Currie's Gratitude 31 January 2014

Imperfections are not inadequacies; they are reminders that we're all in this together.  [Brené Brown]

It amazes me how easily I can fall into the trap of trying for perfection. Or comparing myself and my effort to another whom I have deemed “right” if NOT “perfect.”

When I slow down and think things more clearly, I realise that there is no such thing as perfection, at least BEyond that shadowy thing that plays with my mind.

I've learned recently to love imperfection a lot because it shines such a big light on God's grace. And if someone has grace for you that's when you feel their love the most and they see you for who you are and they love you anyway.  [Lacey Mosley]

Such a revelation, this lovely thought. I notice in myself a leaning toward slowing down and enJOYing the imperfections in my Journey. And when I simply settle into it, when I am able to feel myself wholly connected with What Is and What Is NOT, I am done in by the generosity of grace.

It is only imperfection that complains of what is imperfect. The more perfect we are the more gentle and quiet we become towards the defects of others.   [Joseph Addison]

I like it when something is so clarifying. And so simplifying.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 30 January 2014

In the process of letting go you will lose many things from the past, but you will find yourself.  [Deepak Chopra]

Even when I don’t want to, when I am thinking I can certainly hang onto this, that, or the other, deeper inside myself I know I Have To Let It Go. This is something of a mantra for me Now.

  

I have clung so to things and my ideas about them that I haven’t really accepted that sometimes, actually most of the time, I HAVE TO Let Go.

We must be willing to let go of the life we’ve planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us. [Joseph Campbell]

The thing is, mostly people don’t think to DO this. I often don’t. I think my plans or goals or ideas, even my ideals, are The Way. And so I decide I am lost when I seem to have lost my way.

Really, as I scan lightly in the rear view mirror, I have been most “found” when I haven’t had a Plan or Way.

When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be. When I let go of what I have, I receive what I need.   [Tao Te Ching]

This is exquisitely true, so far as I know.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 29 January 2014

Once the realization is accepted that even between the closest human beings infinite distances continue, a wonderful living side by side can grow, if they succeed in loving the distance between them which makes it possible for each to see the other whole against the sky.  [Rainer Maria Rilke]

I never really grasped this idea when I had the chance in my Life to BE close, really close with another human. But I DO understand it better Now. And I have learned it from Gracie. MayBE that is just a default of BEing close to a dog, but I think it has to DO with effort and choice.

We are not the same persons this year as last; nor are those we love. It is a happy chance if we, changing, continue to love a changed person.   [W. Somerset Maugham]

This is what I think is the hardest of all things. On the face of it I wouldn’t imagine that so, but if I am honest, I have to own up to it.

Our business in life is not to succeed, but to continue to fail in good spirits.   [Robert Louis Stevenson]

What a concept. An ambition. I love it.

Do not fear mistakes. You will know failure. Continue to reach out.  [Benjamin Franklin]

Exactly. What he said.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 28 January 2014

When you challenge other people's ideas of who or how you should be, they may try to diminish and disgrace you. It can happen in small ways in hidden places, or in big ways on a world stage. You can spend a lifetime resenting the tests, angry about the slights and the injustices. Or, you can rise above it.   [Carly Fiorina]

I suppose all families have familiar expressions. “Rise Above It” is one from mine. I’ve never liked it. I always feel it smacks of cynicism.

And yet, reading it here I think, Ah-Hah!! That’s what I need to DO!!

You must accept that you might fail; then, if you do your best and still don't win, at least you can be satisfied that you've tried. If you don't accept failure as a possibility, you don't set high goals, you don't branch out, you don't try - you don't take the risk.   [Rosalynn Carter]

My word for 2014 is Branch. I notice myself still skirting round the edges of the room with it. NOT really “getting” it. But it’s only January…

What I like here is that Life really is about Trying, and often, too, about failing. But that is Life.

Oh, the thinks you can think up if only you try!   [Dr. Seuss]

That one I like!!!

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 27 January 2014

Ironically, parenting is a shame and judgment minefield precisely because most of us are wading through uncertainty and self-doubt when it comes to raising our children.   [Brene Brown] 

I’m so often in doubt I wonder if I know what it is for me to BE sure of something. I see that when I am still and quiet here in the mornings of my days. I lose track of it when I am in the flow of living my Life.

