Spirit as Jeff

The following is from Patti Digh’s (http://www.37days.com/ ) Commencement Address at Guilford College:

Jeff — Tue, 15 May 2012 04:26:10 +0000

“As the great 21st century philosopher, Johnny Depp, has said, “There are four questions of value in life … What is sacred? Of what is the spirit made? What is worth living for, and what is worth dying for? The answer to each is the same. Only love.”

Love is the most important verb.

Change your verbs and you will change the landscape of your life:

Instead of knowing, I hope you will question.

Instead of accumulating, I hope you will give.

Instead of playing to win, I hope you will play to learn.

Instead of competing, I hope you will collaborate.

Instead of hating, I hope you will love.

Instead of remaining silent about inequities, I hope you will speak up.

Instead of despairing, I hope you will be happy in advance.

Instead of fleeing, I hope you will walk straight into all the days of your lives.

Instead of avoiding, I hope you will sit next to someone arm to arm.

Instead of diminishing, I hope you will know, deeply, that every human being you meet is as fully human as you are.

Instead of asking, ‘what will I get from this’, ask ‘what am I bringing to this’?

In addition to working, play.

In addition to protecting, open.

In addition to saving, give.

In addition to dreaming, do.

In addition to doing, dream.

Because it is your dream that matters now. Don’t feel panicked if you don’t know what that dream is yet. It is like those old roadside signs that used to spell out an advertisement one sign at a time as you went down the highway. While you’re navigating the landscape, the atlas of your life, the signs will come to you one by one. The way they connect isn’t known until you get to the last sign. The map is only complete when you stand at the final page of the atlas.

David Orr has written: “The plain fact is that the world does not need more successful people, but it does desperately need more peacemakers, healers, restorers, storytellers, and lovers of every kind. It needs people who live well in their places. It needs people of moral courage willing to join the fight to make the world habitable and humane. And these qualities have little to do with success as our culture has defined it.”

I would ask you to choose being significant over being successful.

Jeff — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 07:08:55 +0000

I love this feeling of looking to begin a new year. The limitless possibility. The knowing that as I celebrate this life of mine with the right balance of reverence and ultimate openness to what Spirit has imagined for me, nothing will come up that I cannot untangle and that more beauty than I can dream up is on its way to me now. May the new year bring an abundance of love, joy and good health for us all. And plenty of reasons to be breathless by the beauty of Life.
Martell Ogburn

What are you bringing with you into 2012? The mistakes you made this year need to stay in 2011. Regrets and guilt for mistakes in the past are useless emotions that weigh you down. Stop using energy dwelling on things God has already forgiven. Take the lessons learned from your mistakes with you into the New Year. The blessing is in the lesson. “…but I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead.” ~Phil 3:13
Della Reese

The old year passes into the new and heralds in the possibility of triumph, the triumph of the Spirit in us. But it cannot be done by the dictate of some external authority, it can only occur in our own consciousness when faith shall triumph over fear and love over hate and compassion over unkindness. Then at last we shall sing: Unto God be the
glory.
Ernest Holmes

In whatever sense this year is a New Year for you, may the moment find you eager and unafraid, ready to take it by the hand with joy and gratitude.
Howard Thurman

Jeff — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 01:47:37 +0000

The Moments of My High Resolve

Keep fresh before me the moments of my high resolve.

Despite the dullness and barrenness of the days that pass, if I search with due
diligence, I can always find a deposit left by some former radiance. But I had forgotten. At the time it was full-orbed, glorious, and resplendent. I was sure that I would never forget. In the moment of its fullness, I was sure that it would illumine my path for all the rest of my journey. I had forgotten how easy it is to forget.

There was no intent to betray what seemed so sure at the time. My response was whole, clean, authentic. But little by little, there crept into my life the dust and grit of the journey. Details, lower-level demands, all kinds of cross currents — nothing momentous, nothing overwhelming, nothing flagrant — just wear and tear. If there had been some direct challenge –a clear-cut issue — I would have fought it to the end, and beyond.

In the quietness of this place, surrounded by the all-pervading Presence of God, my heart whispers: Keep fresh before me the moments of my High Resolve, that in fair weather or in foul, in good times or in tempests, in the days when the darkness and the foe are nameless or familiar, I may not forget that to which my life is committed.

Keep fresh before me the moments of my high resolve.

For The Inward Journey
by Howard Thurman

Jeff — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 07:06:09 +0000

If you love and must need have desires, let these be your desires: To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night. To know the pain of too much tenderness. To be wounded by your own understanding of love; And to bleed willingly and joyfully. To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving; To rest at the noon hour and meditate love’s ecstasy; To return home at eventide with gratitude; And then to sleep with a prayer for the beloved in your heart and a song of praise upon your lips.
Kahlil Gibran
In truth everything and everyone Is a shadow of the Beloved, And our seeking is His seeking And our words are His words… We search for Him here and there, while looking right at Him. Sitting by His side, we ask: ‘O Beloved, where is the Beloved?’
Rumi
Drop the idea of becoming someone, because you are already a masterpiece. You cannot be improved. You have only to come to it, to know it, to realize it.
Osho
Now is the season to know that everything you do is sacred.
Hafiz

Jeff — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 07:36:29 +0000

“Letting go is one of the most difficult challenges human beings ever face. I’ve always pictured letting go as transformation – moving from a closed fist to an open hand. As we take an open-handed attitude toward life, we can be free of the self-made obstructions that litter our path. This process requires a willingness to shed our persona – those inauthentic trappings we hold onto for identity but that no longer serve us. The choice to let go frees us to follow the pathway to our soul.”

