Gratitude is not a feeling but a deliberate practice.*
Bernadette Jiwa
Ever wonder what God thinks of money? Just look at the people he gives it to.**
Anne Lamott
Gratitude fills me up
today and tomorrow too
and being my purest wealth
will never leave me poor
*Bernadette Jiwa’s Briefly blog: The Extraordinary In The Everyday;
**Anne Lamott’s Bird By Bird.
You have been formed of three parts – body, breath, and mind. Of these, the first two are yours insofar as they are only in your care. The third alone is truly yours.*
Marcus Aurelius
The narrative we run in our head is a choice. It might or might not be based on objective reality and verified history. Doesn’t matter, it’s still a choice…the key question is simple: Is it helping?…If it’s not helping, we can change it.**
Seth Godin
We roughly know how much time we have,
Though not specifically,
But what we do with this time –
How we imagine it –
Is up to us.
It’s strange how some very grounded stories
don’t help at all,
And then,
Some very imaginative ones do.
Perhaps it’s time to have another look
at our stories.
*Ryan Holiday’s The Daily Stoic;
**Seth Godin’s blog: Voluntary stories.
‘Finding your passion’ can often become a distraction from simply being passionate … And if you really think you’re not passionate … act like it anyway. It beats the alternative.*
Gabe Anderson
Your passion isn’t out there,
It’s a response inside of you to all of that,
So best to look at what’s already there
inside you.
*Gabe Anderson’s blog: A Word About Passion.
people don’t understand the components of drawing – the learnable components of drawing…they are not drawing skills at all, but seeing skills*
Carol Dweck
Blue moments are the brush of angel’s wings, sacred glimpses beyond the fabric of the named world. They are subjective experience that pull back the veil on something profoundly objective – something more real than the visible world itself.**
AleXander McManus
It is very likely that
nothing is as it seems –
There’s always more to
a person
an idea
an object
a moment
you.
Are we allowing ourselves
to see as skill and
mystery,
To touch the veil?
*Carol Dweck’s Mindset;
**AleXander McManus’ Blue Moments.
To be made of God its to be made of sacred imagination. It is to have the capacity to dream our way into new beginnings, in our lives and in our world.*
Philip Newell
In the fairytales I chose, the protagonists are not powerful in any conventional way, but they are active participants in their fate, leaving the familiar, taking risks, changing their lives, finding people worth connecting to, reaching out to help others, who will help them in return.**
Rebecca Solnit
In the beginning
imagination.
One life, two narratives–
The everyday and
the hero’s journey.
Neither more real
nor a fantasm
than the other.
Two necessary ways
to see
your one life.
You write the every day
every day,
But what if you were to
pen this as quest?
For the eye altering alters all.^
*Philip Newell’s Sacred Earth, Sacred Soul;
**Rebecca Solnit’s No Straight Road Takes You There;
^William Blake from John Higgs’ William Blake vs The World.
Stories come from nothing else but other stories. A story becomes especially powerful when it displays the mystery of its own origin. At the deepest level of any memorable story is the haunting presence of another story or even many other stories. They echo in each other.*
James Carse
We are, after all, God’s own question seeking an answer.**
Jacqueline Freeman
You have never been without
a story.
You began in the stories of
your parents, your god, the universe.
Your story has evolved and changed
through the inspirations and aspirations of others.
Nevertheless, your story is unique and,
I dare say, more glorious than you know.
Plumb the deepness, explore the mysteries,
A story answering the question of life.
*James Carse’s Breakfast At the Victory;
**Jacqueline Freeman’s Song of Increase.
We cannot change anything unless we accept it.*
Carl Jung
Narrative imagining – story – is the fundamental instrument of thought. Rational capacities depend upon it. It is out chief means of looking into the future, of predicting, of planning, and of explaining.**
Mark Turner
I do not like it,
But out there it
tortures at worst, and
taunts at best.
So I draw it close.
It appears surprised
by my openness and
inquiry, the offer of
an honest conversation.
The story is changing.
What was harassing
and hurtful at a distance,
Now pens a new plot with me–
lines of possibility.
*Oliver Burkeman’s Meditations For Mortals;
**Lisa Cron’s Story Or Die.
Silence is a great canvas for your thoughts. That vacuum helps turn all of your inputs to outputs. That lack of interruption helps you flow.*
Derek Sivers
I love to be alone. I have never found a companion that is so compatible as solitude. We are for the most part more lonely when we are among others then when we stay in our chambers.**
Henry David Thoreau
Solitude and silence
are traditionally disciplines
for the interior life.
There are two forms
of disciplines –
those for engagement
and those for withdrawal.
Solitude and silence
invite and welcome us
from a busy and
garrulous world.
They are not emptiness but
an overflowing accommodation for
curiosity, deep-diving
and playfulness.
*Derek Sivers’ Hell Yeah Or No;
**Henry David Thoreau’s Walden (adapted by Nicholas Bone).
Existential analysis aims at nothing more and nothing less than leading [people] to consciousness of their responsibility.*
Viktor Frankl
Brigid challenges us to be people on our knees, that is, people midwifing new births for this moment in time. The good news is that we don’t have to create the births. Our role, rather, is to midwife what is trying to come forth from deep within the human soul.**
Philip Newell
Viktor Frankl is one kind of midwife,
Philip Newell is another kind,
Then there’s you,
Not a copy but different again.
We have each found ourselves
in different contexts and situations,
Wonderfully diverse in
our mixes of talents, energies, and values.
I wrote out a sentence this morning
describing my midwifery–
Perhaps take this moment to
refocus on yours.
*Viktor Frankl’s The Doctor and the Soul;
**Philip Newell’s Sacred Earth, Sacred Soul.
The loser has more in common with the winner than with the person sitting on the sidelines…Results tend to find the person who stays in the game.*
James Clear
Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.**
The Apostle Paul
Goodness may lose many times
but this game is a long one–
It will take the rest of our lives.
I’m not giving up
on your goodness
or mine,
No matter this morning’s
radio news stories.^
*James Clear’s 3-2-1 newsletter: On winning and losing, making the most of accidents, and when waiting doesn’t work;
**Romans 12:21;
^What is the goodness you will not give up on bringing into the world?
THIN|SILENCE 
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