I don’t know that we are made nor meant to BE so sure of anything, especially ourselves. I think this Life thing is all about wondering and BEing uncertain.

Doubt isn't the opposite of faith; it is an element of faith.   [Paul Tillich]

If this is true, and I BElieve it is, then I have great faith. Far greater than I could have imagined. There is a place in me that sits comfortably on the very pokey fence that is on one side certain and the other in doubt. About everything.

I ask questions and then I listen and wait and try to deeply hear the answers that come. Always. They DO always come. Just NOT when or how I think they should.

And your doubt can become a good quality if you train it…    [Rainer Maria Rilke]

Ahhhhhhh…

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 26 January 2014

I always wondered why somebody doesn't do something about that. Then I realized I was somebody. [Lily Tomlin]

Isn’t it funny how this sort of thought occurs?! How it pops up and then that little voice says, What Are YOU Going To DO About That?! and then that smile comes inside?!

I wondered to what extent people remained the same as they'd been when very young; if one peeled back the layers of living one would come to the know child.  [Dick Francis]

The thing is, for me, I often wonder what happened to the ME I was BEfore Now. Or a really long time ago. Or if the ME I remember, the one who did the things I did, the only one who could possibly remember what I thought or felt, has just forgotten or chooses NOT to remember.

I know sometimes, too, I wish I could spend a day as me at another age or time, knowing something that was BEyond my grasp Then. I know Life isn’t like that. I just wonder. And the wondering is healing.

What is it like to fall asleep? What happens? Where do we go? Why don't we remember? Since childhood most of us have wondered about the mystery of sleep.  [Henry Reed]

Seriously… I DO wonder some curious things.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 25 January 2014

There's war - there's always been war, as long as most of us have been alive. There have always been people being abused, there's always been horrible things in the world. Why are we outraged? We should just be quiet and figure it out, and work it out together.  [Dave Matthews]

Sometimes, just BEing, I have the sense that I am checking out. That I don’t really care. But the thing is, I am just NOT strident and outspoken. I think I am really a quiet sort, thoughtful, and yes, even intense in my commitment to certain ideas and ideals.

I much prefer collaborations and working together to find solutions. I’ve marched and I have demonstrated, but I feel my best work has happened without notice or fanfare of any sort.

If you have an enemy, then learn and know your enemy, don't just be mad at him or her.  [Denzel Washington]

It seems a lot of Life I have “just been mad” at those I have NOT understood. And I have thought that would BE Enough to keep things from getting too close to me, or taking me over.

Now I am shifting gears. I am BEing deliberate. I am trying to understand what it is that makes me retreat.

I am trying just to stay Present.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 24 January 2014

Sometimes it is better not to know. Sometimes when you do know you just fold up.  [Robin McKinley, Sunshine]

The things I don’t know are BEyond counting. BEyond listing. BEyond really grasping. It is good to remember this. It is good to remember when I don’t understand another person that I don’t understand BEcause I don’t know and I don’t know BEcause I canNOT BEgin to understand. No matter if I want to. No matter how hard I try.

I've been making a list of the things they don't teach you at school. They don't teach you how to love somebody… They don't teach you how to walk away from someone you don't love any longer. They don't teach you how to know what's going on in someone else's mind. They don't teach you what to say to someone who's dying. They don't teach you anything worth knowing. [Neil Gaiman]

I don’t know what it’s like to BE You. I don’t know what it’s like, really, to BE Me. I am interested though. And I am curious.

I am also respectful. Some of what it is, BEing ourselves, is best left unknown, and certainly NOT dissected.

Knowing I don’t know is HUGE. Imagine for a moment what it was like BEfore knowing… yeah, it’s good NOT knowing everything.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 23 January 2014

It's not vanity to feel you have a right to be beautiful. Women are taught to feel we're not good enough, that we must live up to someone else's standards. But my aim is to cherish myself as I am. [Elle Macpherson]

Seems quite odd to quote a supermodel, but there you go. Everyone has something to share. And anyone can BE a teacher. I was writing this morning about what MY Standards are. It was enLIGHTening. And fun. And hard to stop. I am daily deLIGHTed to discover new ways to know myself more deeply.

I encourage teachers to speak in their own voices. Don't use the gibberish of the standards writers. [Jonathan Kozol]

There are many things that are part of Life that make me want to break glass. I am learning that this has less to DO with my standards and more to DO with my opinions. I think it exemplifies my arrogance.

