And the world becomes kinder

I watched the movie created from the book, " Goodbye Mr Chips" , by James Hilton. It was a wonderful, terrible, excellent story about life and being a person of deep integrity and honor! One line in the show had me scrambling for paper and pen!

" When I stopped judging myself so harshly, the world became kinder. "

I must confess... I've gathered up my accuser's words since before I can remember. Where the tongues who spoke... also forgot. I held their words upon the precipice of my soul... allowing them... one by one to dive and splash into my emotional chamber and pump through me like poison.

I knew who I was. I knew I was not those cruel syllables. But hearing them caused confusion that I was somehow fautly. Someone had to pay penance... didn't they? So I took on the roll. I took on lies and lost myself in the forgotten rubbish tossed so carelessly.

"Love yourself! Take care of yourself! Self-respect, Dignity!" When these words started washing over me, I was at a loss! I did... didn't I? But alas, No! I judged myself very hard, very, very hard on the witness of unthinking individuals. I spent most of my life alone. Very meagre of friends. Locked in walls built to protect, but sheltering pain with no escape route! It was confusing to have duality of emotions. I cared so much for others, but couldn't allow anyone to know what lay so achingly within me.

When I took time to hear myself... I was agast! I got to work seeking out the burdens. While Hands much larger than I, crushed my walls to rubble and dust! I began to see me and not the hideous refuse that marred my soul's visage. I began to fall in love with who my Lord said I was. No other opinion mattered. Their reminice faded like fog when the Sun breaks through!

Some days I still have the residual effects of fresh floggings and I try to step back from their flashing whip... but I am not always quick enough and get scratched and gouged. I think it impossible to sidestep when being blindsided!!! sigh. But I know a great Healer when this happens.

I have been judged harshly and I have judged myself even harder because of it! When I stopped ( or at least became increasingly aware so I could stop) kindness came to me. Even more than this... where I had given my best to others... I suddenly had much better to give!

It is no cliche' to love others as you love yourself. If love for self is limited, then it goes for certain that your love for others is also bound to limited knowledge. Yet to love me, I had to first know I was loved by Another. God's love gave me truth no earthly vessel can.

When I stopped judging myself so unwisely with unedited bluther... I also learned to be much more gracious to others. To understand the cause of my 'effects'... made me seek a new perspective of those before me. Truly, this harsh world has gained a gentler edge!

Even ten years later I still feel quite lonely. Perhaps that is because I have SO much more space to be refilled!

Love Lion~*

"Our own heart, and not other men's opinions, forms our true honor." - Samuel Taylor Coleridge

"If you accept the expectations of others, especially negative ones, then you never will change the outcome." - Michael Jordan

Re-examine all you have been told... dismiss what insults your soul." -Walt Whitman

Whosoever may torment you, harass you, confound you, or upset you, is a teacher. Not because they're wise, but because you seek to become so." -Mike Dooley

Gates

Gates, they keep in and keep out!

We all have emotional gates. We let some through to venture into our soulful garden. Others are barred at the outskirts only glimpsing what might lay beyond!


I believe that at the heart of all persons is the desire to be known... acknowledged! Those who hide behind the highest walls with solid gates... want to be found most of all. Our gardens are meant to be shared and seeds exchanged and grown. And we all need help with weeding every so often!


Proverbs 19:22 What a person desires is unfailing love ; better to be poor than a liar.


This world holds little real unconditional love. Yet it is the very Heart and Core of our Creator. I have faith in God's unfailing love. People, all people require love to be sucessful in this life. Yet lies corrupt our vital sustainance. We were born with the image of God imbedded in our spirit. To be loved and to love. To have relationships that empower one another to respect and honor all persons. To enable people to grow and mature in their talants and goals. We are meant to uphold one another... not lash out at those we love... or those we fear because they look, sound or simply live in a foreign land.


