Inspiration: 

 

For happiness one needs security, but joy can spring like a flower even from the cliffs of despair.
–Anne Morrow Lindbergh 

A Life Jacket of Hope

For me, hope was my life jacket as I floated in a vast sea of depression.  It is a miserable experience to float in a vast sea of depression, all on your own, no land in sight, sharks of despair circling nearby.

…Sometimes, the life jacket that holds you up seems more of a curse than a blessing.  Only once you have found your way to land are you sure that your life jacket had a purpose.  Thankfully, my life jacket, my hope, served a purpose.  My hope for a healthy future filled with love and meaning has become my reality through hard work, tenacity, and the grace of God.  For that I am profoundly grateful.

Gratitude, I believe, is hope that has evolved.  As soon as I left the ocean, I dropped my life jacket on the beach.  I no longer needed it the way I had.  But what surrounds me now and helps me navigate the earth is gratitude.  Not a day goes by that I am not thankful for my life and thankful that hope kept me afloat.

by Adam Gerhardstein  TO READ MORE

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Inspiration: 

 

Let a joy keep you. Reach out your hands and take it when it runs by.
–Carl Sandburg 

Getting Out of Our Own Way Faithfully

Recently, I was on my way out the door at my local library. It was newsletter folding day, and several volunteers were out sick. I was asked to help out.

Now I pray regularly to be ready to help when asked. I had things to be done, but nothing urgent. Still, there was a moment of wrestling with the unplanned request. I stayed. I folded newsletters with my neighbors. I had a wonderful time and we all were able to go into a beautiful day sooner because of working together. It was a joy – and a moment of spiritual practice when I could transcend my expectations and plans for the day and answer the needs I met along the way. I was given the opportunity to live faithfully, to practice neighborliness and to be generous with what I had – time – letting go of my schedule that did not need to be so rigid.

by Rev. Naomi King, City of Refuge Ministries  TO READ MORE

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Inspiration: 

 

Do what brings you joy by finding joy in what you do.

To Be Joyfully Determined

So often we focus on what is wrong, and we let that determine the course of our lives. What if we choose instead to focus on what is right, on what makes us happy, on what fulfills us? What if we choose instead to be joyfully determined?

Start with joy. Ask yourself: What brings me joy? Ask this every single day. Notice the answers. Remember the answers. And be joyful.

by Joshua Mason Pawelek, minister, Unitarian Universalist Society: East, Manchester, Connecticut  TO READ MORE

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Inspiration: 

 

I slept and dreamt that life was joy.
I awoke and saw that life was service.
I acted and behold, service was joy.
–Rabindranath Tagore

Never Too Late

Bravery is a choice. It is a decision to enter into the fray no matter how illogical and crazy things are. Even as our friends, family and common sense recommend that we stay away.

In our life, we are surrounded by people, events, circumstances that offer continuous proof of how bad things are, including bad people who don’t seem worth struggling for.

We did not plan to live in such a crazed world. Very few of us have been prepared by life circumstances to deal with the levels of fear, aggression and insanity we now encounter daily.

When we were being trained to think, to plan, to lead, the world was portrayed as rational, predictable, logical.

But now? Ever-present insanity, illogic, injustice, illusion.

This is just the way it is and will continue to be.

We can’t restore sanity to the world, but we can still remain sane and available.

We can still aspire to be of service wherever need summons us. We can still focus our energy on working for good people and good causes.

It is never too late to be brave.

By Margaret J. Wheatley, TO READ MORE

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Inspiration: 

 

A leaf fluttered in through the window this morning, as if supported by the rays of the sun, a bird settled on the fire escape, joy in the task of coffee, joy accompanied me as I walked.
–Anais Nin 

Hope & Assurance

Hopefulness grows with true joy, in the heart of humble assurance.  Hope is often confused with “I want.”  Joy is often confused with “Yay! I have what I want!” Assurance is often confused with arrogance (“I count for more.”) Yet hopefulness, joy, and assurance are humble, steadfast, and very different from their false counterparts. The assurance that we are loved and loveable, that we have something to give to the greater good, that we are already here and belong to the whole nourishes hopefulness and joy. There isn’t any up/down positioning in that assurance, only possibilities of what we are each and all to do with these gifts we have, with the lives we live. Shall we contribute to goodness today and every day? I hope so.

Rev. Naomi King, City of Refuge Ministries, TO READ MORE

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