Brush up your Shakespeare...

"We shall never overestimate Shakespeare, because we can not. Some men and things lie beyond the danger of hyperbole. No exaggeration is possible concerning them, seeing they transcend all dreams. Space can not be conceived by the most luxuriant imagination, holding, as it does, all worlds, and capable of holding another universe besides, and with room to spare. Clearly, we can not overestimate space. Thought and vocabulary become bankrupt when they attempt this bewildering deed. Genius is as immeasurable as space. Shakespeare can not be measured. We can not go about him, since life fails, leaving the journey not quite well begun. Yet may we attempt what can not be performed, because each attempt makes us worthy, and we are measured, not by what we achieve, but by what we attempt."
William A. Quayle (1860-1925), Some Words on Loving Shakespeare. From A hero and some other folk, 1900

"Trust thyself:every heart vibrates to that iron string. Accept the place the divine providence has found for you, the society of your contemporaries"

"Man is timid and apologetic; he is no longer upright; he dares not say 'I think,' 'I am,' but quotes some saint or sage. He is ashamed before the blade of grass or the blowing rose. These roses under my window make no reference to former roses or to better ones; they are for what they are; they exist with God to-day. There is no time to them. There is simply the rose; it is perfect in every moment of its existence. Before a leaf-bud has burst, its whole life acts; in the full-blown flower there is no more; in the leafless root there is no less. Its nature is satisfied, and it satisfies nature, in all moments alike. But man postpones or remembers; he does not live in the present, but with reverted eye laments the past, or, heedless of the riches that surround him, stands on tiptoe to foresee the future. He cannot be happy and strong until he too lives with nature in the present, above time."

Today, with these well sculpted words of Ralph Waldo Emerson in mind I am going to live in the present.

One would give generous alms if one had the eyes to see the beauty of a cupped receiving hand. ~ Goethe

“The value of a man resides in what he gives and not in what he is capable of receiving.”~ Albert Einstein

"Joy can be real only if people look upon their life as a service, and have a definite object in life outside themselves and their personal happiness” ~ Leo Tolstoy

Having just recently finished reading Michael Lewis' The Blind Side , a sharp analysis of the evolution of football deftly woven into the inspirational biography of Michael Oher and the Tuohy family, I have been pondering the example of love and determination shown by this non-traditional family. I look at the sheer will to survive of a young impoverished boy who manages to make it to the 10th grade living by his wits. I consider the heart of a mother who takes in this wandering child and the family who makes him their own. There is a quote from Leigh Anne Tuohy in the Lewis book that has left its deep and abiding mark on me.

'God gives people money to see how you're going to handle it,'she said. And she intended to prove she knew how to handle it.

The willingness and the instinct to give the best that one has to make the lives of others happier and even healthier is a principle too often burried in the cynicism and individual sense of powerlessness fueled by today's pop culture and media. Not that I have the opportunity presently to help another human being in the way the Tuohy's so often did, but the means of making a difference in someone else's life, in allowing for compassion and empathy to be expressed to lift the downtrodden and discouraged, that is not limited to those who can offer financial support and aid. In fact the most meaningful statement of what the Touhy's gave and received by taking Michael Oher into their family is this statement made by Michael to the author, "When I moved in with Leigh Anne and Sean, I felt loved...like part of the family." What turned this young man's life around was the ability of the Tuohy family to express, give, and receive love, a priceless skill that benefits all, not just the self.

Reflections of a poor friend on the blessing of friendship

"I awoke this morning with devout thanksgiving for my friends, the old and the new. Shall I not call God the Beautiful, who daily showeth himself so to me in his gifts? I chide society, I embrace solitude, and yet I am not so ungrateful as not to see the wise, the lovely, and the noble-minded, as from time to time they pass my gate. Who hears me, who understands me, becomes mine, — a possession for all time. Nor is nature so poor but she gives me this joy several times, and thus we weave social threads of our own, a new web of relations; and, as many thoughts in succession substantiate themselves, we shall by and by stand in a new world of our own creation, and no longer strangers and pilgrims in a traditionary globe. My friends have come to me unsought. The great God gave them to me. By oldest right, by the divine affinity of virtue with itself, I find them, or rather not I, but the Deity in me and in them derides and cancels the thick walls of individual character, relation, age, sex, circumstance, at which he usually connives, and now makes many one. High thanks I owe you, excellent lovers, who carry out the world for me to new and noble depths, and enlarge the meaning of all my thoughts. These are new poetry of the first Bard, — poetry without stop, — hymn, ode, and epic, poetry still flowing, Apollo and the Muses chanting still. Will these, too, separate themselves from me again, or some of them? I know not, but I fear it not; for my relation to them is so pure, that we hold by simple affinity, and the Genius of my life being thus social, the same affinity will exert its energy on whomsoever is as noble as these men and women, wherever I may be." ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

