better by your presence here then you are NOT fulfilling your purpose. It could be as simple as helping at your child’s school or being kind to your partner when you really want to slap them…real LOVE is a work in progress…sometimes a fairy tale, sometimes a BAD B movie…in the long run folks it is what we make it.

Be GENGEROUS today, make Valentine’s Day about other people…you want flowers? Go buy someone else some…move outside yourself today and make some contributions to others…

Here are some of my favorite quotes for inspiration…

“For one human being to love another human being; That is perhaps the most difficult task that has been entrusted to us, the ultimate task…”

-Rainer Maria Rilke

“I have learned not to worry about love; but to honor its coming with all my heart.”

-Alice Walker

“Love does not begin and end the way we seem to think it does.

Love is a battle. Love is a war. Love is a growing up.”

-James Baldwin

“LOVE is an endless act of forgiveness.”

-Peter Ustinov

“LOVE is not consolation…IT IS LIGHT.”

-Simone Weil

“I don’t know what your destiny will be,

but one thing I know the only ones among you

who will be truly happy are those who have

found how to serve…”

-Albert Schweitzer

“if you do not learn how to LOVE,

everywhere you go, you are going to suffer.”

-eknath easwaran

I don’t think real Divinity comes from study…I think it comes from practical application. To continually hammer those qualities in ourselves that aren’t God-like in nature, that is Divinity…the taking on of oneself, the shining a light into the places where we have darkness in our behavior…and we all have it in different degrees. Elizabeth Kubler-Ross says that in every person there lurks a Hitler and a Gandhi, what matters is what we give a voice to. The qualities that we give voice to are the ones that become alive and the ones that influence our actions.

Constantly I am taking inventory of my actions and behaviors…constantly I am engaged in a conversation with myself about how I can behave better…the only real question that matters is “are our behaviors God-like yet?” and by that I don’t mean for a selfish outcome, I mean for a selfless one…

Are we —giving, forgiving, without animosity, without disregard for other people, are we understanding that everyone is only some reflection of ourselves, are we coherent that the pain and suffering we cause by our intolerance of each other will be returned in kind? These are the things I see as God-like behaviors, these are the behaviors that we should be striving to emulate…these are the behaviors that require a constant conversation with ourselves…not one of us is perfect or without error in our actions and behaviors…the most amount of growing comes from telling one on yourself when you fall off the beam and then making a self-imposed correction…that kind of action brings the biggest blessing…self-restriction and self-discipline are very high forms of behavior.

I had to dismiss an employee this week, there was some dishonesty and some betrayal..neither of those things do I take lightly. This particular situation wrenched my heart because this person was trusted by me and on some levels was/is very dear to me. There were many tears on my part over this decision and much angst and then there was the ‘reality check’ that I am known for…which involved questions to myself, such as “where have I betrayed”, “where have I been less than honest”, “where have I harmed when I meant no harm?”

My personal ‘code’ (if you will) involves understanding that nothing comes into my life without me somehow having created it. Good happenings, not so good happenings, blessings, miracles, lessons…there are no accidents, if it appears somehow I brought it. So when I am harmed or betrayed, I must look inside myself to see what I can find and then correct accordingly. In addition to that I must deal with the situation in a proactive manner because to be a reaction simply invites more chaos.

There was a conversation on Friday between me and her, and I confess I was nothing BUT reactive. I cried. I swore. I yelled and then there was some resolution and explanation. Tonight she came here to return keys and a phone etc. and then there was a very honest conversation on my part about what I saw in her that reminded me of myself. I am 15 years her senior and I see much of my stupid, careless younger self looking out at me from over there…there was a time when I told people what they wanted to hear so they would like me better as she does. I didn’t see until years later that behavior like that only ends up hurting far worse than the truth ever could.

She wants to behave correctly, yet she just can’t swing it at the moment and so the truth needs to be told about that. I explained to her that if she could learn to tell the truth no matter what then she could live knowing that her life would work out just fine. People that tell the truth have nothing to fear…it is the people that are dishonest with themselves that are constantly looking over their shoulder waiting in fear for the kick in the ass they know is coming…you can’t hide from yourself…no matter where you go there you are.

I also explained to her that she is no different than me…I have done an enormous amount of stupid things in the younger part of my 39 years and as a young lady I unwittingly hurt and betrayed some folks that I loved and I have paid the price for that…I have been betrayed and my heart has been broken. The gift is that I get myself as cause in my life…so I am never a victim and there is always something that can be done to change any outcome…God gives us the gift of time and Grace, these two things allow us to see where we have gone off track and correct it before it becomes damaging to our lives…we get the gifts of time and Grace if we are AWAKE and paying attention.

