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What are you living for?

If you want to identify me, ask me not where I live, or what I like to eat, or how I comb my hair, but ask me what I think I am living for, in detail, and ask me what I think is keeping me from living fully the thing I want to live for. Between these two answers you can determine the identity of any person. Thomas Merton

That quote showed up this week in my Inbox from Terry Hershey in his weekly Sabbath Moment post. Thank you, Terry!

As I read it again, I wonder, “How would I answer those questions for myself?”

What am I living for – in detail?
What is keeping me from living fully the thing I want to live for?

As we begin a new year, I have three requests of you: Continue reading “What are you living for?”

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Illuminate or Shine?

Likely you’ve been told (by me as well as by others) to shine your light! Be kind, generous, thoughtful, use your gifts: SHINE! Shine also your inner light ever so brightly by letting the love and joy in your heart be seen in everything you do. The world needs our light, yes?

Yes it does! In fact, it needs our individual lights so much so that this wisdom:

Better to illuminate than merely to shine. Thomas Aquinas

is even more needed than “Shine your light”.

What???

To illuminate is to invite others to shine. We will experience the absence of darkness only insofar as we all shine brightly. So…

Every chance you get, choose to illuminate! Encourage and invite, be present to and celebrate, step aside so that another’s light can shine. Be that which illuminates. Be the spark, the starter. You may not be perceived as a bright light as your neighbor shines brightly, but the world will be a much brighter place with everyone shining with you!

How willing are you encourage your neighbor to shine?
What does your ego need to release in order to choose illumination?
What’s possible if you do?

 

 

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Why Self-Care?

As the animal known as “human”, each of us is an intricate web of systems which, like machines, run better when well cared for. Our human “machine” has physical systems which we nourish with food, exercise and sleep, but it is also made up of mental, emotional and spiritual systems. When I ask, “Why Self-Care?”, I am referring to all of these!

Now, I am not going to talk about the “what” of self-care. There are MANY places to learn about how to tend our physical, mental, emotional and spiritual beings. And, given that each of us is totally unique, any guidance for how to care for ourselves needs to be personalized by us over and over again as we grow and change.

I am, however, going to talk about the WHY of self-care.

Continue reading “Why Self-Care?”

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Does your vision need UNcorrecting?

All loss is gain. Since I have become so near-sighted I see no dust or squalor, and therefore conceive of myself as living in splendor. ~Alice James, American diarist

Though I am still confused between near and farsightedness, I SO get that quote! My vision up close is horrible! I can’t read a word that is smaller than 20 point type.

Even as my vision has me living in (dirty) splendor, I must admit that I am often disgusted when I see with glasses on. Yet:

How would a case of nearsightedness work in a relationship?

Continue reading “Does your vision need UNcorrecting?”