The Art of Encouragement
A Simple Guide to Living Life from the Heart
Candy Paull
Smashwords edition
Copyright ©2010 by Candy Paull
© 2002, 2006, 2010 Candy Paull
Originally published 2002 Stewart House Publishing
Second edition published 2006 Stewart, Tabori & Chang
Website:http://www.candypaull.com/
Website: http://www.candypaull.net/
Blog: http://candypaull.com/blog.htm
Discover other titles by Candy Paull at:
https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/candypaull
Cover design by: Candy Paull
Cover photo by: Candy Paull
Editorial assistance: Ellen Paull
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
The Art of Encouragement was originally published by Stewart House Books in 2002, and subsequently published in a new edition by Stewart, Tabori & Chang in 2006. The Art of Encouragement has survived a publisher bankruptcy (Stewart House in 2003) and I am grateful to those who helped me get my rights back. Thanks to a great agent and publisher, Stewart, Tabori & Chang graciously returned my rights to me when the series went out of print in 2009. I offer The Art of Encouragement in this Smashwords edition unchanged, other than formatting. Though the e-book reading experience is different than a printed book that has pagination carefully selected to enhance the flow of comprehension, I trust that this edition will still offer you encouragement to pursue your highest dreams and put love into action.
There is a great gift when we realize that the journey of life is guided by our willingness to believe in ourselves and know that with God, all things are possible. This kind of abundance cannot be measured, only celebrated. Candy Paull’s breathtakingly beautiful photographs and wonderful words of wisdom will remind you of a simple yet profound truth: The journey to claim your abundance begins within.
Rev. Donna Michael, recording artist, forgiveness coach, speaker
Candy Paull’s writing is the readable equivalent of Earl Grey tea, steeped in a pot, and served in your grandmother's china. That is: it warms you through and through.
Victoria Moran, bestselling author of Creating a Charmed Life
Dedication
To all the teachers, mentors, colleagues, co-writers, and friends who have encouraged me over the years.
*****
Introduction
Encouragement is the art of abundance shared and multiplied. It is a way of living that seeks to bless every person we meet. Encouragement looks at what we can be, believes in the best in each of us. Encouragement is love in action. It is taking time to appreciate everyone we meet.
When the world and all its pressures take the heart out of us, we need to know that someone cares for and believes in us. And we need to do the same for others.
Encouragement means taking time to let God encourage us, to meditate on the small miracles of life. Enthusiasm and courage, love and appreciation, practical acts of mercy and compassion — that's the way of encouragement. The art of encouragement is the art of creating community and celebrating friendship.
In The Art of Abundance I talked about counting your blessings. Now I'm encouraging you to be a blessing. I encourage you to make a circle of giving. Dare to dream for yourself, for one another, for your community, and for our world. The Art of Encouragement offers a collection of quotes, meditations, and ideas for encouraging ourselves, encouraging others, and making a difference in our own corner of the world. It is my prayer that this little book will enable you to say yes to the deepest promptings of your heart and to create a life that nurtures your soul.
Candy Paull
•••••
Encouragement Is Love in Action
You will find as you look back upon your life that the moments when you have really lived are the moments when you have done things in a spirit of love.
— Henry Drummond
Encouragement is . . . inspiring each other to embrace life with enthusiasm, courage, and love.
Encouragement is . . . a warm shoulder in a cold world.
Encouragement is . . . a cup of tea and a listening ear.
Encouragement is . . . being loved for who you are.
Friendship is the only cement that will ever hold the world together.
— Woodrow Wilson
Nothing is so contagious as enthusiasm; it moves stones, it charms brutes. Enthusiasm is the genius of sincerity, and truth accomplishes no victories without it.
— Edward Bulwer-Lytton
In every moment of genuine love, we are dwelling in God and God in us.
— Paul Tillich
Encouragement is . . . seeing the unique beauty in another person.
Encouragement is . . . saying "I love you."
Encouragement is . . . a card sent not for a special occasion, but just “because.”
There is nothing on this earth more to be prized than true friendship.
— Saint Thomas Aquinas
Vision
Where there is no vision, the people perish.
— Proverbs 29:18 (KJV)
Real encouragement that makes a lasting difference is visionary. It is the willingness to imagine a good future, the choice to believe in a better world. It is not critical, tearing people down and nitpicking at their faults, but instead valuing their uniqueness and seeing potential that they may not be able to see for themselves. In many ways, a true encourager functions as a personal prophet, helping others discover their own potential and make it incarnate in the physical world.
Real encouragement sees us as we yearn to be seen, sees others as they long to be seen, and the world as it is meant to be seen. Yes, there are faults, problems, evil — but there is an original vision that our deepest hearts know is the true vision. Real encouragers are willing to be fools in the eyes of cynics because they have a great vision, like Martin Luther King, who dared to say to a country, "I have a dream . . . "
Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born.
