SPIRITUAL NOTES TO MYSELF

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Hugh Prather, whom the New York Times has called “an American Kahil Gibran”, wrote a book with the title of today’s blog.  In it, are anecdotes, observations, and  spiritual wisdom that Prather has collected and absorbed for himself in over 30 years as minister, lecturer, and counselor.

You may have notebooks or quotes on your memo board that speak poignantly to your heart.  Or perhaps, they are there in way as a reminder for spiritual or emotional hopes you have…the person you would like to be at your best.

Also, there are literally thousands (probably more like millions) of books on meditation, prayer, affirmation, every religion since the dawn of time, and spirituality…practices, techniques, and thoughts.

I have more than a few of them myself.  I also keep several notebooks full with quotes, ideas, and prayers that inspire, teach, or bring comfort to me.

However, I tack a few up on my cork board beside my writing desk for several months at a time.  After absorbing their wisdom, I rotate in fresh ones . Here’s what’s up there right now:

“I will not die an unlived life.  I will not live in fear of falling or catching fire.  I choose to inhabit my days, to allow my living to open me, to make me less afraid, more accessible, to loosen my heart until it becomes a wing, a torch, a promise.  I choose to risk my significance, to live so that which came to me as seed goes to the next as blossom, and that which came to me as blossom, goes on as fruit.”  – Dawna Markova   

“For things that you believe in, pray like a preacher but fight like the Devil”.

“If we hold resentments toward the people who let us down, we’ll be exhausted.  It’s better to focus on the ones who have been there for us”.

The content of two fortune cookies are pinned up there: “Everybody feels lucky for having you as a friend” AND “We are made to persist.  That’s how we find out who we are”.

“In spite of illness, in spite even of the archenemy sorrow, one can remain alive long past the usual date of disintegration if one is unafraid of change, insatiable in intellectual curiosity, interested in big things, and happy in small ways.”- Edith Wharton

A note that my beloved Dad (who tragically died too young) had written me many years ago:

 “In case you’re depressed today and feeling lonely: You are pretty!  You are smart!  You are vivacious! You have a warm smile!  You have an interesting personality!  You are a little wacky!  Five out of six ain’t bad, Love, Dad xxx” 

These thoughts make me laugh, give me a spiritual shot in the arm, and keep me reaching towards my Higher Self, the one God wants for me.

These are fitting thoughts as my little/big chicks fly the summer coop: one off to another year of college in Rhode Island, one on a year’s adventure, first in Paris and then to Senegal, and the “baby”, 6’1″, driving a car, writing his own music, towering over me, teasing me, “his little mama”.  

In closing, a gem from Mr. Prather: “Our children can see us.  They can’t see God.  Our function is not to describe God’s love or to talk endlessly about it, but to reflect it so that it can be seen.” 

 

A RELIGION FOR GREATNESS

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Prelude:

Friedrich Schleirermacher (1768-1834), considered by many to be the “Father of Modern Protestant Theology”, in his Addresses on Religion (1799), remarked:

“Religion is the outcome neither of the fear of death nor the fear of God. It answers a deep need in man.  It is not a metaphysic, nor a morality, but above all essentially an intuition and a feeling…Dogmas are not, properly speaking, part of religion: rather it is that they are derived from it.  Religion is the miracle of the direct relationship with the infinite. Similarly belief in God, and in personal immortality, are not necessarily part of religion; one can conceive of a religion without God, and it would be pure contemplation of the universe; the desire for personal immortality seems rather to show a lack of religion, since religion assumes a desire to lose oneself in the infinite, rather than to preserve one’s own finite self.”  

 Consider this:

There is a universal religious experience that crosses all time and culture.  It dissolves illusions of individual separateness. It is that which Clarence Skinner, 20th century Universalist minister and social activist, deemed “radical religion”.  Radical in that it returns religion back to its primary roots, which from the earliest recordings of human existence has been to  “lift man out of his isolation into union with powers and influences greater than himself.”  

By way of example, Skinner (in his classic A Religion for Greatness) relates the findings of looking through a spectroscope on the farthest star: “We get a series of light bands informing us of its chemical composition.  Turn this same instrument on man and we find the same light bands, indicating the identical chemical composition!  What does that prove?  Precisely this, Man and the universe are one.”

