Spiritual or Physical...that is THE Question

This is one of the big questions, isn't it?

I was raised in a faith tradition that taught that we are human beings- physical beings- striving for a spiritual experience but after much contemplation, I have come to believe that the opposite of what I was taught is actually true. 

I believe now that we are spiritual beings having a physical experience. 

Our bodies are just tools to help our spirits have experiences that lead to spiritual growth. 

(That doesn't mean that we shouldn't still take care of our bodies. I'm sure the connection between body and spirit is very strong- so much so that sometimes it is hard for us to separate the two. And, the better we take care of our bodies, the more we will have them to help us experience the world.)

This spiritual/physical distinction is helpful to me in a couple of ways. 

First: it helps me to remember that what happens to my body does not affect my soul in the long run. People can talk about me and hurt me and I will cry and bruise but my soul will be unchanged. There is nothing anyone can do to me physically that will change the beauty of my spirit. I know that this is a slippery slope I am on because the mind/spirit connection is extremely powerful. Nevertheless, I stand by my belief that what others do to us only has power in the eternal sense if we give the power to them.

Secondly: This distinction helps me to see that everything is spiritual because we are primarily spiritual beings. Therefore, how we treat others, how we spend our time, our money, our talents...it is all spiritual. The way of thinking that makes some things sacred and others profane is really just splitting hairs. It is all spiritual and therefore, all of eternal importance. 

Dreams vs Reality

I am occasionally caught in between my dreams of what I think my life can be and the reality of what I see when I look in the mirror. It is tempting to slide into the abyss of hopelessness that one feels when what they hoped for is not manifesting itself- no matter how much sweat and intellectual exercise has been expended. I believe in the power of mantras to help me create my life. Some people call such words affirmations or prayers. Really all a mantra is, is a circle of words repeated over and over. The tricky thing about a mantra is that it can be a positive thing or a negative thing. Used in a positive way, mantras can help one stay in the moment and listen to the Spirit calling and guiding one's life. Used in a negative way, a self denegrating phrase repeated over and over again can become one's reality.

"A dreamer is one who can only find his way by moonlight,

and his punishment is that he sees the dawn

before the rest of the world."

--Ocsar Wilde

"Isn't it the moment of most profound doubt that gives birth to new certainties? Perhaps hopelessness is the very soil that nourishes human hope, perhaps one could never find sense in life without first experiencing its absurdity."

--Vaclav Havel

The People You Surround Yourself With

CAUTION !   CONTROVERSIAL TOPIC !

I am blessed to have many friends and even more friendly aquaintances.

In most cases, the people I consider my friends have been designated as such because they value the same things I do and have proven, over time, to be dependable. They are dependable as mirrors and as models of a sort. They are dependable in conversation, they are dependable as companions in the activities of life, they ask great questions, they are listeners, and they have the ability to support me without feeling the need to pander to my every whim. They are their own person. I like that kind of friend. The number of people I consider a true friend is actually small considering all the people I know. After all, how many BFFs can one person really have?


There have been a few times in my life when I have unfriended people...and that was way before Face Book!
I have intentionally chosen not to hang out with certain people because I realized, after a while, they were not the kind of human being I wanted to spend time with. That sounds harsh, yes. But I do think that there are times when we allow a person into the inner circle saved for friends and then come to find out that they were not what we thought they were. Maybe their personality and ours just don't jive or maybe we both have not grown in the same ways and now it is time to part ways. Just like seasons in nature, there are seasons in relationships. When we realize this we can either continue to pretend that they have what we need in a friend or we can find a compassionate way to distance ourselves and remove their influence from our life.


I like Face Book as much as any fan out there. FB helps me to stay in touch with all my friendlies. But...in a way, Face Book has ruined the word and even the concept of "Friend." Friendship is so much more than a FB status update and a running total of pictures of faces and icons. Recently a quote has been making the rounds on Face Book: "You are the average of the 5 people you spend the most time with." I don't know who that quote is attributed to but if it is true, don't you think we need to pay close attention to the people we surround ourselves with the most? I'm just sayin'.