— Anaïs Nin
Follow the grain in your own wood.
— Howard Thurman
Self-conquest is really self-surrender. Yet before we can surrender ourselves we must become ourselves. For no one can give up what he does not possess.
— Thomas Merton
When we learn the art of encouragement, we learn to see the good in ourselves, as well as in others. Before we can give to others, we must have something to give. We become like gardeners who look at bare soil and see the flowers and fruit that could grow there. Or we become like architects who envision a beautiful building on an empty lot. A gardener sees what the garden can be and then takes practical steps to plant, weed, cultivate, water, wait, and eventually reap a good harvest. An architect imagines what a building can be, examines the site, draws up the plan, and works with the construction team and the new owners to create a place where others will live, work, and play.
Encouragers do not merely set goals but reach for the stars. They dare to dream first, then find ways to make the dream come true. Yet they do not force their patterns or desires on others. Instead they become visionaries who see the unique fingerprint of God in every person and treasure the sacredness of all human beings, including themselves.
What do you dare to dream for yourself?
What do you dare to dream for others?
What do you dare to dream for your community?
What do you dare to dream for our world?
I don’t know what your destiny will be, but one thing I know: the only ones among you who will be really happy are those who have sought and found how to serve.
— Albert Schweitzer
Mankind’s role is to fulfill his heaven-sent purpose through a sincere heart that is in harmony with all creation and loves all things.
— Morihei Usehiba
Love in Action
I am a little pencil in the hand of a writing God who is sending a love letter to the world.
— Mother Teresa
This seeing and encouraging of potential in people and circumstances can't just remain a neat, pretty vision in the mind. It needs to be acted out, incarnated (fleshed out, made real) in this physical world where we live, move, and have our being. Small specific acts of encouragement help us move from our heads and hearts to our hands and feet.
Here are some simple ideas that make love visible and physical:
• Take time to share a nurturing meal.
• Write cards and letters.
• When you are thinking of someone, pick up the phone and call.
• Say it with flowers.
• Give little gifts that say "I'm thinking of you," even when there is no special occasion.
• Share back rubs, hugs, touching, cuddling.
• Smile.
• Say a few kind words.
• Welcome others into your home.
• Organize your closet and give clothes you never wear to someone who can use them.
• Offer to drive someone to a doctor's appointment.
• Love a pet.
• Plant some seeds and grow a garden.
• Make a big pot of soup and share it.
• Take time to listen to a friend.
• Volunteer.
• Say thank you.
No one is useless in this world who lightens the burdens of another.
— Charles Dickens
Helping others, that’s the main thing. The only way for us to help ourselves is to help others and to listen to each other’s stories.
— Eli Wiesel
Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
— I Corinthians 13:7 (RSV)
The capacity to be of service to the greater good requires that we have the security to risk our image, our position, and our pride in the search for greater justice — at the workplace, in our families, and in our community at large.
— Mark Bryan, Julia Cameron, and Catherine Allen
If civilization is to survive, we must cultivate the science of human relationships — the ability of all peoples, of all kinds, to live together, in the same world at peace.
— Franklin Delano Roosevelt
Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.
— Helen Keller
We know God wipes away all tears, but it certainly feels good when He uses human hands.
— Mary Paulson-Lauda
Every man rejoices twice when he has a partner in his joy. He who shares tears with us wipes them away. He divides them in two, and he who laughs with us makes the joy double.
— Bishop Fulton J. Sheen
Bear one another’s burdens . . .
— Galatians 6:2 (RSV)
To love deeply in one direction makes us more loving in all others.
— Madame Swetchine
Do not think that love, in order to be genuine, has to be extraordinary. What we need is to love without getting tired.
— Mother Teresa
How rich you are is measured by how many true friends you have.
— Hamza El Din
Everything in life responds to the song of the heart.
— E. Holmes
The Optimist’s Choice
The accumulation of small, optimistic acts produces quality in our culture and in your life. Our culture resonates in tense times to individual acts of grace.
— Jennifer James
Encouragement means believing in the best in situations and believing the best of people. It is not encouraging to dwell on the negatives. Energy expands when we think positively and contracts when we dwell on negative thoughts. To make the optimist’s choice is not to be an ostrich, burying your head in the sand and pretending problems don’t exist.
Optimism is an attitude that believes we can make a positive difference with our choices, no matter how small the act, no matter how large the problem.
This optimism has its feet firmly planted on a foundation of faith in a benign universe guided by a Higher Power, a God who brings healing and transformation through our positive choices and attitudes. Science is finding that we can actually create a positive energy feedback loop — or a negative one — just by focusing our intentions and then acting on our beliefs. As a photographer chooses to focus on particular elements of a landscape, so we can choose to focus on the possibilities in the landscape of our lives.