 The extent to which this Reality can be lived out in a way that brings lasting positive transformation in the world depends on a commitment to be “continually cleansed of self-centerdness.”  Selfishness, greed, ruthlessness, or deceit expose a “contractive organism that clutches and holds things to itself.  The source of its unsocial attitudes and conduct is the tension centering around the ‘I’.  Ease the tension and you lessen the unsocial complex…Contemplation thrusts us from our tiny thrones and renders us subjects of a greater kingdom.”

The great mystics of centuries past have discovered this Truth. The sense of division between the individual and the other is a major cause of  perpetual suffering.   Lest we think this is simply thinking left to those living in the stratosphere of theological  idealists, Skinner includes that religion, like other institutional endeavors “must yield to emergency and must bend itself to the tasks of alleviating the suffering of the intensely now.” He takes into account the fact that the “frame of reference in which most of us live is that of the immediate.” However, there is a time when instead of hurriedly trying to “fix” this or that issue; it is imperative to expand our ideas of inclusion (even when our first thought is to turn away). 

 A closing meditation:

“My life is not so much mine as a particle of the Infinite life encased for a passing moment in a frame which houses it in fragile solitariness.  It is the drop of water lifted for a brief day by the lotus leaf from the pool.  Soon the drop will fall back into the source whence it came- merged in water which is common not only to the one pool, but with all water everywhere.”

WORSHIP IS A LOT LIKE COMMUNITY FARMING

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In my last post, I ended the questions “what is worship?” and “who is it for?”

Well, worship is a lot like community farming.  You come together and grow as a group. You have your own individual patch of ground, but what you are cultivating is part of the greater whole.  There is a sense of purpose that is larger, loftier, spiritually speaking, than the albeit satisfying task of raising your own vegetable garden. Both are good, but they are very different. They both feed you, but community farming includes, the community!

Week after week, sowing seeds, tending to the fragile shoots, rooting out weeds in tandem.  As in worship, you develop a kinship with one another over time, in the shared weekly rituals. You are joining forces to rejoice in creation, the Creator, to create.  It doesn’t happen overnight and takes patience. Much of it happens in the darkness of the soil you are tilling and you trust they while you are not in the control of the process; it is worthy of your time and devotion.  In worship, you are growing a soul and that can only happen in relationship.  

The etymology of worship which dates back to the 13th century, Old English.  “Wor” comes from the word worth and “ship” means to shape.  Simply put, worship means to shape worth.  In worship, people come together to affirm, ordain, and revere what they believe to be worthy.  The vast majority of houses of worship in the world (churches, synagogues, and mosques) are worshipping God. Yet while the God they are each pointing to can differ vastly, their concepts of God reflect what they consider as a community to be the most vital, important beliefs to have in life  and instruct their most dearly held values. 

There is joy in devoting yourself to the work, but it can be hard and arduous too. There are big and little sorrows that cry to be heard.  As well, it is good to talk with one another about what’s working and what’s not in your daily efforts, and whether your prayers for rain or sunshine have been answered.  You listen to a trained expert in the field, but then you have to go out and live it each day, gathering knowledge in your heart and mind but bearing the fruit of it only by lived experience.  You find rocks in the garden, stumbling blocks in your own personality, that you would have never known were there, save for the friction that digging deeper and risking the rough and tumble that goes along with being in community.    

When you are in awe of a spectacular sunset or marveling at the vast splendor of  a deep forest, you may indeed have a spiritual experience or a feeling of Unity with Creation.  But it is not worship.  Worship is an outward expression of the love and appreciation we have for the Highest Good it AND it involved a commitment on our part to frame our life around that love and appreciation. Worship may be to God, but it is for us.

A NICE GOD

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The Christian Century‘s August 10, 2010 cover story, entitled “Our God is Too Nice”, contains a survey conducted by the National Study of Youth and Religion on what today’s Christian American teenagers believe.  They created a new term to describe this loosely held set of beliefs, “Moralistic Therapeutic Deism”.  Here is a condensed version of the findings:

“1. A god exists who created and orders the world and watches over life on earth.

2. God wants people to be good, nice and fair to each other, as taught in the Bible and by most world religions.

3. The central goal of life is to be happy and feel good about yourself.

4. God is not involved in my life except when I need God to solve a problem.

 5. Good people go to heaven when they die.”

Hmm.  Here are my thoughts (in no particular order):

Having three teenagers myself, I see their struggle between the adult rising within them, with complex ideas and  accompanying responsibilities, and their desire to revert back to simple, more comforting, childlike roles.  Teenagers are not quite a grown up, not quite a kid.   With that as a backdrop, I can see how some of these notions would fit the age.  It is reassuring to believe that someone else is in charge and that someone will take care of us (only if and when we ask them). It is certainly assuages our human fears of death and/or hell.  If we are good, if we behave, we will go to heaven.  

