From Thomas Merton's book, Thoughts in Solitude, a prayer Merton indicated anyone can pray:

“My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you."

Thanks, Warren Hebert, faculty School of Nursing

Wednesday, April 5, 2017

The inner struggle is extremely difficult for all of us,

because we all have faults, severe ones, that we will struggle with forever….

It’s wise to accept that faults are inevitable. Factor that in and keep going.

Alice Walker

When there's a disappointment, I don't know if it's the end of the story.
It may just be the beginning of a great adventure.

-Pema Chödron

Choose Love

BY MADISYN TAYLOR

Make all decisions from pure love and the world will change.

Love is often presented as the opposite of fear, but true love is not opposite anything. True love is far more powerful than any negative emotions, as it is the environment in which all things arise. Negative emotions are like sharks swimming in the ocean of love. All things beautiful and fearful, ugly and kind, powerful and small, come into existence, do their thing, and disappear within the context of this great ocean. At the same time, they are made of the very love in which they swim and can never be separated. We are made of this love and live our whole lives at one with it, whether we know it or not. 

It is only the illusion that we are separate from this great love that causes us to believe that choosing anything other than love makes sense or is even possible. In the relative, dualistic world of positive and negative, darkness and light, male and female, we make choices and we learn from them. This is exactly what we are meant to be doing here on earth. Underlying these relative choices, though, is the choice to be conscious of what we are, which is love, or to be unconscious of it. When we choose to be conscious of it, we choose love. We will still exist in the relative world of opposites and choices and cause and effect, and we will need to make our way here, but doing so with an awareness that we are all made of this love will enable us to be more playful, more joyful, more loving and wise, as we make our way. Ultimately, the choices we make will shed light on the love that makes us all one, enabling those who have forgotten to return to the source. 

This world makes it easy to forget this great love, which is part of why we are here. We are here to remember and, when we forget to remember again, to choose love.

I know
It’s hard to be reconciled
Not everything is exactly
the way it ought to be

but please turn around
and step into the future
leave memories behind
enter the land of hope.

Zbigniew herbert

To look out at you gives me enormous hope.  You look so competent, so strong, so young,

so committed, so ready to take on the future, difficult times and all.”

Colin Powell, University Graduation

 

525,600 minutes. 525,600 moments so dear. 525,600 minutes.

How do you measure, measure a year?

In daylights, in sunsets, in midnights, in cups of coffee?

In inches, in miles, in laughter, in strife?

525,600 minutes. How do you measure a year in the life?

 

from the musical RENT

Friday, December 11, 2015

If you obsess over whether you are making the right decision, you are basically assuming that the universe will reward you for one thing and punish you for another.  The universe has no fixed agenda. Once you make any decision, it works around that decision. There is no right or wrong, only a series of possibilities that shift with each thought, feeling, and action that you experience.  
- Deepak Chopra

You are ready for a change. Just start. Do something to start the change. Don't worry about if you are making a correct decision.  It doesn't have to be a correct decision. Once you take the initial step (right or wrong) you will be guided. The correct decisions will come to you. But not until you take that first step. Just start.  Paradigm Shift