nothing but You

let nothing disturb you,
let nothing frighten you,
all things are passing away:
God never changes.
patience obtains all things
whoever has God lacks nothing;
God alone suffices.

- st. teresa of avila -

power. light.

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant,
gorgeous, talented, fabulous?
Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God.
Your playing small does not serve the world.
There is nothing enlightened about shrinking
so that other people won't feel insecure around you.
We are all meant to shine, as children do.
We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.
It is not just in some of us; it is in everyone.
And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously
give other people permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our own fear,
our presence automatically liberates others.

- a return to love - marianne williamson -

wounds + warmth

During the Ice Age, many animals died because of the cold. Seeing this situation, the porcupines decided to group together, so they wrapped up well and protected one another.

But they hurt one another with their thorns, and so then they decided to stay apart from one another.

They started to freeze to death again.

So they had to make a choice: either they vanished from the face of the earth or they accepted their neighbor’s thorns.

They wisely decided to stay together again. They learned to live with the small wounds that a very close relationship could cause, because the most important thing was the warmth given by the other.

And in the end they survived.

- posted on paulo coelho's blog, as told to him by reader alvaro conegundes -

just a different place

- excerpts from Emily Perl Kingsley's "welcome to holland" -

I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability.. It's like this..

When you're going to have a baby, it's like planning a fabulous vacation trip - to Italy.. It's all very exciting.

After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, "Welcome to Holland."

"Holland?!?" you say. "What do you mean Holland?? I signed up for Italy! I'm supposed to be in Italy. All my life I've dreamed of going to Italy."

But there's been a change in the flight plan. They've landed in Holland and there you must stay.

The important thing is that they haven't taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It's just a different place.

So you must go out and buy new guide books. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met.

It's just a different place. It's slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you've been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around.... and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills....and Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts.

But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy... and they're all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life, you will say "Yes, that's where I was supposed to go. That's what I had planned."

And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away... because the loss of that dream is a very very significant loss.

But... if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things ... about Holland.

pruning

We go through life
and forget how quickly
and quietly it is passing away.

We mouth words of love
and reject it by how we live…

We experience so much personal
and social evil and continue to live
as though evil is non-existent
and keep God’s grace at arms length.

We witness the beauty of creation
without raising our hearts and mind
in grateful contemplation.

We get bored by the company we keep
yet run away from silence and solitude.

We talk endlessly with one another
yet hear only meaningless sounds.

We go through a thousand experiences
yet fail to learn and grasp life’s meaning.

- Fr Guido Arguelles, SJ excerpts -