I was always too timid to face this about myself. Until Now. This desire to break glass is in my own control. And it always was, even when I was so sure MY WAY was superior. Humbling discovery.

The world is not ready for some people when they show up, but that shouldn't stop anyone. [Ashly Lorenzana]

I really love this one!

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 22 January 2014

I know how easy it is for one to stay well within moral, ethical, and legal bounds through the skillful use of words - and to thereby spin, sidestep, circumvent, or bend a truth completely out of shape. To that extent, we are all liars on numerous occasions.   [Sidney Poitier]

What an interesting way to say that we are all given to lies, party to them, or under their “acceptable” influence just by BEing in the World. I was thinking just this sort of thing yesterday in a situation. Why people don’t say what is so but simply let it BE as it is…

I have noticed in myself a leaning toward complaining or judging, and often both, RATHER THAN DOing something. I called myself out on it yesterday and what a difference it made to my day!!!

Heart is what drives us and determines our fate. That is what I need for my characters in my books: a passionate heart. I need mavericks, dissidents, adventurers, outsiders and rebels, who ask questions, bend the rules and take risks.   [Isabel Allende]

I am NOT a fan of colouring inside the lines. Nor particularly one to make a spectacle of myself. I simply approach Life with the desire to LIVE FULLY.

This can BE as simple as bending toward unknowns.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 21 January 2014

Don't write anything you can phone. Don't phone anything you can talk. Don't talk anything you can whisper. Don't whisper anything you can smile. Don't smile anything you can nod. Don't nod anything you can wink.   [Earl Long] 

The other day I found myself in a discussion about athletes using drugs sending emails. It wasn’t but a few seconds BEfore I realised that the context was convoluted. The fact is, the World today is one of emails and drugging and what can BE proven to BE true and what can BE got away with.

I had another conversation yesterday about how kids Nowadays are so much LESS free than I was when I was a child. Again the convolution struck me.

Life is. Or, as many say, I included, It Is What It Is. But that does NOT mean we just sit down and let it BE what it will BE and never give it another thought. BEcause, Life is NOT going to go backward.

The happiness of life is made up of minute fractions - the little, soon forgotten charities of a kiss or a smile, a kind look or heartfelt compliment.  [Samuel Taylor Coleridge]

I think winks and smiles and tiny nods are some of the kindest and most treasured gifts we can give or receive.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 20 January 2014

This is my simple religion. There is no need for temples; no need for complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own heart is our temple; the philosophy is kindness.  [Dalai Lama]

It is NOT always the easy thing to ask myself: How Much DO I Need?! I’ve been marinating in How Much CAN I GET?! for 60 years. Yet lately I ask this question ALL. THE. TIME. And I even stick around to hear my answer.

Never make your home in a place. Make a home for yourself inside your own head. You'll find what you need to furnish it - memory, friends you can trust, love of learning, and other such things. That way it will go with you wherever you journey.  [Tad Williams]

When I moved, came BACK to Arizona, I discovered that I had done this. I had made my Home “livable and moveable,” the two things I intended to DO when I left AZ in 2009. At that time I suppose I thought it still needed to BE a “thing,” yet in those 4 years I spent in the Wee Cottage, I discovered there was a fully furnished and perfect-for-ME Home Right Inside of ME.

Amazing!!

What we need is more people who specialize in the impossible.  [Theodore Roethke]

That is so exquisitely brilliant!!

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 19 January 2014

And it comes from saying no to 1,000 things to make sure we don't get on the wrong track or try to do too much. We're always thinking about new markets we could enter, but it's only by saying no that you can concentrate on the things that are really important.   [Steve Jobs]

I’ve often said that NO is a complete sentence. I BElieve it. Finally. I like what Steve Jobs said here, too. Often the something needing to BE said, and said again, is NO. Period.

I have always felt that I MUST give reasons for saying NO. I’ve stopped. Now I say NO. Period. [okay, sometimes I say NO, thank you, BEcause I DO BElieve that makes the sentence more me than just NO. period.]

Arranging a bowl of flowers in the morning can give a sense of quiet in a crowded day - like writing a poem or saying a prayer.  [Anne Morrow Lindbergh]

Sometimes I wonder at my mornings. Why I DO them this way after over 50 years of an entirely other way. And you know, it’s like this: I BEgin my day in a gentle and quiet way to bring that gentleness and quiet into the day itself.

