Making up my mind is one of the most challenging aspects of life for me. Below are a series of different people’s writings that have all come together for me on this day to guide my decision making. Am interested in your reflections and how you work through making up your mind.
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“In a moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing to do. The worst thing you can do is nothing.” ~Theodore Roosevelt
We always want to do the right thing, but we do the wrong thing when we do not make a decision about what to do. Decisions have power. Decisions have force. They usually take us to the exact place we need to be, exactly the way we need to get there. It is the wavering back and forth that is dangerous. It places us at the mercy of events; we fall prey to the choices people make for us. Since time and opportunity wait for no one, our lives will not stand still until we figure out what to do. The rightness of a decision is based on our ability to make the decision. When we weigh what we want against what we will have to do, a decision can be an effortless event. We must know what we will and will not do, what we can do and choose not to do; and decide in harmony with the things we know. The freedom from making a decision can only come after we have made the decision.
Today I decide to be free from all decisions.
~Acts of Faith, Daily Meditation for People of Color by Iyanla Vanzant
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Life is a matter of attitude. It becomes what we bring to it. I find myself vacillating between the very poles Paul describes. At pole one, I take the position that this particular thing is good but this other thing is bad. So my days are either wonderful or terrible depending on whether they take the shape I will for them. At pole two, I take the position that everything that happens is life-giving somehow, even when I can’t see how. Then God is in the crevices where I never thought to look. “Make up your mind,” Paul seems to say, “and it will change your whole life.”
~Called to Question: A Spiritual Memoir by Sr. Joan Chittister
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Nothing is more practical than finding God, that is, than falling in love in a quite absolute, final way.
What you are in love with, what seizes your imagination, will affect everything. It will decide what will get you out of bed in the morning, what you will do with your evenings, how you will spend your weekends, what you read, who you know, what breaks your heart, and what amazes you with joy and gratitude.
Fall in love, stay in love and it will decide everything.
~Father Pedro Arrupe
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What if every decision that I make is based on a foundation of Love given and recieved in Truth and Kindness? What kind of world will I be?
1 response so far ↓
Shel // April 15, 2009 at 2:15 pm |
From Ilia Delio’s book, “The Humility of God”:
According to legend, Francis and brother Masseo were traveling in Tuscany when they came to a crossroad. Masseo asked which road they would take. Francis said they would take the road God wanted them to take, and Masseo asked how they would know. At this Francis commanded Masseo to twirl around until Francis told him to stop. Then, Francis asked which way he was facing. When Masseo answered, Francis said that was they way they would follow. Did God preordain one direction in which Francis and Masseo were to go or did the direction arise simply by chance? Such a question probably did not occur to Francis for what he realized is that God is in every direction; the goodness of God has no limits. God who is humble in love is faithful in love. In the same way, creation may take its chances and display its disorder, and similarly we humans may live chaotically but in all things God’s love prevails. Francis not only trusted in God’s humble love but he moved within creation as if he were held safely within the Trinity of love. Perhaps if we live in the freedom of love and strive not for control but for acceptance and trust in God’s faithfulness, as creation seems to, the world will move toward its goal, toward Christ, and this will be the unity of all things in love.
Ok, and then my thoughts:
Gwen and I were talking about bees – about how they just know when to stop heating up the hive to evaporate the water from the nectar and then the honey is done. (At least that’s how I understood it). And then I remembered the story of those bees who heat up their hives enough to kill their predators, but not too much so that they themselves are killed. They can do this, keeping the hive in that gentle balance between protection of their hive and destruction of their hive (I think it’s a one degree difference, if that). So all this makes me wonder about instinct/intuition – really, how often do we trust and use the gift of our intuition? Does nature have it right on this and are we missing the boat? If we are quiet and listen, the answer is there, and we know it, right? Bees do it. Can we? The only thing about intution that makes me nervous is that our intution is informed by stuff we learn from our society that isn’t right – thinking about that police shooting in NY a while back where the black guy was reaching for his wallet to show his id and the white cops shot and killed him – acting on their intuition that he was reaching for a weapon. So, I don’t know. Maybe it’s the difference between being grounded in love or not being grounded in love…being self-aware about the beliefs we have that are learned and not based in truth and constantly working to act out of the truth. (Oh, and don’t have weapons on you, because then you can’t use them in a moment of weakness…)
Ok, those are my thoughts. Thanks for the reflection! I suppose this counts for a letter this week in a way!!