Benjamin Shield

We aren’t bodies at all; who we are is the love inside us, and it is that love alone that determines our value. When our minds are filled with light, there is no room for darkness.
Marianne Williamson

If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant; if we did not sometimes taste adversity, prosperity would not be so welcome.

Anne Bradstreet

“You don’t have to be brilliant, It’s enough to become progressively less stupid”
Marshall B. Rosenberg

Jeff — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 07:25:52 +0000

The tendency of modern physics is to resolve the whole material universe into waves, and nothing but waves. These waves are of two kinds: bottled-up waves, which we call matter, and unbottled waves, which we call radiation or light. If annihilation of matter occurs, the process is merely that of unbottling imprisoned wave-energy and setting it free to travel through space. These concepts reduce the whole universe to a world of light, potential or existent, so that the whole story of its creation can be told with perfect accuracy and completeness in the six words: ‘God said, Let there be light’.

Sir James Jeans

When you look at this life of action—the growing tree, the bird on the wing, the flowing river, the movement of the clouds, of lightning, of machines, the action of the waves upon the shore—then you see, do you not, that life itself is action, endless action that has no beginning and no end. It is something that is everlastingly in movement, and it
is the universe, God, bliss, reality. But we reduce the vast action of life to our own petty little action in life, and ask what we should do, or follow some book, some system.

Krishnamurti

Life is a wave, which in no two consecutive moments of its existence is composed of the same particles.

John Tyndall

Jeff — Sat, 10 Dec 2011 07:54:59 +0000

Every one of us needs a home. The world needs a home. There are so many young people who are homeless. They may have a building to live in, but they are homeless in their hearts. That is why the most important practice of our time, is to give each person a home.
Thich Nhat Hanh

I understand that my body goes with this world, so I take care of it. My attitude is that the body is a temple. This is a place where God can dwell. What am I doing to make it a place where God is welcome?
John Morton

We are not held back by the love we didn’t receive in the past, but by the love we’re not extending in the present.
Marianne Williamson

Jeff — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 06:43:58 +0000

Going alone into wild nature is an ancient way of connecting with your own soul. Simply being alive and fully present in the moment opens a direct connection to all of Creation which shamans call a state of ecstatic union. If you can feel this even for a moment, it will change your life forever. In the seeming simplest ways is hidden profound wisdom. The gateway is within.

Barbara Furlotte

Children are happy because they don’t yet have a file in their minds called “All the Things That Could Go Wrong.” They don’t have a mind-set that puts “Things to Fear” before “Things to Love.” Children are happy because they don’t have all the facts yet.
Marianne Williamson

Start living now. Stop saving the good china for that special occasion. Stop withholding your love until that special person materializes. Every day you are alive is a special occasion. Every minute, every breath, is a gift from God.
Mary Manin Morrissey

Jeff — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 07:07:29 +0000

Do you dare to achieve your goal? Do you care what other people say? Do you care if they laugh, or gloat over the fact that you didn’t succeed? Remember that this isn’t about the rest of the world, it’s about you. Never abandon a goal that resonates deeply in your heart. That’s the same as saying “No” to life. Don’t give up on anything that really excites you, even if it looks impossible at first. And don’t underestimate the tremendous power that comes from within when you truly believe in your goal and make a commitment to achieving it. That is when you can do the “impossible.”

Randi B. Noyes

“So many people work so hard, to achieve, attain, accumulate and cherish their fortunes. How many of us blissfully fill our days and nights being the Divine expression we are? This is the meaning of life. It is to be. As a result, all of your creations are a
natural outflow from the Divine within your being. This is the joy of life.”
Barbara Rose

I want to know if you can be alone with yourself, and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.

Oriah Mountain Dreamer

Jeff — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 07:25:57 +0000

Strange is our situation here upon earth. Each of us comes for a short visit, not knowing why, yet sometimes seeming to a divine purpose. From the standpoint of daily life, however, there is one thing we do know: That we are here for the sake of others…for the countless unknown souls with whose fate we are connected by a bond of sympathy.
Many times a day, I realize how much my outer and inner life is built upon the labors of people, both living and dead, and how earnestly I must exert myself in order to give in return as much as I have received.
Albert Einstein
Spirituality is recognizing and celebrating that we are all inextricably connected to each other by a power greater than all of us, and that our connection to that power and to one another is grounded in love and compassion. Practicing spirituality brings a sense of perspective, meaning and purpose to our lives.
Brené Brown
Just as the wave cannot exist for itself, but is ever a part of the heaving surface of the ocean, so must I never live my life for itself, but always in the experience which is going on around me.
Albert Schweitzer
Our ancient experience confirms at every point that everything is linked together, everything is inseparable.
Dalai Lama