We shall never know all the good that a simple smile can do.
— Mother Teresa
Some Taoists practice the “inner smile,” which relaxes and revitalizes the body, enabling the spirit to lighten its load of heavy problems. Unlike a grumpy, indifferent, or resentful attitude, a smiling attitude can put us at ease and transform a situation. Think of statues of the Buddha that you have seen — calm and serene, detached, yet smiling. When you are disturbed by a person, a thing, or an event, visualize yourself smiling as calmly as that benign Buddha. Look at the person, thing, or event. Allow the goodness and energy of life to enfold and envelop you and the person or problem you are facing. Feel the tension dissipate; let your tight muscles relax. Let go of your expectations and judgments. Breathe peace in. Breathe resistance out. Relax and allow the healing power of love to enter your soul. Can you feel your defensiveness and fear melting away?
I have found this to be a good exercise when I wake up in the middle of the night and start worrying a problem like a dog worrying a bone. It is easy to go round and round in a squirrelly circle, brooding over the problem or hurt or worry and getting nowhere. But if I smile in the dark and create an opening for positive energy to enter, it is like pulling focus away from the problem and opening the eye to see the wider and more timeless context.
As a smile can literally relax and lighten a tight face (it takes fewer muscles to smile than to frown), so an inner smile can help relax a tight mind. It is a small way in which to make the optimist’s choice. If we choose to resonate to positive attitudes and believe for the best, the world is able to resonate with us and tune us into a melody of forgiveness, harmony, and childlike trust.
Five minutes, just before going to sleep, given to a bit of directed imagination regarding achievement possibilities of the morrow, will steadily and increasingly bear fruit, particularly if all ideas of difficulty, worry, or fear are resolutely ruled out and replaced by those of accomplishment and smiling courage.
— Frederick Pierce
The first rule is to keep an untroubled spirit. The second is to look things in the face and know them for what they are.
— Marcus Aurelius
Do not struggle. Go with the flow of things, and you will find yourself at one with the mysterious unity of the universe.
— Chuang Tzu
As your faith is strengthened you will find that there is no longer the need to have a sense of control, that things will flow as they will, and that you will flow with them, to your great delight and benefit.
— Emmanuel
Every morning I spend fifteen minutes filling my mind full of God, and so there’s no room left for worry thoughts.
— Howard Chandler Christy
Worry affects the circulation, the heart, the glands, the whole nervous system, and profoundly affects the health. You have never known a man who died from overwork, but many who died from doubt. . . . Half the beds in our hospitals are filled with people who worried themselves into them.
— Dr. Charles Mayo
The best doctors in the world are Doctor Diet, Doctor Quiet, and Doctor Merryman.
— Jonathan Swift
Heavy thoughts bring on physical maladies; when the soul is oppressed, so is the body.
— Martin Luther
Worry often gives a small thing a big shadow.
— Swedish proverb
A cheerful heart is a good medicine, but a downcast spirit dries up the bones.
— Proverbs 17:22 (RSV)
For every minute you are angry, you lose sixty seconds of happiness.
— Ralph Waldo Emerson
Calmness is power.
— James Allen
Energy is bliss.
— William Blake
Some things have to be believed to be seen.
— Ralph Hodgson
For we walk by faith, not by sight.
— II Corinthians 5:7 (RSV)
Doubt is a pain too lonely to know that faith is his twin brother.
— Kahlil Gibran
A cheerful frame of mind, reinforced by relaxation, which in itself banishes fatigue, is the medicine that puts all ghosts of fear on the run.
— George Matthew Adams
The only limit to our realization of tomorrow will be our doubts of today. Let us move forward with strong and active faith.
— Franklin Delano Roosevelt
Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself.
— Matthew 6:34 (RSV)
A day of worrying is more exhausting than a day of work.
— John Lubbock
Believe that life is worth living, and your belief will help create that fact.
— William James
All effort is in the last analysis sustained by faith that it is worth making.
— Ordway Tweed
Our minds can shape the way a thing will be because we act according to our expectations.
— Federico Fellini
We fear our highest possibility (as well as our lowest one). We are generally afraid to become that which we can glimpse in our most perfect moments.
— Abraham Maslow
You can’t depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.
— Mark Twain
Man can only receive what he sees himself receiving.
— Florence Scovel Shinn
Too many people are thinking of security instead of opportunity. They are more afraid of life than death.
— James F. Byrnes
Dream lofty dreams, and as you dream, so shall you become. Your vision is the promise of what you shall at last unveil.
— John Ruskin
The life each of us lives is the life within the limits of our own thinking. To have life more abundant, we must think in limitless terms of abundance.