However, I asked my own children (19, 18, and 16) to respond to the above list of basic concepts of “Moralistic Therapeutic Deism”. My kids are typical American teenagers in many ways, but they are unusually deep and perceptive thinkers. (I know; I’m their mother, so of course I think they’re brilliant; but just indulge me). In addition, they were steeped in church life since infancy and have the privilege of being well-educated.  Here are their answers to the above 5 points:

1.  “God created the world, yes/ puts in it order, perhaps, but don’t forget about evolution’s role as well/ watches over us (hope so, but more likely is within us and around us in the world, actively participating in our joys and sorrows, not Mr. Fix it).”  One stated that “the jury is still out if there really is a God.”    

2. A resounding yes, “this is just common sense, what it means to be moral and ethical.” “Sounds overly simplistic though.”

3. A qualified no….being happy is good and feeling good about yourself is important, but they are not the central goal of life.  While none of them was sure what the central goal of life was, words like “love, service, growth, and relationships”, were included.  “Feeling good about yourself was necessary to be happy, but happiness is a byproduct, not a goal, and what about the people in Darfur and Afghanistan?” “This belief of the goal of life being personal happiness isn’t even Christian.”  “This is just our consumerist culture.”

4. “Won’t even answer this, it’s too ridiculous.  Who believes that?? It’s like a genie in a bottle.  This is the same kind of personal deity who saves some people on a plane (and that proves to them, there’s miracles) while allowing others to die, including babies (and they say that’s God’s will).”  

5. (Note: This is what they were all taught as children in the Catholic Faith).  Here are their 3 very different answers:

a.” Yes”. 

 b. “I believe good and bad people go to heaven, all our welcome, a loving God takes everyone.” (My Universal Salvationist).

c.”I don’t know if there is a heaven, I don’t believe in hell, but I’m starting to think they are both just human constructs or metaphors pointing to something else”.

The writer of The Christian Century article, Kenda Creasy Dean, is rightfully discouraged by the wave of “MTD” sweeping the churches.  It certainly does reflect how our predominant culture has infiltrated even our views about God and the role of religion in our lives.  And she is right, this milquetoast of a faith won’t stand up against the pain and suffering that besets every human life.  REAL religion, whatever it is, has to be solid enough to provide a firm foundation and clear enough to utilize in our daily lives. Superficiality and vague platitudes don’t have the substance when it’s time to just hold on.  If your faith doesn’t provide spiritual sustenance, perhaps the place to begin is to ask the questions, “What is worship?, “Who is it for?”

THE MAD HATTERS AT THE TEA PARTIES

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You know, with all the ranting and raving that runs the airways these days, the predictably controversial talking heads of radio along with their shouting and outright rude counterparts on television “news” (and I do use the word lightly) programs, one would think we have become a nation of adamant nonsense. What I hear sounds more like the Red Queen in Alice in Wonderland and less like the lofty ideals imagined by our Forefathers (and Mothers) . The Red Queen ordered shrilly, for any provocation or for none at all, the command “Off with their heads!”… before finding out whose head or why. It was and is a little scary. 

So please let us not confuse our diverse nation with its 50 states and about 310 million individuals and their variant needs and goals with the so-called Patriots, continuing to foam at the mouth, who either:

A. Stir up the pot using self aggrandizing slander of anyone or anything that SEEMS to oppose their fanatically held sound bite views, with the nuance, subtlety, and thoughtfulness of a brick through a plate-glass window. I will not mention any of these personalities by name as I do not want to give them any more free press than they already get.

 B. This group is similar to those of the above, except for instead of making millions by being media pushers, they are politicians.  Sure, money and fame are two of their goals, but their drug of choice is power and staying in it, no matter the cost or without care to their constituency, that has  them shouting, “Foul!” to any idea that “appears” to come from the other side of the aisle.  I say “appears”, because as the non-contrarian media continues to do its job, we find many of these ideas were first proposed by them!! 

