Tag: hope

Giving Thanks For The Things That Piss Me Off

Thank you, you idiot driver, for driving too slow in the high-speed lane and making me late. Thank you, you inconsiderate grocery shopper, for dumping 20 items on the conveyor belt of the 12-items-or-less express register aisle.

Thank you. For pissing me off.

I’ve come to appreciate such moments, the moments when I am in emotional overdrive with everyone and everything getting under my skin. Why? Because I’ve learned my reaction to the world in front of me says so much about the world inside of me. When my responses are laced with rage and anger and my thoughts and words become confrontational and judgmental, it tells me that real problem here is more about me than with the ones who have managed to push my buttons.

I tell my kids life usually never goes as planned and when it doesn’t what you do next is the important thing. Sometimes I need to take my own advice. Life so often is a test, those moments when life Continue reading “Giving Thanks For The Things That Piss Me Off” →

God’s Night Club And The Velvet Rope of Doubt

Perhaps this has happened to you?

It’s Saturday night and you’re standing in the long line outside the hottest night club in town. There’s the muscle-bound bouncer, dressed in his crisp-yet-slightly-too-small tuxedo, clipboard in his hand. On the clipboard is the guest list with the names of the “important” people, the chosen few who will be escorted directly into the club upon their arrival.

The not-so-important people? They remain queued up in a corral of velvet ropes, anxiously hopeful the man with the muscles and the clipboard will somehow lower the velvet rope and allow them entry as well.

Heck of a way to spend a night.

Hell of a way to spend a life.

Many of us have places we’d like to go in life. Things we’d like to do. Things we’d like to become. But somehow we’re not moving forward. It’s as if Continue reading “God’s Night Club And The Velvet Rope of Doubt” →

Every Day Is The First Day Of Spring

I couldn’t help notice the ugliness, sitting in the drive-thru line waiting to get my morning iced coffee. Winter has finally taken it’s toll on my psyche. As I look around all I see is brown and grey. Barren trees and dead grass. It’s like someone drained all the color out of life. Taking comfort in knowing Spring is less than a week away, I am sustained by it’s promise and expectations.

Spring has always been an uplifting time for me, even during my years of spiritual immaturity. A more enlightened version of me now sees the significance of the season. Rebirth. Renewal. Resurrection.

“To everything there is a season” say the Bible and Pete Seeger. The seasons ebb and flow in and out of our lives on their divine time frame, well outside of our control, each with something to teach us should we make ourselves available to learn.

AWAKENING In each of our lives we experience our own seasons. Seasons of light and seasons of darkness, of sowing and reaping, of laughter and silence. The challenges of life can drop us into our own unscheduled winter, the bitter chill of isolation and uncertainty leaving us emotionally frostbitten.

We may find ourselves in the grasp of such a winter, but how long we stay there is up to us.

Spring is always around the corner.

Spring is a mindset of divine promise and expectations, always readily available should we choose to realign ourselves with our own divine perfection. Any day can be the day of our own rebirth, our own renewal, our own resurrection, regardless of the storms and trials swirling around us at the moment. Spring is available, right here, right now, simply awaiting our decision to claim it.

What in your life is lying dormant, in need of awakening?

The good news is every day is the first day of Spring.

It’s a great day to be you!

How Much of You Will Be Thrown Into The Great Dumpster in the Sky?

I imagine the story would go something like this:

It’s Judgment Day. You have a final interview with God, at which time you need to turn back in any of your unused potential. Any excess capacity that was never utilized. Any unused gifts that were bestowed upon you but simply never used. And I can see God cringe every time he asks to see what’s been left unused. He knows the answer already. Not just because He’s God, but because He knows that the vast majority simply never  live up to the greatness they were designed to achieve. God simply shakes his head as he throws the unused potential into the big rusty steel dumpster behind him.

Continue reading “How Much of You Will Be Thrown Into The Great Dumpster in the Sky?” →

Go Feng Shui Yourself

Rearranging the “furniture” in your mind.

I have a love/hate relationship with painting. I love looking at the myriad of individual paint sample cards. I love the feeling each shade evokes. I love the possibilities. I love how the room will look and feel when the project is completed. Unfortunately, the paint doesn’t get on the walls by itself. That would be the hate part.

Standing in Home Depot’s paint department in front of 100’s of little color samples that offers millions of possible color combinations can be a wee bit overwhelming. For me, perhaps the most difficult part about repainting a room is deciding exactly how I want the room to feel. Cozy? Whimsical? Peaceful? Tranquil? Fun? Color can make any four walls feel exactly how you want them to feel.

We all spend a great deal of time coloring the environment we live in. From the colors in the rooms we dwell in, the furniture in those spaces, the music we listen to, the books we read, the car we drive, the clothes we wear, the friends we keep, we surround Continue reading “Go Feng Shui Yourself” →

The Importance of Being Selfish

Trust me, you want me to be selfish.

And I want you to be selfish, too.

Being selfish doesn’t seem like a good idea. Especially if building community and relationships is important to you. After all, being selfish is about being self-centered. It’s about the “me” and not the “we”. The focus on individual accomplishment and development can’t possibly be beneficial to the collective good of our society.

I disagree.

Continue reading “The Importance of Being Selfish” →

So, What Will You Bring Into The Next Moment?

The Next Moment can redefine us.

Or go obliviously unnoticed. 

It’s all up to us.

So here we stand on the edge of a new moment. Moments, if defined as seconds, happen 86,400 times per day. We move from one moment to the next almost seamlessly, as one moment morphs into the next, and then the next. The busy pace of life today causes us to misplace entire days, let alone notice a single individual moment.

Transitioning between the moments is done without much thought or reflection. As we blindly enter the Next Moment, we bring with us the contents of the previous moment, which contained the contents of the moment prior to that one. Each moment is a clean Continue reading “So, What Will You Bring Into The Next Moment?” →

The Ultimate Pain Killer

I recently had a conversation with a friend I didn’t know was a friend. I had know this person for the past few years on a very casual basis. Neither one of us really knew anything about each other. All I knew was that this person was the kind of person you’d probably like to get to know better.

Never did I expect one simple question to dramatically impact me so profoundly.

It wasn’t so much the question itself, it was the interaction that stemmed from the question. We began with a very innocent and Continue reading “The Ultimate Pain Killer” →

Counterpunching Adversity

“The most authentic thing about us is our capacity to create, to overcome, to endure, to transform, to love and to be greater than our suffering.”

— Ben Okri

The human spirit is amazingly resilient, so long as we remember that we are all stronger than we often give ourselves credit for being.

Some days the world just seems like it is out to get you. One test after another, challenging and pushing you. These tests are designed to measure your faith in many things, including yourself and your ability to deal with life’s unwelcomed jabs and uppercuts that can put you on the ropes.

At some point in life we’ve all had to overcome, to endure, to transform…relying upon hidden sources of inspiration and strength that we never even knew we had. Those hidden sources remain within, always available to help us move forward and past that which threatened to bring us down.

At times of adversity and uncertainty, embrace the source of strength which lies within you. Yes, you really are stronger than you think you are.

It’s a great day to be you!

One Common Heartbeat

“God will put a wind at our back and a rising road ahead if we work together as one.”

— Desmond Tutu

It’s amazing what happens when we work together. The synergies created by the whole quite often exceed the sum of the individuals.  Even more so when the work is based in compassion and love.

We’ve all witnessed the results when we collectively come together to aid and comfort those in times of darkness. The unity of the cause creates exponential energies. You can feel the presence of spirit which acts as a divine wind at our back.

Continue reading “One Common Heartbeat” →