We don't have to 'like' what some people choose to do. Some willingly defy our purpose in life. They do not have love in their hearts. They have sought out dark shadows to reside in where the truth cannot shine upon them. Perhaps they were born into shadow. Hate the sin, not the sinner. Now there is a difficult truth to follow. Love is expressed in a great many ways. Sometimes the only thing you can see in another person is the fact that they are a 'person' who though vile, is to be pitied for how lost in lies and destruction they are steeped. I believe that pity is indeed a form of love that can can provoke words of prayer if nothing else for such individuals.

“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.” Jalal ad -Din Rumi


Ultimately, we have just one moral duty: to reclaim large areas of peace in ourselves, more and more peace, and to reflect it towards others. And the more peace there is in us, the more peace there will be in our troubled world. Etty Hillesum


We are not meant to judge one another. We are meant to strive to be love and to help lift one another up to this challenge. We all know right from wrong. What do I let in through my gate? What grows in me? What grows in you? One source... many outcomes... yet still... only one destiny meant for ALL.


As I pluck up my weeds, I will try very hard not to throw them over the wall to implant in your garden space. Please be so kind to those to the right and left encircling you also!


Love Lion~*

Birth of a Victorious Spirit

"We are not born all at once, but by bits. The body first, and the spirit later; and the birth and growth of the spirit, in those who are attentive to their own inner life, are slow and exceedingly painful. Our mothers are racked with the pains of our physical birth; we ourselves suffer the longer pains of our spiritual growth." -- Mary Antin

I think Mary Antin very wise in her conclusion about our spiritual birth and growth. It is slow and exceedingly painful... lasts a lifetime! It is also richly rewarding to be maturing into our destined potential in this mortal life! So often I've attempted to avoid the pain… guess what happens? It only gets worse! If it is time for birthing… it is time for birthing! I had 4 sons and all varied in their arrival time. They also differ in their sprouting upward to tower over me! None of it can be avoided. Hesitation only gathers the velocity to which it will ultimately happen. This is why some grow steady forward… and some seemingly stagnate suddenly get thrown forward like a sling shot! And all say, " WOW" Have they ever changed!!!

You can outdistance that which is running after you, but not what is running inside you. - Rwandan saying

Do you remember having growing pains in your legs as a child? I sure did! I would wake up crying in pain and my Mom would try to soothe them. It wasn’t fun… but I did manage to grow up to be a soaring 5’5-½”!!! With all the childhood sufferings of growing up my Mom would say “ You have to suffer to be beautiful!"

Well point is… all life’s happenings especially the difficult ones bring true growing pains to our spirit. The pains demand we seek understanding and wisdom to relieve the pain as we stretch up to our maturity! We hold so much within our soul and most times no one has a clue what strain we are going through. I cannot tell you how many times I was told. “ You look so great!” Yet I was steeped in sheer agony of soul and feeling very alone! No one saw that. I never let anyone know. ' Alone' makes it harder to be birthed in our spirit because it bars us from accepting benefits of wisdom from others. Growth comes easier with encouragement and loving care! I hadn't known I deserved that. Sometimes I still forget!

"If people knew how hard I worked to get my mastery, it wouldn't seem so wonderful after all." - Michelangelo

You are a masterpiece! You may be hurting, but take heart! That pain is developing in you gifts, wisdom and precious abilities that you need… that this world needs from you! Don’t fight it. Embrace it! Seek the balm of kindred friends who will empower you with the truth they see in you and you in them! Perhaps if Michelangelo had friends like that… he wouldn’t have had such a hard time ?!?!?!? His mastery may have been even more celebrated!!!

Ultimately, we have just one moral duty: to reclaim large areas of peace in ourselves, more and more peace, and to reflect it towards others. And the more peace there is in us, the more peace there will be in our troubled world. Etty Hillesum

And we know how desperately this world need more peace! I need it and I know you need it too! Sometimes it just takes us a bit of time to realize how much more is available to us. Life is not about being victims to life’s pain. It is about gathering wisdom, understanding, courage, thanks and loving relationships to become Victors in spite of that pain! You were born with potential. If you have forgotten… reclaim what is yours. Be of courage and fulfill your purpose… it is undoubtedly connected to another’s moral duty also!