— Thomas Dreier
Love is available to me in many forms. Today I will broaden my rigid notions of how love is to be packaged and delivered. I will open myself to receiving the vast expressions of God’s love in this world.
— Rokelle Lerner
You must keep chasing that dream. Don’t give up. It won’t be easy, but don’t give up. Shoot for the stars. Maybe you won’t make it as high as you hoped, but more than likely you’ll land someplace along the way. Fill your heart with as much love as you can, and don’t hold it in. Share it with everybody you can.
— Carl Perkins, musician and writer of “Blue Suede Shoes”
All Times Are His Seasons
We ask our daily bread, and God never says, You should have come yesterday. He never says, You must come again tomorrow. But “today if you will hear His voice,” today He will hear you. If some king of the earth have so large an extent of dominion in north and south as that he hath winter and summer together in his dominions, so large an extent of east and west as that he hath day and night together in his dominions, much more hath God mercy and judgement together. He brought light out of darkness, not out of a lesser light. He can bring thy summer out of winter though thou have no spring. Though in the ways of fortune, or misunderstanding, or conscience, thou have been benighted till now, wintered and frozen, clouded and eclipsed, damp and benumbed, smothered and stupefied till now, now God comes to thee, not as in the dawning of the day, not as in the bud of the spring, but as the sun at noon, to banish all shadows; as the sheaves in harvest, to fill all penuries. All occasions invite His mercies, and all times are His seasons.
God made the sun and moon to distinguish seasons, and day and night; and we cannot have the fruits of earth but in their seasons. But God hath made no decrees to distinguish the seasons of His mercies. In Paradise the fruits were ripe the first minute, and in Heaven it is always autumn, His mercies are ever in their maturity.
— John Donne
*****
Learning to Love Without Fear
When you look at the world in a narrow way, how narrow it seems!
When you look at it in a mean way, how mean it is!
When you look at it selfishly, how selfish it is!
But when you look at it in a broad, generous, friendly spirit, what wonderful people you find in it.
— Horace Rutledge
Choose Love over Fear
There is no fear in love . . .
— I John 4:18 (RSV)
By consistently choosing love rather than fear, we can experience a personal transformation that enables us to be more naturally loving to ourselves and others. In this way we can begin to recognize and experience the love and joy that unites us.
— Dr. Jerry Jampolsky
We have the choice. We can choose to live in fear or we can choose to live in love. Encouragement is about believing the best — of ourselves, of others, of life. Fear is a choice to believe the worst. Frequently, the most encouraging option comes out of love and choosing to believe that a benign universe will respond to our attitude of faith. To believe for the best is to choose to believe that God is good and that what He does is good. It is to believe that there is a Higher Power that responds to our positive attitudes and actions. This is not to discount the pain, sorrow, and disappointment that come with life. But we can choose to move beyond a limiting and fearful view of how life works and learn to practice the kind of optimism that opens the doors of opportunity, change, and blessing.
Optimism is a choice that changes your trajectory. I have found that if you fear the worst, you create what you expect. You make choices out of fear and limit your options. But what would happen if you made choices on the assumption that things would work out? What would life be like if you decided that God was truly interested in helping you, and that difficult people and situations were heaven-sent lessons that could lead to greater personal growth and a better life? Would you like to have the kind of faith that chooses love over fear?
I have found that practical optimism helps grease the wheels of life, releasing energy for growth and change. I have wasted too much energy on fearing what could happen (which never did happen). When really tough things have come along in my life — the things I most dreaded — I discovered that I was cared for and led along step by step. Even when I was facing the death of a loved one, I found that the great loss was tempered by hope, faith, and the love of others who shared my loss. Most of the imagined fears that once drained my energy now seem small and meaningless in light of the larger issues of life. So now I have become more daring, willing to take risks and gamble that love will win over fear every time.
I am constantly being challenged to make the choice between fear and love. I choose love over fear when I focus on doing what I really enjoy and am good at, rather than aiming only for a secure paycheck. (Paychecks can be very false security — they can disappear so fast, and I could be out of a job with a corporate buyout or a change in the marketplace.) I choose love when I face my fears and go for my dreams anyway. I choose love when I reach out to someone else. I choose love when I trust the process, even when I don't have all the answers. Choosing love is an act of courage. We all carry that courage deep inside our hearts.
I have found that if you love life, it will love you back.
— Arthur Rubinstein
For in reality, none of us know what the future holds. So we can choose to imagine it either in nihilistic terms (if we do this, all work stops) or as a playground of possibilities for our species and loved ones (if we do this, creativity can begin anew . . . ).
— Matthew Fox
Where there is great love, there are always miracles.
— Willa Cather
. . . perfect love casts out fear.
— I John 4:18 (RSV)
Each of us makes our own weather, determines the color of the skies in the emotional universe which he inhabits.
