May 10, 2024 – A

Glade Creek Mill 00 — Babcock State Park, Danese, West Virginia
Listening to ourselves,
hearing what is going on within,
knowing how we are being impacted
by the circumstances of our life,
and responding to that with
a level of empathy and compassion
appropriate for the situation as a whole,
would be an important step
toward balance and harmony,
and a partnership with ourselves
based on mutual respect and encouragement
for the effort of meeting life as it comes
day to day.

We don't get enough help,
we don't have good-enough choices,
and we don't know where to turn
too much of the time.

Yet, we can always Buddy-up with ourselves
in a "Here we are, now what?" kind of way
whenever we need a hand with attitude adjustment
and squaring ourselves up
with how things are.

Our best invisible friend
is always right here
with a wink and a smile
when the times call for such,
and it would be wrong
to not look them up!

–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, five granddaughters, one great granddaughter, and a great grandson on the way, within about ten minutes from where we live--and are enjoying our retirement as much as we have ever enjoyed anything.

4 thoughts on “May 10, 2024 – A

  1. The first paragraph, full of hope and encouragement, really touched me. It encapsulates what I try to experience every day. Much of the time I feel like the recalcitrant inner child is in charge. This gives a hint of how it could be if I would befriend myself and trust myself to encounter life with an adult level of purpose to find meaning in every action.

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    1. If you don’t know Ann Weiser Cornell, you might start with her book The Radical Acceptance of Everything. She takes a “Focusing” attitude toward everything within. She was a student of Gene Gendlin and softens, advances some of his approaches…

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