The Difference a Week Makes

When I wrote last week's blogpost, I was still feeling fairly fragile, it being only a couple of days since my foot surgery. But now, only seven days later, I have little or no pain, have become a dab hand with my crutches and am feeling quite chipper. Admittedly, I am still confined to my chair except for the hourly, obligatory hurple around the downstairs rooms to keep my muscles toned and the danger of a blood clot minimised, but I'm fine. Really fine. In fact, I'm revelling in the chance to spend my days writing and crocheting without guilt, as the District has generously granted me a period of sick leave. 

So this week's quotation, by the 19th century humorist and author, Prentice Mulford, really struck home. He wrote, "When you think bright things, you attract bright things to you." And I'm sure this is true. I believe that it is because I have freely accepted the restrictions of this post-operative period, rather than grousing about and resenting them, that I've healed so well, so far.

Because I can remember a time when it was far otherwise. My son was born via an emergency caesarean section, and I was desperately upset that I had "missed" his birth through being under a general anaesthetic. Looking back, I am sure that is why I had so much trouble with my section scar, which remained painful for nearly three years. At the time, I used to joke that the hospital porter had stitched me up, but actually, I now believe that I stitched myself up. I was so down on myself and my body, it is not surprising she took so long to heal.

I honestly think that our minds have a huge (if often sub-conscious) influence on our bodies.  And that it is up to us to live in harmony with all the different parts which make us human - our bodies, our minds and our spirits (souls). Living in a way which the American sociologist Brené Brown calls "wholeheartedly" can only be good for us. Or so I have found.

Wisdom from Missed Opportunities

I had not previously heard of Henriette Wilhelmine Hanke, the Silesian author of this week's quotation. But according to Wikipedia, she was considered to be "one of the most successful authors of the first half of the 19th century," (at least in Germany). She had an unhappy marriage to a much older man and is best known for her "didactic" works, "where one can find much of the sentimental enthusiasm of popular romanticism. It was always about being there as a comforter and counselor for other lonely women after her own unhappy marriage, giving them the feeling of comforting togetherness by reading her novels and short stories."

Which made the quotation chosen by Harenberg Kalender more poignant, "Missed opportunities never come back. But they teach us to be aware of new ones." It made me wonder what opportunities she had missed, what regrets she had, about becoming the third wife of an elderly pastor at the early age of 20, and having to spend her prime looking after his six children. And to think about what opportunities I might have missed, and what they have taught me...

The only one I could think of was that I had always planned to spend a year after graduation working at the hotel of a friend of my father in Seefeld, Austria, to become fluent in German. But then I became engaged, and the slump of the early 1980s happened, and it felt more important to get a good job and settle down. So I never made it, and my German remains very much sub-fluent. I can understand far more than I can speak, but I would love to have been fluent.

Since then, I have always tried to jump in the direction of new opportunities, saying "yes" to life, rather than "No, I can't, I'm scared, what if I fail?" I would far rather try something new, something different and not succeed, than rest on my (very few) laurels and not LIVE.

I love the Quaker Advice, which I first came across in my late twenties, "Live adventurously. When choices arise, do you take the way that offers the fullest opportunity for the use of your gifts in the service of God and the community? Let your life speak." 

And I have rarely regretted following it, even if it does sometimes make me feel vulnerable. I would far rather dare and fail, than not dare at all. But I also need to bear in mind another Quaker advice, as time passes: 

"Every stage of our lives offers fresh opportunities. Responding to divine guidance, try to discern the right time to undertake or relinquish responsibilities without undue pride or guilt. Attend to what love requires of you, which may not be great business."

I think I will find "relinquishing" more difficult than "undertaking." May I have the grace to do so, when the time comes.

Taking a New Path

Last week's quotation (which I haven't blogged about until today, because the photo took 48 hours to make its way from my mobile phone to my computer!) is by Charles de Foucauld. In translation, it reads, "There is not a moment in our lives, in which we cannot take a new path."

Which I guess I agree with in principle. However, in practice, we are often prone to missing the new path at our feet, and plodding along the same, well-worn track, however poorly it is serving us. Because it takes courage to make a change in our lives, and the ego part of our brains much prefers the status quo. And we also have to be awake, aware of the new path opening in front of our feet.

In my own case, there has to be a definite nudge, a definite call, to take a new path.  And being a bookish type, it has often come in the form of something I have read, from whole books to single sentences, which have jumped off the page and hit me in the face. Or the wise words of a friend or colleague.

