Divine Mercy Sunday

First post on New Blog...going to have to work out some bugs, but here goes! 

 

Got up with the sound of birds waking me and light just arriving over the house...watered my hard to reach plants with my newly extended hose and had a conversation with my tree in the front yard: "Are you ready to go to heaven?  I really may have to cut you down in order to get a good price on the house.  Do you mind? You've had a good life..."  and I thought, "killing a tree for profit...I'm not a very nice person."  But perhaps Grandpa (from The Education of Little Tree) would probably tell me that there is an order to things and perhaps this is the time for the tree to go.  My grandkids have made it clear that they don't want me to take down the swinging tree in the back yard...

Holding on and letting go. Being part of something and then not being part of something. Doing a retreat...puts people in such a high that they believe anything is possible, but then, they let go...and go back to what was, thinking sometimes: this is as good as it gets.

I suppose it is more like: this is as good as you let it get.  Changing a long lived habit pretty much takes every bit of your strength...or perhaps a great tragedy. My chaplain world would say something like: disenchantment or chaos or an unbalance...my nerd side would call it: a disturbance in the force...

Something that prompts us to action, most often to return to the status quo...the way its always been. 

There's that book, "The Dream Giver" which reminds me of Pilgrim's Progress. We get an idea for the life, a dream, we want, and we start on a journey to get there...immediately we encounter obstacles: the work is harder than we thought, it is not quite what we expected...and sometimes the people we love most are the ones who are working hard to see that we do not change, or grow. They don't understand that there are times to hold on and times to let go.  They don't have the dream, so you must forgive them and move on...if you really believe in your dream.

This is the journey of the Pilgrim too. You will encounter all sorts of distractions, people who will be your "balcony people" (cheering you on) and people who will say the thing they know will put you "back in your proper place."  It's all part of the deal. You find out how committed you are. You discover if this is the real dream

I was confronted with some interesting challenges this week: people for whom I was the exact right person for the job...and others, for whom it became obvious that someone else could do a better job. I said yes to some work and no to other work. I was called "not very Christian" when I said no...and because that comment "got me hot" inside, I realized again that I have still much work to do on that forgiveness thing.  Not that I needed to say yes, but that I needed to forgive the person who said it, because they were speaking from their need...which did not match mine.

We need to nurture our moral compass. Teach it to work by the values we have learned about the things that make life good.  Clean house, rake the leaves, plant a garden that we can enjoy walking in, inviting others to come and share a meal.

 

 

As this is Divine Mercy Sunday...and there is much going on today around the world...I think it is important that maybe we "import" some divine mercy on ourselves...and dare to live our dreams...or perhaps continue to seek that which completes us.  We need to not be so hard on ourselves (oh I have a PhD in that one!) and just follow the road, one step at a time...learning how to hold on to that which builds us up and to cast away that which separates us from real joy. 

Make a list, a NICE list. A list of your STRENGTHS. A list of your GIFTS: "Who I am." Do it for a few days. Maybe a week.  Then make another list: "Who I want to be" And then try "how am I going to get there?" list.

All the while, offering divine mercy to yourself and others, who come along in that story, or journey...and kind of "get in the way."  Forgive them. Let them go, if you cannot forgive them enough to let them stay. Accept that all change feels like chaos in the beginning, that it might hurt a bit, or a lot, that there may be more to cleaning house than you thought. If you succeed, hooray. If you don't...well, maybe that wasn't really your dream...or if it was, get up and try again.

The great thing about being alive: there are always options you haven't thought of yet.

Yeah...I'm really out there today. Hugs.