
Today is Gaudete Sunday
Joy is not to be found in things;
we find it inside ourselves
When we are free of all created things,
we find the uncreated joy of God.
Meister Eckhart, Sermon 12, “Blessed are the Poor in Spirit”

We don’t have to like what is happening, or feel at peace with it. But we do have to begin exactly where we are, because there we find the only material available for change. Growth occurs through contact with reality, not through avoidance.
What is true is already so.
Owning up to it doesn’t make it worse.
Not being open about it doesn’t make it go away.
And because it’s true, it is what is there to be interacted with. Anything untrue isn’t there to be lived. People can stand what is true, for they are already enduring it.
Eugene Gendlin, Focusing
Don’t Take Anything Personally.
Nothing others do is because of you. What others say and do is a projection of their own reality, their own dream.
When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you won’t be the victim of needless suffering.
Don Miguel Ruiz, The Four Agreements. Second Agreement

A nice poem for the weather we are having these days on this island on the edge of Europe. Insight deepens when we resist the urge to prematurely close meaning, allowing complexity to speak in its own time.
How would it be to allow for knowing
and not knowing: allowing room
for the mystery of creating
to be able to wonder softly
without needing to understand everything
to trust in the process, to trust in love
to trust in the mystery and wonder
of the universe
that beats softly wildly
true, all round about us,
that is hidden in the mists in the clouds and the rain
in the wind blowing and the rain lashing down on your window,
reminding you poetically, prosaically
that this is where you are,
on the island, at the edge,
in a place of finding and refinding,
and remembering to remember
the feel of the mist, wind and rain.
John O’ Donohue