The Message of Macbeth

Books, Life, Love, Truth 0

“Shakespeare did not write for your ease of reading,” she said.

No kidding, I thought.

“He wrote to express something about what it means to be a human being in words more beautiful than had ever yet been written.”

“So in Macbeth, when he wasn’t trying to find names that sound alike, what did he want to express in words more beautiful than had ever yet been written?”

Mrs. Baker looked at me for a long moment.  Then she went and sat back down at her desk.  “That we are made for more than power,” she said softly.  “That we are made for more than our desires.   That pride combined with stubbornness can be disaster.  And that compared with love, malice is a small and petty thing.”

— Gary D. Schmidt, The Wednesday Wars

Our Inner Child Recognizes Truth

Children, Joy, Life 0

If we limit ourselves to the possible and provable, as I saw these people doing, we render ourselves incapable of change and growth, and that is something that should never end.  If we limit ourselves to the age that we are, and forget all the ages that we have been, we diminish our truth.

Perhaps it is the child within us who is able to recognize the truth of story — the mysterious, the numinous, the unexplainable — and the grown-up within us who accepts these qualities with joy but understands that we also have responsibilities, that a promise is to be kept, homework is to be done, that we owe other people courtesy and consideration, and that we need to help care for our planet because it’s the only one we’ve got.

I never want to lose the story-loving child within me, or the adolescent, or the young woman, or the middle-aged one, because all together they help me to be fully alive on this journey, and show me that I must be willing to go where it takes me, even through the valley of the shadow.

— Madeleine L’Engle, The Rock That Is Higher, quoted in Glimpses of Grace, collected by Carole F. Chase, February 21 entry

God Is Not Mean.

God, Gratitude, Joy, Life 0

Today, though, I choose to worship a God whose justice is beyond my understanding in all particulars but this one that my children have taught me:  God is not mean.

God gave me a husband who loves me and children who are not horribly sick and a job I like and a mother-in-law who passes on her cars to us for their bluebook prices and, two Sundays ago, eight newborn Labrador puppies who are just now opening their eyes….  God hears my prayers and answers them in my best interest, every one of them, although I sometimes don’t recognize that he has or agree with him about what my best interest might be….

God is not mean.  He chose me, despite my own frequent meanness.  He chose me when there were better people.  Better mothers.  Better writers.  Better Christians.  Better cooks, probably.  There are so many others that he could have chosen, others that I hope he will choose, every one of them.  And after he chose me he has kept on choosing me:  rewarding me, reassuring me, burying me in blessings.

Our God, I have learned from my daughters, is the God of promises — promises of healing and happiness and all good things — for those who look forward to their own fulfillment.  Promises available not only in the Word of God but in all creation, in newborn puppies with their eyes still closed and ditches and frothed milk and silly games.  In children.  In our ability to imagine heaven.

— Patty Kirk, Confessions of an Amateur Believer, p. 229-232

Opportunities for God to Love Me

God, Life 0

And so, I believe I’m wrong to expect disasters, which isn’t to say they won’t happen.  But if they do, they won’t be payback, but rather — I try to believe this — new opportunities for God to show his very particular love for me.

— Patty Kirk, Confessions of an Amateur Believer, p. 226

Grieving

Compassion, Healing, Life, Trials 0

It seems to me that I and most of the people I know have forgotten how to grieve like this — not only for others but for ourselves.  We have forgotten how to grieve at all.  It no longer comes naturally to us.  We have to learn it from self-help books and therapists.  Or we have to do without.

All I have to offer you is a list of don’ts.  Don’t forbid painful topics.  Don’t judge.  Don’t preach.  When people tell you of their pain, don’t say anything at all.  Don’t think, if you can help it, at least at first.  Just hear it and, if you can, cry.  Cry for them and for yourself, because you, too, have suffered such things, or will.  Cry that there is evil in this world, that we are all of us sometimes the victims and often the perpetrators of it.  Cry that people, however messed up, and even if they themselves caused the misery in which they find themselves, have to suffer at all….  Remind yourself of these truths about the pain of our world and the sins that occasion it.  Others’ sins.  Our own sins.  Because it is only this grieving, this taking of a knee, that truly comforts us, that connects us to one another and to God.

— Patty Kirk, Confessions of an Amateur Believer, p. 96

Being Good

God, Life 0

As long as the natural life is in your body, it will do a lot towards repairing that body.  Cut it, and up to a point it will heal, as a dead body would not.  A live body is not one that never gets hurt, but one that can to some extent repair itself.  In the same way a Christian is not a man who never goes wrong, but a man who is enabled to repent and pick himself up and begin over again after each stumble….

The Christian thinks any good he does comes from the Christ-life inside him.  He does not think God will love us because we are good, but that God will make us good because He loves us; just as the roof of a greenhouse does not attract the sun because it is bright, but becomes bright because the sun shines on it.

— C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, quoted in A Year with C. S. Lewis

A Bright Future

Core Value, Healing, Inspiration, Joy, Life 0

You can outgrow the wounds of the past with a deep appreciation of yourself, your courage, sensitivity, resilience, and desire for a better life.  You have enormous power and potential to become the person you were meant to be.  Appreciate your strengths and resilience.  Trust your inner voice — it tells you that you do not need to have value poured into you from outside sources.  Your vessel is full and ready to “runneth over.”  As you feel the light of your core value within, you can make it shine out of you, to illuminate all your days.

— Steven Stosny, You Don’t Have to Take It Anymore, p. 316

Necessary for Healing

Forgiveness, Healing, Life, Relationships 0

Forgiveness can wrap up the grief, but it does not prevent the inevitable and necessary suffering.  When there is a serious injury or loss, there is no way to avoid pain.  If you want to have a satisfactory future, you will need to feel the loss and then let go of the hurt it has caused you.  You need to forgive.

Even if you decide to divorce after a betrayal, you will still need to forgive….  When you forgive, you are able to be at peace even though rejection, disloyalty, and dishonesty have been a part of your life.

Your best chance for successful future relationships and overall happiness is to forgive your former partner.  Forgiveness is not a substitute for grief, nor does it preclude the pain caused by your partner’s cheating.  But it does gently allow your grief to ebb so that you can move on and live a successful life.

— Dr. Fred Luskin, Forgive for Love, p. 21

New Opportunities

Core Value, Healing, Joy, Life 0

So now you have the opportunity to keep your life gaslight-free and go on to a new future.  You have the chance to rework or leave unsatisfying relationships and choose new relationships that feed your sense of self, your vitality, and your joy.  You have the chance to become a stronger, more solid person who charts her own course and lives by her own values.  Most important, you have the chance to discover what you truly want — in your work, your home life, your relationships, and yourself.  Freed from the Gaslight Effect, you can make better choices, choices that are right for you.  As you begin this exciting new portion of your life’s journey, I wish you strength and spirit and all the luck in the world.

— Dr. Robin Stern, The Gaslight Effect, p. 233