With love Lion~*

Be the one you were Divinely designed to be. Accept what come to you because you are amazing.You can do it...we can... we truly can!!!

Sometimes I get lost

Sometimes I get lost


The past takes up hours of today


Faces that cannot be reached tug at my soul


Not one tear falls





Sometimes I forget to breathe


The past needs no inhale to survive


But my muscle ache must exhale soon


But I wait a moment





Sometimes I want to scream


To holler out my soul's burden


and empty my veins of this poison


stagnating heart seams





Sometimes I long to be known


For just one to sit with me


And bestow compassion


Yet who indeed...




Love Lion~*




Sometimes I need to remember so I can relinquish... how immensely tight my grip is. I have gone numb with the effort. How crazy is that. I could counsel so many with happy results... yet a simple breath and lifting of my will... I have no courage for.

Sometimes it is just a memory... and sometimes it is someone so much more. I found my brothers best friends. One who was there those torturous hours of evil fate. I know now all that happened. Where my sight ended at the dark corner of snowflakes... another gave my mind sight to see and know it all... and I have gone numb. Just as I did many years ago... I am not quite sure what I am supposed to do with it... but I know I have this huge gripping within me... and I am afraid of letting go... yet the wisdom in me knows it is what I need.

Closure... a door is not really closed till you let go of the knob... is it? But it has NOT been the good that has crowded in on me all these years. Not the happy memories some are allowed to keep. Mine is filled with murderous sorrow and it has both made and tainted me. I quit breathing when I lost him. He was my soft place to trust. He protected me. He cared when no one else did. He said "Bye, see you tomorrow!" But when I did see him... he was no longer there.

I thought I had dealt with it all so well. Till coincidence brought a fateful few my way. And now I know things I was never told. And I feel more alone than I did then... for even tears won't befriend me now.

There are people whom one loves immediately and forever. Even to know they are alive in the world is quite enough.

Nancy Spain

And when they are gone... nothing is ever quite enough

What is new?

Sometimes I wonder what I am doing. When asked what is new... I feel myself sink. New???... new is each day... and each moment... but there is an old load that weighs so much. That 'new' stuff that adventures my way has made it heavier...


I delete it all from view and pack it into cold storage... but that I am afraid has been permafrosting a portion of my heart. Rather forfeits my desire for integrity.


I have lost the tears that should have soaked my pillow. What is new? Not that! It is just that so much has happened that is so blasted harsh this year... stressors so high they take the breath from me and I can only pray silently... and in my weakened soul... I know He hears.


Last week a friend of mine said, " You are always positive!" Well, no, I am not. I just try to find the positives because I am trying to outrun the negatives. But it is futile... because I can't outrun what has taken up residence in me. I can only STOP... and tidy up room by room.

"When you slow down, step back a moment and put things in perspective, you can then move on with more efficiency. It only takes a moment to adapt and control how you respond."
Doc Childre,

When you get into a tight place and everything goes against you till it seems as though you could not hold on a minute longer, never give up then, for that is just the place and time that the tide will turn.Harriet Beecher Stowe, 1811-1896

"The key is to not resist or rebel against emotions or to try to get around them by devising all sorts of tricks; but to accept them directly, as they are."
- Takahisa Kora

I do not believe that sheer suffering teaches.If suffering alone taught, all the world would be wise,since everyone suffers.To suffering must be added mourning,understanding, patience, love, openness,and a willingness to remain vulnerable.Anne Morrow Lindbergh, 1906-2001

M. Scott Peck: The truth is that our finest moments are most likely to occur when we are feeling deeply uncomfortable, unhappy, or unfulfilled. For it is only in such moments, propelled by our discomfort, that we are likely to step out of our ruts and start searching for different ways or truer answers.

No coward soul is mine,
No trembler in the
world's storm - troubled sphere:
I see Heaven's glories shine,
And Faith shines equal,
arming me from Fear.

