Tag: Life

The strength to survive

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In the light of all that is happening this year and this week, we all need to keep our hopes alive

There is an Ethiopian legend about a shepherd  boy Alemayu that speaks to me of the power of hope. Alemayu had to spend the night on a bitterly cold mountain. He had only a very thin cloth to wear. To the amazement of all the villagers, he returned alive and well. When they asked him how he survived, he replied: ” ‘The night was bitter. When all the sky was dark, I thought I would die. Then far, far off I saw a shepherd’s fire on another mountain. I kept my eyes on the red glow in the distance, and I dreamed of being warm. And that is how I had the strength to survive.

Each one of us has a  “shepherd’s fire on another mountain” that has kept our hope alive.  This fire has given us the courage to recover our lost self and believe in the dreams that stir in our soul.

Joyce Rupp, Dear Heart, Come Home

We are lost

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It may be that when we no longer know what to do
we have come to our real work,
and that when we no longer know which way to go
we have come to our real journey.
The mind that is not baffled is not employed.
The impeded stream is the one that sings.

Wendell Berry

Choice

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You will either step forward into growth,

or you will step back into safety.

Maslow

A heart at rest

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Inner calmness is a way of being that can transform our lives. Taking one thing at a time as our focus, letting the imperfections of life be, fosters a sense of the present, a contentment with the moment. At first our meditation may develop in some ways but still be mixed with a quality of striving or judgment. As we sit, extraordinary levels of silence & peace can open for us.

We can learn how happiness comes from a heart at rest and not from changing outer circumstances.

Jack Kornfield

Arguing

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Ancient wisdom for the day that is in it. It can apply to both people outside of us or to the complaining voice inside of us that forever “argues” with how things are:

Get away from any man who always argues every time he talks.

Abbot Pastor in Thomas Merton, The Wisdom of the Desert: Sayings from the Desert Fathers of the Fourth Century

Sunday Quote: Simplicity

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All Saints Day, starting a month were there is an emphasis on simplifying, remembering and integrating, imitating the slower pace of nature. This is somewhat different to the current fashion of accumulating and rushing around at this time, as the main shopping festivals arrive.

Maybe a side effect of the pandemic this year will be to slow things down and remind us of what is important

The man to whom little is not enough

will not benefit from more.

Saint Columbanus, 540 – 615, Irish monk, missionary and founder of monasteries.

One is satisfied not by the quantity of food, but by the absence of greed. 

Gurdjieff, 1866- 1949