Spirit In Gear

Quote for 10/08/07

Just to be is a blessing; just to live is holy.

- unknown

Quote for 9/18/07

The hardest job in the world is to be simply and fully human.  This does not mean to roll along, acting out all your insecurities, uncertainties, and partial selves.  This addition of 'kindness toward the incomplete' is what makes you completely human.  It gives you the context in which you can exist in wholeness.  This kindness-toward-the-incomplete is God's gift to you.  It is the actual Presence of God in you.  It is the way God finds perfection in this incomplete and imperfect world.

- Jason Shulman, The Instruction Manual for Receiving God

Quote for 8/21/07

When I dare to be powerful - to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid.

- Audre Lorde

This quote rocked me this morning when I read it.  Focusing on my power/strength, rather than my fear, encourages me to take another step closer to manifesting my vision, regardless of the butterflies in my stomach.

Quote for 7/10/07

Sometimes the most important thing in a whole day is the rest we take between two deep breaths, or the turning inwards in prayer for five short minutes.

- Etty Hillesum

Today these words wash a sense of ease and relief over me.  Good timing . . . we return from our Colorado vacation late this morning, after spending the night on cots at O'Hare International.  Earlier storms there in Chicago delayed flights and caused hundreds like us to miss connecting flights.  So we arrive home safely, if a day late. 

Amidst the pile of laundry from unpacked suitcases, the email/snail mail to wade through, the phone calls to make, the food to purchase, and the usual general catching up, these words remind me to pluck the rest between the moments.

Quote for 6/26/07

The heart is right to cry even when the smallest drop of light, of love is taken away . . . You are right to do so in any fashion until God returns to you.

~ Hafiz, translated by Daniel Ladinsky, The Gift, Poems by Hafiz

This quote arrives in my inbox the morning after I learn that my 79 yr. old mother has been diagnosed with the beginning stages of Alzheimer's.  The night before, my mind takes in the news with quiet calmness.  It isn't until the following morning that my heart replies with tears and aching.

Over a week has passed since I learn of my mother's diagnosis.  I observe how my mind races ahead to the future, to a time when my mother remains alive but is totally lost to us and to reality.  I feel jolted that what I consider the constants in my life, the vitality of my parents, is slowing changing.  Grim pictures indeed. 

Another part of me takes over.  The inner wisdom that advises me to take this one step at a time.  To remain in the present.  To appreciate the gift of time I still have with my mother.  And to remember that God does not return to me, I return to the knowing of God's eternal presence in my life.

Quote for 6/19/07

This world is a mountain, in which your works are echoed back to you.

- Jelaluddin Rumi

Wake-Up Quote

It is only when we have the courage to face things exactly as they are, without any self-deception or illusion, that a light will develop out of events, by which the path to success may be recognized.

~ Ching: Hexagram 5, HsuWaiting

Reading this quote felt akin to falling out of bed with a graceless thud.  Let's just say these words jolted me out of my slightly illusory world.

Darn . . . does this mean I should take off my rose colored glasses, shake up my pre-conceived ideas, and discard my closely-held beliefs about how things SHOULD be? 

Well, Debbie, you could try it and see what happens.  You'd probably free up the energy used to hold the deceptions and illusions in place.

Hey, this reminds me of Eckhart Tolle's body of work on stillness and the power of now:

The more you are able to honor and accept the Now, the more you are free of pain, of suffering -- and free of the egoic mind.  - Eckhart Tolle

Still learning . . . enough said.

Quote for 12-21-06

In the hectic rush of this Christmas season, take a moment to pause and inhale a dose of inspiration with these words:

Sacred space and sacred time and something joyous to do is all we need.  Almost anything then becomes a continuous and increasing joy.

- Joseph Campbell