Life's Messiness

"I like someone who is a little crazy

but coming from a good place.

I think scars are sexy because it means

you made a mistake that led to a mess."

--Angelina Jolie

"When we talk about settling the world's problems,
we're barking up the wrong tree.
The world is perfect. It's a mess.
It has always been a mess.
We're not going to change it.
Our job is to straighten out our own lives."
--Joseph Campbell

The Imperfection of Being

One of my favorites quotes by St. Francis of Assisi is that he wanted to be the keyhole through which others saw God. That is an arrogant and also  awe-some pursuit and I am strangely attracted to his quest.  I believe that we all contain the essence of the Divine...whatever that Divine may be.           (I think we all have different names for the same IS-ness.) So, if we are all part Divine, it would not be unreasonable to think that each of us can reveal a bit of the Divine to all we meet.

The problem I have with this strange endeavor is that sometimes the parts of me I reveal to others are not nice parts and are not, I believe, glimpses of God, but instead glimpses of fear and insecurity. I don't want to reveal those parts of me but since I am human and others have eyes and ears, I give my 'not best self' away often. That makes me particularly sad and angry with myself for failing at being my 'best self' and reflecting fear instead of love.


I can hear you thinking something like this right about now:
"None of us are perfect and sometimes we act out of emotions that are not love and compassion. That is what it means to be human."


Yes, that is the sad fact. We cannot always be our best selves. Yet, if we say we want to be the keyhole through which others see God and others are looking at us expecting to see the love of the Divine flowing through us, and we deliver fear and insecurity instead of that compassionate love, that leaves us in a vulnerable spot. It might mean that, seeing our flaws, those around us realize we are far from perfect...which we already knew but hate to have to acknowledge. What is much more at stake for me is the hard realization that I am an imperfect being who has just behaved in a way that I am not proud of. I have a very difficult time not allowing my imperfections to define me.


Nothing is ever as easy as we want to make it out to be. We do not always exhibit love, even if that is what we intend and pray for. Emotions, feelings, insecurities, fear, doubt, and being imperfectly human gets in the way often and shows up in that darned keyhole instead of the glow of love.


What do we do when that happens? How do we treat ourselves? How do we treat those imperfect others?

Can we allow forgiveness and understanding to guide us? How do forgiveness and understanding play out in our lives?

How do we practice forgiveness for ourselves? ( a particularly tough question since we often find it easier to forgive others that we do ourselves.)

Do we have a support system of understanding friends who can help us to see that being imperfect is okay and give us a view of the big picture of our lives when we are tempted to focus on our transgressions?

What resources have we put in place to help us deal with our imperfections in a healthy way instead of turning to things like drugs and alcohol, violence, or self abuse? 

If we believe in a comapssionate Divine, how do we allow that compassion that surely is there for us to permeate the cloak of shame we are tempted to don and wear for far too long?


Peace Be With Us All as we attempt to live out lives of compassion and authentic love.

Opportunities vs Catastrophes

    photo by Susan Murphy





I began hearing rumors of impending doom last year when the calendar was about to roll over.... whispers about the Mayan calendar and how it predicted that the world would end in 2012. I didn't put any stock in those rumors...I really don't spend energy worrying about the end of the world. I have enough to do to keep me busy and don't need to create any more anxiety in my life than I already have. So....I poo pooed the warnings and put it out of my mind.


On a recent trip to Mexico, a fat travel brochure made its way into my luggage. When I was unpacking from the adventure, I came across the brochure and started flipping through it, reliving some of my vacation fun. On one of the pages I found and enlightening article about the Mayan calendar and the 2012 warning. That article made a lot of sense and is one we should all pay attention to....wise words for the rest of this year and beyond....


2012: The Opportunity for a New Beginning

"According to the Popol Vuh, the Mayan sacred book, time was divied into "Eras." In each one of them, the gods created versions of humanity using different materials, but it was not until the present Era, when they fed their new human creation with grains of corn, that they finally considered their work worthy.

