Ideas that challenge / comfort / inspire
Stephen Goforth
Two mind lessons stand out for me. One is that becoming open to our body’s states—the feelings in our heart, the sensations in our belly, the rhythm of our breathing—is a powerful source of knowledge. The second lesson is that relationships are woven into the fabric of our interior world. We come to know our own minds through our interactions with others.
Daniel J. Siegel, Mindsight
I began to have an idea of my life, not as the slow shaping of achievement to fit my preconceived purposes, but as the gradual discovery and growth of a purpose which I did not know. -Joanna Field
Malcolm Gladwell’s book Outliners suggests context and hard work are more critical than raw talent when it comes to achievement.
Gladwell offers Christopher Langan as an example of how the range of opportunities presented to us can make a significant difference as to whether we gain traction in life.
Einstein's IQ was 150. Langan’s IQ was a blistering 195. But Langan spent his days working on a horse farm in rural Missouri. Why didn’t he rise to exceptional achievement? According to Gladwell, there was no one in Langan's life to encourage and help him develop his exceptional gifts. He grew up in a small town in Montana with an abusive stepfather in abject poverty.
Gladwell writes, "He had to make his way alone and no one--not rock stars, not professional athletes, not software billionaires, and not even geniuses--ever makes it alone."
You didn’t rise alone. Is there someone to whom you should show gratitude? Someone who poured themselves into making you who you are? Is there someone who you could cultivate, radically altering the kind of person they become?
Stephen Goforth
How many cares one loses when one decides not to be someTHING, but to be someONE. -Coco Chanel
Have you ever had someone bait you when your family gets together? “Come on. Join me, and let’s relive those old patterns you’ve tried to shed.” You try not to let the person get under your skin, but somehow, you end up behaving in a way you believed you had left behind long ago. You can't stop yourself. You stumble backward into old dysfunctional patterns.
“Why does the other person say these things?” you wonder. Perhaps they want to feel superior to you. Maybe that unhealthy relationship is in their comfort zone.
You could try being passive—that might allow you to avoid conflict, put off the problem, and set it aside for the sake of peace. But the goal should be a healthy relationship rather than the absence of conflict. On the other hand, you could make yourself vulnerable, rising and falling with the other’s approval and rejection. This will mean spending a lot of your life bouncing between working hard to prove you are worthy of respect and resenting the need to prove it.
Stephen Goforth
When God wants to give you something of great value, how does he go about it? Does he wrap it up in a glamorous and sophisticated package and hand it to you on a silver platter? No, more than likely he buries it at the heart of a great big tough problem and watches with anticipation to see whether you have what it takes to break the problem apart and find at its center what might be called the pearl of great price.
Stephen Goforth
He that lacks time to mourn, lacks time to mend. -Shakespeare
A newborn is soft and tender,
A crone, hard and stiff.
Plants and animals, in life, are supple and succulent;
In death, withered and dry.
So softness and tenderness are attributes of life,
And hardness and stiffness, attributes of death.
Laozi, Tao Te Ching
Doubt is our product since it is the best means of competing with the ‘body of fact’ that exists in the mind of the general public. It is also the means of establishing a controversy. -from a secret Tobacco Industry memo
Culture eats strategy for breakfast. -Peter Drucker
A goal without a plan is just a wish. -Antoine de Saint-Exupery
If the past isn’t the way you thought it was, then the present isn’t, either. Letting go of that present may make it easier to conceive of a new future. Things look different from the neutral zone, for one of the things you let of in the ending process is the need to see the past in a particular way, and in doing that you let go of the need to think of the future in the way you always have.
William Bridges, Transitions
May God bless you with a restless discomfort
about easy answers, half-truths and superficial relationships,
so that you may seek truth boldly and love deep within your heart.
May God bless you with holy anger at injustice, oppression,
and exploitation of people, so that you may tirelessly work for
justice, freedom, and peace among all people.
