Drowning
Welcome once again to the Church of the Wayward Gypsy. We need to talk.
What are you going to do when all your precious bits of paper crumble? When your treasures turn to rust? When you realize that your real worth isn't what you have, but what you have to give?
There is a reckoning coming in your life. You - the people I'm talking to - you know who you are, although currently, you're probably too self-absorbed to acknowledge this. I'm not talking about a religious, biblical epiphany (as if I would!). But, you're about to hit a wall. A very big, solid, hard brick wall. It's going to stop you. It's going to hobble you. You're not aware enough to see it coming. All you can focus on is the fashion statement you're making and what the neighbors are thinking. I promise you, it's going to hurt. I don't feel sorry for you, I'm siding with the wall. You've got this one comin', you built it yourself.
The question is, how will you react when you slam into it? Will your first reaction, as you're sitting stunned on the pavement, be, "It's not fair!"? Or will you pick yourself up, get real and deal?
Want to avoid the wall?
Shut up. Open your ears.
Stop looking in the mirror. Look around.
Stop expecting. Start doing.
Learn and practice these ten words:
Acknowledgement - recognition of the existence or truth of something
Awareness - a state of being informed or alert
Charity - leniency in judging others, forbearance, mercy
Compassion - a feeling of deep sympathy for another who is stricken by misfortune, accompanied by a strong desire to alleviate the suffering
Forgive - to grant pardon, to cease to feel resentment against, to cancel an indebtedness
Gratitude - the quality of being or feeling thankful
Honor - honesty, fairness, or integrity
Humility - the quality or condition of being humble, modest opinion or estimate of one's own importance
Kindness - consideration of others, helpfulness,humanity
Meditation - the act of engaging in thought, contemplation, or reflection
Have we learned anything today?
Go in peace.
Sometimes, the most caring gift we can give another is to simply be present. Each of our journeys is a solitary endeavor. No one can truly do our journey for us. If they carry us, they do us no favor. Like any muscle, we become deconditioned and later incapable of doing what we must. Before wisdom, we think we help by DOING for those whom we love or regard. With wisdom, we accept that it is not in the DOING but in the BEING. Like Nouwen says, to CARE is to participate in the emotions not in the actions. It is to FEEL. And sometimes the only way another person gets REAL is to smack into the wall. It is hard to watch and does not always work. I pray that I have grow wiser and no longer need bricks hurled through the my front windshield to get my attention. I hope I no longer need a 2x4 upside my head. But, I am ever thankful, that when I have been schooled and I sit on my ass with tweeting birds circling my dazed head.....I KNOW that I am supposed to LISTEN and PAY ATTENTION. We have free will and can do as we wish. But sometimes, the universe serves up corrective adjustments to assist us from being idiots and fools. I hope your friend at least puts their foot on the brake and does not head into the wall full throttle. But it is that sometimes ONLY in our brokenness can we change or evolve.
ReplyDeleteYou are definitely one of the more enlightened ones out there, Lisa. Thanks for your dead on (or is that head on?! ;-p ) input!
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