C.  Which leads us to the last, and most unfortunate of all of the screaming mimis, more than a few (although not all)  Tea Party members.  When our Boston revolutionaries threw that tea into the harbor, they too were as mad as hell and weren’t going to take it anymore.  Luckily for them, they didn’t have groups A and B using them as pawns and puppets for their own selfish ends.  Many of the members of the Tea Party have legitimate concerns and articulate them, if not convincingly, at least soundly. 

But too many have joined a movement, fiery and passionate, that perhaps gives them a sense of purpose and connection, but it is more like a “loud gong signifying nothing.”  They are being used by those feeding them alarming bits of information WITHOUT CONTEXT. The somewhat sly and charismatic rabble rousers, rich and powerful, know that it is Fear and not Fact that motivates a mob.  

Mark Twain cleverly defined a Patriot as “The person who can holler the loudest without knowing what he is hollering about.” How true, wise words from our favorite American humorist. Let’s heed them.  Except for the unavoidable and universal childhood stage that we all must go through and that hopefully passes with age (not dubbed “the terrible twos” for nothing), NO should be something more than a knee jerk reaction to any new idea. Might it be more patriotic, never mind more helpful, to learn to curb our childish impulses to respond to anything, reasonable or not, with NO? 

We may very well be a nation of natural-born contrarians. I love that we can argue about things that matter, in private and in public.  It’s sometimes fun to argue just for argument’s sake to pass the time with friends and family. (Although it’s annoying to be with those who seem to take the opposite opinion in every discussion).  Just the same, we are blessedly free.  With that comes the responsibility to think, to openly weigh both sides of an argument, to be willing to change our opinions. 

So, let’s go to our tea parties and leave the mad hatters with Alice; they may be exciting but they are too damn exhausting.

Correction from yesterday’s post

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Hi Guys, When I quoted Simone Weil, I meant to type “one cannot renounce with out being degraded, not one can.”  That makes a big difference.

THOUGHTS ON THE TRINITY BY A UNITARIAN CHRISTIAN (what and huh?)

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Note: Please hold this quote from Walt Whitman while reading today’s blog: “Do I contradict myself?  Very well, then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes.”

Ever since my days with the nuns (the real ones, who by the way I drove crazy with my incessant questioning during Catholic catechism classes), I have struggled in vain with the dogma of the Trinity. Try as I might, my rational mind has always found it to be too much philosophy and too little of the practical.  It has been only recently that I have begun to admire its poetry, for me personally, its’ saving grace. 

The construct of the Trinity originated with a handful of  Church Fathers, around or about 345 CE.  Before that, Christians had their own local “covenant groups”as it were, which met in people’s homes or shops. Ideas about who and what Jesus was flowed freely and unencumbered.

First, let me try to explain what the meaning of the Trinity is.  It means one God in three persons. They are all coeternal with one another (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit). They all have their own substances, but at the same time are consubstantial.  And oh yes, they are all one essence (and other stuff called hypostasis, which means the substance, essence, or underlying reality).

What is an essence?  You must look to the tomes of Greek philosophy for this.  Words such as substance, consubstanital, essence, all have their roots in the Greek philosophers’ discussions of ontology (the study of what it means to be, to exist).  Thank you, Aristotle… NOT! 

So I’ve decided to blame the early Christian clergy’s infatuation with Greek philosophy for introducing a tradition that I can’t find in the Old or the New Testament.  In fact, in John 20:17- Jesus refers to, “my Father and to your Father, and to my God, and to your God.”  How could Jesus say that and then add, but my Father is me and my God is me? I guess  maybe because he was in his human body and at that point had limits in his knowledge of actually being God himself?Also, Jesus was a pious, practicing Jew, which means that he was a strict monotheist.  “The Lord our God is one God.” (Deuteronomy 6:4)

A multitude of proponents point to the familiar refrain of the “unfathomable mystery” of the Trinity. I’m all for unfathomable mysteries, although life itself is already a mystery,  do we need to make it any more complex?” Yet, I quote humbly from the words of Simone Weil: “I am not a Catholic; but I consider the Christian idea, which has its roots in Greek thought and in the course of the centuries has nourished all of our European civilization, as something that one cannot renounce without being degraded.”

Nun Tuck may be a heretic, but at least one in good company.  In 1531, a scholar named Michael Servetus wrote a treatise called “De Trinitatis Errorbus” or “The Errors of the Trinity”.  He was promptly burned alive at the stake for it.  He spoke of the Oneness of God, the Unity of God.  Many Unitarians consider him to be the first Unitarian martyr. 

