Quote of the Day for Thursday, April 16th

“If we choose to focus on things that bother us, we will never be at peace. We will be at the mercy of those around us. The serenity to accept the things we cannot change must involve the ability to be patient with these things and decide that they will not alter our state of mind and heart.” — Father Jonathan Morris

Daily Readings for Thursday, April 16th

Meditation for the Day

I must try to love all humanity. Love comes from thinking of every man or woman as your brother or sister, because they are children of God. This way of thinking makes me care enough about them to really want to help them. I must put this kind of love into action by serving others. Love means no severe judging, no resentments, no malicious gossip, and no destructive criticism. It means patience, under standing, compassion, and helpfulness.

Prayer for the Day

I pray that I may realize that God loves me, since He is the Father of us all. I pray that I in turn may have love for all of His children.

From Twenty-Four Hours a Day

Letting Things Happen

We do not have to work so hard at gaining our insights. Yes, we’re learning that painful and disappointing things happen, often for a reason and a higher purpose. Yes, these things often work out for good. But we don’t have to spend so much time and energy figuring out the purpose and plan for each detail of our life. That’s hypervigilence!

Sometimes, the car doesn’t start. Sometimes, the dishwasher breaks. Sometimes, we catch a cold. Sometimes, we run out of hot water. Sometimes, we have a bad day. While it helps to achieve acceptance and gratitude for these irritating annoyances, we don’t have to process everything and figure out if it’s in the scheme of things.

Solve the problem. Get the car repaired. Fix the dishwasher. Nurse yourself through the cold. Wait to take the shower until there’s hot water. Nurture yourself through your bad day. Tend to your responsibilities, and don’t take everything so personally!

If we need to recognize a particular insight or awareness, we will be guided in that direction. Certainly, we want to watch for patterns. But often, the big insights and the significant processing happen naturally.

We don’t have to question every occurrence to see how it fits into the Plan. The Plan – the awareness, the insight, and the potential for personal growth – will reveal itself to us. Perhaps the lesson is to learn to solve our problems without always knowing their significance. Perhaps the lesson is to trust ourselves to live, and experience, life.

Today, I will let things happen without worrying about the significance of each event. I will trust that this will bring about my growth faster than running around with a microscope. I will trust my lessons to reveal themselves in their own time.

From The Language of Letting Go by Melody Beattie

My Thoughts on it All – Pandemic 2020

Here we are, in the middle of April, a time where our minds turn to baseball and all those things we love to do outside. But this year is dramatically different from most any we’ve ever experienced, feeling the effects of the worldwide pandemic knows as Covid-19.

We’re well into the second month of social distancing and one thing that I’ve noted is that quite a few friends are sharing that they’re having problems sleeping. The reality of this whole situation is I’m thinking more than our conscious minds can handle at any one time. It’s an unprecedented set of circumstances, unlike anything any of us has experienced before. Most people, including myself, don’t know quite how to handle the reality of it all.

There’s definitely a feeling of disconnect that most all are feeling. Even with the technology that affords us virtual get-togethers, meetings, and the like, it still can’t replace actually being able to connect with people in person. Even acknowledged introverts such as myself are finding it difficult to not be able to get out and about and be around others.

It would seem to me that the general feeling among most is that we all just want this to be over and done with. We want to be able to wake up tomorrow morning and return to our lives as they once were. But then there’s the stark reality that it’s not going to work that way at all. We will one day slowly begin to relax being socially distant, but some things are never going to be exactly the same. And I think that’s what scares people the most. Life as we once knew it is not going to exist.

Do we resign ourselves to defeat? Certainly not! But in the realistic world of the great unseen enemy, we all need to realize that the process will take time. Large gatherings of people at restaurants, ballgames, concerts, and other social events will be slow to return. And it would seem to be that the worst thing we could do is rush back into the mindset of “life as usual”. And as I said, some things are never going to be quite the same.

Do I know what the end result will be? No. But I thought I would share my thoughts on it all and will have faith that although the journey is long, the outcome will leave us all the much stronger.

