Cross the Line

With everything, there's a line.

On one side of the line is a greater chance to give more, enjoy more, realize more. On the other side, there's less of a chance.And with each line, there's a choice. You want to cross the line or you don't. You want the better chance at meaningful - opportunity - impact - or you settle with the lesser chance.

Your choice. It seems simple but...

Then there'll be those times - those times when in the short run it'll seem like you can't cross the line (no matter what you do). But then, those misses (those hurdles) in the short run will sometimes help you over the line in the long run (in a way you couldn't have seen). They'll serve as lessons, giving you more depth to your experience.

But you won't know that at the time.At the time, you'll just see that line.And it might seem like a wall.But it really is just a line (a line you want to cross).And it's yours to cross but you have to decide (make that choice).

It seems simple but...

Then there'll be those people - those people who've decided they'd rather not cross the line and would prefer you didn't either - sprinkle in a little doubt, withhold a little encouragement, step in the way.Then there'll be that inner voice - that inner voice that'll remind you you're not that special and things like that are for other people. (What are you thinking?)

Then there'll be the work - the work that'll be the real challenge that some people never face because of the false challenges from those times, those people, or that inner voice that keep us from trying (and bouncing back).

But there's the line.
And it needs to be crossed.
And you can cross it.
It's up to you.

Sam Parker 2010

We are all, always, enough

“It’s so hard to believe that what the world wants is us. It’s hard to believe, whatever you’re doing, that you’re enough. We are all, always, enough.” Barbara Cook, soprano

The Work of Christmas

When the song of angels is stilled,
When the star in the sky is gone,
When king and princes are home,
When the shepherds are back with their flock,
The work of Christmas begins:
To find the lost,
To heal the broken,
To feed the hungry,
To release the prisoner,
To rebuild the nations,
To bring peace among the brothers,
To make music in the heart.

By Howard Thurman

The Invitation

It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache
for, and if you dare to dream of meeting your life’s longing.
It doesn’t interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking
like a fool for love, for your dreams, for the adventure of being alive.
It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon.
I want to know if you have touched the center of your own sorrow,
If you have been opened by life’s betrayals or have been shriveled and closed
from fear of further pain. I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without needing to hide it or fade it or fix it.
I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own.
If you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your
fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, be realistic, or to
remember the limitations of being human.
It doesn’t interest me if the story you’re telling me is true.
I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself, if you can
bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul. I want to know if
you can be faithless and therefore be trustworthy.
I want to know if you can see beauty even when it is not pretty every day, and
if you can source your life from it’s presence.
I want to know if you can live with failure, yours or mine, and still stand on
the edge of a lake and shout to the silver of the full moon,
"Yes!".
It doesn’t interest me to know where you live or how much money you have. I want
to know if you can get up after the night of grief and despair, weary and
bruised to the bone, and do what needs to be done for the children.
It doesn’t interest me who you are, how you came to be here. I want to know if
you will stand in the center of the fire with me and not shrink back.
It doesn’t interest me where or what or with whom you have studied. I want to
know what sustains you from the inside when all else falls away.
I want to know if you can be alone with yourself,

and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.

by
Oriah Mountain Dreamer
(a native Indian Elder)

The Journey

One day you finally knew what you had to do
and began, though the voices around you kept shouting
their bad advice--though the whole house began to tremble
and you felt the old tug at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"each voice cried
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do, though the wind pried with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations, though their melancholy was terrible.
It was already late enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen branches and stones.
But little by little, as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice which you slowly recognized as your own,
that kept you company as you strode deeper and deeper into the world,
to do the only thing you could do--determined to save the only life you could save.

© Mary Oliver.


. Online Source

Let's all (not) drink tap water... from 1870

A TEMPERANCE SONG.
Strained Verses Dedicated to Unstrained Water.
By A. FILTERER.

Bring a glass of sparkling water,
Fill the goblet to the brim,
Let the microscopic critters
Take in it a harmless swim.

Here are meat and drink united,
Life, indeed, in this we see;
Who'd exchange so rich a fluid
For the baser eau de vie?

Give us, then, no ale nor porter,
Logwood wine, nor other drugs;
But a glass of sparkling water
Filled with sportive little bugs.

from Punchinello 1870 vol. 1, number 4
courtesy Project Gutenberg
http://www.archive.org/details/8p104

Wild Geese

Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again. Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting--
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
© Mary Oliver.

with thanks to Natalie - I wish you your dreams.