The being able to stand in the face of someone that has betrayed you and love them and bless them is a great gift…this is Divinity in action, this is the stuff you can’t learn from books…these are the lessons that come from looking into ourselves and seeing how we can emulate God-like qualities…loving the people that have harmed you as you love the people that are easy to love is a level of mastery…this loving is called unconditional love and it is the way that the Divine loves us…no matter what we do or how horrible we are the Divine loves us still…shouldn’t we be loving each other in that same way?

That really is the only thing we have to take with us from this life—the way that we love each other…you know that saying, “you never see a U-Haul being pulled behind a hearse…”

God-like qualities are lessons in forever; the rest of it is just fluff…

Copyright 2007 The Southern Ledger. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

12-12-07

How many of us conduct ourselves based on the phrase above? I would venture to say very few. We all think that there is plenty of time and plenty of opportunity to fix whatever isn’t working… in a relationship, in a job, with a parent, in a living situation…and so we say things to ourselves like “I will make concessions and settle for less than excellence today because I can do something about it tomorrow”, “I will stay here with him or her today because it is comfortable and easier and less confrontational and later I will experience real intimacy and real joy”, “I will hold onto my animosity and anger for you today because later on I will tell you how I really feel and we will make things right”, “I will withhold my heart from you today because you might hurt me and so I will not share my deepest love with you right now because I will do it later on when it seems safer”…and on and on and on……

Imagine with me for a moment that there was only today…what would not be acceptable to you then? If there was only today would you waste one, single second withholding yourself or making concessions for unacceptable behavior or putting up with no results??? Would you???

Or would you throw caution to the wind and change some things…would you forgive some people, would you repair some relationships, would you get rid of things that didn’t work, would you love like your life depended on it???

Do you know that death is unbearable only when you have unfinished business with the people that died…do you understand that living also becomes unbearable when there is loads of unfinished business and a plethora of words unspoken?

In case I never see you again, what must I say to you right now in this moment to be complete? What a different life we would have if we were complete in every moment…how that would change us…

Most of us are saving stuff for the right moment…the right moment is now…the world is an interesting place these days….funky people are doing crazy things and that requires some of us to remind others of us to stop waiting for the “right” moment—live your life RIGHT NOW…stop putting up with people and things that don’t work, stop withholding yourself from other people, stop killing your vitality and joy with undelivered communications and unexpressed anger…you think that nobody notices because you are being “nice” instead of being REAL…authenticity is what gives life and sometimes being authentic is very unattractive, however it is real and it is true and it is life altering…

Do you remember the Velveteen Rabbit…only when he was a mess and all his fur was gone and his stuffing was coming out, only then did he become “REAL”…

Real life and real love are messy folks…you have to roll up your sleeves and delve in…authentic is getting all the way in and being real all the way through…sometimes it feels great and sometimes not so great, but all the way along you feel alive…you have to get in there and mix it up—stop looking in from the sidelines waiting for the right moment to live.

It’s like the difference between mixing meatballs with a spoon because you don’t want to get “ all messy” and mixing meatballs with your hands…sleeves rolled up, rings off and you just dig into the bowl and mix it and then you shape the meatballs with your hands…

Careful, brittle people mix things with spoons, they shape meatballs with spoons…they don’t want to get dirty or sticky or messy and those people’s meatballs have dry spots and they don’t taste good because they carry the flavor of a person with an inability to fully experience life…NEWS FLASH : real life is messy, it’s fun, it’s heartbreaking, you can get dirty and broken and you can also experience true, profound JOY…

Live your life folks, mix things with your hands, get in there and roll up your sleeves…another holiday is coming, another year…will you be joyful this Christmas? Will you be complete in every moment with the people that you love and even those you don’t? Will you ask yourself what would I say now to this person in case I never see them again?

