Could It Be?
The key to enlightenment might be simpler than we think. We’re here to experience joy. Look at each moment in your life and learn to say, How sweet it is.
— Melody Beattie, More Language of Letting Go, p. 379
Category: Life
10 Posts
Being With Me
If I can’t enjoy being with me, spending time alone with me, having fun with me, watching the sunset with me and taking long walks with me, how can I expect anyone else to want to? I do acknowledge that, for most people, many of these experiences are enhanced by sharing them, but try them alone with your soul. Breathe deeply into your heart and fill yourself with love and wonder.
— Brenda Davies, Unlocking the Heart Chakra, p. 75
Thank God.
Do you see it? Do you see what a special, precious opportunity each day of your life is?
Look more closely. See all the lessons you can learn. See how you can participate in your growth. Se how carefully God holds your hand, guides you down the right path, offers just the right words and opportunities at the right moments, sends just the right people your way.
You can feel. You can touch. You can agonize in despair and giggle with glee. You can make jokes. You can cry at movies. You can weep in bed at night. Then get up the next day, refreshed.
You can taste an orange, a lemon, a mango — and describe in detail the difference in each of those tastes. You can smell a forest of pine trees. You can hold your friend’s hand and feel how he trembles because he’s afraid. . . .
You can wait and thank God later.
But you might as well thank God now.
Maybe the best way to thank God is by living your life fully today.
— Melody Beattie, More Language of Letting Go, p.373
Success and Happiness
It may well be that success lies as much in our ability to behold the world before us in gratitude and wonder as it does in owning things and doing things. And it may be, too, that happiness really is a state of mind we choose for ourselves, a way of being that we cultivate from one moment to the next, rather than the result of realizing our ambitions or acquiring whatever it is we think we most desire.
— Katrina Kenison, The Gift of an Ordinary Day, p. 56
Acceptance
I put a life together with my family and friends and dogs. I learned to make use of the solitude I now had aplenty. I started writing, wanting to make something useful come from our catastrophe, and working hard, I began to be happy….
I lived with this shame a long time before I could speak of it. Finally I told my sister. “But it’s not about Rich’s accident,” Eliza said. “You don’t want to return to unhappiness. That’s all.” I will never forget that instant of absolute clarity. And just like that, I was free.
— Abigail Thomas, A Three Dog Life, p. 123
We Like Rules.
Nothing gives one a more spuriously good conscience than keeping rules, even if there has been total absence of all real charity and faith.
— C. S. Lewis, Letter, 20 February 1955
Grace the World with Your Dance
God really does want you to know who you are. He wants you to be able to understand the story of your life, to know where you have come from, and to know where you are going. There is freedom there. Freedom to be and to offer and to love….
Whatever your particular calling, you are meant to grace the world with your dance, to follow the lead of Jesus wherever he leads you. He will lead you first into himself; and then, with him, he will lead you into the world that he loves and needs you to love.
— John & Stasi Eldredge, Captivating, p. 216, 217
Your Own Story
I am telling you your story, not hers. I tell no-one any story but his own.
— Aslan, in The Horse and His Boy, by C. S. Lewis
Practice Messiness.
There is no control and perfection is arrogant. Practice messiness, letting go, and doing things badly.
— SARK, Prosperity Pie, p. 78
Living More Fully
The point of reading is not reading but living. Reading helps you live with greater appreciation, keener insight and heightened emotional awareness. For proof, look to the innumerable great readers who have been great doers, from John Adams to Teddy Roosevelt to Paul Theroux to George Plimpton. Reading and action reinforce each other in an ever-escalating manner.
Your well-read life is a path for living more fully.
— Steve Leveen, The Little Guide to Your Well-Read Life, p. 31