Boundaries

A healthy boundary is freedom, just as powerlessness is powerful.

Power and Freedom

If powerlessness is the key to having power, then could boundaries be the key to having freedom?

Old Ideas

If it isn't what is happening right NOW, then it is already an old idea.

Someone shared this with me over the weekend and I am very grateful.  I have a tendency to hang on to old ideas that don't serve me very well.  Sometimes I bring up the past to "be right".  Sometimes I bring old relationship habits into new relationships.  And sometimes I do things because someone told me too, without ever looking at it with a new pair of glasses to see if it is the right choice for me right NOW.

I have to remember, “If I keep doing the same things, I'll keep getting the same results", and sometimes, that just doesn't make sense ;)

A little story....


One day a good friend of mine, Harry invited me over for dinner. It was “pot roast night” and he had been raving about his wife’s secret family recipe and how I would have never tasted a roast so good.

Sure enough, as expected, dinner was nothing less than spectacular. But I did notice something peculiar.

As the roast was being served on the table and the pot was being opened, I noticed that the roast had been cooked with its ends cut off… Being naïve, I asked the question, “Why are the ends cut off the roast like that?” The answer I got was “I’m not sure, that’s the way my mother used to cook it.” With no further explanation, I enjoyed stuffing my face on this spectacular feast. Harry was right, the roast dinner was absolutely brilliant!

A few weeks later, Harry came rushing into my office with a look of excitement on his face. He blurted out, “I must tell you the story of the pot roast….”

Last week my wife had her family reunion, and while we were chatting, the question of the famous pot roast came to my mind. I asked Mary’s mother, “Why do you cut the ends of your pot roast that way before you cook it?” She answered, “I’m not really sure, that’s the way my mother taught me to do it.”

Luckily the whole family was there and grandma was busy entertaining the grandchildren with stories of the good old days. I finally had a chance to get her attention and ask about the famous family recipe for the pot roast. She started to giggle, which turned into a belly laugh as I told her how her famous recipe had been handed down through the generations and no one was really sure how cutting the ends off the roast made it taste so good.

She looked me straight in the eye and said, “Harry, this is the funniest story I have ever heard….I’m glad to hear that my recipe has had such a great response, but the only reason that I used to cut the ends of my roast, was because I didn’t have a pot big enough to fit it in…” “I burst out into fits of laughter with her as she really made my day” said Harry.

Why Do I Do That?

Why is it that when someone accidentally slams a door in my face I get mad and resentful at the one person who does this? Why can't I focus on the 100's who have held a door open for me?

Why is it that I get mad at the driver who cuts me off and goes speeding down the road? Why can't I be grateful that other people let me in, don't cut me off and flow right along with me? And what if that driver that cut me off just got a call that his child was dying?

Why do I get mad when someone doesn't understand me? There are so many that do and so many I thankfully get to call friend?

Why can't I dwell on the 1000's of little things beautiful?

God, can You help me with this little problem I have with my perception? Thank You

Thoreau - Walden

"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practice resignation unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience..."

Tending The Garden

What if I want to grow fruits and veggies?? :)

Marriage Recommendations

Was the bible written to illustrate and record what was happening at the time and "Times, They are a Changin"?  Or was it written to tell me how to act in a literal way today?  For example, were women submissive to men, as illustrated in Corinthians, because it was an effort to keep peace and some control?  Or was it maybe just Paul's answer to a very specific question?  After all, Paul wrote this letter to correct what he saw as erroneous views in the Corinthian church.  Throughout the letter, Paul presents issues that are troubling the community in Corinth and offers ways to fix them. Paul states that this letter is not meant to make them feel ashamed but to "admonish" them as beloved children.

So, if my husband in 2012, tells me to obey him in the literal sense of this letter because "God says so", then what should I do about that??

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+Corinthians+7&version=NIV

You decide for yourself...

Unconditional Love

I read a sign on Facebook that said something like, "don't hang around those people that don't unconditionally love you."

My first thought was, "I am just starting to learn how to do that, so there go my friends."

My second thought was, "If I shut out those who don't unconditionally love me, then wouldn't I be practicing "conditional love"?

Gentle Breeze

As this woman grows in freedom and healing, she is freely given a friend of peace, calm and serenity.

This great friend is her inner strength.

Creator gives her a drink of the pure water springing from Mother Earth. 

Then bow of her spirit releases arrows of inner strength into Father Sky for others to gather.

~ Gentle Breeze

World Peace Diet

The Culture of Denial
Choosing to be blind to what we are actually doing when we shop for, prepare, and eat food, we blind ourselves not only to the horror and suffering we are instigating and eating , but also to the beauty of the world around us.  This acquired inability to actually see and appreciate the overwhelming loveliness of the earth allows us to ravage forests and oceans and systematically destroy the natural world.  Becoming insensitive to the pain we cause daily to defenseless animals, we also become insensitive to the beauty and luminosity of the creation that we oppress and from which we disconnect at every meal... p 9


Inheriting Cruelty
By confining and killing animals for food, we have brought physical violence into our bodies and minds and disturbed the physical, emotional, mental, social, and spiritual dimensions of our selves in deep and intractable ways.  Our meals require us to eat like predators and thus to see ourselves as such, cultivating and justifying predatory behaviors and institutions that are the antithesis of the inclusiveness and kindness that accompany spiritual growth.  Because cruelty is inescapable in confining, mutilating, and slaughtering animals for food, we have been forced from childhood to be distracted and inattentive to perpetrators of cruelty... p10

Quotes,  p 66
"The pain and suffering inflicted on children by the American diet is so brutal that if it were administered with a stick, parents would be put in jail."  ~ John McDougall, M.D.

"Human beings are not natural carnivores.  When we kill animals to eat them, they end up killing us because their flesh, which contains cholesterol and saturated fat, was never intended for human beings who are natural herbivores". ~ William C. Roberts, M.D. and Editor-in-Chief, The American Journal of Cardiology.

Threatening Water To Make It Wet

In The Scripture of Golden Eternity Jack Kerouac says that to tell man to be pure because of the fear of punishment or the promise of reward is like threatening water to make it wet.

Resentments

Expectations are pre-meditated resentments.

~ Unknown

Destiny

Keep your thoughts positive because your thoughts become your words. Keep your words positive because your words become your behaviors. Keep your behaviors positive because your behaviors become your habits. Keep your habits positive because your habits become your values. Keep your values positive because your values become your destiny. 

~ Ghandi

Human Being

I am a human being, not a human doing.

I don't evaluate my self-worth and self-esteem with how well I do things in my life. I am not what I do. If I am what I do, then when I don't, I'm not.

Hummingbirds

From the back of a Papyrus greeting card:

Legends say that hummingbirds float free ot fime, carrying our hopes for love, joy and celebration.  Like a hummingbird, we aspire to hover and savor each moment as it passes, embrace all that life has to offer and to celebrate the joy of everday.  The hummingbird's delicate grace reminds us that life is rich, beauty is everywhere, every personal connection has meaning and that laughter is life's sweetest creation.