Each Era lasts 13 baktuns (periods of 394 years), adding up to a total of 5,126 years per Era. According to the Mayan calendar, the Era we live in began on August 13, 3114 BC, which means it will come to an end on December 21, 2012 AD.

The Maya always believed that death and endings were merely a natural and necessary step towards a renaissance or renewal. Therefore, this date should not be thought of as catastrophic, as mistaken interpretations of the Mayan Prophecies have done; it is merely the start of a new Era, A NEW BEGINNING.

The ancient Maya believed that the gods gave humans the responsibility to maintain their creation. Thus, today we can understand that human intervention is vital to preserve the world we live in; we cannot avoid this great responsibility. Following the belief that a new man was created in each Era, a creature better than the one that came before, we are now given the great opportunity to renew ourselves and our lives, to turn into a better version of ourselves, so that this new human can re-establish a balance with the planet and with all other living beings.

Mayan wise men said that in the teachings of the past, we find knowledge to live a better future. On December 21, 2012, A NEW OPPORTUNITY BEGINS."
from Map A Pocket Guide of cancun, Xcaret, Xel-Ha; La Voz de México.

                         photo by Susan Murphy

The Big Picture

It is tempting to think that the world would do just as well without us.  An individual human seems so small compared to the whole big earth full of 7 billion people.

On one level, the words of Deepak Chopra seem trite. The world would surely go on if an individual person "checked out." Maybe it's not really about what would happen if one person decided that living wasn't worth it. Maybe the real importance of each human puzzle piece is in the worth of the whole puzzle related to that one piece. 

I guess I have this strange notion that no one is born by accident, even if their birth was not planned, and that each one of us brings important energy that the world needs to keep on going .

What each one of us does affects what others who are in relation to us do. If just one person decides to change their actions and energy to work for peace and true understanding, for example, that will change the world. We may not see it happen for a long while but it will happen.

In that way, each person can make a vital difference in the world. Unfortunately, each person can make the world more hellish as well. It has to work both ways.

“I’d imagine the whole world was one big machine. Machines never come with any extra parts, you know. They always come with the exact amount they need. So I figured, if the entire world was one big machine, I couldn’t be an extra part. I had to be here for some reason. And that means you have to be here for some reason too.”

“Maybe that’s why a broken machine always makes me a little sad, because it isn’t able to do what it was meant to do… Maybe it’s the same with people.

If you lose your purpose… it’s like you’re broken.”

 Hugo Cabret (played by Asa Butterfield) in the

2011 Academy Award nominated movie, "Hugo"

Letting It Out

We live in a scary time.
Maybe the world has always been scary for those living in it but it seems like people feel especially vulnerable right now...and not in a good Brené Brown way.


I think the human tendency is to withdraw into the security of walled emotions and anonymous safety when times are challenging. It makes a lot of sense logically. Yet, in the realm of connectedness, it is the opposite of what we need to do to change the world. When we act as though what we do makes a difference, we act differently...and what we do makes a difference.


Each of us has great ideas and inspirational stories within us. Take all of your giftedness and use it to begin to change the world in which you live. All that it takes for disconnection and an agenda of fear to thrive is for good people to begin think they do not matter and quit contributing. Let the good that is in you fill you up and spill out so that the world can be the fertile place we all need to survive and thrive.




How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world. 
~Anne Frank




I am only one, but I am one. I cannot do everything, but I can do something. And I will not let what I cannot do interfere with what I can do. 
~Edward Everett Hale




If you can't feed a hundred people, then feed just one. ~Mother Teresa




Successful people are always looking for opportunities to help others. Unsuccessful people are always asking "What's in it for me?" 
~Brian Tracy

Letting Go

One of my biggest challenges is attachment- being attached too much to the outcome of a situation. It is a hard lesson for me to learn: the tighter I hold onto something, the more I risk missing out on a blessing.

