love this...

Today's thought from Hazelden is:

May you live all the days of your life.
--Jonathan Swift

Indeed life is much like a game - both a deadly serious one and one that demands laughter, relaxation, and the ability to play. Either way, life demands attention.

There is much of life that is truly exciting and fascinating - are we watching for it? There is hilarity and humor - do we see it? There is that in life which is touching and full of heroism - are we open to seeing it?

All these are not only present in some general, nebulous way about life, but about our lives! Right here where we live, in our lives today, there will be the hero and the goat, there will be disappointment and reason for wild celebration, there will be the beautiful and the horrible. The soap opera is not out there; it is right here with us, in us, all around us. The task is to be present in our own lives, to get our heads out of others' reality, and to find the enormous meaning and vitality of our own.

Life is precious. Today, I will not take my life for granted.

You are reading from the book:

Days of Healing, Days of Joy by Earnie Larsen and Carol Larsen Hegarty

"no bird can fly
without opening its wings,
and no one can love
without exposing their heart."

--mark nepo

here's to having the courage to open our wings, expose our hearts and look at our own "stuff"!

just a little note of gratitude for all those who stop by here and especially those who choose to engage with me through your comments!!

if only for a moment...

"Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these." Matthew 19:14

can you remember back to those carefree days when boys and girls were just kids and not genders? can you see in your mind’s eye the freedom of summer and endless play without regard to time, space or commitments? when hours could be lost staring at an ant carrying a piece of food? or catching bees in a jar only to release them a moment later could consume an entire afternoon? can you remember what it was like to walk hand in hand with someone just because it felt natural to be by their side? can you remember when it all started to get complicated and boys became yucky or girls developed cooties? when appearance became more important than freedom? when propriety took the place of simplicity?

some of those questions are easier for me to answer than others, but all remind me in some simple way of my delightful Sunday when for a few brief moments all of the questions disappeared and I got to simply be me…a child at play…if only for a moment.

sitting next to the international fountain at seattle center with my seemingly unlikely companions, steve and derek (two twenty-something young men from lubbock, texas), we watched the children at play in the brilliant sunshine of the day. one little guy especially caught our attention as he darted in and out of the fountain spray clad only in his little white briefs which I swear he had on sideways ☺. oblivious to every care in the world except delight, this little guy was the picture of joy and his energy was evidently contagious. steve spontaneously said, “come run through the fountain with me” and the next thing I knew, we were dodging the showers and laughing with the other children. pure delight indeed!

it is funny how you just know that some moments will mark your life in a unique way and I know this was one of them. it was a brief slice of time slathered with delight and freedom when two grown up children allowed themselves to come out to play and time stood still…if only for a moment.

when was the last time you allowed your inner child to come out and play? if it has been awhile, why do you think that is? what would they would want to do if allowed? think about it ☺. I would love to know.

unfortunately i did not have my own camera with me, but this fountain photo found here beautifully exhibits the mood of the day!

the collective "they"

I looked at the young woman and I saw a hundred others; perhaps even a bit of myself. If we see it in someone else, we have it in ourselves. Fact or Fiction? What did I see in her? I saw the holding on. The struggle to maintain an appearance that she thought was pleasing. I saw her battling to stay in composure and keep others at a distance. And I saw her pleading for someone to come a little closer.

Is that not a struggle we all have? Come closer, but not too close. Searching for our true identity—one that we can call our own rather than one created to “please” everyone around us.

This week I have been helping facilitate a personal growth workshop for Soltura. With a little break in the action, I thought I would share the above ponderings along with the following words from Sue Monk Kidd. As always, I would love to know your thoughts.

“Change begins with the recognition that we’re not so much an “I” as a “they.” We may like to think that we’re individuals living out our own unique truth, but more often we’re scripts written collectively by society, family, church, job, friends, and traditions.

We need our outer roles and identities, of course, but we also need to live them authentically, in ways that are true to our unique and inner self. When we live exclusively out of the expectations thrust on us from without, rather than living from the truth emerging within, we become caught in the collective “they.”

So if all those roles were suddenly stripped away, what would be left? Who would you be then?”

--Sue Monk Kidd. When the Heart Waits

photo © h3images

Navigating

There are almost too many thoughts whirling through my head to land on any one topic today. I started back to work yesterday after almost two months away. I love it and I want to stay home and create. Today, it seems like I am most struck by the contrasts of life. How there can be such fullness and emptiness wrapped up together. How being in a room full of people one can feel totally alone and then sitting alone in silence, one can be met with the fullness of life. One minute we can be on top of the world and the next moment we can only feel its heaviness.

It seems to be this place of navigating where I will choose to live (in the fullness or emptiness or the in between) is what is most on my mind today. It is important for me to experience the richness of one or the other rather than staying stuck “in between.” Mark Nepo shares, “Being half anywhere is the true beginning of loneliness.” And I have come to know that I am really not a 'half anywhere' kind of girl ☺!

Hmmm… So, that is what I have to offer today. As always, I would love to know your thoughts. What are the contrasts of your life? Where do you see yourself living in the ‘in between’? How do you navigate through the contrasts of life?

(Check out lucy creates!!! for a different view of a similar topic.)