For example, my decision to take the path of quitting drinking, five and half years ago, was the result of an unfortunate incident, when I got drunk and incoherent in front of people I respected, and my spiritual director's injunction to "sit with the shame and see where that takes you." I gave up drinking a few weeks later, and have not had a drink since.

The decision to take a new path is often not an easy one. But it is always, always worthwhile, so long as we have thought it through and don't do it on a whim. I believe that our hearts and wills have to be pulling in the same direction as our heads, in order for a new path to be successful. We have to deeply desire to take the new path, not just feel we "ought" to. Ought to, in my experience, rarely works.

For example, I have lost count of the number of times that I have said to myself "I really ought to lose ten pounds." But my will has not been working in harness with my mind, so I have stuck to the diet for a few weeks, and then given up. Because I've not had the nudge, not really desired, with all of me, to lose that weight. My Personal Trainer at the gym wants me to lose a few pounds, but I'm finally happy with my body as she is (after years of self-loathing and beating myself up) - all my clothes fit me, and at 59, I have come to accept a few lumps and bumps as part of growing older. I work out to be healthy and strong, not to lose weight... and, I love chocolate so much! The idea of depriving myself to lose that ten pounds is not an attractive one, so I don't.

What new path may be opening in front of you?

It's A Wonderful Life

I've just been watching one of my two* favourite Christmas films, It's A Wonderful Life. It stars James Stewart as the central character, George Bailey, who lives in the first half of the last century in the small town of Bedford Falls, runs the local building society, and lives in a ramshackle house on the edge of town with his wife and children.

Trying not to spoil the plot, I'll just say that as the film begins, George has hit rock bottom, and wonders bitterly whether he has wasted his whole life. All his contemporaries, and his younger brother, have left the town and got on, got ahead, but chance and circumstance, combined with a strong sense of duty and honour, have kept George in Bedford Falls.

He is on the point of suicide, believing that it would be better if he had never lived, when his own personal guardian angel, Clarence, intervenes, and proceeds to show George the many ways in which he has made a difference for the better. There is a wonderful happy ending - hence the title It's A Wonderful Life.

When I watch it each year, I always wonder, like George, how or if my life has made a difference to the people with whom I share it. And end up being reassured by the film's message: that if you do the best you can, and follow the best you know, it will all work out right in the end.

I'm not as unselfish as George Bailey, but I share Brene Brown's aim of living wholeheartedly. In the Introduction to her wonderful book, Rising Strong, she writes:

"I define wholehearted living as engaging in our lives from a place of worthiness. It means cultivating the courage, compassion, and connection to wake up in the morning and think, No matter what gets done and how much is left undone, I am enough. It's going to be at night thinking, Yes, I am imperfect and vulnerable and sometimes afraid, but that doesn't change the truth that I am brave and worthy of love and belonging."

I believe that if we can do that - strive to live wholeheartedly, then, like George Bailey, we will be able to lead lives where we can make a difference, for the better. Merry Christmas!

*the other one is Love Actually

Living the Words

I have a beautiful prayer, adapted from some ancient words from the Celtic Christian tradition, that I use daily, which encapsulate my conscious wish to live whole-heartedly, bringing my whole life under God's influence.

God to enfold me (in his loving arms)
God to surround me (so that I am always aware of His presence)
God in my speaking (so that I think before I speak / write, and don't use words that have the capacity to wound others)
God in my thinking (the "What would Jesus do?" question)

God in my dreaming (so that I have big plans for a better world)
God in my waking (so that I bring Her to my mind as soon as I awake)
God in my watching (so that I am aware and mindful of His presence, and also that I watch my own actions and words)
God in my hoping (so that I never give up)

God in my caring (for others, and also for myself)
God in my loving (because Love is the greatest force for good in the world)
God in my choosing (to live whole-heartedly and vulnerably and mindfully)
God in my trusting (that God *is* everywhere - particularly that there is "that of God in everyone", as the Quakers say)

God in my life (so that I try to live it mindfully, in awareness of Her presence)
God on my lips (so that my words do not wound)
God in my hands (so that my actions match those beliefs I am professing)
God in my heart (because Love is at the centre of everything)

God in my sufficing (so that I understand that who I am is enough, and that I don't need to "please, perform and perfect", to be loved)
God in my slumber (because I know the fundamental importance of rest and relaxation)
God in mine ever living soul, God in mine eternity (so that I recall that I came from Her and will eventually return to Her. And that the time in-between is the only life I have on this earth, my only chance to live wholeheartedly, striving to be the best person I can be).

Amen, Blessed Be.