David Lee

Daily Readings for Wednesday, April 15th

Meditation for the Day

I must keep calm and unmoved in the vicissitudes of life. I must go back into the silence of communion with God to recover this calm when it is lost even for one moment. I will accomplish more by this calmness than by all the activities of a long day. At all cost I will keep calm. I can solve nothing when I am agitated. I should keep away from things that are up setting emotionally. I should run on an even keel and not get tipped over by emotional upsets. I should seek for things that are calm and good and true and stick to those things.

Prayer for the Day

I pray that I may not argue nor contend, but merely state calmly what I believe to be true. I pray that I may keep myself in that state of calmness that comes from faith in God’s purpose for the world.

From Twenty-Four Hours a Day

Communication

Part of owning our power is learning to communicate clearly, directly, and assertively. We don’t have to beat around the bush in our conversations to control the reactions of others. Guilt-producing comments only produce guilt. We don’t have to fix or take care of people with our words; we can’t expect others to take care of us with words either. We can settle for being heard and accepted. And we can respectfully listen to what others have to say.

Hinting at what we need doesn’t work. Others can’t read our mind, and they’re likely to resent our indirectness. The best way to take responsibility for what we want is to ask for it directly. And, we can insist on directness from others. If we need to say no to a particular request, we can. If someone is trying to control us through a conversation, we can refuse to participate.

Acknowledging feelings such as disappointment or anger directly, instead of making others guess at our feelings or having our feelings come out in other ways, is part of responsible communication. If we don’t know what we want to say, we can say that too.

We can ask for information and use words to forge a closer connection, but we don’t have to take people around the block with our conversations. We don’t have to listen to, or participate in, nonsense. We can say what we want and stop when we’re done.

Today, I will communicate clearly and directly in my conversations with others. I will strive to avoid manipulative, indirect, or guilt producing statements. I can be tactful and gentle whenever possible. And I can be assertive if necessary.

From The Language of Letting Go by Melody Beattie

One Big Thing…Part Two

So my idea of “one big thing” per day is working pretty well. What used to be a commonplace activity has become the highlight of the day. And as long as I can do one something out of the ordinary, I think I’ve accomplished my goal.

On Saturday, my one big thing was to mow the grass,,,it was long overdue. The forecast of rain and the man across the street mowing his were enough motivation to get me going. This, despite the fact I’d had problems with my riding mower the last time I had it out. It worked like a charm…at least for a while. I had gotten about 3/4 of the job done when the belt that drives the blades came off. I tried to rethread it, but alas couldn’t remember the path it took. So I went and got my push mower and did the rest with it. Job accomplished and unexpected exercise to boot.

On Sunday, which was Easter Sunday, my one big thing was to reintroduce myself to social media. I had taken a hiatus from it over the time of Lent and although Lent had officially ended several days prior, I’ve always made it my habit to return on Easter Sunday. I was glad to be connected to the virtual world once again and most seemed to be glad to have me back. I realized that in this time of social distancing, social media can play an even more important role.

I will have to admit I didn’t really have one big thing for Easter Monday. It was raining the first part of the day and although the sun eventually came out, I can’t really say that I did a whole lot. I’m thinking that even a new habit needs at least one day off per week.

Today my one big thing has been to get a new router for my home. I had problems connecting on Zoom meetings with my family and upon investigation and a call to a technician, discovered that the router I had was not capable of carrying the full load of bandwith that my service provided. I found out that I could get a new router at the cable store just down the street and so for today, that’s been my one big thing.

I was a little apprehensive switching out the router, remembering times in the past it had been difficult to connect with. But this router plugged in and worked like a charm. I’m hoping that the increased bandwidth will enable me to more fully participate in future Zoom meetings with the family and others.

So my only question now is, what will my “one big thing” be for tomorrow? I’ll ponder on that and see what I can come up with. Creating a one big thing per day is all a part of the fun.

David Lee