Anything Happens

That anything happens means it can happen. It requires only one occurence to make the possibility a rule. It is as true of favorable things as it is of the unfavorable.

Tolerance

People can tolerate any number of things. Whether they should is another question.

In-Jokes of the Disciples

Aside from what is recorded in the Gospels, it might be nice if there were also a record of the silly and funny things that happened during their mission. They would be the stories the disciples told each other, the ones beginning with, "Remember..." and ending in laughter as they did. They are the things a person might not understand if he were not there at the time, and while not recorded I am sure they happened. Unless there was silliness and fun it would have been an awfully ponderous trip.

Jesus in the Tomb

While Jesus was in the tomb, did the disciples wish they had intervened? Did they blame themselves, and each other, for what they had done or what they were too afraid to do? Did they not understand his death was his own, not theirs, to either cause or prevent?

Complete Lives

We have had continuous cycles of life since life began, thousands and thousands of lives being lived, each complete no matter what it may have lacked. However full or empty, and no matter the satisfaction of happiness it contained, it was always life and always complete, with a beginning and end, and a middle filled with striving and wishing and as much hope as circumstances could sustain. They cycles continue, sometimes drawing from earlier ones, sometimes scorning them, but always there is the cycle cycling around itself as life remains the constant, no matter what the circumstances might provide.

The Past

The past is secure. It may not be drawn forward into present time, but having happened is all that is needed to secure its immortality.

Traditions

Our traditions are fragile and only once need we do them differently to place them in jeopardy.

Moving On

No matter the experience, be it favorable or not, we do not stay within it but always move on. The experience is complete and to try to make it part of what is next is to make it a burden.

Inbetween Choices

There are a number of instances when the good is not great and the evil not all that bad. The choices are then less clear. There are also instances with good and bad on either side and so there is really no right choice and none that is wrong, just those that are painful.

The Self-Destructive Impulse

It is the destructive aspect of some behaviors that makes them most attractive and so to warn against them may for the individual drawn to fulfilling a more destructive inclination draw him only that much closer.

The Bottom

They realize recovery begins at the bottom but they keep pushing the bottom down so there is always a worse place they might be, a lower point from which to begin over, and until that place is reached they are not yet entitled to begin wellness. It seems another way of punishing themselves and increases that perverse status that derives from being the worst of the worst.

Instead

It would be better to do life without all the agonizing which for so much intensity adds nothing at all.

This Story

The only deficiency in this story is that it is not true.

Mountain

You could not just look at the mountain. You had to climb it, too.

The Latest Reincarnation Notion

His latest reincarnation notion would have us born into a dimension where it would again be the life we have so far been living. We would find ourselves re-living the same lives in the company of the same people and having some of the same choices, though making some of them in different ways would move us in directions where what has happened this time cannot happen again. Instead of having to be someone else, someone unfamiliar, we would each time be refining or perfecting ourselves.

It was no worse than other reincarnation strategies, but I wonder why he would prefer this recycling of self to the afterlife others accept, seeing it as a continuation of life, though in unfamiliar form.

Options

Unless we could have said no, the yes had no value.

Better Question

Do not ask, "Where are you leading me," but rather, "Where are we going?"

Stopping

Alan said the key to stopping is stopping. We do not pray for it to stop (whatever "it" might be), but for support in staying stopped.

Relatable

People eventually find the God to whom they can relate. Together they will work out a way of meeting the needs of each.

Wizard Truth

It seems there are things in the "Wizard of Oz" that cover any number of life's questions.

The Prodigal Son's Job

The prodigal was apparently trying to upgrade his job. To that end he worked out a speech, but whether he meant it we never do learn. Whether he did or not made little difference, as it turned out.

Compulsive Sobriety

In sobriety they are no less compulsive. Actually they seem to have more time and energy to devote to aspects of it.

Alternatives to Pain

People do not want pain but they will tolerate it if it seems the alternative to even greater pain.  They are handling what is painful now and wonder could they instead handle what might be next.

Familiar Patterns

A lack of trust in the future -- or in our capacity to deal effectively with it -- will keep us bound to patterns that may never have been as effective as they are familiar.

Assurance

Before changing, a person will want assurance that it is in his or her interest to do so.  The interest of the therapist or that of the broader society is not an issue.  It must suit the individual's very unique requirements and may need even to be at odds with the ordinary judgment of people.  The change is the issue, not the specific motivation for it.  Of course, there never can be sufficient assurance and the jump is always into uncertainty.

Discovery

We may seem to be settling for less when we may instead have found something else.

Hearing Less Well

Lately, I hear less well.  I do not want it to get worse, but at this point it is not unwelcome.  There are a number of things of which I do not need awareness.  Many things are said that can as readily go unheard, and some of what I think I am hearing is funnier and sometimes makes more sense than what was actually said.

If givers also receive, those receiving may be offering a gift

Time to Share

Everyone has an hour's worth of information to share, even though it may take some two days to share.

Changing Ourselves

When we were younger it seemed important that change occur, and it had so often to be such radical and essential change. The society needed to be reformed and it had to happen right away. The same needs exist though time had passed. Younger people now seek those sweeping changes, as they should and as they must if they are to have principles and values by which to define themselves. It does seem the global and essential is the realm of the young, and over time it will narrow and focus as some goals are set aside needing no new issues to replace them. The determination to see it happen all at once and to its core goes by. We no longer need to expend ourselves in the struggle, worthy though it be.

Instead there is a settling into aspects of life more essential even than the vital issues of our younger days. It becomes instead the question of our selves and an acceptance, not of what surrounds us but of the eternity that is at the core.