It is a simple thing. It works for me. And saying so is Enough.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 18 January 2014

Be Impeccable With Your Word. Speak with integrity. Say only what you mean. Avoid using the word to speak against yourself or to gossip about others. Use the power of your word in the direction of truth and love.   [Miguel Angel Ruiz]

Sometimes there is a foundation upon which I operate. Sometimes… NOT always. I wonder if this is true of others. MayBE. Perhaps NOT. But these words are what I would wish to BE in my foundation.

My life has no purpose, no direction, no aim, no meaning, and yet I'm happy. I can't figure it out. What am I doing right?  [Charles M. Schulz] 

Earlier I was writing about how, even when I am in pain, I manage to make my day the best day it can BE. I used to NOT. I used to wallow in my pain and want to “kill it” and just “get through this day!!”

Instead, I have carried on, this time, yet again, and I, too, wonder what DO I know Now that I did NOT know then?!

The good life is a process, not a state of being. It is a direction not a destination.  [Carl Rogers]

Same as the idea that Life is a Journey, this is a helpful truth and a good “direction” for living my Life.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 17 January 2014

If you want a long-term relationship that doesn't require a lot of work, I say, get a dog. They love you no matter what. But when it comes to humans, there's no secret; you really have to appreciate the person every single day.  [Denis Leary]

While it isn’t the easiest thing to make the time to appreciate, I have discovered if I DO take that time, it gives my time more juice, if that makes sense. People are very forgetful and their thinking doesn’t ever stay in that “happy zone.” I have yet to meet anyone who does NOT think everything is about them, especially anything that goes haywire or that they canNOT understand.

We don't need a melting pot in this country, folks. We need a salad bowl. In a salad bowl, you put in the different things. You want the vegetables - the lettuce, the cucumbers, the onions, the green peppers - to maintain their identity. You appreciate differences.  [Jane Elliot]

I love this. It is simple. A direct hit. And it makes me laugh. What astonishes me is realising that I have ALWAYS wanted to Change [although I call it “improving”] someone else instead of simply appreciating their differences.

…there isn't anyone who doesn't appreciate kindness and compassion.  [Dalai Lama]

This makes things much simpler.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 16 January 2014

When you have got an elephant by the hind legs and he is trying to run away, it's best to let him run. [Abraham Lincoln]

A silly quote, perhaps… Although I think it speaks volumes. Sometimes I try SO HARD to DO something and when I stop, for just a moment, trying so hard, I will see things in a new Light. And that Light can make all the difference which my trying could NEVER accomplish.

If only we'd stop trying to be happy we'd have a pretty good time. [Edith Wharton]

I don’t think I am the only one who has hopped on the merry-go-round of TRYING to BE Happy. I think Happy is; or that it is NOT. But it isn’t something to try to “get” or have.

Just living my Life, Now, I am finding is Enough. I don’t need some thing that is BEyond my reach. I don’t require anything I don’t already have. I simply need to STOP TRYING and BE happy. Had I known this BEfore [or chosen to stop trying so hard] I can imagine a lot of what I struggled against would have been no struggle at all really.

Try to be like the turtle - at ease in your own shell.  [Bill Copeland]

YES!! What he said. That’s it!!

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 15 January 2014

It is a narrow mind which cannot look at a subject from various points of view.  [George Eliot, Middlemarch]

It astonishes me how distracting I sometimes find other people. I don’t mean that to sound or BE “mean” in any sense. I actually just noticed this. Or so it seems.

I try hard to NOT judge so as NOT to label others “distracting,” but lately I haven’t pulled it off too well. I seem to hear everything through a filter. The sort that wants LESS so I need to “strain” everything that comes in.