I create little stories in my head of how I would like a certain situation to unfold. Then I do my best to do my part. When the unfolding gets to happening, if I can just let go and enjoy the results, things go well and I am able to be surprised and amazed.

But, when the unfolding begins to go in a direction I had not planned and I either try to control it, or at least I am disappointed, then I usually miss the wonder and the gift because I am still in my head asking, "What happened?"

It is then I need to return to my mantra: "Just let go. You already have all that you need."
I guess I'm still learning.

_______________________________________________________________________________

People have a hard time letting go of their suffering. Out of a fear of the unknown, they prefer suffering that is familiar.
-- Thich Nhat Hanh

A warrior doesn't know remorse for anything he has done,

because to isolate one's acts as being mean, or ugly, or evil is to place an unwarranted importance on the self.

--Carlos Casteneda

     

He who binds to himself a joy

Does the winged life destroy;

But he who kisses the joy as it flies

Lives in Eternity's sunrise.

--William Blake

“As spiritual searchers we need to become freer and freer of the attachment to our own smallness in which we get occupied with me-me-me. Pondering on large ideas or standing in front of things which remind us of a vast scale can free us from acquisitiveness and competitiveness and from our likes and dislikes. If we sit with an increasing stillness of the body, and attune our mind to the sky or to the ocean or to the myriad stars at night, or any other indicators of vastness, the mind gradually stills and the heart is filled with quiet joy. Also recalling our own experiences in which we acted generously or with compassion for the simple delight of it without expectation of any gain can give us more confidence in the existence of a deeper goodness from which we may deviate."

--Ravi Ravindra

“Practice giving things away, not just things you don't care about, but things you do like. Remember, it is not the size of a gift, it is its quality and the amount of mental attachment you overcome that count. So don't bankrupt yourself on a momentary positive impulse, only to regret it later. Give thought to giving. Give small things, carefully, and observe the mental processes going along with the act of releasing the little thing you liked.

--Robert A.F. Thurman

Should One Argue with The Buddha?

I know what The Buddha was trying to say in this quote: all we really have is the present moment. If we spend most of our time in the past or the future, we are living in a place we cannot affect. All we have control over is our "right now."

It is tempting to re-write the past with our memories... It is so much easier to live in nostalgia-ville where we can conveniently forget the challenges and only remember the romance. I believe this is where many people in our country who are extrememly conservative- religious or political- spend most of their time. It is also easier to spend our time talking about what will happen in heaven after we die than to begin to work now to have a preview of heaven on earth.

However, realistically, we know that if we do not ever dream/think about the future, if we fail to plan for the future, then we it arrives, we will be at the mercy of our past sowing- a time when we had no thought for the reaping.

Being a well grounded person means looking at the big picture of our lives: looking at who we are called to be and how we wish to grow into that calling, choosing the path that is right for us now, and following that path through all of its twists and turns and ups and downs. Eventually the future will become the present and we will have to live in it. If we have paid attention to the trees in the now with some thought for the forest of the future, the land we inhabit during our lifetime will be lush with our careful plans and blossoming dreams.





“Cheshire Puss,…Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?”
“That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the Cat.
“I don’t much care where–” said Alice.
“Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,” said the Cat.
“–so long as I get SOMEWHERE,” Alice added as an explanation.
“Oh, you’re sure to do that,” said the Cat, “if you only walk long enough.”                                                                                      from Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll





"Few people have any next, they live from hand to mouth without a plan, and are always at the end of their line."
                                                                                     -Ralph Waldo Emerson





No steam or gas ever drives anything until it is confined. No Niagara is ever turned into light and power until it is tunneled. No life ever grows until it is focused, dedicated, disciplined.
                                                                                    -Harry Emerson Fosdick

Happiness Checklist

 Do I practice what I preach?

What speaks louder? My actions or my words?

Does right thinking influence behavior or does right behavior influence thought? 

