Showing posts with label Love. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Love. Show all posts

Friday, May 10, 2013

Stand for something or you will Fall for anything

Each part of the tapestry of life, is the thread that weaves through the invisible. When the seams are knitted with love, all become manifest and whole in being...gcw may2013


The call  that late November came from my sister and there was the uncertainty and urgency in her voice that my brother Michael, was hospitalized.   She suggested I should try to come back home to Maryland, at the earliest time off allowed.

Michael, a robust 5'10" 225 lb, brick muscle gladiator, rugby player, Master Electrician, devoted father, sometimes ornery brother, was never sick or in hospital for all my life of knowing him.  Michael, was just impenetrable about his positions and opinions.   And Michael taught me the meaning of indomitable will and courage as he fought and battled to hold on to life, with a diagnosis of pancreatic cancer. He survived for five months after that call. The night before he died, with a frail body mass of 97 lbs, he bravely ushered in the finality of life, with his signalling proclamation, "I'm outta here".  In the words of his favorite song " For what is a man, what has he got, if not himself then he has not, to do the things he truly feels, and not the words of one who yields, I did it all and I stood tall and did it My Way"  (My Way sung by Frank Sinatra), he died as he lived, with purpose and self discipline.

Within the tapestry of life we encounter the threads of experiences which sew together the quality of the  human being that we clothe ourselves in as character.  When our family, and especially Michael's offsprings remember him, etched in the fabric of his person, are the intricate conviction of  his sense of  values.

We are all part of an ethereal tapestry that is weaved in unknowns.  To comprehend the magnificence of our personal brilliance and the reason for our presence are explorations into the realm of infinite potentiality.

In birth we appear as fragile and helpless, and nothing is more nurturing or life giving as the security of  a mother's womb.  On arrival to our assumed identity, we build character and form definitions of  the image that we conceive as our own.  With all types of influences and impacts from family; from traditions; from rituals; from education; from society;  we become more inclined to demonstrate the part that is most etched in our life training and adopted personalities.

One of Michael's favorite ideologies  and one which is akin to defining his persona, is " Stand for something or you will fall for anything. "   He processed the quality of noble conscience, in his assertion and conviction of manliness.   He was inflexible, assertive and immovable when he took a stance.

During our maturing phases of life, moments of challenge and disquiet are when our chances to welcome and nurture the scripts of  friendship, loyalty, integrity, honesty, fairness, justice, and compassion appear as counsel.   These are the euphemisms of personal character definitions that guide and shepherd us in our journeys of trial and tribulations, hope and despair and personal redemption.  We are characters in the art of life and we portray our roles with our personal scripts.  Shakespeare's As you Like It
 "  All the world's a stage and all the men and women merely players,  they have their exits and their entrances, and one man in his time plays many parts" As You Like It Act 2, scene 7, 139–143
characterizes our mortal existence and our many stages of appearance.

With our exits and entrances, with the many roles we perfect, there is no illusion in memory.  Our cloaks and garments that remain forever to warm the hearts and wipe the tears, are stitched and threaded with favorite and reverenced emotions.  The patches of each of our life's tapestry are colored and fused with our  invisible likeness of being.  The emotions of character are never erased.  Our life is a story of brilliance.  From our unknown beginnings in the birthing passage, to the fragility in our final exits, we remain carved in the gifts we give to others, the many attributes of character formation.

... Integrity, Compassion, Humor, Empathy, Respect, Forgiveness, Compassion, Sincerity, Empathy, any of these or all shown on the above, we chose and live:  What do you stand for?

Friday, April 26, 2013

Abundance manifests


All of beauty in its natural splendor and bounteous harvest is fervent with abundance.
Not to keep, but share. In.generosity. Always. ...Grace

The very concept of abundance is a shift to a new thought paradigm. The mindset to attract abundance , after the experience of the absence of the respect for what it means to have abundance, is metamorphosis. A shift is occurring. An awareness is birthing. It is the awakening and the welcoming of the invisible unknown to become manifest with potent and vivid deliverance. As with the birthing of a desired expectancy it comes after labored and prolonged perplexities.

Abundance manifests.

With mindful thought and action, and in rythymn with the universe, the intention of the mind, heart, soul and spirit finds the path that leads to alignment with the gift, Abundance. My history as scrolled in the pages of my thoughts is scoured in perception of unmet expectations. The reality is, I have been in receipt of constant abundance amidst the prevailing distractions.

In childhood, I lost my father at age 9 and automatically developed the symptomatic orphan mentality. My sense of dreams, aspirations, ambitions were foiled in the actuality of poverty circumstance against the backdrop of limitation and disempowerment. The illusion of limitation seeped into my psyche and I was not aware.

Whitney Houston rendered these lyrics, "I didn't know my own strength "and from her voice to my heart, I sucked in the meaning of each word as it filtered through each pore of my being and my soul responded. As the process of catharsis unfolds, the discovery of innermost radiance and abundance ensues.

From birth to now, I have been always shrouded in the legacy of abundance.  Being  cared for, nurtured and richly nourished by a powerfully prescient mother figure, along with siblings who empowered and engendered stability, perseverance, endurance, fortitude, dignity, nobility, and ostensibly abundant grace were not occasional sharings of generosity but perpetual gifts of overflowing deliverance.

As a developing teen, my perception of self was fraught with inner turmoil and discomfort. Not uncommon to adolescent dispositions, the need to be likeable is the disease of youthful arrogance and insecurity. Unless, you discover your niche, it is a constant interplay of desire vs need. For some the desired self idealization is entertained in the glorification of  sportsmanship, beauty,  talents, wealth, and scholarship. For me, the subtlety of the desired was to embrace a need for belonging. The gravity of the emotional loss of a devoted and adoring parent left a dulling void. So in order to compensate and find comfort, it was folly appeal to be self effacing and self diminishing. Numbed were the gifts of self mastery and self abundance. Serial exploits in limitation become the norm.

At pivotal markers of adult years, the fleeting grasp of abundance was courted with momentary savor. The romance of abundance was short lived and left a  path of devastation in its wake. In awakening to the gift of discomfort one is kept aroused in mystery and aching for fulfillment. In the chasm of challenge, and seeking, there emerges the appeal of yearning for understanding. It is in this struggle to manifest, that the mystery of abundance is the discovery of majesty that does not equate with seeking possessions, wealth and luxury.

Abundance and wealth are not synonymous. Wealth and the value associated with quantity is the least of the harvest and the treasury of abundance.Poverty does not describe being. With generous and wholesome desire, money and the exchange of goods,  services, benefits are fixtures of economic measure. Simple exquisite abundance is to discover awakened clarity of generous abundance.

In order to validate abundance it is opportune to validate loss. Without abandonment, emotional security is an abstract.  Without the experience of brokenness, emptiness, barrenness the idea of manifesting abundance is an aimless ploy of self flagellation.

The riches of abundant grace are the mistakes,  mishaps and missteps that come in the illusion of disgrace.

The principles of  abundant stewardship are :-  to be humble in adversity, to be kind without measure, to trust with infinite conviction and to persevere against all odds.  These are not testimonials of worldly endowments, it is the unquenchable, insatiable, amazingly radiant, grace of abundance.

For me, and perhaps the many, our struggle, strife, barriers and roadblocks are the strengths and victories we overcome to welcome our destiny,our Abundance.










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