Emily Jane Bronte

"Challenges make you discover things about yourself that you never really knew. They're what make the instrument stretch -what makes you go beyond the norm."
Cicely Tyson

If you do not tell the truth about yourself you cannot tell it about other people. Virgina Wolfe

I love these songs by Annie Lennox!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wXBhBDCdiSY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-iX1CQJ_0l8

"Don't forget that little emotions are the great captains of our lives."
-- Vincent Van Gogh

There... my pep talk to myself for the day!

Now I shall go outside and tend my garden... and unburden some of the weight within me.

Lion~*

Can nothing be done??? really!!! hmmmm

Well, it has been awhile... and I don't know that even now I have anything worth saying, sharing or being heard. It isn't that nothing has occurred... I have had quite a bit happen... like a deeper assurance and conviction to be faithful to Truth! Like a stronger commitment to do everything it takes to learn more about what love means and to live it well! Like discovering through the help of many medical practitioners just what a healthy wreck I truly am! ... I have seen 8 Doctors in the last 1 1/2 yrs. Have a couple more to go still. Though I have received some great validation and important information... ALL of them come to one final conclusion... there is really nothing any of them can do to help me. I have been pronounced to be a well balanced individual who has some very difficult ailments that are not going to get any better... and many that will indeed... get much worse as I age.

Knowledge is Power!!!! sigh... Yes, it is helpful to know all that I do about what is going on with me... but I also feel extremely powerless! I had hoped someone could do something! I have been avoiding it since seeing the last specialist 3 weeks ago... but I think I really need to mourn once again... the loss of what I haven't had for nearly my whole life... and medically speaking... never will know. This isn't the end of it... it is just the 're'beginning of realizing the harsh impact of my reality. I wondered why I kept getting worse when what I am told I have is not progressive... yet I am continuing down a slippery slope that someone cruelly greased so I can't climb back up!

DAMMMMMMM!!!!

Until January no one looked into what Dr's found when I was a teenager...those xrays told a story no one wanted to read in many lonnng years!!! and THIS is what has provided me with the ever worsening of body. I have been contained in a vessel defective from conception... and so now... when they all say, "There is nothing we can do for you at this time!"... well they never could... and never can.

All I can do is maintain a healthy life and keep myself moving as best I can. It is all I have done for YEARS so nothing new there ... I am going to have to adjust a few things though... I will do all I can to avoid being in the vast majority who end up with serious surgeries. That would displease me greatly.

I used to have a reoccurring dream... I would be running through different places and times of my past... always there were 2 lines of people on each side of me... some people unknown and some significantly recognized... some cheered me and others reached out to divert my attention, but I would never stop... I kept running. After dreaming it... OH!!! I wanted to run so much! I know the true significance of the dream was not to become a marathon jogger... but to spiritually keep my focus and run the race set before me called Life! I could have been sidetracked multiple times... I have been on occassion... but never for long! I haven't been able to really run since I was 13 ... but I tell you ... I do know a thing or two about Living Life Well! Truth be told... that though it is indeed disappointing to be told over and over that nothing can be done medically... my journey has taken a turn of deepening contentment these last 2 months alone... and that is what makes all the difference in this life of mine!

So I will do myself the favor of feeling my sadness and be comforted by my many joys!!!

Love Lion~*WeakYetStrongPaw

waking and sleeping

Somewhere in my life... I fell asleep. A very deep deep sleep that I cannot wake up from. In my dreams I must be a painter but my dreams are not the ones I would have painted. The characters are of my choosing, but the lines ... some of them are all wrong. They travel in spirals and quick elbows that I just would never draw. I take careful strokes and never mix up colors into an ugly mess. Yet in my dreams, the paintings start beautiful until someone splashes them with black muck. Never is there a gentle portrait with kindness on faces bright. Tears streak the paintings that were pretty. Nightmares make my teeth and fists clench. I startle, but keep dreaming on. I would like to be woken up now. To gather the canvas and put an iron to it. Splash it with thinner and begin anew. I keep shaking myself... but I cannot wake more than I am.