Three Reflections

Make no mis­take, if you think you have it bad, it could be so much worse. One only has to look out for a few moments across the land­scape of the blo­gos­phere to find deep suf­fer­ing — it’s enough to be par­a­lyzed in grief. And yet, I do believe we also work pret­ty hard most days to make a dif­fer­ence — in the ways we know best — and to pre­pare and strength­en our­selves as instru­ments of change. If you and I are going to change any­thing, often the first thing we dis­cov­er square­ly in the path is ourselves.

Here are three reflec­tions that may prove of val­ue to you as you think about your own cir­cum­stances. A reflec­tion to me isn’t quite a med­i­ta­tion and yet isn’t just thought­ful prose, either. It is a way of guid­ing our­selves into the ques­tions whose answers can best shape our lives and our abil­i­ty to make a dif­fer­ence. My advice, if you want to take a few moments with these reflec­tions, is to slow down your think­ing and feel­ing as if the usu­al pat­tern were a film strip run­ning too fast through the mind. Sit qui­et­ly. Focus on the ital­i­cized ques­tion each reflec­tion con­tains. Think or write, and, for sure, feel. If you like, let me know how this works for you.

You can also hear me read these reflec­tions.

Crisis

All the storms have gath­ered and I live in the tight squeeze of my deci­sions. What real­ly am I to do?

If I knew what the out­come would be I could be coura­geous, but in this rough-shod moment, there are all too many unknowns. Under­neath the pres­ence I wear for oth­ers, I too, am scared.

Scared. Sacred. A sim­ple shift of two let­ters in a word, but so much hangs in the bal­ance, changed in the doing. Now I am in a holy moment and what holds me only is my truth. I can­not seem to escape a sin­gle thing and every place I turn I only find anoth­er mirror.

Which of my inter­nal voic­es can I tru­ly rely upon? Which will best guide me through this moment?

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Forgiveness

A per­fec­tion­ist, I am not one to eas­i­ly for­give. I hurt my hurts. I hold my grudges. Even with myself.

I could move on from anger if it did­n’t mean accept­ing so much weak­ness in me. At a cer­tain point, I can’t stand not being right. I want to argue about how I’ve been offend­ed. But time is run­ning out and things are not going my way. And I have to admit it, I, too, am to blame. I look in the mir­ror and much too quick­ly look away. Why do I keep on defend­ing? Why can’t I seem to over­come this fault?

Among these blos­som­ing hawthorn trees, I for­get to hold on with such force. I final­ly feel my sor­row. When I actu­al­ly agree with myself to apol­o­gize, the pain begins to ease.

What will it real­ly take me to forgive…myself?

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Freedom

My free­dom does not depend on the pow­er giv­en to me by oth­ers. My free­dom is in think­ing for myself and trust­ing to this path.

Still, I am for­ev­er dis­cov­er­ing, like rust­ed chains, the old pat­terns of emo­tion and belief that have bound me. One by one I am learn­ing to let them go. So many I learned as a child, jus­ti­fy­ing with time their lim­its to my own possibilities.

I held onto them, per­haps for approval, per­haps for love. And they have pro­tect­ed me well, but today they must be broken.

A broad field opens before me and I move for­ward toward a com­pelling dream and purpose.

Indeed, what shall I do with my freedom?