If we are always arriving and departing, it is also true that we are eternally anchored. One's destination is never a place but rather a new way of looking at things.    [Henry Miller]

I DO think this is what perspective is all about. I keep asking myself, Why DO I see this this way NOW, when I saw it so differently THEN?! I am NOT getting answers, but I AM finding some perspective…

For what you see and hear depends a good deal on where you are standing: it also depends on what sort of person you are.  [C.S. Lewis, The Magician's Nephew]

This is really the key to it. Anytime. Anywhere. Anything. It depends on WHO one is and HOW one sees something.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 14 January 2014

We must dare to think 'unthinkable' thoughts. We must learn to explore all the options and possibilities that confront us in a complex and rapidly changing world.  [J. William Fulbright]

What is that, an “unthinkable” thought?! I wonder… In my early writing this morning I was exploring someplace that I usually don’t want to wander even in thought, much less in words. I was challenging myself a little, perhaps. Taking another path, the one I usually would avoid. It did NOT disappoint, I have to admit…

A season of suffering is a small assignment when compared to the reward. Rather than begrudge your problem, explore it. Ponder it. And most of all, use it. Use it to the glory of God.  [Max Lucado]

I haven’t always felt that problems were gifts. Blessings in disguise. But as I reflect I can see it was indeed the case, time and time again. I think this is an extraordinarily useful perspective. It gives me a way through such patches of Life that is BEautimous and Possible rather than ugly and overwhelming.

A world in which elves exist and magic works offers greater opportunities to digress and explore.  [Terry Brooks]

Life can disappoint when I expect magic and elves. It only Now occurs to me that expectations are the source of disappointment.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 13 January 2014

Trust is to human relationships what faith is to gospel living. It is the beginning place, the foundation upon which more can be built. Where trust is, love can flourish.  [Barbara Smith]

We DO have to BEgin somewhere. And usually it is going to BE exactly Where We Are at Present. So I wonder… Where is it I find myself Right Now?! What is it that I want to build upon?! What CAN and DO I trust and truly BElieve in?!

These may sound adolescent and perhaps they are, but that is where I find the possibility of ANYthing to BE. Wherever it is I am and whatever it is that might BE called the conditions of Life at the moment.

It is precisely because neither individuals nor small groups can be fully self-sufficient that cooperation is necessary to human survival and flourishing.  [Tom G. Palmer]

I don’t think I realise how much I BElieve there is limitation in self-sufficiency. I have worked hard to make myself self-sustaining and self-supporting, but self-sufficient is another giraffe entirely. Often it seems that without someone and something BEyond myself, BEyond my little Life, to contribute to and serve, Life is almost hollow.

We need a place in which we may flourish and be ourselves.  [Timothy Radcliffe]

And Let It BE Now.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 12 January 2014

The fact that I can plant a seed and it becomes a flower, share a bit of knowledge and it becomes another's, smile at someone and receive a smile in return, are to me continual spiritual exercises. [Leo Buscaglia]

I am, daily, amazed at the way I can make a difference. It is NOT the big band get out the parade sort of DOing or Difference either. It is much smaller. Something even invisible, to anyone looking. And yet, little bit by slow bit I think I have matured in this one way. And this is cause for great happiness.

By having a reverence for life, we enter into a spiritual relation with the world. By practicing reverence for life we become good, deep, and alive. [Albert Schweitzer]

I just finished reading about Schweitzer, which makes his words all the more relevant to me . It is often in such reading that I discover where I am Spiritually, and where I am NOT.

I am a seeker. I have always loved reading about others’ Journeys in this Life.

The maturity that is Spiritual Maturity is a treasure I didn’t even know to seek. I didn’t know until I got somewhere else why I had been where I was. This might sound odd, indeed it may BE.

Just saying…

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 11 January 2014

A deep sense of love and belonging is an irreducible need of all people. We are biologically, cognitively, physically, and spiritually wired to love, to be loved, and to belong. When those needs are not met, we don't function as we were meant to. We break. We fall apart. We numb. We ache. We hurt others. We get sick.  [Brene Brown]

BElonging is a bit of a conundrum for me. I think sometimes this is due to how much I love BEing alone. And sometimes I think my love of BEing alone is due to NOT feeling that I BElong. Or have BElonged. Anywhere.

I didn't belong as a kid, and that always bothered me. If only I'd known that one day my differentness would be an asset, then my early life would have been much easier. [Bette Midler]

I’m familiar with this. I never felt I BElonged anywhere, well, only for a short while, until nearly the end of 4^th grade. After that I just drifted, floated, came in and went out…

Now I feel at home in my soul. I am less concerned with WHERE I BElong than that I truly BElong with and, of course, to myself.