— Bishop Fulton J. Sheen
Fear believes . . . there is never enough.
Love believes . . . there is plenty for everyone.
Fear believes . . . the worst about people and situations.
Love believes . . . the best about people and situations.
Fear believes . . . there is only one right answer.
Love believes . . . there are many ways to understand something.
Fear believes . . . you have to change others through manipulation and coercion to get what you want.
Love believes . . . real change comes from the heart, starting with your own heart.
As the hand is made for holding
and the eye for seeing,
Thou hast fashioned me for joy.
Share with me the vision
that shall find it everywhere.
— Gaelic prayer
Fear believes . . . things will never change.
Love believes . . . any situation can be transformed by the power of love.
Fear believes . . . that everything must be mapped out ahead of time.
Love believes . . . that you can trust the process.
Fear believes . . . in negative thinking.
Love believes . . . in positive choice.
Fear believes . . . the damage is done.
Love believes . . . healing can happen.
The night is the mother of the day
The winter of the spring
And even upon old decay
The greenest mosses cling.
— John Greenleaf Whittier
Fear believes . . . if you're not a success by now, you must be a failure.
Love believes . . . you're only a failure if you give up on your dreams.
Fear believes . . . I must do everything with my own strength.
Love believes . . . there is a Higher Power that wants to help me.
Fear believes . . . that everything needs to hyped.
Love believes . . . in quiet strength and simple faith.
Fear believes . . . life is cheap.
Love believes . . . life is precious.
O rich and various man! Thou palace of sight and sound, carrying in thy senses the morning and the night, and the unfathomable galaxy; in thy heart, the power of love.
— Ralph Waldo Emerson
Fear believes . . . anyone different is "them.”
Love believes . . . there is only "us."
Fear believes . . . it's too late.
Love believes . . . it's never too late.
Fear believes . . . the situation is impossible.
Love believes . . . a solution can be found.
Fear believes . . . that fifteen minutes of fame makes you important.
Love believes . . . we are all important.
We are given appetites, not to consume the world and forget it, but to taste its goodness and hunger to make it great.
— Robert Farrar Capon
Fear believes . . . people are disposable commodities.
Love believes . . . people are sacred.
Fear believes . . . in proving your own superiority over others.
Love believes . . . in honoring the greatness in others.
Fear believes . . . no one is listening and no one cares.
Love believes . . . in prayer.
Fear believes . . . effort is only justified by outward success.
Love believes . . . sometimes we need to do something for its own sake.
It is not a matter of thinking much, so do whatever most kindles love in you.
— Saint Teresa of Avila
Hope is like a road in the country; there was never a road, but when many people walk on it, the road comes into existence.
— Lin Yutang
The art of living lies less in eliminating our troubles than in growing with them.
— Bernard M. Baruch
I’m not happy, I’m cheerful. There’s a difference. A happy woman has no cares at all. A cheerful woman has cares but has learned how to deal with them.
— Beverly Sills
Putting the Heart (and Spice) Back into Life
Why not go out on a limb? Isn’t that where the fruit is?
— Frank Scully
The root of encouragement is the French word cor, for heart. To encourage is to put the heart back into someone, to help each other live well and live together. We were created for love and community. Yet we live in a competitive world that discourages us, telling us all the ways we don’t measure up and why we need this product or that service to overcome our inadequacies. There is a great emphasis on what we lack — the messages in the media are rooted in fear and manipulation. What we need is the courage to claim our own lives, to have the confidence to live with resolution, vitality, and purpose.
I wish to make the most of what I have and to make a contribution to this world. I am not here to have everything, to own everything, to be, do, or conquer everything. I am here to do some work and then move on. I am here to contribute my bit to humanity, to the stream of time, to each reality that I am part of. If some of my contributions extend beyond my physical life on this earth, that is good and sweet. It is my work to love this earth, to love and be with these people who have come, by divine timing, into my life. It is no accident that I am here, intersecting with these particular people in this particular time and place. It is up to me to make each choice and each encounter the best experience possible by using what I have. As I choose to live my life with courage, I infuse courage into the hearts of others, helping to bring good for each other into being.
I like life with juice and kick. I used to think I was merely a nice girl who must compromise and conform to keep the peace, diminishing myself to fit into a preconceived role. But lately I have discovered in myself a spicy woman who likes diversity and differences. I have learned that I do not have to fit myself into a mold to be popular or powerful, or to gain some worldly advantage. I can accept myself as God created me, not as “inferior” or “superior,” but as a human being with faults and foibles, with both limitations and untapped possibilities.
I have redefined who I am and how I see myself. Now I know that I am an artist, a musician, and a writer — a creative person with gifts to share. I am a student of life, a romantic, a friend, an individual who is a mystery to explore and who is learning how to love. As I have learned to name the things I love, I have found that I no longer have to keep proving myself or defining myself by a set of standards that measure the wrong things. As I learn my craft as an artist, the materials themselves teach me about who I am and what I am made of. As I learn to love others, I learn something new about the love of God.
