One Day At A Time - One Step At A Time

So often we only have enough light for the next step, but you know what, for today that is enough.

Looks like I am back to trusting the process. I have been a long time making my way back to this position of trust. It feels good to be back here again.

Physically, for the moment, I'm probably on a rockier road than I have ever been. It would be easy to let the fear for my future overwhelm me. But this is the first time in my life that I have total confidence and joy in the work that I am doing. I do not want to rob myself of one minute of it.

Therefore, I will put my all into what I am doing today; and let tomorrow take care of itself.

Letting Go Takes Love

To let go does not mean to stop caring,
it means I can't do it for someone else.

To let go is not to cut myself off,
it's the realization I can't control another.

To let go is not to enable,
but to allow learning from natural consequences.

To let go is to admit powerlessness, which means
the outcome is not in my hands.

To let go is not to try to change or blame another,
it's to make the most of myself.

To let go is not to care for,
but to care about.

To let go is not to fix,
but to be supportive.

To let go is not to judge,
but to allow another to be a human being.

To let go is not to be in the middle arranging all the outcomes,
but to allow others to affect their destinies.

To let go is not to be protective,
it's to permit another to face reality.

To let go is not to deny,
but to accept.

To let go is not to nag, scold or argue,
but instead to search out my own shortcomings and correct them.

To let go is not to adjust everything to my desires,
but to take each day as it comes and cherish myself in it.

To let go is not to criticize or regulate anybody,
but to try to become what I dream I can be.

To let go is not to regret the past,
but to grow and live for the future.

To let go is to fear less and love more.

Remember: The time to love is short.

- Author Unknown


Many times Death has forced me to let go of somebody I love; and it is never easy.

But Life has also forced me many times to learn to let go of the people I care about; and that is even harder.

Here's Me Giving A Kiss Goodbye And Letting Go

"We must be willing to let go of the life we have planned, so as to accept the life that is waiting for us."

- Joseph Campbell

This is the first picture taken of us together. We didn't call it a date - that would have terrified both of us. We were just friends going to a dance together.

This is the picture I still carry in my heart, I suppose - the one I have been refusing to let go of. The picture I refuse to give up on even though he has been dead for six and a half years.

Well, the time has come. I need to let go. Let go of all the hopes, the dreams, the possibilities that exist in this picture.

I do not know what life holds for me now but I refuse to live it tied to the past any longer. One step at a time, one day at a time, I will make myself available to what IS. It is time to stop being half of somebody else and just be ME.

Gentleness, Anybody?

Last night gentleness was heavy on my mind. Does that make sense? If you knew me, it would.

Nothing is ever a light matter for me. If I give thought to something - I give it heavy thought- even if the subject is gentleness.

In the second half of my life, I have felt strongly drawn to gentle people. It is like a magnetic force that I can not resist. Does anyone else realize how rare these people are? And I find myself wondering why they are so rare. Perhaps it takes great courage to be gentle. Anyone else have any thoughts on this subject?

If anyone had asked me in my younger days, I would have said that gentleness was just not a part of my makeup. But I know that is not true. I have experienced gentleness being called forth from me; and felt myself responding wholeheartedly. My second husband brought that part of me to life. Vulnerable people always bring out the gentleness in me. Perhaps because there is no need for me to protect myself from them?

I am also fully aware of where gentleness is called for but I am incapable of responding in that way. It has happened all too often the last three years since my niece has been with me. I know the situation calls for a gentle approach, and I painfully want to respond with the required gentleness; but the anxiety I am feeling inside is too strong. It overpowers all other emotions and demands to come first. It simply refuses to be denied. And the gentle response that so wishes to be spoken is swiftly killed by the nazi stormtrooper I sorely wish belonged to anybody else - not me. Please God - not me.

The Gift Of Friendship

I was moved by Henri Nouwen's words in "Bread For The Journey" on the gift of friendship:

"Friendship is one of the greatest gifts a human being can receive. It is a bond beyond common goals, common interests, or common histories. It is a bond stronger than sexual union can create, deeper than a shared fate can solidify, and it can be even more intimate than the bonds of marriage or community. Friendship is being with the other in joy and sorrow, even when we cannot increase the joy or decrease the sorrow. It is a unity of souls that gives nobility and sincerity to love."

