How to get free in our hearts

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We often prefer to live in our ideas or dreams about life and not where it actually is.

Experiencing, 

rather than trying to have special experiences

is where real freedom lies

Ezra Bayda, At Home in the Muddy Water

photo jaka ostrovrsnik

Sunday Quote: Walk with reverence, don’t rush through life

sunday-q

When we walk on the earth with reverence,

beauty will decide to trust us

The rushed heart and arrogant mind

lack the gentleness and patience to enter that embrace,

John O’Donohue, Beauty: The Invisible embrace

What makes life beautiful?

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Some reflections from Brother Roger of Taize who I once met when I spent a silent retreat there. He was a good and kindly man, and outlines here an approach which can shape our whole attitude to this day and to life:

Are there realities which make life beautiful

and of which it can be said that they bring a kind of fulfillment, an inner joy?

Yes, there are. And one of these realities bears the name of trust.

Do we realize that what is best in each of us is built up through a simple trusting?

This is something even a child can do.

Br Roger of Taize

photo nicor

A guide for all of life: Don’t try to control the sunset

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One of the most growth-promoting experiences for another person  comes from my appreciating this individual in the same way that I appreciate a sunset. People are just wonderful as sunsets if I can let them be. In fact, perhaps the reason we can truly appreciate a sunset is that we cannot control it. When I look at a sunset as I did the other evening, I don’t find myself saying, “Soften the orange a little on the right hand corner, and put a bit more purple along the base, and use a little more pink in the cloud color.” I don’t do that. I don’t try to control a sunset. I watch with awe as it unfolds.

Carl Rogers

photo Mmcbeth