It takes courage to move from the illusion of safety and easy answers into the unexplored territory of questions and new ideas. In recent years, I have moved away from a formal interpretation of religious belief toward a more open approach to my relationship with the God who created the universe. True freedom comes with accepting that I don’t have all the answers and that life is guaranteed to surprise me. God does not have to fit into my neat little boxes any more. I no longer need to pigeonhole or judge. I don’t have to be so hard on myself — or on others.
I used to be so worried about what others thought. Others are thinking — but not about me. I had a million scenarios playing in my mind, created by a judgmental inner censor telling me everything that I was doing wrong. I would project that censor’s attitude onto others, assuming that they must be judging me as narrowly as I judged myself. And I assumed that God was also busy weighing and measuring me, wanting to “fix” me at every turn. I found it a stifling way to live — I felt restricted by my own fears and judgments.
Our culture and our psychology work on a disease/cure, problem/fix model, so we tend to define ourselves by our diagnoses. We look at everything as a problem to be solved. We want to “fix” everything so it can live up to some artificial standard of perfection. We judge ourselves harshly for being different, call our uniqueness failure, and see our struggles as a collection of symptoms needing diagnosis, prescription, and cure.
What if we decide to see our “shortcomings” in a different light? What if we give ourselves permission to be unique, instead of playing an assigned role that doesn’t fit? What if we allow ourselves to honor our true natures, to listen to the goodness and wisdom that reside deep in our hearts?
I am learning to honor my individuality and my own unique viewpoint. I am not a demographic, I am a person. I have learned to listen to the deep wisdom of my heart and my intuition, and I have found it to be truthful at all times. Sometimes I am afraid to say my truth out loud, but my heart knows it, even when my lips and my life deny it. I have been learning to align my choices with my heart’s desires, to admit what I really want and to say no to that which no longer belongs in my life. As I am doing this, I am also able to do it for others — to help them name their own truths and honor their highest instincts.
I live in a community of nonconformists. Artists, writers, musicians — we have all come to this community to seek our dreams. And we all felt a bit like misfits back home, not because we weren’t loved or because we prided ourselves on being nonconformist rebels, but because we just never felt like we fit in successfully. Our need for a certain kind of creative life called for us to live differently than most people. We were not successes in the rat race — most of us preferred to listen to our friends sing or to make art or music ourselves, rather than to make money or gain prestige and power.
Most regular jobs seemed boring, a means to an end — a way to pay the bills and buy enough time to practice our craft.
“What do you want to do for a living?”
“Write songs.”
“Oh.”
One could just as well have said “bet on the ponies at the racetrack” for a vocational choice, considering the difficulties and craziness of a professional career in music.
Any songwriter who has spent time in the trenches of the music industry knows that trying for a hit song (let alone multiple hits) is a lot like betting on racehorses. This is a choice that does not stack up well against such careers as doctor, lawyer, engineer, or professor, at least in the eyes of concerned family and friends. They wonder how soon it will be before the poor songwriter finally settles down and gets a “real job.”
Now I live in a community where creative people of all stripes gather. I have found others who want to “waste” their time doodling with color and noodling with notes and exploring the outer reaches of the creative landscape. In this communion of creatives, our choices are affirmed, our struggles are understood, and we have fellow travelers to walk with down a difficult but fulfilling road.
We have learned to name our deepest truths, accept our limitations, value our callings, and give ourselves permission to be a little more quirky, a little more individualistic. We live our lives from the heart, even if we still have “day jobs” that pay the bills. Some of us have even found a way to make a living doing what we love. It’s worth the price we’ve paid, just to be a part of such a vibrant community. I am surrounded by amazing people who live heartfelt lives of extraordinary courage.
But you don’t have to be an artist or a songwriter to value creativity and community. I believe that we are all creative, that we all deserve to be encouraged in our endeavors, and that every person can learn to cultivate his or her own uniqueness. Everyone must eventually choose between sterile conformity and listening to their inner wisdom. Everyone comes to a crossroads where they must decide either to honor their individuality or to stay in the constricting box of cultural expectations. Every person has the potential to find a community of like-minded people and to create a matrix of safety and encouragement for personal and collective growth and creativity.
The question is not what a man can scorn, or disparage, or find fault with, but what he can love, and value, and appreciate.
— John Ruskin
One has to abandon altogether the search for security, and reach out to the risk of living with both arms. One has to embrace the world like a lover.
— Morris L. West
Keep your fears to yourself, but share your courage with others.
— Robert Louis Stevenson
Salutation of the Dawn
Listen to the Exhortation of the Dawn!
