Sometimes I go about in pity for myself,
and all the while,
a great wind carries me across the sky
Ojibwe Tribe saying. The Ojibwe are one one of the largest Indigenous ethnic groups in the US and Canada.
Tag: Be fully present
Living life fully
Today is Valentines day, normally celebrated with a special meal and even chocolates. It is also Ash Wednesday in the Christian tradition, a day of fasting, the start of Lent – a season of simplification. They seem quite opposed as celebrations.
However, both are reminders that our lives are short, and that we should live them with passion and to the fullest, appreciating, and celebrating fully, beauty as it appears in each day .
In the school of mind
you learn a lot,
And become a true scholar for many to look up to.
In the school of love
you become a child
to learn again
Abu-Said Abil-Kheir, Sufi Poet, 967 – 1049
When we are drowning
There is a story told in the Middle East about how to help someone who’s drowning.
A man had fallen into a river. He was not much of a swimmer and was in real danger of drowning. A crowd of concerned people wanted to rescue him. They were standing at the edge of the water, each of them urgently shouting out to him: “Give me your hand, give me your hand!”
The man was battling the waves and ignored their urgent plea. He kept going under and was clearly struggling to take another breath.
A saintly man walked up to the scene. He too cared about the drowning man. But his approach was different. Calmly he walked up to the water, waded in up to his knees, glanced lovingly at the drowning man, and said: “Take my hand.”
Much to everyone’s surprise, the drowning man reached out and grabbed the saint’s hand. The two came out of the dangerous water. The drowning man sat up at the edge of the water, breathing heavily, looking relieved, exhausted, and grateful.
The crowd turned towards the saint and asked: “How were you able to reach him when he didn’t heed our plea?” The saint calmly said: “You all asked him for something, his hand. I offered him something, my hand. A drowning man is in no position to give you anything.”
Let us remember not to ask anything of someone who is drowning.
So if you are that saintly soul, if you want to reach out to someone who is struggling to stay above water, go to them. But don’t ask them to give you their hand. Instead, offer them your hand. Don’t ask for their heart, offer them your heart. Offer them your ear, your love, your shoulder. Release your friends, your family, from the shame of their brokenness. Let them know that you love them through the brokenness, because of the brokenness, and God-willing, after the brokenness.
Free your loved ones of the energy they spend to hide their brokenness from you. Free them of the shame of coming to you as they are. Let them spend that energy on surviving, on healing, on thriving. Let us love one another as we are, so that we may become all we are meant to be.
Omid Safi, How to Reach out to Someone who is Suffering
Why we get anxious
Our anxiety does not come from thinking about the future,
but from wanting to control it.
Kahlil Gibran
Sunday Quote: Stop waiting
Dance in the body you have.
Agnes de Mille, 1905 – 1993, American dancer and choreographer.
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
