Stand Up
“I hope
you have the kind of life where what you stand for is so important
that it makes some people outright hostile. You won't know how strong
your beliefs really are until you have to defend them.”
Joan Bauer
(Best Foot Forward)
This is one of those days
when a name came floating out of the zeitgeist and landed in my lap.
So strange how that happens! I've never heard of Joan Bauer, but
apparently she's written reams of books and screenplays and been a
speaker on the international circuit. This quote seemed quite
relevant to me today. What do we stand for? It's time we decide
that—no more sloughing off the burden of responsibility and going
with the flow. The flow has taken us to a very bad place.
Lots of people everywhere
are expressing their views in strong language. My question is this:
When do we stop to decide whether something is actually our
view, or are we simply spouting overcooked rhetoric from pundits,
preachers and commentators. How often do we stop long enough to truly think
through what we believe is right and within the bounds of
human ethics?
Even more important, how
often do we sit down with our souls and think things through? The soul is
the most ancient part of you, yet, at the same time, it lives in the
eternal now. It travels through time gaining wisdom and strength
without aging—which is why, I believe, we are so surprised when our
bodies age, but our personal concept of ourselves doesn't. “Who is
that old woman/man in the mirror?” we ask. We are looking through
the eyes of the soul.
Perhaps we think, in that
case, it doesn't matter what we say and do now, since this is only
one lifetime, and there will be others. But we would be wrong in that
assessment. What we do now determines how the next one will be.
Karmic consequences don't necessarily play out in the same
lifetime—they carry over until we are able to grow a soul that
understands what is, and what isn't, real and important. We are here
to learn compassion, and to grow in understanding of the truth of
human nature and of the Divine. We can waste a lifetime on material
concerns and superficial gratification if we choose, but we will just
get to do it again. At least until we wake up and become conscious of
what we are adding to the world or subtracting from it, we will keep
returning here to learn the hard lessons of the Earth school. When we
grow up spiritually, we won't have to keep repeating the cycle.
That's my understanding
of things. I've got a long way to go, but at least I have an idea of the way forward.
How about you? Have you taken your spiritual pulse lately? Are you headed in the right direction?
In the Spirit,
Jane
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