You would be such a gift this holiday season if you lived like that…instead of being stressed and pissed and harried, what if you were gracious and grateful and complete? What a gift you would be to yourself…undelivered communications are what make us sick and tired and unparticipatory…

YOU be the GIFT this Christmas Season and love people like your life depended on it because it does…

11-11-07

Gurdjieff ([1877-1949], priest, physician, teacher, author of ‘Meetings With Remarkable Men’) tells us that to live in a truly creative and dynamic way; we would have to think in a completely new way. He encourages that to be completely fulfilled, we must engage in our own conscious evolution. In his work he also speaks about conscious labor and intentional suffering and about the importance of undertaking the burden of responsibility for serving the future…

Gurdjieff’s student J.G. Bennett “…adopted as a major theme of his life and work the teaching known as “The Fourth Way”. This is very simply that in the face of a threat, whether environmental disaster, war and conquest, or economic collapse, those persons who are able to do so must accept the responsibility of guiding and supporting the less resourceful, but not through the conventional institutions of government or religion, but rather on the level of new ideas and attitudes, inspiration and spiritual regeneration. As many Sufi teachers have done, he hinted at a world of experience in which the laws are quite other than those governing the material world - in some cases, the reverse. Those who are able to decipher this riddle must inevitably dedicate themselves to serving humanity, and the future of our world.” (www.jgbennett.net)

Those of us that understand that there is far more to life than what we can physically “see”, understand also that we have a responsibility to encourage other people not to be limited by their own thinking. I speak often of the fact that you should never, ever judge or evaluate a situation by the way that it looks in any given moment—you should only ever operate from your intention about what the outcome will be. So many people are stopped in their tracks because they think that the obstacles they encounter are “real”…they fail to understand that what makes obstacles “real” is believing that they exist. There are people that are never stopped, people that never quit…if one way gets blocked up they find another…these are the people that succeed and know how to live ‘outside the box’…these are the kind of people you want to know.

I mostly live in a conversation called ‘what’s next…what else needs doing’, the past few weeks I have been living in a question called, “What is your Legacy?”

It is interesting that when you begin to engage in this discussion your life and what you have done or not done shows up in a whole different light…complaints and grievances don’t hold much water in the Legacy conversation…25 years after you’re dead nobody is going to care that your back hurt or you had a cold or a headache or that you were too tired to do the laundry. Some people have told me that their children are their legacy and that is certainly true for all of us that are parents, however, for me that isn’t enough.

I want to leave something that breathes on long after I checked out…something that is dedicated to making people’s lives better, something that educates people and teaches them how to succeed…something that helps those that need helping…something that my son can carry on for me…something that makes a difference…

Life has blessed me with some incredible alliances and out of that a non-profit is being built that will serve all of the ideals I have mentioned above. More on that soon…

My life will change from living in the question, “What is your Legacy?”…do me a favor and take a moment to answer that question for yourself…honestly. How are you giving back, who are you helping, and what are you serving besides yourself? How do you serve the future?

I have a theory that if people lived in these questions life would take on a whole new meaning…if people lived for a purpose bigger than themselves the small annoyances they suffer would become much less significant.

Certainly not the average conversation, but average conversations never create much growth or much action—they also don’t cause you to think much. I leave you with my favorite quote by George Bernard Shaw:

“This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap; the being a force of Nature instead of a feverish selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy. “

George Bernard Shaw, Man and Superman, Epistle Dedicatory

Copyright 2007 The Southern Ledger. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

10-28-07

The Choice Is Yours…

The phone rang yesterday morning and it was a dear friend of mine…her mother had died unexpectedly in the middle of the night…I just kept saying over and over “Oh my God” and then I started to cry. My friend said she loved me for that…she has a hard time with emotions and it is difficult for her to ask for help or support…my greatest gift to her has always been to express whatever is there…

I talked with her for a long time and I told her that people would say a lot of different things to her over the next days and weeks…most of it kind but meaningless as the majority of folks can’t handle death and they will do whatever they can to avoid it…those are the people that say things like, “she is in a better place now”. Those of us that have experienced death and not run away from it will tell her the truth…it is horrible, there is nothing more awful, you will have some very dark days and then the shock will fade some and the tears will come less frequently and you will get up and move through your days…you will laugh again and you will be less sad, however there will not be one day that you don’t miss the person you have lost and there will be some days where it seems again unbearable.

In the midst of it all if you are a fully functioning person there will be laughter mixed with your tears, there will be some anger at the loss, some “this isn’t fair” conversations in your head, some doubt of God’s plan…however those of us that have faith in something bigger than ourselves trust that life has a natural order to it and that things happen as they should even if we don’t agree.

Mostly people suffer greatly from a death when they are incomplete with the person that died…when they are still holding a grudge or the last words they had were in anger or they didn’t say that “I love you”…or they didn’t call enough or visit enough…or take time enough to tell people what a gift they are. Those are the undelivered communications that bring you to your knees when someone leaves in an untimely and unexpected fashion. Undelivered communications are what guilt and remorse are made of, I don’t recommend them. I was taught at an early age to be complete in every moment…for some people close to me that means an “I love you” almost every time we speak…I think they tire of that, but I don’t care much because I know that if anything out of the ordinary happens I have delivered my message.

