February 03-A, 2023

Canadian Wetlands 09/29/2009 Oil Paint Rendered — Jasper National Park, Alberta
We owe it to one another
to listen each other 
to the truth of our own being
here and now.

In order to assist you in doing that,
I've developed a list of questions
you can modify for use in your own conversations,
and ask your own follow-up questions
in order to take the conversation
in the direction of its natural direction and flow.

It is important to shift your conversations
away from the same old same old things
you always say--and are expected to say.

We go nowhere covering the same ground every day.

How's your balance and harmony?
What are the sources of destablization?
What do you do to restore your balance and harmony?
To maintain it?

What do you like to do best/enjoy doing most?
What makes your little heart sing
and your little toes dance?
How often do you do these things?
How long has it been since you have done them?

How often do you spend time in silence and solitude?
For how long each time?

Do you remember your dreams
and try to see what they might be saying 
about your life?

What is your original nature?
What is your specialty?
What are the things you are good at?
What would friends say you are good at?
What would they say are your qualities
that set you apart from others?

Where do you turn when you have nowhere to turn?
Where do you go for peace and consolation?
To get away from it all?
To recover from the past and store up for the future?

How do you come to terms
with things that are not the way
you want them to be?

How do you deal with the discrepancy
between the way things are 
and the way you want them to be?

Who do you talk to about the things that matter?

In what ways has the worst thing that ever happened to you
also been the best thing that ever happened to you?

In what ways has the best thing that ever happened to you
also been the best thing that ever happened to you?

How do your expectations and opinions get in your way?

How often do you try to will what cannot be willed?

Who do you know that has ever asked you any of these questions?

How many of these questions would it have been helpful
to be asked before now?

"Fair winds and following seas" with this assignment.

I'm glad to have made your day!

–0–

Published by jimwdollar

I'm retired, and still finding my way--but now, I don't have to pretend that I know what I'm doing. I retired after 40.5 years as a minister in the Presbyterian Church USA, serving churches in Louisiana, Mississippi and North Carolina. I graduated from Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary, in Austin, Texas, and Northwestern State University in Natchitoches, Louisiana. My wife, Judy, and I have three daughters and five granddaughters within about twenty minutes from where we live--and are enjoying our retirement as much as we have ever enjoyed anything.

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