 

 At each moment you choose the intentions that will shape your experiences
and those things upon which

you will focus your attention.
--Gary Zukov

Whatever is at the center of our life will be the source of our security, guidance, wisdom, and power.
--Stephen Covey

 To put the world right in order, we must first put the nation in order; to put the nation in order, we must first put the family in order; to put the family in order, we must first cultivate our personal life; we must first set our hearts right.

--Confucius

Got Peace?

Wherever you go, there you are.

You can only journey from where you are already standing.

What is real?

"We must be willing to encounter darkness and despair when they come up and face them, over and over again, if need be, without running away or numbing ourselves in the thousands of ways we conjur up to avoid the unavoidable."

Jon Kabat-Zinn

"Do you have the patience to wait

till your mud settles and the water is clear?

Can you remian unmoving

till the right action arises by itself?"

Lao-Tzu

"Don't go outside your house to see the flowers.

My friend, don't bother with that excursion.

Inside your body there are flowers.

One flower has a thousand petals.

That will do for a place to sit.

Sitting there you will have a glimpse of beauty

inside the body and out of it,

before gardens and after gardens."

Kabir

"Direct your eye right inward,

and you'll find

A thousand regions in your mind

Yet undiscovered. Travel them and be

Expert in home-cosmography."

Thoreau

Another Way to Foster Happiness

In addition to expressing gratitude, and investing in relationships, another way to foster happiness in our lives is to have goals to work towards.

People who are working towards a goal are happier than those of us who have no goals or who feel we have reached our goals and now are at a stand still.  Goals don't just help individuals spice up their life and be more content.  When couples/friends/groups, work towards a goal together, it not only makes them happier...it makes the relationships stronger.

Goal setting forces us to look at our lives and see what we want the big picture to look like. After we have an idea of where we want to go, we can break the bigger journey down into smaller distances. In this way, we have the big goal and then we can create smaller goals to help us reach our destination.



It is easy to see why so many people are challenged when they get to what we call "mid life." They are often in a job they've held for a while and it is getting routine. Maybe it doesn't even fit their life and personality anymore but they have kept doing it to put bread on the table...but now the table has fewer place settings because the kids are grown and on their own. Now that the raising of the children is over ....Or ...now that the house they worked so hard to build is beautiful and quite finished...where do they go from here?




Some goal setting tips for creating a SWEET life:

• Be as Specific as you can about what you want to achieve
• Write your goals down.  You may even want to write everything down...               the pondering, the questions, the winding road of thoughts that leads to the embracing of the final goal(s).
• Create goals that Energize you. If what you are thinking you should do feel likes a drag to you, it is less likely that you will do it.
• Make the goals small enough that they are fairly Easy to achieve and measure. Being overwhelmed by a daunting task leads to procrastination and a feeling of hopelessness....which does not foster that happiness we are looking to cultivate.. ;-) We want to be able to enjoy the journey and know when we have finished one goal and can move on to the next one.
• Set aside quality Time to evaluate your life and goals. If possible, go away for a day or two to a place where you can relax, let go of your usual worries, and dream big.

by Canadian designer Aaron Christopher Judd 

More Contentment

At the end of last week's blog I said: "In reality, all of us could be without a home or a vehicle or...insert words here...in an instant. There are no guarantees."


I used to work at a church and one of the parts of the job I really enjoyed was answering the door when people came looking for help. In the course of trying to find how best the church could help them, I had many conversations with the seekers. One thing that made an impression on me year after year was that most of the people at the door did not have relationships with friends or family that could sustain them in their time of need. I came to see that homelessness, especially in the case of single individuals, said something not only about the person's ability to find and hold down a paying job but also about the state of their relationships with others.


That brings me to happiness and the second quality of people who are happy.
The happiest people are those who invest in relationships with others.

One must be careful when reading the above statement. Even though happy people generally invest themselves in relationships, we are each responsible for our own happiness. Looking to other people to make us happy does not work. Saying that I must be in a relationship with so-and-so in order to be happy is a slippery slope.


True happiness comes from within and not from others.