Sometimes I wonder why it took so long, then I realise that is a waste of Right Now.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 10 January 2014

My coming to faith did not start with a leap but rather a series of staggers from what seemed like one safe place to another. Like lily pads, round and green, these places summoned and then held me up while I grew. Each prepared me for the next leaf on which I would land, and in this way I moved across the swamp of doubt and fear.  [Anne Lamott]

Much of Life is, for me, just this way. I often will stand where I find myself and see the path I took to arrive there. It looks pretty happenstance and fly by the seat of my pants, but it also could NOT BE one bit different to BE whatever it is.

As I have grown into WHO I AM today, I have always had “lily pads” to keep me safe from great dunks in the mighty swamps I’ve travelled.

If you have the guts to keep making mistakes, your wisdom and intelligence leap forward with huge momentum.  [Holly Near]

That is what it is, after all, making mistakes. Life is all about making mistakes. Getting it wrong. Missing that mark. Seeing how it might have gone better had I NOT done or done one thing or another.

Yet those mistakes and wrong turns made it a Grand Adventure.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 9 January 2014

In our development, as we grow throughout our lives, the structure of our beliefs becomes very complicated, and we make it even more complicated because we make the assumption that what we believe is the absolute truth.  [Miguel Angel Ruiz]

Assuming anything seems utterly and completely dangerous. It is NOT that I think all assumption should BE done away with, but I’ve rarely met an assumption that didn’t lack something essential.

My assumption when I began writing was that you were never going to make any money. And you were never going to reach everyone. Therefore you had to do as much as you could in the service of something you genuinely believed in. And if you do that and people get upset, well, there you go.
[Dorothy Allison]

When I went to college I wanted to BE an artist. I wanted to BE something I thought learning and following a certain path would let me BEcome.

Pretty quickly I learned that at that time in that school the idea of artist was something that didn’t match my idea of artist.

For years then, I put my focus and energy elsewhere. Assuming that the 18-year old me had it down. So it is no surprise to me, at 60, to BE finding out how wrong my assumptions were…

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 8 January 2014

Consider the rights of others before your own feelings, and the feelings of others before your own rights.  [John Wooden]

There seems to BE a bit of a “bug” moving through me lately. I call it that BEcause it feels like when “something’s going around” and I am NOT sure if I BElieve that to BE the case OR if I am susceptible to what others think.

Life is like this sometimes, isn’t it?! Sometimes it utterly sweeps me away, and others it leaves me languishing in a dustbin.

To consider persons and events and situations only in the light of their effect upon myself is to live on the doorstep of hell.  [Thomas Merton]

Whenever I stop staring at my own belly button long enough to see that I have been staring at my own belly button, I have the sense that I have been talking in my sleep and have woken up to realise it. Yet kept talking.

The World is NOT all about ME, and NOT everything that crosses my path needs me to consider it deeply. Even consider it at all. Yet so often it seems I must yank myself away from seeing everything in terms of its effect on me. As much as I want to STOP DOing this completely, I’ve NOT.

Yet…

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 7 January 2014

All the world is made of faith, and trust, and pixie dust.  [J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan]

Much is said [as well much has been written] about Faith. What it is. Who is full of it. Who is NOT. Walking by it. Organising it. Having it. NOT having it.

And when it comes right on down to the place where I sit, I wonder if I have it “Right.” Is it Faith that keeps me DOing what I DO and BEing how I am?! Or is it any one point-to-able thing?!

I have come to accept the feeling of not knowing where I am going. And I have trained myself to love it. Because it is only when we are suspended in mid-air with no landing in sight, that we force our wings to unravel and alas begin our flight. And as we fly, we still may not know where we are going to. But the miracle is in the unfolding of the wings. You may not know where you're going, but you know that so long as you spread your wings, the winds will carry you.  [C. JoyBell C.]

For me, for Right Now, this is an extraordinarily simple definition of Faith. That knowing without knowing HOW or WHEN or WHAT.

This is where I’m walking by Faith.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 6 January 2104

In the space between yes and no, there's a lifetime. It's the difference between the path you walk and the one you leave behind; it's the gap between who you thought you could be and who you really are; it’s the legroom for the lies you'll tell yourself in the future.  [Jodi Picoult]

When I think of the space BEtween as Life, suddenly things make more sense. Come more simply. Seem more palatable.

I’m never really “IN” the spaces BEtween, I don’t think, until I suddenly, or mayBE NOT so suddenly, realise that I’ve been waiting for or looking back with longing.