Look to this Day!
For it is Life, the very Life of Life.
In its brief course lie all the
Verities and Realities of your Existence:
The Bliss of Growth,
The Glory of Action,
The Splendor of Beauty,
For Yesterday is but a Dream,
And Tomorrow is only a Vision:
But Today well-lived makes
Every Yesterday a Dream of Happiness,
And every Tomorrow a Vision of Hope.
Look well therefore to this Day!
Such is the Salutation of the Dawn!
— from the Sanskrit
Follow your bliss.
— Joseph Campbell
A man should learn to detect and watch that gleam of light which flashes across his mind from within, more than the lustre of the firmament of bards and sages. Yet he dismisses without notice his thought, because it is his. In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts: they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty.
— Ralph Waldo Emerson
I do the very best I know how — the very best I can; and I mean to keep doing so until the end. If the end brings me out all right, what is said against me won’t amount to anything. If the end brings me out wrong, ten angels swearing I was right would make no difference.
— Abraham Lincoln
Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.
— Mark Twain
Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us and establish thou the works of our hands upon us.
— Psalm 90:17 (RSV)
To me, every hour of the day and night is an unspeakably perfect miracle.
— Walt Whitman
Commonplace
“A commonplace life,” we say, and we sigh,
But why should we sigh as we say?
The commonplace sun in the commonplace sky
Makes up the commonplace day;
The moon and the stars are commonplace things,
And the flower that blooms, and the bird that sings,
But dark were the world, and sad our lot,
If the flowers failed, and the sun shone not;
And God, who studies each separate soul,
Out of commonplace lives makes His beautiful whole.
— Susan Coolidge
I ought to reflect again and again, and yet again, that the beings among whom I have to steer are just as inevitable in the scheme of evolution as I am myself; have just as much right to be themselves as I am entitled to; and they all deserve from me as much sympathy as I give to myself.
— Arnold Bennett
If an Arab in the desert were suddenly to discover a spring in his tent, and so would always be able to have water in abundance, how fortunate he would consider himself — so too, when a man, who as a physical being is always turned outside himself, finally turns inward and discovers that the source is within himself; not to mention his discovery that the source is his relation to God.
— Søren Kierkegaard
It feels as if everyone who acts compassionately, works to raise consciousness, to save the planet, to make a difference in some significant way is linked to everyone else who also does. . . . Each person who follows his or her own light is a light in the web.
— Jean Shinoda Bolen
Old English Prayer
Take time to work —
It is the price of success.
Take time to think —
It is the source of power.
Take time to play —
It is the secret of perpetual youth.
Take time to read —
It is the fountain of wisdom.
Take time to be friendly —
It is the road to happiness.
Take time to dream —
It is hitching your wagon to a star.
Take time to love and be loved —
It is the privilege of the gods.
Take time to look around —
It is too short a day to be selfish.
Take time to laugh —
It is the music of the soul.
— anonymous
In every age there is a turning point, a new way of seeing and asserting the coherence of the world.
— Jacob Bronowski
Love all God’s creation, both the whole and every grain of sand. Love every leaf, every ray of light. Love the animals, love the plants, love each separate thing. If thou love each thing thou will perceive the mystery of God in all; and when once thou perceive this, thou wilt thenceforward grow every day to a fuller understanding of it: until thou come at last to love the whole world with a love that will then be all-embracing and universal.
— Fyodor Dostoevski
What is your religion? I mean — not what do you know about religion but the belief that helps you most?
— George Eliot
Artists knock on silence for answering music. They pursue meaninglessness until they can force it to mean.
— Rollo May
All of us who write work out of a conviction that we are participating in some sort of communal activity.
— Joyce Carol Oates
All colors are friends of their neighbors and the lovers of their opposites.
— W. H. Auden
Unknowingly, we plough the dust of the stars, blown around us by the wind, and drink the universe in a glass of rain.
— Ihab Hassah
Artists say: Stop, look, and see what is real. In our rushing world, no one has time for this.
— Langdon Gilkey
How to earn money while looking for work is a neat trick. The bottom line is to face this reality with dignity — something that provides a lifelong challenge for many of us.
— Alan Thicke, actor
Write a novel if you must, but think of money as an unlikely accident.
— Pearl S. Buck, novelist
I sent Matthew to college to make a gentleman of him, and he has turned out to be nothing but a damned painter.
— the father of artist Matthew Harris Jouette
The Artist
The Artist and his Luckless Wife
They lead a horrid haunted life,
Surrounded by the things he’s made
That are not wanted by the trade.
The world is very fair to see;
The Artist will not let it be;
He fiddles with the works of God,
And makes them look uncommon odd.
The Artist is an awful man,
He does not do the things he can;
He does the things he cannot do,
And we attend the private view.