Yale University Psychologist June Gruber: “The strongest predictor of happiness is not money, or external recognition through success or fame, it’s having meaningful social relationships. That means the best way to increase your happiness is to stop worrying about being happy and instead divert your energy to nurturing the social bonds you have with other people."



Investing in relationships means spending time with others, giving of yourself to others and allowing them to give back to you. At the heart of investing in relationships is the ability to be open and vulnerable and allow yourself to receive comfort from others.



So find occasions to enjoy and nurture the relationships you already have and also to encourage new friendships. One of the ways you can strengthen your relationships is to do a certain thing together....no....I'm not talking about anything sexual....more about that next time.




In the meantime, here's something else for you to do:

The Oxford Happiness Inventory, developed by psychologists Michael Argyle and Peter Hills at Oxford University in 2001, shows positive correlations for happiness with satisfaction with life, self-esteem, and sociability.

Take the Happiness Inventory for yourself at
http://www.meaningandhappiness.com/oxford-happiness-questionnaire/214/

The Road to Contentment #1

A blog follower commented on last week's blog about small spaces by saying, "They look like well decorated jail cells to me...but if it's the only only home I had, I would be happy there."


That led to me think about being content.


When I was a kid there was an ad for Borden's milk that said it came from contented cows. The television commercial showed an animated pretty female looking cow, named Elsie, happily chewing her cud. That's the first image that comes to my mind when I think of the word - "content."



Research shows that one's actual circumstances have very little do with happiness and that it is rare that it just happens. A feeling of happiness is a combination of one's personality, thoughts, and behaviors.


Now please, DO NOT think that I am saying that if a person is homeless or hungry that they can think their way into shelter and a meal. I am NOT saying that. I am talking about the feeling of happiness in a person who already has their basic needs met.


Why all this concern with contentment? Well, lately I have not been feeling as content as I would like.
And since I am a do-er and a fixer at heart, even though I try to practice "just being"....my next question is:


What are the facets of cultivating contentment?
What can one DO to foster an attitude of contentment?



I believe the first thing is to BE GRATEFUL for what you already have.
Many times when we feel discontent, it is because we are wanting something we don't have.
or...We are living out of mindset of scarcity instead of acknowledging that we have enough.



One of the mantras I use when I am worrying about something that I cannot change is "Just let go, you already have everything you need."



And it is true. I do, right this minute, have everything I need. I don't have everything I want...and how boring would that be anyway...but I do have everything I NEED.
Next month I might not have everything I need but all I can do about that right this moment is what I can do now to plan for and work for next month.


In reality, all of us could be without a home or a vehicle or...insert words here...in an instant. There are no guarantees.


That leads me to think of the second thing one can do to foster an attitude of contentment.....but you'll have to wait unti next time for that.

Fascinating Small Spaces

I like living in a small space. I like living in a place where I use only enough resources for one person. One more person could live with me in my single wide mobile home and we would be using the space even more efficiently but even so, my home is smaller than many apartments.


I am fascinated by the small spaces in which people live. In the United States we have the idea that we all need a lot of room and a lot of land. That is not the case in many other countries. We make fun of extended families who immigrate to the U.S. and all live in what we consider to be a tiny apratment or house but having a grand amount of space in which to live is a privilege that residents of many other countries do not have.



Recently I came across a fascinating art study done by photographer Michael Wolf. He did a series called 100X100. His work documents some of the residents of Shek Kip Mei Estate in Hong Kong.



The history of  Shek Kip Mei Estate before we get to Wolf's photos: After WWII, the population of Hong Kong grew drastically and a squatter's village of thousands of shacks grew in the Shek Kip Mei area of Hong Kong. On Christmas eve, 1953, a huge fire destroyed the shacks of 58,000 people. The government answered the needs of the homeless with a huge housing program- eventually building 29 six story block buildings in the next 10 years and 7 more thirteen story blocks a few years later. In the 1990's the Hong Kong goverment decided to tear down the buildings and build a new Shek Kip Mei Estate would provide about 6,600 rental units that can house up to about 17,400 residents.