Happy Valentine's Day

Don't walk in front of me, I may not follow.
Don't walk behind me, I may not lead.
Just walk beside me and be my friend.

- Albert Camus


I have loved those words since the first time I saw them.

The first time ever I saw your face...............

I know, I'm rambling. I'm allowed to - I'm a rose.

It was many years ago - I saw those words on a little card. They expressed exactly what I was feeling for the man who would come to mean so much to me over time.

My sister and I were very close back then. To say she was surprised when we told her we were getting married would be the understatement of the year.

She said, "But I thought you were only friends." To which I replied, "Well, if you can't marry a friend, who can you marry?"

It was our friendship that sustained us through the marriage - the good times and the bad. We always had our friendship to fall back on when the going got rough. Being friends with one another kept the lines of communication open when a wrinkle would appear in the relationship. Being courteous to each other during those "wrinkly periods" bought us time. Then when we both were ready, we could calmly discuss the issue that was coming between us.

He's gone now; but many good memories remain. And I still celebrate Valentine's Day with whoever is in my world on that day. It's a day that you are not obligated to give anybody anything - it's just a whole lot of fun if you do. And it doesn't have to be much to be appreciated - a card, a piece of chocolate, flowers, whatever feels right....

I made a peanut butter pie to share with the young people. My granddaughter bought me some carnations. My niece made us each a valentine. And we got together for supper along with my granddaughter's boyfriend.

It was fun for all of us.

If you can't be with the one you love; express love to the people you're with - in whatever way is appropriate.

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!

The Fire In Our Belly

Just remember in the winter far beneath the bitter snow
lies the seed that with the SON'S love
in the spring
becomes the Rose.

Adaptation of Bette Midler's song "The Rose"


Spirituality is not about choosing certain spiritual activities like going to church, praying or meditating, reading spiritual books, or setting off on some explicit spiritual quest. It is far more basic than that. Long before we do anything explicitly religious at all, we have to do something about the fire that burns within us. What we do with that fire, how we channel it, is our spirituality. Thus we all have a spirituality whether we want one or not, whether we are religious or not.

Spirituality is more about whether or not we can sleep at night than about whether or not we go to church. It is about being integrated or falling apart, about being within community or being lonely, about being in harmony with Mother Earth or being alienated from her.

Irrespective of whether or not we let ourselves be consciously shaped by any explicit religious idea, we act in ways that leave us either healthy or unhealthy, loving or bitter. What shapes our actions is our spirituality.

And what shapes our actions is basically what shapes our desire. Desire makes us act and when we act what we do will either lead to greater integration or disintegration within our personalities, minds, and bodies - and to the strengthening or deterioration of our relationship to God, others, and the cosmic world.

Ronald Rolheiser, The Holy Longing, The Search For A Christian Spirituality


SPIRITUAL COMMUNITY:

"It is because one antelope will blow the dust from the other's eye that the two antelopes walk together." - African Proverb

Blossoming

My first husband died when our children were entering their teens.

He was a troubled man. I was very introverted and agonizingly shy when we first started going together in my teens.

My favorite memory of him as a husband is when we watched tv together. He would lay with his head at one end of the couch and I would lay my head at the other end of the couch. Our legs would be intertwined as we enoyed whatever show we were watching together. Our children would be watching tv along with us, or coming and going with their friends. The dog was in the center of it all.

He got jealous whenever I shared a laugh with somebody else. I found that strange once I realized it was happening.

I understand now.

I became way too serious after he died. Life was easier in so many ways; but the responsibility was all mine...

Then I met my second husband...A man who liked to chase rainbows...I had never seen a man Play before. I was smitten.

He had a voice so gentle that when he spoke, it washed all the tension out of my shoulders.

I loved to call him on the phone. He had this way of answering the phone that made me fall in love with him all over again - even after seventeen years.

In the early days of our relationship, he ran away from his feelings for me. And he would leave my world for awhile. It always felt like he took the sunshine with him; and I would be left with my over-serious self.

I would throw myself into living life without him; and eventually he would return.

We built a good life together - a life that respected who we were as individuals. We never put pressure on each other to be anything other than what we were. We just enjoyed one another.

And because we gave each other so much space to be who we were, we each Blossomed.

He learned to become a little more responsible. And I learned to chase a few rainbows - and Play a little.