Tag: Life

…and let expectations subside

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There are several aspects to meditation that are part of establishing friendship with yourself. One is mindfulness. Mindfulness is keeping track, or keeping a pulse, of being there, in a nonjudgmental way. There is no good or bad. Everything is allowed to be. Among other things, mindfulness is a stabilizing or pacifying influence. The panic of everyday life and every expectation laid on life can subside.

This is a huge relief.

It is called the discovery of peace.

Carolyn Rose Gimian, What’s Good About Being You

Sunday: The messiness of real life

Karl Duffy1 Comment

It’s odd in a way, this business of Perfect Christmasses. The story of the first Christmas is the story of a series of completely unplanned, messy events – a surprise pregnancy, an unexpected journey that’s got to be made, a complete muddle over the hotel accommodation when you get there… Not exactly a perfect holiday.

But it tells us something really vital. We try to plan all this stuff and stay in charge, and too often (especially with advertisers singing in our ears the whole time) we think that unless we can cook the perfect dinner, plan the perfect wedding, organise the perfect Christmas, we somehow don’t really count or we can’t hold our heads up.

But in the complete mess of the first Christmas, God says, ‘Don’t worry – I’m not going to wait until you’ve got everything sorted out perfectly before I get involved with you. I’m already there for you in the middle of it all, and if you just let yourself lean on me a bit instead of trying to make yourself and everything around you perfect by your own efforts, everyone will feel a little more of my love flowing’.

Rowan Williams, former Archbishop of Canterbury, Pause for Thought, BBC Radio 2.

Living simply

Karl Duffy2 Comments

I taught myself to live simply and wisely,

to look at the sky and pray to God,

and to wander long before evening to tire my superfluous worries.

Anna Akhmatova, 1889 – 1966 I Taught Myself to Live Simply

Not limiting oneself

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Forget distinctions

Leap into the boundless

and make it your own.

Zhuang Zhou, Chinese philosopher, 4th century BC

a life without regret

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December 6 is the feastday of the legendary Saint Nicholas, traditionally a big celebration in the Low Countries, Germany and Eastern Europe. Most children have a natural sense of wonder and adventure which life has a tendency to erode.

Twenty years from now

You will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do

than by the ones you did.

Mark Twain

Created anew

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Every morning
the world
is created.
Under the orange

sticks of the sun
the heaped
ashes of the night
turn into leaves again

and fasten themselves to the high branches —
and the ponds appear
like black cloth
on which are painted islands

of summer lilies.
If it is your nature
to be happy
you will swim away along the soft trails

for hours, your imagination
alighting everywhere.
And if your spirit
carries within it

the thorn
that is heavier than lead —
if it’s all you can do
to keep on trudging —

there is still
somewhere deep within you
a beast shouting that the earth
is exactly what it wanted —

each pond with its blazing lilies
is a prayer heard and answered
lavishly,
every morning,

whether or not
you have ever dared to be happy,
whether or not
you have ever dared to pray.

Mary Oliver, Morning Poem