Colorful and Exciting

Beauty, Creativity, God, Joy, Life 0

What if we believe in a benevolent and expansive force? What if we consider the idea that our dreams come from God and that God has the power to accomplish them? What if our “grandiose” schemes are actually God’s will for us? What if God’s will is expansive and colorful and exciting? What if turning our will and our life over to God is an invitation to adventure and not to drudgery? What if God is for us and not against us?

For most of us, it is radical to consider the idea of a God that is actually on our side. We hope, at best, for a God who will turn a blind eye to our strivings and not nip them in the bud. We tend to think that if we call God’s attention to our adventures and agendas, God will disapprove. We think of God as a spoilsport, a wet blanket. We ignore the evidence of the natural world that plainly shows us an exuberant intelligence committed to diversity.

— Julia Cameron, Faith and Will, p. 137

Wholehearted Revolution

Acceptance, Beauty, Core Value, Joy, Letting Go, Life 0

Despite where this book will be shelved in your local bookstore, I’m not at all sure that this work is about self-help. I think of it as an invitation to join a Wholehearted revolution. A small, quiet, grassroots movement that starts with each of us saying, “My story matters because I matter.” A movement where we can take to the streets with our messy, imperfect, wild, stretch-marked, wonderful, heartbreaking, grace-filled, and joyful lives. A movement fueled by the freedom that comes when we stop pretending that everything is okay when it isn’t. A call that rises up from our bellies when we find the courage to celebrate those intensely joyful moments even though we’ve convinced ourselves that savoring happiness is inviting disaster.

Revolution might sound a little dramatic, but in this world, choosing authenticity and worthiness is an absolute act of resistance. Choosing to live and love with our whole hearts is an act of defiance. You’re going to confuse, piss off, and terrify lots of people — including yourself. One minute you’ll pray that the transformation stops, and the next minute you’ll pray that it never ends. You’ll also wonder how you can feel so brave and so afraid at the same time. At least that’s how I feel most of the time . . . brave, afraid, and very, very alive.

— Brene Brown, The Gifts of Imperfection, p. 126

Our Decision

Joy, Letting Go 0

Making the decision to thoroughly enjoy this or any other day is pretty simple. It relies on our willingness to not let the actions of others take over our minds. We are in charge of what we think, what we say, what we do. Grabbing hold of this principle will change everything.

— Karen Casey, Let Go Now, p. 26

Dance in Our DNA

Beauty, Children, Joy 0

There’s no question that some people are more musically inclined or coordinated than others, but I’m starting to believe that dance is in our DNA. Not super-hip and cool dancing, or line dancing, or Dancing with the Stars dancing — but a strong pull toward rhythm and movement. You can see this desire to move in children. Until we teach our children that they need to be concerned with how they look and with what other people think, they dance. They even dance naked. Not always gracefully or with the beat, but always with joy and pleasure.

— Brene Brown, The Gifts of Imperfection, p. 120

Magnifying

God, Gratitude, Joy, Love, Uncategorized 0

Something always comes to fill the empty places. And when I give thanks for the seemingly microscopic, I make a place for God to grow within me. This, this, makes me full, and I “magnify him with thanksgiving” (Psalm 69:30 KJV), and God enters the world. What will a life magnify? The world’s stress cracks, the grubbiness of the day, all that is wholly wrong and terribly busted? Or God? Never is God’s omnipotence and omniscience diminutive. God is not in need of magnifying by us so small, but the reverse. It’s our lives that are little and we have falsely inflated self, and in thanks we decrease and the world returns right. I say thanks and I swell with Him, and I swell the world and He stirs me, joy all afoot.

This, I think, this is the other side of prayer.

This act of naming grace moments, this list of God’s gifts, moves beyond the shopping list variety of prayer and into the other side. The other side of prayer, the interior of His throne room, the inner walls of His powerful, love-beating heart. The list is God’s list, the pulse of His love — the love that thrums on the other side of our prayers. And I see it now for what this really is, this dare to write down one thousand things I love. It really is a dare to name all the ways God loves me. The true Love Dare. To move into His presence and listen to His love unending and know the grace uncontainable. This is the vault of the miracles. The only thing that can change us, the world, is this — all His love. I must never be deceived by the simplicity of eucharisteo and penning His love list. Cheese. Sun. Journal. Naming. Love. Here. It all feels startlingly hallowed, and I breathe shallow. I should take the shoes off.

— Ann Voskamp, One Thousand Gifts, p. 59-60

Empowerment in Letting Others Go

Acceptance, Friends, Joy, Letting Go, Relationships 0

The gift of empowerment comes every time we let someone else decide his or her fate. Even the tiny decision someone might be struggling with doesn’t need our input unless asked for. This is not an easy realization to come to grips with. So much of our persona may well be tied to having our friends or family members mirror our choices. And yet, when we lay that expectation on them or simply hold that expectation quietly within, we will experience chaos. No one wants to be controlled. Even when we are subtle about it, it’s recognized and resisted.

You may be wondering what empowerment feels like if this is a new concept to you. It’s probably best understood in terms of synonyms. It’s freedom. It’s peace of mind. It’s not feeling absorbed by the antics of others. It’s clarity of thinking. It’s a feeling of lightness throughout the body. It’s having the time to be joyful and unencumbered.

— Karen Casey, Let Go Now, p. 25

God’s Colorful Will

Beauty, God, Guidance, Joy, Life 0

“Thy will be done” is not the mantra of a joyless life. We are not signing up for a life that boils down to one long tour of duty. “Thy will be done” has more color in it than that. God’s will has a great deal of color in it. Looking at the natural world, this diversity and color should not surprise us — and yet it does. Our idea of God is shockingly drab and colorless. We act as if The Creator has only a few colors on his emotional palette and that they fall into the sensible range — dull grays, browns, maybe olive drabs.

What if God is more colorful than that? What if we look at the natural world and begin to consider the actual power and diversity of what we are dealing with. What if we begin to see that “Thy will be done” is an expansive and not a constrictive concept, what if we start to realize that God’s will for us is that we get larger, not smaller?

— Julia Cameron, Faith and Will, p. 136

Discover Joy

Beauty, Gratitude, Joy 0

I know there is poor and hideous suffering, and I’ve seen the hungry and the guns that go to war. I have lived pain, and my life can tell: I only deepen the wound of the world when I neglect to give thanks for early light dappled through leaves and the heavy perfume of wild roses in early July and the song of crickets on humid nights and the rivers that run and the stars that rise and the rain that falls and all the good things that a good God gives. Why would the world need more anger, more outrage? How does it save the world to reject unabashed joy when it is joy that saves us? Rejecting joy to stand in solidarity with the suffering doesn’t rescue the suffering. The converse does. The brave who focus on all things good and all things beautiful and all things true, even in the small, who give thanks for it and discover joy even in the here and now, they are the change agents who bring fullest Light to all the world. When we lay the soil of our hard lives open to the rain of grace and let joy penetrate our cracked and dry places, let joy soak into our broken skin and deep crevices, life grows. How can this not be the best thing for the world? For us? The clouds open when we mouth thanks.

— Ann Voskamp, One Thousand Gifts, p. 58