I have not the depth of philosophical skill so artfully exhibited in this poetic exerpt from Emerson's classic essays, but in reading his words my soul recognizes a kinship of understanding.There is a fellowship of the mind that is a rare and priceless gift. To associate with those who engage and inspire the best that is within us should be our life's ambition. I exist in this perpetual state of awe watching those sparkling stars who draw forth the effervessence of all those with whom they come in contact. Those lively spirits who were born to bring out the shyest wallflowers from their comfortable corners. I aspire to that unfeigned attention to the unique nature of each friend I make. To some I think that is a gift divinely bestowed, but hope that it is a talent someone more introspective in nature can strive to develop despite her firmly independent and semiwithdrawing nature.

Who I want to be this year....

In 2010 I learned a little more about the soothing balm of forgiveness. In the spirit of those priceless life lessons I begin this new year and new decade with the goal of learning how to better express and live what I believe. This discourse, by a leader of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, is a sermon on the divine ideas by which I better hope to guide my life in not just 2011 but all the years to come. To love more and judge less. To give more and to take less. To pray more and complain less. To believe more and to doubt less. To listen more and to talk less.

"Humiliation is the beginning of sanctification" - John Donne

To be humiliated is to have your darkest cobweb filled corner revealed by flood lights for all the world to see. To be humiliated is to be exposed to the cruel coldness of uncaring powermongers who feed on the discomfort of those who cannot defend themselves. To be humiliated is to suffer the pangs of injustice and false accusation. To be humiliated is to be subject to the hoots and hollers, pinches and whistles of callous neanderthals. There are a thousand variations on this theme. In my life I have experienced the slow spiritual roasting that can so often be cause by the harrowing hand of humiliation.

Today, I went through an experience that has brought me to my knees.Several times. And in the aftermath of my surreal Law & Order like experience at the Mexican-American Border I have been grappling with the anger, sorrow, humor, shock, disgust and total mortification that comes when the Federal Government's halphazard incomplete data systems mismatch the identities of criminals with the identities of your average American citizen taking their sister back to America after a round of chemo. That's right. Because I have a similar last name and the same birthdate as some man who is labeled as "armed and dangerous" today became one of the most horrific of my life, second only to most of my 8th grade year.

After much laughter and a river or two of tears I have looked for meaning in the ridiculousness of this situation and I have decided, after reflecting on all of the most trying moments of my life, that it was time to learn the art of acceptance and endurance amidst the humiliations and heartbraches...to allow the pain and sorrow to tenderize and reshape a resentful heart into a grateful one. And I am truly grateful for that gift from God in my moment of humiliation.

"Ring out the old, ring in the new...Ring out the false, ring in the true."

With the closing of one year, one decade, and the the birth of a new year and new decade I feel as though I have an infinite number of moments, a countless amount of faces, and a fathomless volume of emotions on which I can reflect and self-assess. But I can say that some of the most precious experiences of my life happened in 2010. There is much that could be said about learning the true value of family during times of crisis as well as happiness. I could expound on that as the main theme of every blog for I have seen and learned some very personal truths. I could also chronicle the many opportunities I continually have in witnessing the capacity of the ordinary individual to express a generosity of oceanic proportions. Throughout this new year I am sure to record all of the above and more, but for 2010 I feel as if the most valuable insights, the most treasured moments have come about because of or in relation to one principle: forgiveness.

In a world where imperfection is a natural byproduct of breathing, it is with increasing ease we hold our injuries, offenses, slights, crimes, resentments close to our hearts, refusing to release them as they slowly poison our hearts and minds. There is no doubt in my mind that innocent people are persecuted or harmed by the wickedness of others, but what solace to the soul does anger and hate offer? One thing I have certainly learned from my various experiences with forgiving and being forgiven this year is that the divine byproduct of true forgiveness is peace and a greater capacity to love as well as be loved. The example of this wonderful man continues to remind me that we are never alone in our suffering and that through the miracle of forgiveness we can overcome our own sorrows and perhaps even reach out to those who may have caused them.