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11.27.2016

A Proper Apology

I have printed this out and I will be sharing in my office this week.

11.26.2016

What Are Healthy Boundaries?


I heard a woman discuss "healthy boundaries" this week. This is much harder to describe than it would appear. I appreciated her insight - here is a recap. "Boundaries are not random and fluid feelings about what I like or selfish willy-nilly demands of my loved ones. And, hurt feelings or behaving in a way that I don't agree with does not constitute disrespecting my boundaries. Boundaries are speaking more specifically to a mutual understanding and co-existing with loved ones that meet or fulfill our basic needs and maintain or support our well-being. Healthy boundaries are a set of principles and standards that we have established for ourselves, after an in-depth personal examination of how we best operate and exist in the world. In essence, it's our personal playbook towards optimal and complimentary  relationships, given our unique strengths and vulnerabilities. My boundaries are probably different than yours, appropriately so. Furthermore, any breach or violation of my boundaries is my responsibility and not yours."



"Evolutionary thinking is actually contemplative thinking because it leaves the full field of the future in God’s hands and agrees to humbly hold the present with what it only tentatively knows for sure. Evolutionary thinking agrees to both knowing and not knowing, at the same time. To stay on the ride, to trust the trajectory, to know it is moving, and moving somewhere always better, is just another way to describe faith. We are all in evolution all the time, it seems to me. It is the best, the truest, way to think"  —Richard Rohr, “Evolutionary Thinking

11.12.2016


I keep remembering back to something I saw this summer while at the beach and thought it was worth sharing. 

I watched an older couple (maybe late 60's) push a wheelchair across the sand. I can only guess the big guy in the wheelchair was their son; a full-grown adult male. Mom and Dad rolled the chair as close to the water as they could get it, then Dad (I assume) lifted his son out of the chair and carried him to the water. Dad cradled and floated his son for quite awhile. I wasn't close enough to see their expressions, but everyone looked very relaxed and happy, no strain or effort. Mom, I assume, was small but strong. She watched and prepared the chair for them to return after about 20 minutes, then he was carried back and toweled off. This family looked like they had done this a million times. 
Ordinary people doing extraordinary things, every day.
I don't know what to say about it except that it has stayed with me. 
It was one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen.








11.06.2016

The Sorrow Tree

The Sorrow Tree,  

by: Brian Cavanaugh, T.O.R., The Sower's Seeds



So it was that when the Hasidic pilgrims vied for those among them who had endured the most suffering, the Zaddck told them the story of the Sorrow Tree. On the Day of Judgment, each person will be allowed to hang one's unhappiness and sufferings on a brach of the great Tree of Sorrows. After all have found a limb from which their miseries may dangle, they may all walk slowly around the tree. Each person is to search for a set of sufferings that he or she would prefer to those he or she has hung on the tree.

In the end, each one freely chooses to reclaim his or her own assortment of sorrows rather than those of another. Each person leaves the Tree of Sorrows wiser that when he or she arrived.


The Man In The Glass

When you get what you want in your struggle for self
And the world makes you king for a day
Just go to the mirror and look at yourself
And see what that man has to say.
                              
For it isn’t your father, or mother, or wife
Whose judgment upon you must pass
The fellow whose verdict counts most in your life
Is the one staring back from the glass.

He’s the fellow to please – never mind all the rest
For he’s with you, clear to the end
And you’ve passed your most difficult, dangerous test
If the man in the glass is your friend.

You may fool the whole world down the pathway of years
And get pats on the back as you pass
But your final reward will be heartache and tears
If you’ve cheated the man in the glass.