Contrition vs. Guilt

"I don't think being human has any place for guilt. Contrition, yes. Guilt, no. Contrition means you tell God you are sorry and you're not going to do it again and you start off afresh. All the damage you've done to yourself, put right. Guilt means you go and on belaboring and having emotions and beating your breast and being ego-fixated. Guilt is a trap. People love guilt because they feel if they suffer enough guilt, they'll make up for what they've done. Whereas, in fact, they're just sitting in a puddle and splashing. Contrition, you move forward. It's over. You are willing to forgo the pleasures of guilt." - Sister Wendy Beckett, Roman Catholic nun

love your neighbors

so i moved back to cleveland - city proper. let me say that my cleveland neighborhood is beautiful, friendly, engaging, and walkable. old funky houses. character. beautiful gardens & hidden away urban beauty in oodles. yet i've asked guys to put their butterfly needles away in my alley, watched the prostitute arrive to turn tricks in the house across the street, and the drug boys making their deals on the corner. why do i live here? you know why i live here. in hopes of rippling out that bit of what i do where it might be needed.
i didn't know until after i moved in that the house next to me (note: not pictured above) was vacant. this one kept a bit of its grandeur even in its demise but houses get sad & scary when they're left untended. newspapers on the windows. eerie silence tempting the fates of the urban gods. the foreclosure crisis brought home, personally affecting me, as i prayed nightly that some wanderer wouldn't set bonfire to the backyard brush pile legacy left by its previous owner.
yesterday afternoon, i met my new neighbor, yelling hello over the fence!
tonite, as i walked outside to appreciate the dusk sky, i was caught off guard by the golden light shining out his kitchen windows as he toiled away, unpacking or making some yummy dinner concoction. i was filled with gratitude for him... for all my neighbors... for all the people who call these dying urban neighborhoods home. living, (hopefully) working, breathing, human beings seeking shelter and comfort like everyone else... but bound by the conviction that this is a fight worth fighting & making a personal commitment to doing so.
love your neighbors. say hello, learn their names, and in some manner, thank them for their faith in these cities, their willingness to do their part. we're in this one together.
appreciating the village,
c.

"Although the world is full of suffering, it is full also of the overcoming of it. My optimism, then, does not rest on the absence of evil, but on a glad belief in the preponderance of good and a willing effort always to cooperate with the good, that it may prevail. I try to increase the power God has given me to see the best in everything and every one, and make that Best a part of my life . . . No pessimist ever discovered the secret of the stars or sailed an uncharted land, or opened a new doorway for the human spirit." - Helen Keller

april 1st begins it anew

RENEGADE CROCUSES


There will come a time when you believe everything is finished. That will be the beginning.
—Louis L’Amour, American novelist

... or woman

IF.....

IF you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you, If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, But make allowance for their doubting too; If you can wait and not be tired by waiting, Or being lied about, don't deal in lies, Or being hated, don't give way to hating, And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise: If you can dream - and not make dreams your master; If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim; If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster And treat those two impostors just the same; If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools, Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken, And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools: If you can make one heap of all your winnings And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss, And lose, and start again at your beginnings And never breathe a word about your loss; If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew To serve your turn long after they are gone, And so hold on when there is nothing in you Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!' If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue, ' Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch, if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you, If all men count with you, but none too much; If you can fill the unforgiving minute With sixty seconds' worth of distance run, Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it, And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!

-Rudyard Kipling

p.s. "be careful not to shit on yourself."

i'm scared.

coming back to oneself
integration resuming
after a period of forced separation
is an intense emotional experience
i try for gentleness w/ myself

as my own stuff bubbles up
im again able to befriend others
which was impossible
during such self preservation

i feel so little so small so unprepared
i feel so bogged down by so many belongings from when i thought stuff mattered
i feel terrified b/c god keeps screaming at me to do this work
and what if i fail???

as i watch india documentaries and see more pics from a friend's motherland journey
the realization that i am an egotistical american is hard
ive got it so easy in comparison & yet i display a fear that the impoverished don't
b/c they dont have a choice about how they survive
and i do

today is a glorious warm sunny spring day
one of the first
that finally feels like the world is warming
and i dont want it to!
said like the petulant child i feel

i just want to stay in this dark winter cave
surrounded by dust & its bunny progeny
and not let this little seed sprout
vulnerability
scary to feel like i only get one shot
and what if i miss?

growth hurts.

ego gets pissed at its inability to stop the passage of time
though i know that time passing is the only way the answer will be revealed

packing up the contents my life yet again
reflecting on where i thought i'd be and how i'm nowhere close
ego again angered
asks whats the point of laying plans & setting goals
when im just a pinball anyways

time to tune out the bells & flashing lights of this game
find the silence within
the Widsom that dwells there
once again, throw this life as Its feet
and offer it up
c.

today's motivation

If one's life is simple, contentment has to come. Simplicity is extremely important for happiness. Having few desires, feeling satisfied with what you have, is very vital: satisfaction with just enough food, clothing, and shelter to protect yourself from the elements. And finally, there is an intense delight in abandoning faulty states of mind and in cultivating helpful ones in meditation. - HHDL

my experiment in the above ways of living is about to fully commence. keep you posted. ;)
c.