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