The DAILY SPARK Blog

BEING YOU!

When Akiba was on his deathbed, he bemoaned to his rabbi that he felt he was a failure.  His Rabbi moved closer and asked why, and Akiba confessed that he had not lived a life like Moses.  The poor man began to cry, admitting that he feared God’s judgment.  At this, his Rabbi leaned into his ear and whispered gently, “God will not judge Akiba for not being Moses.  God will judge Akiba for not being Akiba.”  FROM THE TALMUD

Quote was from a post by Mark Nepo’s from:  THE BOOK OF AWAKENING Having The Life You Want By Being Present To The Life You Have

REFLECTION:

Comparison robs us of our joy.  Are you trying to live up to the standards of someone else?

How can you live from you most authentic self (BEING)?

What do you need to do to be more you (DOING)?

LIFTING THE BURDEN

“Are you searching for your true self? Then come out of your own prison. Leave the little creek and join the mighty river that flows into the ocean. Like an ox, don’t pull the wheel of this world on your back. Take off the burden. Whirl and circle, and rise above the wheel of the world. There is another view.”

Poem by Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī, a 13th-century Persian poet,  Islamic scholar, theologian, and Sufi mystic originally from Greater Khorasan in Greater Iran. (1207-1273)

REFLECTION:

With COVID, our world has been made much smaller.  Some would say we are prisoners. IS IT TIME FOR A REFRAME???

Are you in a self inflicted prison?

Are you carrying the world on your back?

What is another view you can embrace?

WORK AND LOVE

When you work you are a flute through whose heart the whispering of the hours turns to music.

Always you have been told that work is a curse and labor a misfortune.

But I say to you that when you work you fulfill a part of earth’s furthest dream, assigned to you when that dream was born,

And to love life through labor is to be intimate with life’s inmost secret.

And what is it to work with love?

It is to weave the cloth with threads drawn from your heart, even as if your beloved were to wear that cloth.

It is to build a house with affection, even as if your beloved were to dwell in that house.

It is to sow seeds with tenderness and reap the harvest with joy, even as if your beloved were to eat the fruit.

It is to charge all things you fashion with a breath of your own spirit,

And to know that all the blessed are standing about you and watching.

Work is love made visible.

Poem by Kahlil Gibran – He was a Lebanese- American writer, poet, visual artist and philosopher best known for his book The Prophet (1883 -1931)

REFLECTION:

Do you love your work?

Or, do you view your work as a curse or a misfortune?

How can you weave, build, sow love into your work?