Today is Valentine's Day, and my Valentine's wish for each one of my readers is that you have someone in your life who loves you, just for being who you are.
"You do not have to be good." (Mary Oliver, "Wild Geese") Most of us have put a lot of our life into being good, and even more, into being perfect. When we are confronted with the fact that we are not perfect, we probably have a difficult time forgiving ourselves. Living with this level of perfectionism can be draining, and can keep us from living as joyfully and freely as we are meant to live.
Learn to forgive yourself when you do not live up to your own standards perfectly. When you learn to forgive yourself, you will find that you can also forgive others for their human foibles.
Many years ago, I learned an expression that helped me through a difficult time of change and growth. "Big Surprise!" When I was learning to live in new ways, to change my behavior and my response to difficult situations I discovered, much to my chagrin, that I frequently did not live up to my own standards of change. I wanted to be a new person, now, and perfectly! When I learned to greet my personal "relapses" with the words, "Big Surprise!," I learned to trust my changes more easily, even when I did not make the changes perfectly.
Forgiving yourself for being human takes practice! Most of us did not learn that as a child, and so we need to teach ourselves.
And even if you don't believe it - take my word for it: you don't have to be perfect. You only have to be perfectly who you are!
Warmly,
meb
Thursday, February 14, 2008
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
Holy Waiting -
I don't like to wait - for anything. For me, that's probably because I think about things quickly and I think I know what the next step is to take. That may or may not be right, but it's what I think!
There is a quality to waiting that is Holy Waiting. Most of us are not inclined to do this very well. In fact, we are not encouraged to wait - for anything. When a candidate for the presidency is asked a question, they are expected to have an answer, right now. When a parent asks a child a question, the child better have the answer, right now. When we stop at a market on the way home from work and we're in a hurry to get dinner on the table, you want to make it through the line at the store, right now.
It's a bit of wisdom to know that it is all right to take time to think about things. It's really ok! Even in your work, if someone comes to you with a problem, learn to say: "let me think about that, and I'll get back to you." Then you can mull things over and possibly, some new thoughts will come to you that wouldn't have been there at the beginning.
Holy Waiting is another thing. Holy Waiting is what you do when you don't know what you want to do next in your life. Holy Waiting is what you do when you don't have the answer, for once. Holy Waiting is what you do when you trust that things are going to work out, whether you can see that or not!
"Above all, trust in the slow work of God.
We are quite naturally impatient in everything
to reach the end without delay...
Yet it is the law of all progress
that is made by passing through
some stages of instability -
and that may take a very long time." --- Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, S.J.
If this is a time in your life when the future seems uncertain, and for once you are stopped dead in your tracks without knowing what to do or which way to turn,
practice Holy Waiting.
Warmly,
Mary Elyn
There is a quality to waiting that is Holy Waiting. Most of us are not inclined to do this very well. In fact, we are not encouraged to wait - for anything. When a candidate for the presidency is asked a question, they are expected to have an answer, right now. When a parent asks a child a question, the child better have the answer, right now. When we stop at a market on the way home from work and we're in a hurry to get dinner on the table, you want to make it through the line at the store, right now.
It's a bit of wisdom to know that it is all right to take time to think about things. It's really ok! Even in your work, if someone comes to you with a problem, learn to say: "let me think about that, and I'll get back to you." Then you can mull things over and possibly, some new thoughts will come to you that wouldn't have been there at the beginning.
Holy Waiting is another thing. Holy Waiting is what you do when you don't know what you want to do next in your life. Holy Waiting is what you do when you don't have the answer, for once. Holy Waiting is what you do when you trust that things are going to work out, whether you can see that or not!
"Above all, trust in the slow work of God.
We are quite naturally impatient in everything
to reach the end without delay...
Yet it is the law of all progress
that is made by passing through
some stages of instability -
and that may take a very long time." --- Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, S.J.
If this is a time in your life when the future seems uncertain, and for once you are stopped dead in your tracks without knowing what to do or which way to turn,
practice Holy Waiting.
Warmly,
Mary Elyn
Monday, February 11, 2008
How to Pray -
Right now, I am facilitating a class called, "How to Pray." It is always an adventure to listen to others speak about how they connect to the Higher Power of the Universe. To connect, through prayer or meditation, is indeed one of the challenges - and joys - of the human condition.
How do you pray? How do you pray when you cannot pray? Through my prayers, I have learned that all of my prayers lead to that moment when I say: Ok, I accept whatever is, whatever shall be, whatever may come! All of the other prayers are like the steps leading to the top of the mountain. And in saying that prayer, I stand at the top of the mountain and take a step out - without knowing Who or What will hold me up.
I know this: Someone always does sustain me when I say that prayer, and when I take that step. Call that "Someone" God or Jesus or Mary or Buddha or Spirit or Allah or Higher Power - by whatever name, that step of faith, into the unknown, is the most powerful experience you will ever have.
And it is in the steps of faith we take every day that we take a lifetime of steps in a journey that is joyous, and free.
When we hear about the journey of faith, it often sounds like a set of rules. We "should" do this; we "should not" do this. What the rules really offer, however, is discipline, or practice in taking the steps that lead to the point of "surrender," or "letting go" into whatever is. This step, like the step off the mountain, is the moment when we realize that all of our planning, all of controlling, has led us nowhere. All we can do is trust, to take that step of faith.
And when you take that step, the step of perfect trust, you are free!
Warmly,
meb
How do you pray? How do you pray when you cannot pray? Through my prayers, I have learned that all of my prayers lead to that moment when I say: Ok, I accept whatever is, whatever shall be, whatever may come! All of the other prayers are like the steps leading to the top of the mountain. And in saying that prayer, I stand at the top of the mountain and take a step out - without knowing Who or What will hold me up.
I know this: Someone always does sustain me when I say that prayer, and when I take that step. Call that "Someone" God or Jesus or Mary or Buddha or Spirit or Allah or Higher Power - by whatever name, that step of faith, into the unknown, is the most powerful experience you will ever have.
And it is in the steps of faith we take every day that we take a lifetime of steps in a journey that is joyous, and free.
When we hear about the journey of faith, it often sounds like a set of rules. We "should" do this; we "should not" do this. What the rules really offer, however, is discipline, or practice in taking the steps that lead to the point of "surrender," or "letting go" into whatever is. This step, like the step off the mountain, is the moment when we realize that all of our planning, all of controlling, has led us nowhere. All we can do is trust, to take that step of faith.
And when you take that step, the step of perfect trust, you are free!
Warmly,
meb
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