Words

Do all you can with what you have, in the time you have, in the place you are. 

Nkosi Johnson -- Twelve-year-old Zulu boy, living with AIDS 

 

Catastrophe is the essence of the spiritual path, a series of breakdowns allowing us to discover the threads that weave all of life into a whole cloth. 

 Joan Halifax -- Being with Dying: Cultivating Compassion and Fearlessness in the Presence of Death 

 

The very least you can do in your life is to figure out what to hope for.

And the most you can do is live inside that hope. 

Barbara Kingsolver 

 

Do your best and then relax.

Let things go on in a natural way, rather than force them. 

Paramahansa Yogananda 

 

You don't get to choose how you're going to die.

Or when.

You can decide how you're going to live now. 

Joan Baez 

 

Whatever your life's pursuit -- art, poetry, sculpture, music, whatever your occupation may be -- you can be as spiritual as clergy, always living a life of praise. 

Pir-O-Murshid Hazrat Inayat Khan  --  Bowl of Saki 

 

Each minute of life should be a divine quest. 

Paramahansa Yoganand 

 

www.gratefulness.org 

 

Time Is A Circle

Time is a circle. The end is the beginning.

Day by day, a year comes and goes.

Today's end is the beginning of the rest of our lives.

We take with us what we have learned today.

We are the same and not the same.

As long as we are alive, we will continue to wrestle with questions, seek answers, and solve problems.

Let's be gentle with ourselves and others, choosing to respond with non-judging love and acceptance instead of unrealistic demands of perfection.

We have found a blueprint for recovery.

Our preoccupation with not enough and too much has led us to a spiritual solution.

Each day brings us new opportunities to express our development - a more patient response to a traffic jam, the ability to empathize with a child's embarrassment, the acceptance of a disappointment.

Today is another day to learn how to be serene, to nurture body and spirit so that we may function as an integrated totality. We will continue to learn and grow toward recovery.

I will begin and end today by listening to my inner voice.

 

Inner Harvest by Elisabeth L.

May You Live All The Days Of Your Life

Happy New Year!

Tonight, at midnight, a new year will begin.

None of us know what the new year will hold.

But I can trust myself to hold on to the spirit of my daily reprieve as I go through the year.

As a new year is about to begin, I can rejoice in my new way of life.

I can give my will and my life to my God.

By doing these things, I will be ready for the new year.

My Creator, I pray that I'll start the new year safe in Your loving arms.

Tonight, at midnight, I'll say the Serenity Prayer.

I will think of all the others who will join me in my prayer.

Neither swift nor easy

. . . I was taught that the way of progress is neither swift nor easy.

Marie Curie

 

The patterns I am weaving with my life are complex, full of intricate detail and knots.

I need to go slow, taking only one stitch at a time.

With hindsight I will see that whatever the progress, it was the perfect fit to the overall design.

Evidence Of Life

Growth is the only evidence of life.

John, Cardinal Newman

 

The important thing is to accept the struggles as a part of the beauty of life, not as blemishes on it.

 

All beauty of this world is wet with the dew of tears.

Theodor Haecker

 

Beloved Dust

A human life may sometimes look to short to be worth much, but God, who see the works of his hands from the perspective of enduring love, clothes even the passing wildflowers with splendor.
We are only dust -- but beloved dust!

Crabby Old Man

When an old man died in the geriatric ward of a small hospital near Tampa, Florida, it was believed that he had nothing left of any value. Later, when the nurses were going through his meager possessions, they found this poem. Its quality and content so impressed the staff that copies were made and distributed to every nurse in the hospital. One nurse took her copy to Missouri. The old man's sole bequest to posterity has since appeared in the Christmas edition of the News Magazine of the St. Louis Association for Mental Health. A slide presentation has also been made based on his simple, but eloquent, poem. And this little old man, with nothing left to give to the world, is now the author of this anonymous poem winging across the Internet.

Crabby Old Man

What do you see nurses? . . . . . What do you see?
What are you thinking . . . . . when you're looking at me?
A crabby old man. . . . . not very wise
Uncertain of habit . . . . . .with faraway eyes?

Who dribbles his food . . . . . and makes no reply.
When you say in a loud voice . . . . . "I do wish you'd try!"
Who seems not to notice . . . . . the things that you do.
And forever is losing . . . . . a sock or shoe?

Who, resisting or not . . . . . lets you do as you will,
With bathing and feeding . . . . . the long day to fill?
Is that what you're thinking? . . . . . Is that what you see?
Then open your eyes, nurse . . . . . you're not looking at me.

I'll tell you who I am . . . . . as I sit here so still,
As I do at your bidding . . . . . as I eat at your will.
I'm a small child of Ten . . . . . with a father and mother,
Brothers and sisters . . . . . who love one another

A young boy of Sixteen . . . . . with wings on his feet
Dreaming that soon now . . . . . a lover he'll meet.
A groom soon at Twenty . . . . . my heart gives a leap.
Remembering, the vows . . . . . that I promised to keep.

At Twenty-Five, now . . . . . I have young of my own.
Who need me to guide . . . . . and a secure happy home.
A man of Thirty . . . . . my young now grown fast,
Bound to each other ...... with ties that should last.

At Forty, my young sons . . . . . have grown and are gone,
But my woman's beside me . . . . . to see I don't mourn.
At Fifty, once more . . . . . babies play 'round my knee,
Again, we know children . . . . . my loved one and me.

Dark days are upon me . . . . . my wife is now dead.
I look at the future . . . . . I shudder with dread.
For my young are all rearing . . . . . young of their own.
And I think of the years . . . . . and the love that I've known.

I'm now an old man . . . . . and nature is cruel.
T'is jest to make old age . . . . . look like a fool.
The body, it crumbles . . . . . grace and vigor, depart.
There is now a stone . . . . . where I once had a heart.

But inside this old carcass . . . . . a young guy still dwells,
And now and again . . . . . .my battered heart swells.
I remember the joys . . . . . I remember the pain.
And I'm loving and living . . . . . life over again.

I think of the years . . . . . all too few . . . . . gone too fast.
And accept the stark fact . . . . . that nothing can last.
So open your eyes, people . . . . . pen and see..
Not a crabby old man.
Look closer . . . . . see . . . . . ME!!

Remember this poem when you next meet an older person that you might brush aside without looking at the young soul within . . . . . we will all, one day, be there, too.

Elder's Meditation -- Opportunity Of Life

We need to look at nature and its inhabitants as our brothers and sisters.
Whenever we pick plants or herbs, we should leave an offering of tobacco.
We should talk to the plants and ask their permission to use them.
The plants will feel honored to be of service for each of them knows they are here to serve.
Each of them knows they carry a special medicine and this medicine is about continuing the cycle of life.
We need always to be grateful to our brothers and sisters.

Creator, I thank you for the opportunity of life.