Right Now is the only Time. Yesterday. Tomorrow. Last year. Next year. Those are all in my head. Fluff. No more than imaginings and of far less importance than I assume.

I am learning, I am leaning into this space, the space I imagine as “in BEtween” whatever came BEfore or may come After.

I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.   [E. B. White]

This is so like I feel when I am having a day BEgin. I want to DO good things and serve Life yet I also just love BEing. Just living Life.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 5 January 2014

A cynic can chill and dishearten with a single word. [Ralph Waldo Emerson]

There are a great many ways the word CHILL is used. I like that about words. I like their depth and juiciness. I know many people use CHILL as a verb, when they say Chill Out. Others think about it in terms of the weather, as in the Chill Factor.

Emerson, however, has brought more of a “quilted” definition to Light. For me anyway. I think of cynicism and sarcasm as knives. They cut quick and fast. They go deep. And the odd thing is, I have always had the sense that the cynical and sarcastic mean their words as wise and insightful twists of a phrase.

Men are apt to mistake the strength of their feeling for the strength of their argument. The heated mind resents the chill touch and relentless scrutiny of logic. [William E. Gladstone]

This has often tripped me up. I feel things deeply. I have strong ideas, but if I find myself in a situation that calls for a debate, I’ll shut down.

I feel what I feel and think what I think yet it is all too intense. I know that my thoughtsandfeelings will BE cut to shreds.

And I care too deeply to let that BE their lot.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 4 January 2014

And were an epitaph to be my story I'd have a short one ready for my own. I would have written of me on my stone: I had a lover's quarrel with the world.   [Robert Frost]

Sometimes I think about my story. The story line, you might say. I was writing earlier about how seriously and personally I’ve taken Life. I write to understand myself. To see myself from a remove that I canNOT find staying closed-up and tightly-wound.

The man who goes alone can start today; but he who travels with another must wait till that other is ready.  [Henry David Thoreau]

I have often thought that I am simply NOT made for relationships. I mean, the sort where you travel in pairs. Or live, staying at home in one… I have enJOYed these relationships immensely, yet I find I’ve flourished flying solo.

In these past 7 years of living alone, I have made a great many changes. And several moves. Yet the thing that I never imagined could BE is. I prefer this. I choose this. I want this. Such a surprise…

The only books that influence us are those for which we are ready, and which have gone a little farther down our particular path than we have yet got ourselves.  [E. M. Forster]

Mmmmmmmm.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 3 January 2014

We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love. There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies.  [Martin Luther King, Jr.]

I have withheld my love and forgiveness, my kindness and compassion, and never has it improved my Life or any situation. Nor has it made the sort of difference I wish to make in this one precious Life I have been given.

Now I forgive quickly. Without all the mind-bending-brain-cramping of BEfore. Ahhhhhhh!!!

There is no passion to be found playing small - in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living.  [Nelson Mandela]

Getting by is tempting, while living full-out holding nothing back is amazing!!! I won’t say I always bounce about like Tigger when opportunities present themselves, but I ALWAYS choose to give of myself and whatever I have fearlessly. Needing to “hold on” is simply erroneous.

If you plan on being anything less than you are capable of being, you will probably be unhappy all the days of your life.  [Abraham Maslow]

I guarantee this is true. I’ve done studies.

I love you, Currie

Currie's Gratitude 2 January 2014

I invent nothing, I rediscover.  [Auguste Rodin]

I’ve been thinking lately about two sides of the same whatever: Am I following someone else’s footprints or am I making my own way through the forest called My Life?! It seems to BE a question that only hangs in the air. Like a fog on the windshield.

I think of the Journey up until Now and I can see that both things are true of my rear view… So what Now?! DO I put an emphasis on my interpretation or DO I merely keep on as I am?!

I canNOT imagine an inventor thinks in such a fashion, but then, mayBE I don’t know, y’know?!

To invent an airplane is nothing. To build one is something. But to fly is everything. [Otto Lilienthal]

That’s quite a thing I BElieve. This is a lot what the creative process is, at least for me, and what I canNOT seem to put into words when someone reflects out loud on something I have created.

It is NOT an effort to “invent” my art or words. Making art and writing words both DO take some sort of something. But to Let Go of that little ball of energy or Light inside of me and send it out into the World, that is definitely EVERYthing!!!

I love you, Currie