Walking my friend through her initial shock jerked me back to when my grandfather died…that is another reason people don’t deal well with the news of death because it causes them to momentarily relive whatever loss they have experienced and for some folks that is an unbearable thought. People do strange things with death…which is funny because we are all going to leave this planet one day, one way or another…so it seems like there should be less fear and more acceptance.

People might leave this place, however the people that we love are never, ever gone…they are as alive as we make them. My grandfather’s pictures are on my bedroom wall, in my hallway and on my desk…I think of him every day and often I can hear his voice in my head still advising me…and I am confident that he has sent certain people into my life to keep his watch…there are pieces of advice that he gave me that continue to shape my life…so for me he is still very much present.

Granted there are several people that I feel like I couldn’t live without, yet I don’t live in fear of them dying…life has a way of taking care of us if we let it…however we have to let it, which means a certain amount of trust in the process must be present…for many of us this isn’t the case.

Fear comes from thinking thoughts that scare you…you always have a choice…you can choose to think about things that keep you moving forward or you can choose to think about things that stop you.

I highly encourage you to choose to deliver your undelivered communications—unfinished business is bad mojo especially when people die unexpectedly…

Tell people how important they are to you all the time…tell them how they have contributed to you…tell them that you love them…forgive people for whatever harm you think they caused you, walking around holding grudges will only make you sick and depressed…that kind of stuff will suck the life right out of you.

Like it or not folks we are just here for a visit…seems to me we should be filled with gratitude for lives well lived and make the best of it and we should make it our business to make the best of it for other people too…it is always better to give…

Copyright 2007 The Southern Ledger. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

10-15-07

Long time no column…haven’t felt much like writing…not sure I have anything inspiring to say at the moment… Lots of things changing these days and some people close to me have changed too…mostly into something I don’t like much, so that has been hard to bear. I’m afraid the combination of all that has made me not want to write…

I miss my Grandfather lately and my Godfather/Uncle, I miss knowing that someone is watching over my life…making sure that everything is as it should be and making sure that I’m okay…when you grow up like I did you get used to silent, powerful men watching over you…they don’t say much, however you know that in a moment they would be at your side should you need them…and you come to count on that…so when those people aren’t alive anymore it pulls at you and there are periods in your life where that loss seems more unbearable than others…the past weeks are like that for me. I have been very, very sad…

I have also been thinking a lot about how what really matters in life is what kind of a contribution you are to other people. So many of us go around just looking for what we can get…not many folks walking around worried about what they can give. In the grand scheme of things seems like the only way to elevate your soul is to give till it hurts and then give more…give whatever you have…stuff, money, time, love, attention, help…all of it works…

We are the decisive element in our lives and it is by our hand that life is either enriched or destroyed…

In every moment we have the power to choose our reactions to every situation or person and our reactions shape our future…I don’t think that most people understand that. Have you noticed that the majority of people are living at effect of their own lives instead of at cause? I believe this is because most folks don’t want to take responsibility for anything that happens to them…it is ALWAYS somebody else’s fault.

Not to mention that somebody else should fix it…

I am of a school of thought that says, “if it happened to me, somehow—some way I have responsibility in it”—this thought process makes it near impossible to blame anyone else for anything…and quite frankly if I caused it somehow then I can also correct it…makes life much easier to understand…

9-16-07

Okay, I usually refrain from commenting on current events or politics as I find those things better covered by people that are more into them then I am. However, I just can’t not comment on this OJ nonsense and if I comment on that I might as well include the public fascination with Britney and Paris…

I was at the gym today and for the FULL 60 minutes that I did cardio FOX News covered the OJ arrest story, not only did they cover the arrest, but they rehashed the entire OJ trial including having Nicole Simpson’s sister on via phone. I actually watched a man nearly whiplash himself from turning around so as not to miss a moment of OJ coverage…People, COME ON….WAKE UP…are you kidding me with this stuff???