The old dilapidated resettlement blocks were torn down except one - Mei Ho House (also known as Block 41), which is among the first batch of eight Mark I blocks built in 1954. In view of its significance in Hong Kong's public housing development, Mei Ho House was granted a historic building status by the Antiquities Advisory Board. The Government has decided to preserve it and rejuvenate it into a youth hostel with an attached museum on public housing history.



So back to Michael Wolf's project: before the last of the residents began to move out of  Shek Kip Mei Estate, Michael Wolf asked to photograph the residents of one of the blocks. There were 100 units in the block, each measuring 10' X 10'...the series being called 100 X 100.  Some of the people had lived in their units for 20 years. I have copied a few of the photos of some of the 100 square foot living areas.  I am amazed at the amount of belongings the residents were able to get into what most of us would call an insanely small space.


How would you live in a 10 foot square space?





http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:SKM_Estate_BLK18.jpg

The following photos are from Michael Wolf's 100 X 100 series.
All 100 photos can be seen at http://www.photomichaelwolf.com/100_x_100/


Image #2




Image #4



Image #7



Image #23



Image #27




Image #80




Image #98





Image #100

Treasure Bearers

In her book, Dakota, Kathleen Norris sees each of us as a
"treasure-bearer, carrying our souls like a great blessing through the world."  Sometimes I don't feel like a treasure bearer. We have all had those days...or weeks...or months...when life seems to be more of a burden than a blessing. Some of us have lives where we can hole up in our home or office or cubicle, put on our earphones, and make the world go away. Some of us find ourselves in situations where we must deal with people all day and be on our best behavior...or as best as we can manage. Some of us have occupations where we work alone and feel alone and wish for others to invade our work space. Whatever our curcumstance, we sometimes forget about being treasure bearers and instead our goodness seems like buried treasure.

A great many of us look forward to the opening ceremonies of the Olympics as we follow the journey of the torch bearers carrying the Olympic flame into the stadium. The flame is ignited at the site of the ancient Olympic games in Greece months before the games are scheduled to begin. As the games draw near, a series of runners carries the fire from Greece to the site that will host the games. The gathered crowd cheers wildly as the torch bearer enters the stadium and ignites the flame that will remain a symbol of the goodwill of the Olympics. There it will burn day and night until the games are over.

Most of us will never carry the Olympic torch to its destination but we can all be bearers of the flame of goodwill as we travel through our lives. We are each born with the light of love and goodness. We come into the world perfect and whole with the treasure of life glowing out of every pore. Sometimes the storms of day to day living threaten to extinguish our light and tarnish  our treasure. How fortunate we are that we have a big world in which to shine - and that truly needs our light - if we will only do so.

The Olympic torch bearers do not have to carry the flame the entire way on their own. Many runners work together to carry the torch the distance. Some of the runners run very short distances, some longer. Some are on foot, some in wheelchairs, some in vehicles. What they all share is their commitment to seeing that the flame stays strong as it travels through the world.


At the beginning of this new year, let us make a commitment to our fellow earth travelers to support each other along the way. Let us strive to make sure that the divine spark that each of us carries within is nurtured and supported so that the treasure we each have to give will flourish until it is ready to be bestowed as a gift to the greater world.

Passion vs. Purpose

I read an energizing article in the Harvard Business Review by Oliver Segovia recently that suggested that true happiness comes not in pursuing your passion but in finding a problem that needs solutions and working on that.

I have always liked the quote,
"Where our deep gladness and the world's deep hunger meet, we hear a further call."
-- Frederick Buechner

Segovia references this idea at the end of his article when he says:
"Happiness comes from the intersection of what you love, what you're good at, and what the world needs. We've been told time and again to keep finding the first. Our schools helped developed the second. It's time we put more thought on the third."

Maybe, finally, we are moving away from ME and are on the verge of understanding that it is about WE...the fact that we are in this together and that individuals can make a difference in some way. Instead of leaving the solutions to the "experts," maybe it is time for all of us to get involved in the solutions....time to stop being armchair critics, get out of our chairs and DO something.

