Old Quaker saying, 'Let your life speak.' Before you tell your life what you intend to do with it, listen to what it intends to do with you. Before you tell your life what truths and values you have decided to live up to, let your life tell you what truths you embody, what values you represent. -- Fr Richard Rohr's "Daily Meditation" quoting Parker Palmer, a Quaker teacher and activist.
According to me, we live by our ego-driven free will until we realize a need for more...for something...something other than what we are relying on, i.e., self. I think of that as ego crashes and burns. For some, that crash-and-burn is simply a realization that the selfish way is not the best way, and they make their U-bie and head on Home.
For others, and I'm convinced we are the lucky ones, that crash-and-burn means exactly what it sounds like...painful beyond endurance. That's why we're the lucky ones...our choice is toast. No more self-debating, we make our U-bie and head home.
In making that U-turn, we unconsciously make our decision to live by spiritual principles. It takes time to catch up with our own self which makes living what we are learning very often a surprise...only discernible after the fact. And, who's kidding whom, we're not always entirely happy about it.
It's akin to looking back and longing for the freedom of my chains. That's my interpretation of finally settling in to not being as nasty as I want to be and wishing I could still be as nasty as I want to be only without regrets.
Ah, and here comes God to save our day...we are reminded of the unendurable pain of our crash-and-burn, We get un-nasty right quick, and we feel gratitude from our toenails up. Which itself passes on. There...gratitude tells you what truths you embody, what values you represent.
Thank you.
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