I wonder if it would have helped any if they had known about the popular slogan, “What would Jesus do?” before choosing to burn him alive.  It’s difficult to believe that the Jesus in the Bible would have been as intolerant. Instead, if someone disagreed with him, Jesus would have done as he advised his apostles in Luke,  “Shake the dust out of your sandals”…  forget about it (or them), and move on.

For me, being a Christian means that if I follow the teachings of Jesus Christ, I will live wholly and holy.  It’s hard work with limited success, but like those who follow Buddha or Muhammad to the best of their ability, life is more abundant.

I mentioned earlier that what moves me is the more metaphorical understanding of the Trinity; a phrase that resonates for me is “The Dance of the Trinity.” Modern poet Ruth Duck describes it beautifully:

“Holy Spirit, who moved at the beginning of creation, teach me your divine dance, that I may move with you./Through my hands, invite others to the circle of love, that we may move in rhythm together./Praise to you, Spirit, who breathes the pulse of life, through Jesus Christ, who danced among us, to the glory of God the Source, in whom we live and move and have our being.”

FOUNTAINS FOR ETERNAL YOUTH

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What is it about fountains that make people go, ahhh, or that entice little kids to run through them (clad or unclad)? You know how they make you feel happy in either a peaceful kind of way or in a ‘yippee it’s a party’ kind of way?

I’ve been thinking about this for off and on for a while now.  My posts “Place” and “Gonna Take a Sacramental Journey” back in April reflected on how certain environments and elements awaken in us a deeper connection with our spiritual self.  And just as certain religious rituals provide sustenance for the soul (my grandmother was nourished by the food of daily holy communion for years), the sight, sounds, and sometime scents of moving water always brings me back to myself. 

I hear the continual but varied splashing of water against stone and it calls to me from an open window. My simple little wheel of a  fountain blends into the landscape like a miniature grist mill’s stone. Tucked into a shady corner of rambling pink rose bushes and low-lying Vinca (the prolific green ground cover with bright purple flowers),  it is your ear that first finds it. I love to hear the sound and even from an upstairs window, I can almost feel it. And it’s not just fountains either….it’s water than moves continually and evenly uneven, rhythms as varied as our own breath. 

I recall spring and summer days as a small child where I would spend an hour in the late afternoon with nothing but a twig as my paintbrush and I would pull stones up out of the water’s bed, sit by the gurgling brook in the woods behind our house letting them dry, and then “painting them with water again” to watch the colors change.  The coolness of that busy brook emanated right up to the mossy patch from where I took my respite, sometimes for a moment so tiny I would only catch it when a breeze sent it to me.

My current front yard fountain and my old back yard brook shared similar sounds of quiet tinkling.  I am grateful for their offerings.

Then, there are the ones that are “OH, WOW”.  I have had the great blessings to have seen, felt, heard, and yes, even smelled, the many incredible ancient and modern fountains that dot all of Italy, especially Rome.  The Trevi Fountain with its awe-inspiring statues and the pool filled with coins from luck hopeful tourists is heart lifting joy.  For me, these fountains, each more beautiful than the next, was like my children on their visit to Disney World.  They ran from one exhibit to the next…”Hey, Mom, look at this!  Hey, Mom, come over here quick, look at this!”

That is exactly how I feel. Get me around fountains or bubbling brooks or the ocean or a rushing river or oh yeah, A WATERFALL (so cool, such a rush) and yet all of these simultaneously peaceful. 

So on this last day of July, for us here in New England perfect bliss, you’ll find me near the water, listening.

THE FIERCE SWORD OF COMPASSION

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Today’s post is about compassion, what it is and what it isn’t. The title for the post comes from Jack Kornfield, world renown Buddhist teacher and guide, from a book I can not recommend highly enough entitled The Wise Heart. Citing from Kornfield’s introduction of what Buddhism is and isn’t provides a helpful backdrop to the universal application of compassion. It is a principle that is a cornerstone of every life well lived, whether one adheres to a particular faith or not:

“In approaching this dialogue, I’d like to underscore a point the Dalai Lama has made repeatedly: “Buddhist teachings are not a religion, they are a science of mind.”  This does not deny the fact that for many people around the world Buddhism has also come to function as a religion.  Like most religions, it offers its followers a rich tradition of devotional practices, communal rituals, and sacred stories. But this is not the origin of Buddhism or its core.  The Buddha was a human being, not a god, and what he offered his followers were experiential teachings and practices, a revolutionary way to understand and release suffering.” 

