For the Love of Life - Spend Your Days!!!
I keep a reminder file of thoughts, poems, and quotes which I review when I'm tempted to play small; when I am drawn to the mirage of a comfortable, safe life. One such quote is by the oh-so-fabulous Annie Dillard (if you've never read Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, get on it!!).
It doesn't need much set up (and I'll resist the urge to highlight my favorite parts).
Just read slowly and soak in the goodness.
“Thomas Merton wrote, 'There is always a temptation to diddle around in the contemplative life, making itsy-bitsy statues.' There is always an enormous temptation in all of life to diddle around making itsy-bitsy friends and meals and journeys for itsy-bitsy years on end. It is so self-conscious, so apparently moral, simply to step aside from the gaps where the creeks and winds pour down, saying, I never merited this grace, quite rightly, and then to sulk along the rest of your days on the edge of rage.
I won’t have it. The world is wilder than that in all directions, more dangerous and bitter, more extravagant and bright. We are making hay when we should be making whoopee; we are raising tomatoes when we should be raising Cain, or Lazarus.
Go up into the gaps. If you can find them; they shift and vanish too. Stalk the gaps. Squeak into a gap in the soil, turn, and unlock--more than a maple--a universe. This is how you spend this afternoon, and tomorrow morning, and tomorrow afternoon. Spend the afternoon. You can’t take it with you.”
Can I get an Amen?
Go get your day and spend away!