How do I make connections?
Where can I affect change in the big scheme of things?
Where CAN I help?
What CAN I do?

At the very end of his article Segovia asks: "What big problems are you trying to solve?"

I challenge us to look at the problems in the world and decide which one we are going to try to solve. I know that I don't have what it takes to solve the economic collapse but there are other big problems I could be helping to solve.

What are YOU going to do?

Let me know.


To read the entire article by Oliver Segovia:
http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2012/01/to_find_happiness_forget_about.html

Celebrating Epiphany

January 6th is known as Epiphany in the Christian tradition and is the day that celebrates the visit of the wisemen to the infant Jesus.


Even those of us who are not of the Christian tradition can appreciate the birth of a baby. At the birth of a child, the whole world seems possible. Parents and grandparents dream of a child who will grow up to embody all of the hopes they have for the world...often the dreams they did not realize for themselves but hope will come to fruition in their small blessing. Each night a child is born truly is a holy night, as Sophia L. Fahs penned so many years ago.





"There is a legend that the magi were three different ages. Gaspar was a young man, Balthazar in his middle years, and Melchior a senior citizen. When they approached the cave at Bethlehem, they first went in one at a time.

Melchior found an old man like himself with whom he was quickly at home. They spoke together of memory and gratitude. The middle aged Balthazar encountered a teacher of his own years. They talked passionately of leadership and responsibility. When Gaspar entered, a young prophet met him with words of reform and promise.


The three met outside the cave and marveled at how each had gone in to see a newborn child, but each had met someone of his own years. They gathered their gifts in their arms and entered together a second time. In a manger on a bed of straw was a child twelve days old.


The message of Christ talks to every stage of the life process. The old hear the call to integrity and wisdom, the middle-aged to generativity and responsibility, the young to identity and intimacy."

from John Shea in Starlight: Beholding the Christmas Miracle All Year Long

Images / Ideas That Sparked My Creativity..... 1/2/12

This guy is the genius behind these exceptional works of art. He is Tjalf Sparnaay, who once said that:

I hope my paintings will allow the viewer to re-experience reality, to re-discover the essence of the thing that has become so ordinary from its DNA to the level of universal structure, in all its beauty. I call it the beauty of the contemporary commonplace.

http://trendland.net/tjalf-sparnaay-hyperrealistic-food-paintings/#

 

Most Amazing Miniature Food Artworks by Shay Aaron
http://thewondrous.com/most-amazing-miniature-food-artworks-by-shay-aaron/



http://pinterest.com/rastamom/

Is a Full Glass Necessary?

I have never been asked if I am a glass half full or half empty person but I have heard comments like, "Oh, I see, you're a glass half full kind of gal."

In the big scheme of things, does it really matter how we define the level of the glass since half empty and half full are actually the same?

Why is it important to be a glass half full person?  It seems that it is clearly better to see the contents as more instead of less. Since they are really the same...why is more better?

This debate with myself started when I read a quote by Marianne Williamson a few days ago:

"We can always choose to perceive things differently. You can focus on what's wrong in your life, or you can focus on what's right."

That started me down this path: I have some things in my life that I wish were different but there is really nothing I can do to change them right now. I must let go of trying to change those and focus instead on the things that I can change, if need be, and also on the things that I wish to continue to celebrate in my life.

That thinking lead me to acknowledge that my life is always going to be made up of the difficult and the easier. Focusing on one does not make the other go away. It IS just a matter of how we look at things and what we let tweak us. If I focus on...live in...the challenging side and forget that I can just as easily live in the other side, then I am living a glass half empty life. If I choose to focus on the things that I can change and are going well, knowing that when the time comes I will be up to what is required of me in the challenging parts of my life, then I am living a glass half full kind of life.

In the end, nothing has changed, just my perspective and usually therefore, my attitude. The glass still has the same amount of liquid in it either way. After all....what difference does it make as long as there is enough to take a drink?