This guy is a LOSER, a murderer and he is getting more national media attention then the troops that are fighting for our safety and freedom. Not to mention that the man has no respect for authority…I watched him (on TV) walk through the police station smiling and laughing and waving as they were preparing to book him…and then they held a press conference…as if he had something valuable to share with the American people….hmmm perhaps another book idea…”Yes, I Did It and Got Off Scot FREE…ain’t life GRAND”

So…let me see if I get this…General Petraeus testifies before Congress and people are calling him a traitor and saying he betrayed his country, last I noticed the man was on the ground in Iraq FIGHTING FOR US alongside his troops…yet a large, black, football playing, murderer is treated like a celebrity and that Mary Winkler chick is sitting around on Oprah wearing pearls and saying she shot her husband in the back WHILE HE WAS SLEEPING because she was tired of him!!!!!! OJ’s out of jail, Mary’s out of jail and the people fighting to save this country are being treated like dirt…Now I ask you: DOES THIS MAKE ANY SENSE AT ALL????

I mean really, DOES IT?

What the Heck do we stand for anyway??? The media focuses on this nonsense because it gets them ratings which means people are WATCHING IT…many people are saying that what will solve the problem of illegals coming into this country is to take away the MAGNETS…jobs, perks, healthcare, etc. The same is true for the media and this crap they call news…if we took away the magnet (viewers) they would have to produce something that people actually wanted to watch…perhaps something that actually made a difference. A story about what our troops are giving up to voluntarily serve our country…stories about teachers changing children’s lives or firemen that are saving people’s lives or police officers that are taking drugs off the streets or businesses that are giving money to worthy causes…WHERE are those stories???? When they come on the news they get 5 minutes at best and OJ Simpson gets hours…

I am ashamed that we live in a culture that supports this nonsense being covered in such depth…do you remember how many people watched the OJ Trial???

People are coming into our country everyday without invitation and taking our stuff for FREE, there are people out there trying to hurt us and there are people out there fighting to save us and make us a better people—don’t you think it’s time for all of us TO STAND FOR SOMETHING?

One voice can make a tremendous difference…we proved the power of the people by defeating the Immigration/ Amnesty Bill…if you light a candle in a darkened auditorium no matter how much the dark increases it cannot extinguish the LIGHT…

We either stand for something or we stand for nothing…

Copyright 2007 The Southern Ledger. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

9-2-07 

Saint Francis advised that we should bring love to the presence of hatred…and if you are an advanced enough person, at some point in your life you will recognize that real growth comes from being uncomfortable and running to embrace those things that you dislike.  I am always looking to see where I can push harder within myself, always looking to go above and beyond where I have been before…and always looking for ways to improve my Karma.  The past three days presented me with an opportunity to do just that.  This weekend I welcomed into my home a person that several years ago told me that they hoped every day of my life would bring me misery and pain. 

The hows and whys of the relationship don’t matter as much as the fact that I embraced the opportunity to bring the relationship full circle.  I took a chance, I opened my home when I didn’t know what to expect and I was afforded the rare opportunity to put myself outside myself and simply be present to help this person with what they needed.  I listened to them, I cried with them, I felt their pain about certain things that had happened, I coached them on acceptance and forgiveness, I fed them, I counseled them and I laughed with them.  I did not judge, I did not criticize, I did not react…I simply was present.  I tried really to be a conduit for whatever GRACE this person required to move to the next step in their lives.  I often seem to be a catalyst for people to get to the next level in their lives…that seemed to be the case here as well. 

After all is said and done I feel somewhat worn out…to move aside from reactive behavior requires a good amount of mental force and a real commitment to knowing that there is good in everything, even when it can’t be seen. 

Mostly when someone is hateful to us we either ignore them or we get busy hating them right back…rarely do we bring the presence of love to their hatred.  To bring the presence of love we must forgive them and forgive ourselves for whatever harm we may have caused them.  Most of us don’t want to be responsible enough to admit when we have caused harm or discomfort intentionally or unintentionally.  We would rather somehow deflect the blame onto someone or something else…problem with that is there is no growth happening within those parameters.  In order for a person to grow they must embrace the things, people and behaviors that they find most repulsive.  A person must come to understand that the behaviors and qualities that they hate in others are the very behaviors and qualities that they hate in themselves and only by accepting others do we come to accept ourselves. 

I used to think that life was most effective when we were comfortable, I have now come to understand that life is most effective when we are uncomfortable and continuously challenging those parts of ourselves that need work….and once you master some thing there is always some other thing waiting in the wings…luckily we never run out of things to work on… 

I feel incredibly blessed that I was smart enough to take the opportunity this weekend to extend love to a woman that has extended anger and hatred toward me in the past.  I am happy to report that GRACE was at work here this weekend and extended itself to both myself and this woman who showed great appreciation and gratitude for my help. 

This has been an excellent demonstration that any situation or person can be turned around with an open heart and with the presence of GRACE and Love…