Courage, Freedom, Authenticity (1/1/15)

Happy New Year 2015!

I woke up wondering: How do we find the courage to continue to individuate? How do we continue to be free, authentic, vulnerable? True to ourselves? Please give your attention to these words of raw truth from e.e. cummings:

“To be nobody but yourself in a world that’s doing its best to make you somebody else, is to fight the hardest battle you are ever going to fight. Never stop fighting. It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.”

This call to courage, to freedom, and authenticity, to live out our truth passionately with compassion, to shout out our equivalent of Hallelujah, is something we each long to do. At every age, it takes courage to continue growing and becoming who you really are. Think about your life – about your courage, freedom, authenticity, vulnerability – about your commitment to continue to grow and to bring forth all that is within you, about your commitment to give others the freedom to be themselves.

Think about your life shout out as “Hallelujah”.

I have played it before and it still moves me now as it did then. K.D. Lang sang the music by Leonard Cohen who is in the audience and the two of them come together at the end. My wife and I heard this performance at The Chautauqua Institution and it was the longest standing ovation we have ever seen.

“To the end of our days we never quite forget that we carry within us all there is of beauty and terror, of frailty and eternity, of the cosmos in a fleeting pinpoint of awareness, and of the seed of a divine child born in our own soul.”
-Marv and Nancy Hiles

Take courage – dare to be free and fully alive, and offering this to all others.

Alan Jones – KD Lang: “Hallelujah”

Is your life feeding your soul?

“Have compassion for everyone you meet even if they don’t want it,” said the Very Rev. Alan Jones at the first part of each of the five sermons he preached at The Chautauqua Institution last week. “What seems conceit, bad manners or cynicism is always a sign of things no ears have heard, no eyes have seen. You do not know what wars are going on down where the spirit meets the bone.” Wow!

You, all of you reading this, are bright and gifted and if you read this a few times, you will have some sense of why he said this before every sermon. You may know the truth of what he is saying. You may want to read it one more time. It lands. Remember: Have compassion for everyone. Including yourself.

What would the world be like if more people lived this way? Let the music flow through you opening inner spaces – releasing old stuff. Leonard Cohen is present as KD Lang sings his song. She sang this song two years ago at The Chautauqua Institution and folks still remember.

All that matters is to be one with God.

Be positive, compassionate, inclusive. Do not put anyone out of your heart. God calls us to inclusion, open hearts.

Wisdom, compassion, and courage

Is your life feeding your soul?