The sky is for you

Do you have doubts about your life? Are you ensure it is really worth all the trouble? Look at the sky, that is for you. Look at each person’s face as you pass on the street: those faces are for you. And the street itself, and the ground under the street and the ball of fire underneath the ground: all these things are for you. They are as much for you as they are for other people. Remember this when you wake up in the morning and think you have nothing. Stand up and face the east. Now praise the sky and praise the light within each person under the sky. It’s okay to be unsure. But praise, praise, praise.

Miranda July, U.S  filmmaker, No One belongs here more than you

Renunciation

Traditionally the season of Lent was associated with some form of simplification, which in Ireland became reduced to “giving up” something. The true meaning is in making space for the deeper realities in our lives and room to see what is happening.

The ground of renunciation is realizing that we already have exactly what we need,

that what we have already is good.

Every moment of time has enormous energy in it,

and we could connect with that.

Pema Chodron

Walking from the inside out

The key to life is how we relate to its unfolding,  minute by minute. In one sense, we do not have to get anywhere and anyway,   even if we think we do, there is no GPS,  no pre-determined  maps, no magical tarot cards which give us the final, clear answers to its mysteries. We move either by fear or by trusting that all is fundamentally well. If the latter,  we move the way joy and confidence makes us move, building our life from the inside out.

Keep walking, though there is no place to get to 

Don’t try to see through the distances

That’s not for human beings.

Move within

But don’t move the way fear makes you move.

Rumi

Why we get anxious

Our anxiety does not come from thinking about the future,

but from wanting to control it.

Kahlil Gibran

 

Everything is a mess, but…

 
All mystics . . . no matter what their theology, no matter what their religion – are unanimous on one thing: that all is well, all is well.  Though everything is a mess, all is well.  
Strange paradox, to be sure.  But, tragically, most people never get to see that all is well because they are asleep.  They are having a nightmare
Anthony De Mello, Awareness

                       

Love the difficult

What is required of us is that we love the difficult and learn to deal with it.

In the difficult are the friendly forces, the hands that work on us.

Right in the difficult we must have our joys, our happiness, our dreams: there against the depth of this background, they stand out, there for the first time we see how beautiful they are

Rilke, Letters