Most people would like to make their lives better but don't really trust that it's possible (without winning the lottery or inheriting a beach house, etc.) But it is possible.
Yet when we explore this very possibility, there's no other way to experience it than as both good news and bad news. Changing our lives for the better is completely possible and unavoidably uncomfortable.
If you explore the lectio readings this week you'll encounter three helpful (but perhaps unattractive) words: Patience, Prudence, Contingency. Each suggests a practice that has great potential for life change. Each practice also regularly brings us to places that make us queasy.
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Discipline provides the support to slow down enough and be present enough so that we can live our lives without making a big mess. It provides the encouragement to step further into groundlessness. The power of the paramita of patience is that it is the antidote to anger, a way to learn to love and care for whatever we meet on the path. By patience we do not mean enduring--grin and bear it. In any situation, instead of reacting suddenly, we could chew it, smell it, look at it, and open ourselves to seeing what’s there…. The journey of patience involves relaxing, opening to what’s happening, experiencing a sense of wonder. –Pema Chodron
The very word itself—prudence—sounds crabbed, miserly, puckered. We see it as a trait of those who overvalue personal safety and comfort. Yet for much of Christian history, prudence has been the primary cardinal virtue. To the ancients, prudence referred to the “perfected ability to make right decisions.” Prudence in this original sense describes a kind of spiritual vision, the capacity to see and comprehend the nature of reality. This clarity of vision allows prudent people to discern the truth of a situation and to recognize what particular action they must take that will lead to the good. Then it enables them to follow through. –Paula Huston
Everything that happens emerges out of what preceded it. Everything we do now becomes a condition for what is possible later. –Stephen Batchelor
