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Time is elongating…

What follows is a message which flowed into my journal recently. While choosing part-time work, I have a parallel full-time practice of learning to live the moments mindfully, coming to a new understanding of Life in all its complexity and beauty, routine and miraculous. I am practicing living and choosing from my heart space rather than the calendar and the to-do list. It is from this place, that the writing below emerged. It isn’t for everyone! But, especially if you find yourself new to retirement, or, like me, on a journey of presence to the moment, it may strike a resonance in you.

Time is elongating – what used to be an everyday happening is now less regular and less frequent – or perhaps it is my concept of “day” that is changing … it is less controlled as alarms rarely call me to action at a particular hour – nightfall encourages sleep when it’s ready.
Continue reading “Time is elongating…”

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Collecting Dust

Recently, I was describing to a friend that I see myself as a lifelong learner. I can’t imagine getting to some point (a certain age, adulthood, retirement) and deciding that “I’ve arrived and I’ve got it — this thing called life”.

Yet, I am aware that some folks do “arrive”. They stop expanding. They go through the motions of their days, today no different than yesterday. Perhaps you hear them complain about how the world is changing and making life difficult.

Some folks continue learning Continue reading “Collecting Dust”

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What makes you come alive?

Don’t ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and go do that, because what the world needs is people who have come alive. ~ Howard Thurman

Today as I read Thurman’s words, I have two thoughts.

First, “Yes, please”. The world does need people who have come alive and who, in their doing, are alive, energized, passionate. That is a tremendously different energy than doing because we have to, we should, “they” said so. So, please go about your doing this day from a place of inner aliveness!

My second thought Continue reading “What makes you come alive?”

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Inner Light

People are like stained-glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in, their beauty is revealed only if there is a light from within. ~ Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

As I sit with this quotation, I am reminded of the years I spent “perfecting my outside” so that I would “sparkle and shine” in the world. I cared about what I should wear or what others would think while ignoring my inside world. I didn’t make time for introspection and discerning my truth, the beauty that only my unique perspective could reveal. As Elisabeth implied, Continue reading “Inner Light”

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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?”