Aligning with Grace

I have this yard stick, or as a dear soul friend today pointed out - a litmus test - that helps me navigate this often confusing and turbulent world. We live in times filled with misinformation, violence, and division. If I chose to focus on that, I would constantly live in fear and erode years from my sanity and life. How to decide what is real? How to know whether to trust or believe in anyone, most especially, those in leadership or seeking it? The answer for me, is very simple. It contains the essence of every ethical, spiritual, and practice traditions: Are the words and actions rooted in Love? I look at the information, I consider the character of a person and what and how they are presenting their information - and: I simply ask myself whether what they are saying or how they acting - is in alignment with love. Does it engender love - or at least strive to? We may not always succeed in all of our endeavors, but what is our intention in the long run? Is it to be a better person a...

Just a few days ago, I read this excerpt in Help, Thanks, Wow: The Three Essential Prayers by Anne Lamott, and I've re-read it several times: "We try to do our best, and then a whole snowy hillside buries a thousand people. Life is eruptions, spasms, just as in our families. If you keep your heart open, these traumas beat you down. But against all odds, something emerges from the wreckage in our hearts, so we can bear witness... Love falls to earth, rises from the ground, pools around the afflicted. Love pulls people back to their feet. Bodies and souls are fed. Bones and lives heal. New blades of grass grow from charred soil. The sun rises." If we keep our hearts open, we will be hurt. But, if we keep them closed, we never truly live or experience the joy of loving... I remember thinking in my mid 40's, that I had done a pretty good job avoiding severe pain in my life. Up until then, I thought I had lived a pretty easy and charmed existence. Not that I had ne...