Tag: wisdom

Thankful

It’s time to assess your blessings. They might not be as apparent as you think. Many blessings are so common to living that you could take them for granted. These are the blessings to be considered most of all, for it’s in the common spaces that you find grace.

Will you say grace at your table this Thanksgiving? As you gather among others around a bountiful dinner or simply sit alone with a morsel of sustenance remember one important fact: you are here on this earth by God’s will to live humbly and do good works for your fellow humankind. You are not on earth to resist or to impress.

The ability to resist is the furthest action from grace. You might ask how can this be? Why wouldn’t you resist a tyrant? This perspective is incorrect. Resistance is trouble to your own soul. The correct approach is to acknowledge the presence of the perceived tyrant, assess their actual control over you and to make changes in your life to free yourself from those feelings that prevent you from making divinely inspired gains in your own self. This pursuit of happiness is unique to each individual and can only be taken from you if your soul is burdened by resistance. Sounds like Yoda speak! Well, it is. It’s a circle meant to bring you wholeness. And in that wholeness you will find grace.

Amen

The ability to impress offers a similar trouble to your soul. Your desire to make another person admire and respect you is in itself a tyrannical act. Admiration and respect is earned by your own good works regardless of the views of others. Our communities offer countless ways to showcase your time and talents. You don’t have to say ‘Yes’ to everything and everyone, you simply need to understand your own strengths and weaknesses to apply yourself effectively and with confidence…This humble light of good works will shine brightly for all to see and bring peace to your soul.

The serenity prayer comes to mind as a way to live with grace: “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference.”

Be thankful. God’s blessings are bountiful.

Turn, Turn, Turn

Ecclesiastes 3 is the third chapter of the Book of Ecclesiastes in the Hebrew Bible or the Old Testament of the Christian Bible. I know the verses better through how the Byrds sang them in a song called “To Everything There Is A Season” by Pete Seeger and originally released by the Limeliters in 1962 which happens to be the year I was born. I’m sure you know it:

To everything turn, turn, turn
There is a season turn, turn, turn
And a time to every purpose under Heaven

A time to be born, a time to die
A time to plant, a time to reap
A time to kill, a time to heal
A time to laugh, a time to weep

To everything turn, turn, turn
There is a season turn, turn, turn
And a time to every purpose under Heaven

A time to build up, a time to break down
A time to dance, a time to mourn
A time to cast away stones
A time to gather stones together

To everything turn, turn, turn
There is a season turn, turn, turn
And a time to every purpose under Heaven

A time of love, a time of hate
A time of war, a time of peace
A time you may embrace
A time to refrain from embracing

To everything turn, turn, turn
There is a season turn, turn, turn
And a time to every purpose under Heaven

A time to gain, a time to lose
A time to rain, a time of sow
A time for love, a time for hate
A time for peace, I swear it’s not too late

This song has entered my thoughts many times over the last year. Recession in our economy, war in Europe, and sparring leadership in the federal administration have given me an uneasiness. Yet when I am able to focus on my own work, family and community my tensions ease and all seems right in the world. Things change and time changes…It’s how we build wisdom. Life was never meant to be easy, but we can certainly turn lemons into lemonade with a willing mind or even a good biblically inspired verse or song:

To everything turn, turn, turn…

The Shrew View: Home of the Brave

Fear is being allowed to fester in America…The type of fear that can only be fostered by the media and improved upon by the liberal academics because they are the prime manipulators of emotion.  Is this fear linked to the polarizing politics of today?  Perhaps it is simply the natural human instinct of preserving life at all cost?  Either way, it’s definitely worth taking a closer look as only a Shrew would…

When President Roosevelt said in 1933 that ‘The only thing to fear is fear itself…’, he was not far from the mark.  During that time we were at the peak of the Great Depression.  He went on saying, ‘…fear itself – nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance…’   Fear as an emotion is ephemeral unless a person is consumed by it nonstop.

In my booklet, Archetypes of the Human Spirit, I picture a large fish with many sharp teeth as a symbol of the fear that consumes all efforts to improve not unlike the Bible story of Jonah and the whale.

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This all consuming fear is that which comes when you are not sure that your choices are leading you in the best direction.  Fortunately we have the ability to look back on past choices to determine the best path forward…This is why learning factual history is so important!  In your own life your history is all of those past choices, and the outcome of those choices are what you have to learn by.  Your anxiety ridden, uncomfortable present or future is an illusion of fear until you reconcile those past choices with what you learned after making them…And if you succeed in applying this model, you gain wisdom.

In America there is a certain effort underway to rewrite our history.  This is an unfortunate circumstance because the “new” history focuses on victimhood and is consuming humanity’s efforts to improve.  Learning everything we can about why we had slavery, The Trail of Tears, women’s suffrage, Jim Crow and gay rights in our “free” society is good, but only if we are brave enough to see the true context as whole and proper.  It is only then that we can make progress as a nation that values Liberty for all rather than equality as an outcome for all.