Dear God,
I know you never put more on us then we can bear, but this year has been filled with challenges. If I had to pick a word for that I have learned this year, it would be tenacity. I have learned to have the determination to rise about difficult circumstances. It does not mean it has been easy, but I am making myself rise. I am finding the strength within myself to keep on going.
There have been days when I felt so deeply and did see my own strength, but I would remember to release the fears that were obscuring my vision. You found your way of reminding me to be like the Tree of Heaven, the tree Betty Smith wrote about in her novel A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. She wrote, “Look at everything as though you were seeing it either for the first time or last time. Then your time on Earth will be filled with joy.”
Read moreAll this month, I have been thinking about forgiveness. Each week, I have learned something new about myself, something I need to let go of within myself and forgive myself for thinking, feeling, or internalizing. Planning Zoe’s 60th surprise birthday party has brought up a few things I needed to forgive. This week, I have had to learn to release expectations about people and events. I had to learn to let this weekend celebration of Zoe’s life be what it was supposed to be. I had to release my expectations that people would communicate with me when there was a change in plans, as I would have with them. I had to release my desire to have the whole family together at one time. As with relationships, once I learned to release expectations around how things were going to be, it was just fine. However, for that hour or so that I was working on releasing my dreams and fantasies, I have had to forgive myself for self-imposed suffering.
Read moreEvery morning one of the first things I do is to take time to thank you for at least five things I have been blessed with in my life. Sometimes they are not things in my life, but the absence of things in my life. When I hear of people who are struggling with and dying from addictions to drugs, or in abusive relationships, or homeless, and the list goes on, I am reminded to give thanks for all that I have not or am not experiencing in my life at this time.
One of the things I am eternally grateful for is that you love me unconditionally. You know my heart, and all the thoughts that float through my mind and you still love me unconditionally. You have loved me even when I have not always loved myself.
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There have been moments in my life when I wish I could wake up and be completely free from the Dream of the Planet. Moments when I did not have to work at being aware of what I was thinking and why and what I was working on hooking myself from in my life. The reality is that "The practice of awareness is a lifelong adventure.”
Everywhere I go in my life, I encounter the Dream of the Planet, and it challenges me to maintain my awareness. Maybe that is one of the reasons I enjoy working at home, it limits the challenges I have to face being out in the world each day. I do not have to work as hard to navigate all the illusions that I encounter in life or the conditions placed on me by others.
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“and
half of learning to play is learning what not to play
and she's learning the spaces she leaves have their own things to say
and she's trying to sing just enough so that the air around her moves
and make music like mercy that gives what it is and has nothing to prove
she crawls out on a limb and begins to build her home
and it's enough just to look around and to know that she's not alone
up up up up up up up points the spire of the steeple
but god's work isn't done by god
it's done by people”
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One of the lessons I remember learning growing up was how we should not judge others if we did not want others to judge us. For some reason, I found that hard to believe as I figured they were going to judge me anyway. Now, I realize that what others do is about them. My judging is about me. What got me thinking about this was something don Miguel Ruiz wrote in the Companion Guide to the Four Agreements. “We judge others according to our image of perfection as well, and naturally they fall short of our expectations.”
It made me stop and think about what my image of perfection is for those in my life. What is my image of the perfect partner? For my children (that includes all those who have adopted me as their mom)? For my parents, when they were alive? For my closest friends? For my brothers? For my relatives?
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