In fact, an Italian scientist named Giacomo Rizzolatti and his colleagues discovered a class of brain cells called “mirror neurons.”  Their research showed that through our mirror neurons we actually feel the emotions, movements, and intentions of others. It is part of our social brain, “a neural circuitry that connects us.” 

Linguistically, the word compassion has its roots in Latin and Old French.  From the Latin compassionem, com (with), pati (to suffer), ion (state of, act of), it means “the act of suffering together.”  When we feel another’s sorrow:  at a friend’s husband’s funeral, with a mother whose child is undergoing chemotherapy, we often weep with them and for them. On another level, we feel the anguish also for ourselves.  We too are not immune, we all have experienced or will experience pain and death, of one kind or another.  There is much healthy connection in feeling sympathy for another’s pain.  If we have experienced similar tragedies, we may have something insightful to contribute to alleviate the suffering.  Yet, even if we have never had that experience, as humans we contain the urge and strong desire to end their suffering. Our willingness and openness to become a vehicle for healing can, in and of itself, bring comfort. 

That healthy connection means that I will stand with you in your pain and you will stand with me in mine; and we will bear it together.  We CAN bear it.  It is the opposite of fearful aversion that does not want to look, that feels like it can’t look.  This keeps us tucked away in our separateness, holding on for dear life with the delusion that such and such could never happen to me. This paradigm contains the seeds of suffering for everyone.

So what is meant then by the fierce sword of compassion? It is the “no” of compassion.  We can know and serve others, but we are not going to save the world.

 Again, Kornfield:  “Compassion is not foolish.  It doesn’t just go along with what others want so they don’t feel bad.  There is a yes in compassion, and there is also a no, said with the same courage of heart.  No to abuse, no to violence, both personal and worldwide.  The no is said not out of hate but out of unwavering care.  It is the powerful no of leaving a destructive family, the agonizing no of allowing an addict to experience the consequences of his acts.”

It is the learning to finding the harmony between holding on and letting go…in love.  May you find courage in the yes and no of your compassion.

WHAT YOU THINK OF ME IS NONE OF MY BUSINESS

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I have often times thought about how others might be perceiving my actions.  What do they think of me?  Do I look foolish or unworthy or are my thoughts ridiculous?  Even when I know that to take things personally is an unproductive action of the ego, I still do.  Yet, truly, intellectually, I know that what you think of me is none of my business. My father spoke of this often.  He lived free, allowing his own judgments of his actions to be sufficient.  For me, it is a daily act of affirmation and recognition that not only do I try not to take things personally, but that I strive not to judge anything or anyone that crosses my path today.  

People judge us by the surface of our lives; we compare other people’s outsides to our insides and we inevitably lose.  They look at how we raise our children, and judge us too strict or too lenient.  If our children succeed in academics or athletics or rise to any number of great heights, we are such good parents. If they wind up slacking off, drinking beer, smoking pot, or any number of shenanigans that teenagers get into, we are responsible and should hang our heads and be ashamed.

What silliness and small mindedness is involved in this black and white way of thinking.  It is easier to take part in when we are younger and more naive.  Judging is a fearful act of separating and protecting oneself.  If you are not feeling particularly secure in your own skin, pronouncing that you “know the answers” and that others fall short of the mark, feels subconsciously at least, safe.

Later, of course, when we mature and life hands us our own inevitable “slings and arrows of outrageous fortune”, we learn that life is too complex to judge, that why people do what they do is made up of a unique mixture of nature and nurture.  We have not walked even close to a mile in their particular skin.  Tragedy throws itself on the most unlikely and undeserving victims.  Addictions and disease befall the greatest of characters.

With luck, with God’s grace, with help of friends, family, and the kindness of strangers, we are sometimes blessed with peace which passeth all understanding, with endurance that lasts beyond all signs of exhaustion, and most of all, hope that all will eventually be well.  Somehow, someway.  Regardless and in spite of, what anyone else has to say about it. 

So, just for today, let other’s opinions go.  Let the harsh judgments of the crowd silence in the quiet of your heart.  You are doing the best you can with what you’ve got…and it’s enough.