Category: Make the most of life

Knowing you have enough

Karl Duffy6 Comments

The Irish phrase Go leor can be translated in different ways in English, including the words “enough” and “plenty”. Today’s world is good at promoting and accumulating plenty. The message that we get in so many ways is that if you get more you will get happier. However, for a lot of people, this sense of “more” just seems to increase and expand – more expectations in work, more information coming at us, more decisions to make, more demands on our time. And this emphasis on plenty sometimes distracts us from where our real focus should be – on coming to see when we have enough. Thus we can find that we are less skilled at knowing when to let go and be satisfied with what we have, or how much we do.  Reflecting on replacing the word “plenty” with “enough”  can help us here. Deciding what is enough – and learning to be content with that –  is one of the most important pieces of work that we can do.

There is no greater offence than harbouring desires.

There is no greater disaster than discontent.

There is no greater misfortune than wanting more. 

Hence, if you are content you will always have enough.

Lao Tsu

….And unlearning

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Love is what we are born with.  Fear is what we learn.

The spiritual journey is the unlearning of fear and prejudices and the acceptance of love back in our hearts.

Love is the essential reality and our purpose on earth.

To be consciously aware of it, to experience love in ourselves and others, is the meaning of life.

Meaning does not lie in things. Meaning lies in us.

Marianne Williamson

The World comes to us

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Jacques Lusseyran was a French writer and member of the Resistance, who continued to organize groups against the Nazi authorities even after he was sent to Buchenwald concentration camp. His work was all the more courageous because he had become totally blind at the age of 8, following an accident at school. He wrote about his early life in the book And There was Light: Autobiography of Jacques Lusseyran, Blind Hero of the French Resistance. This extract compliments the quote from Mark Twain this morning. Our discovery of the world begins with our active steps, which sometimes need courage and involve risk. However, we also need to know when to receive, and allow things to happen. The world is an  accomplice in this work of growth and continually presents moments when we can grow. Ironically, we frequently resist what happens to us each day, thinking that life is to be found elsewhere.

If I put my hand on the table without pressing it, I knew the table was there but knew nothing about it. To find out, my fingers had to bear down, and the amazing thing is that the pressure was answered by the table at once. Being blind I thought I should have to go out to meet things, but I found that they came to meet me instead. I have never had to go more than halfway, and the universe became the accomplice of all my wishes.

Empty time

Karl Duffy1 Comment

Two reasons for posting this poem by John O’ Donohue today.

Firstly, I love the line “the joy that dwells far within slow time” as a way of expressing where we get when we meditate.

Secondly, as a prayer for “One who is Exhausted”,  it captures well what happens to many of us at different times in our lives, when we find ourselves “marooned on unsure ground”. The familiar markers are nowhere to be seen, and we feel lost. Rather than panicking at this, or see it as something wrong, the poet encourages us to trust that our soul needs this empty time to recover itself. We learn from the rain – not the heavy thunderstorms of last evening but the soft rain which O’Donohue was familiar with in the West of Ireland and which fell here this morning –  to take things gently, change rhythm and to wait.

The tide you never valued has gone out.
And you are marooned on unsure ground.
Something within you has closed down;
And you cannot push yourself back to life.

You have been forced to enter empty time.
The desire that drove you has relinquished.
There is nothing else to do now but rest
And patiently learn to receive the self
You have forsaken for the race of days.

At first your thinking will darken
And sadness take over like listless weather.
The flow of unwept tears will frighten you.

You have traveled too fast over false ground;
Now your soul has come to take you back.

Take refuge in your senses, open up
To all the small miracles you rushed through.

Become inclined to watch the way of rain
When it falls slow and free.

Imitate the habit of twilight,
Taking time to open the well of color
That fostered the brightness of day.

Draw alongside the silence of stone
Until its calmness can claim you.
Be excessively gentle with yourself.

Stay clear of those vexed in spirit.
Learn to linger around someone of ease
Who feels they have all the time in the world.

Gradually, you will return to yourself,
Having learned a new respect for your heart
And the joy that dwells far within slow time.

John O’Donohue, A Blessing for One who is Exhausted.

Sunday quote: Explore

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Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed at the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. 

So sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. 

Explore, Dream. Discover.

Mark Twain


Dance

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We are invited to forget
ourselves on purpose,
cast our awful solemnity to the winds and join in the general dance.

Thomas Merton