the pilgrimage...................

 

     These spiritual masters understood that a spirituality that begins in the acceptance that one is not "in control" necessarily involves a flexible attitude, which requires a mistrust of the rigidities of certainty.  If life is "unmanageable"—and, of course, at time it is—there will necessarily be sudden surprises, unexpected twists and turns, unforeseen detours.  In recognizing spirituality's—life's—open-endedness, we learn to be flexible and adaptable, thus protecting ourselves from the tendency to want to fix things "once and for all."  Hold fast to the "now" means "hang on and enjoy the ride," for we never know (and we can't control) where the vicissitudes of the pilgrimage that is spirituality will take us.

     The modern mind—so enthralled by technique, so oriented to efficient production and "bottom-line" results, so obsessed with comfort and predictability—approaches the concept of pilgrimage with wariness and puzzlement.  Why backtrack and sidestep when you can march straight ahead?  The word vicissitudes, with its promise of ups and downs, its suggestion of successes and failures, its reminder that we cannot "march straight ahead," is unsettling and disorienting for those who equate progress with perfection.

-Kurtz and Ketcham, The Spirituality of Imperfection: Storytelling and the Search for Meaning

Fifty years ago...................

Jefferson Starship................With Your Love

 

one rep........................

 

Some days I nail it, and others I fall short, but the difference now is grace. Growth takes time, and strength—real strength—is built one rep and one meal at a time. This is so frustrating when we are all promised that we can be shredded in twenty-one days.

-Shannon McDonald, from here

one more step.....................

 

So much of life seems to come back to courage, doesn't it.  Being willing to go one more step before you quit.  One step deeper into your relationships, one step further in being faithful to yourself, to your God.  What if everybody took one more step to salvage their marriage, to secure their own character, to not sell themselves short?  One more step by enough of us can change the world.

-Matthew McConaughey, Poems & Prayers