Author: Anne

This author has written 807 articles

FREE TIME

Photo taken at FDR Memorial in Washington DC

Some talk to you in their free time.  Some free their time to talk to you.  Learn the difference. 

Quote by Norman Kelly

Norman Kelly is an 80 year old retired Canadian politician. He represented Ward 40 Scarborough Agincourt from 2000 to 2018–serving as acting mayor of Toronto for the period November 18, 2013 to July 1, 2014.

REFLECTION:

  • Which camp do you fall into?   Do you talk when you have free time or do you free time to talk to another?
  • Are you able to discern when someone needs you to stop and listen to them?
  • How do you know? 
  • Learn the difference and free up your time accordingly.

A RICH LIFE

Painting by Vincent Van Gogh Cafe De Terrace

“In ordinary life, we hardly realize that we receive a great deal more than we give, and that it is only with gratitude that life becomes rich.”

Quote by Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906 -1945) was a German Lutheran pastor, theologian, anti-Nazi dissident, and key founding member of the Confessing Church. His writings on Christianity’s role in the secular world have become widely influential, and his book The Cost of Discipleship is described as a modern classic. He died in Flossenburg Concentration camp, Germany.

 

REFLECTION:

  • Examining your life, do you receive more than you give?
  • How can you practice more gratitude?
  • Make a list of all the things you have received recently.  If so inclined, draw a T Bar and list Give on one side and Receive on the other.  Complete the list.  Say THANK YOU!

RETURNING TO OURSELVES

When feeling badly about ourselves, we often try on other skins rather than understand and care for our own.  How much time is spent comparing ourselves to others, dead or alive?  When wounded and troubled, we sometimes feel compelled to puff ourselves up.  For in our pain, it seems to make sense that if we were larger, we would be harder to miss.  If we were larger, we’d have a better chance of being loved.  It is not surprising then that others need to be made smaller so we can maintain our illusion of seeming bigger than our pain.  But being human, we are often troubled and blocked by insecurity and a feeling of unworthiness.  The truth is the corrective story of how we return to who we are and compassion is the never ending story of how we embrace each other and forgive ourselves for not accepting our beautifully particular place in this life.  

FROM:  THE BOOK OF AWAKENING  Having The Life You Want By Being Present To The Life You Have by Mark Nepo

REFLECTION:

  • Do you try to make yourself larger by making others feel smaller?
  • Is there a wound underneath that puffed up sense of self?
  • How can you tell the truth of what you are feeling and have compassion?
  • Can you forgive yourself?