Life Is A Struggle

Life is not given to us that we might live idly without work.

No, our life is a struggle and a journey.

• Good should struggle with evil;
• truth should struggle with falsehood;
• freedom should struggle with slavery;
• love should struggle with hatred.

Life is a movement, a walk along the way of life to the fulfillment of those ideas which illuminate us, both in our intellect and in our hearts, with divine light.

(After Giuseppe Mazzini, in A Calendar of Wisdom by Leo Tolstoy, 29 February)

3 March 2016

The Perfect Moment

The first three times you came with the same story [they] would listen and try to help. But if you showed up a fourth time and it was the same old tired things, the others in the circle would just get up and move ... it was time you did something about it.
(Amy E. Dean, Night Light, 21 November)

The perfect moment never arrives, there is never a convenient time.
(Promises Of Joy, p. 174)

... you can always make your own choices about how to handle the painful problems that come your way.
(The Christophers, Three Minutes A Day, Vol. 41 or 44, 29 October)

I was struck by how much of this man's inner focus was on dis-order, dis-harmony, and disease ...
(after Dr. Wayne W. Dyer, The Power Of Intention)

If I'm on the wrong track, I want to know it so I can correct my faults and attitude. Others can often see our problems more clearly than we can, and from that we get our best help.
(One Day At A Time In Al-Anon, 20 August)

To overcome my faults, I must first know what they are. Then I must admit to them, and, finally, with patient self-correction, diminish them, even if I cannot set myself wholly free.
(One Day At A Time In Al-Anon, 19 June)

Slavery, is anything that keeps you from your God-ordained destiny and the fulfillment of his promises for you.
(Beth Moore, Praying God's Word Day By Day, 8 August)

Whatever course you decide upon; there is always someone to tell you you are wrong. There are always difficulties arising which tempt you to believe that your critics are right. To map out a course of action and follow it to an end requires ... courage.
(Amy E. Dean, Night Light, 15 September)

Fools think their own way is right, but the wise listen to advice.
(Proverbs 12{15 (NRSV), Promises Of Joy, p. 167)

Be very careful, then, how you live - not as unwise but as wise.
(Ephesian 5:15, in Promises Of Joy, p. 220)

Guilt

The United States ... has never really dealt with its guilt in handling its native people so savagely. It hasn't fully owned up to and sought forgiveness for slavery. We could, even now, show clear, sincere appreciation for the beauty and wisdom of our native ancestors. We could make strong, public resolution to atone for slavery. Without strong, sincere, participatory expressions of remorse on our part, Native Americans carry the moral weight on themselves, and the society as a whole has little access to its original spirituality. African-Americans still struggle for their basic rights and dignity. Like a person burdened with guilt ... [he] may not be aware of, a country can be held back by its failure to deal with its past. (Thomas Moore, Dark Nights Of The Soul, p. 64) 25 February 2013