May God bless you with the gift of tears to shed with those who suffer
from pain, rejection, starvation, or the loss of all that they cherish, so that you may
reach out your hand to comfort them and transform their pain into joy.
May God bless you with enough foolishness to believe that
you really CAN make a difference in this world, so that you are able,
with God's grace, to do what others claim cannot be done.
And the blessing of God the Supreme Majesty and our Creator,
Jesus Christ the Incarnate Word who is our brother and Saviour,
and the Holy Spirit, our Advocate and Guide, be with you
and remain with you, this day and forevermore.
AMEN.
Looking through the shadowy foliage of Gethsemane, we don't see the classic portrait of Christ, rendered by the artist. We don't see Him in a snow-white robe kneeling beside a big rock, hands peacefully folded, with a look of serenity in His face as a spotlight from heaven illuminates His golden-brown hair. Instead, we see a man flat on his face, fists pounding the hard earth in agony. We see a fact stained with tears and dirt, hair matted with sweat, facial muscles contorted in pain like the gnarled, twisted olive trees looking on. God was never more human than at this hour. Have you been in the dark garden of Gethsemane? Betrayed by a friend? Deserted by those around you? Felt abandoned? Lonely? The next time you think no one cares, pay a visit to Gethsemane and see the man of sorrows. Because seeing God like this does wonders for your suffering.
Charles Swindoll, For Those Who Hurt
I do not serve God only in the brief moments during which I am taking part in a religious service, or reading the Bible, or saying my prayers, or talking about him in some book I am writing, or discussing the meaning of life with a patient or a friend.
I serve him quite as much when I am giving a patient an injection, or lancing an abscess, or writing a prescription, or giving a piece of good advice. Or again, I serve him quite as much when I am reading the newspaper, traveling, laughing at a joke, or soldering a joint in an electric wire. I serve him by taking an interest in everything, because he is interested in everything, because he has created everything and has put me in his creation so that I may participate in it fully.
“It is a great mistake,” wrote Archbishop William Temple, “to suppose that God is interested only, or even primarily in religion.”
Paul Tournier, The Adventure of Living
Too often spouses, and also parents with their children, reduce conversations to logistics such as what to have for dinner, whose turn it is to do the laundry, or when to leave for soccer practice. Friends might run down their latest accomplishments and activities. What often gets left out is what is really on people’s minds — their joys, struggles, hopes and fears. Sometimes people keep conversation light with friends and family because they assume they already know what’s going on, but also, they may be afraid of what they might learn.
But what is love if not a willingness to listen to and be a part of another person’s evolving story?
It turns out the best way for us to really understand those closest to us is to spend time with them, put down our phones and actually listen to what they have to say.
Kate Murphy, writing in the New York Times, author of You’re Not Listening: What You’re Missing and Why It Matters
We think it’s helpful to say, ‘I know exactly what you mean, I went through something similar…’ but that’s you talking about your own feelings, rather than allowing your friend to tell you what it’s like for them. When a person wants to express their pain, your experiences aren’t relevant to them. A similar, common mistake is to leap to offer advice before being asked. Giving advice is not listening, and often it’s not helpful. It shuts people down. If you feel a responsibility to fix your friend’s problems, relinquish it.
Moya Sarner writing in The Guardian
True ignorance is not the absence of knowledge, but the refusal to acquire it. -Karl Popper
You can either let your self-esteem ride on the answer to questions like:
Do people think I am smart?
Am I shaped like a model?
Do I look weak and foolish?
Or you can let your self-esteem be based on the knowledge that you are of value because you are made in God's image and that he has set his affection on you.
You've made quite a journey already, struggling to keep going and learning to rest in that knowledge. Won’t it be enjoyable to march down that path, head held high and a big smile on your face? It’s there, not because you are ignoring your trouble, but because you know the secret.
Stephen Goforth
Man must suffer to be wise. -Agamemnon
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