The Artist uses honest paint
To represent things as they ain’t,
He then asks money for the time
It took to perpetrate the crime.
— Sir Walter Raleigh
The Sympathetic Vibration of Love
Love is the most important quality to bring to any task. Love draws all that we have within us to the action in which we are involved. It brings trust and acceptance; it heightens the senses . . . Love does not bring forth censorship and defensiveness . . . it allows self-acceptance and total involvement.
— Mildred Portney Chase
Place two identically tuned harps in the same room. Then pluck an A string on one of the harps. Instantly, all the strings tuned to A on both harps will vibrate in sympathetic resonance. When you play a chord on the strings of a guitar or strike the keys of a piano, each note has overtones that vibrate in harmonic resonance and make the music richer. Guitarists who have lived with their instruments for many years find that when sound has “seasoned” the guitar, its resonance, both emotional and musical, is richer. When you walk into the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville, you hear great sound not only because of the physical acoustics of the building, but also because of a resonance that comes from the years of wonderful music played there.
Our lives are like that. We resonate to the things we love, to the people we love. The more we give ourselves permission to love, the more our lives resonate with the overtones of faith, hope, and compassion. The words community and communion have the same root. We gather together, listen to one another, and then carry that magic back into our everyday lives. We spend quality time alone, choosing to focus on the things that interest us and that we love. We then go out into the community, bringing with us the inner harmonies we have found by becoming at peace with ourselves. It is a cycle of positive feedback. Each choice to be true to the deeper things of the heart helps us become more heartfelt in our approach to life.
A great manager has a knack for making ballplayers think they are better than they think they are. He forces you to have a good opinion of yourself. He lets you know he believes in you. And once you learn how good you really are, you never settle for playing anything less than your very best.
— Reggie Jackson
The second principle of magic: . . . things which have once been in contact with each other continue to act on each other at a distance after the physical contact has been severed.
— Sir James Frazer
In quantum physics, scientists have discovered that one quantum object can simultaneously influence its twin object no matter how far apart they may be. Dr. Paul Pearsall, in his book Wishing Well, demonstrates how the act of wishing can have a measurable effect on matter. Citing studies from Stanford University and other research institutions, Pearsall shows that focused intention can have an effect on another human being, even at a distance — and that wishing someone well can be beneficial for all concerned. Scientists are discovering what mystics and philosophers have known all along: Consciousness is primary. Not only may material reality be influenced by it, but our consciousness may be the stuff from which material reality comes into being.
What we love, we shall grow to resemble.
— Saint Bernard of Clairvaux
So also in our relationships. Nurturing relationships with time, care, attention, and awareness changes our own lives. Even the difficulties of relationships help us grow. We were created to be part of a community and to share life together. What you are affects your relationships and your relationships affect what you are. It sounds simple and obvious to say that relationships are beneficial, but many times we choose to live in isolation and often treat people as disposable objects instead of sacred beings. We need to tune in and become aware of the people around us, the ways we are interconnected. And we need to acknowledge that love and friendship are mysterious, rich resources that need to be nurtured.
Friendship is not essentially a union of personalities, it is an attraction and magnetism of souls.
— Thomas Moore
In art, and in the higher ranges of science, there is a feeling of harmony which underlies all endeavor. There is no true greatness in art or science without that sense of harmony.
— Albert Einstein
For there is a music wherever there is a harmony, order, or proportion; and thus far we may maintain the music of the spheres; for those well-ordered motions, and regular paces, though they give no sound unto the ear, yet to the understanding they strike a note most full of harmony.
— Sir Thomas Browne
For the very universe, it is said, is held together by a certain harmony of sounds, and the heavens themselves are made to revolve by the modulation of harmony. . . . every word we speak, every pulsation of our veins, is related by musical rhythms to the powers of harmony.
—Isidore of Seville
What we play is life.
— Louis Armstrong
If I were not a physicist, I would probably be a musician.
— Albert Einstein
Musical sound lies in the very hearts of the atoms.
— Dr. Donald H. Andrews
I like to use the metaphor of music to describe what it is like to develop relationships and to become a person who resonates with the beauty and glory of life. A musician learns techniques and music theory, but the only way to make music is to sit down with your instrument and play. You need to practice for hours on your own, but the greatest fulfillment comes from playing with other instrumentalists, being part of an ensemble or a symphony. From the very beginning, there must be a balance between practicing alone and playing with others. So it should be in our relationships. We develop ourselves and then tune our hearts to be open to others. Our openness and acceptance create a place for friendship to grow. We tune our hearts and train our souls so we can participate in the symphony of life.
On Friday nights you’ll often find me at a favorite songwriters’ haunt, having a good time with a diverse group of friends. I find that if I am feeling out of tune and tired, I am less able to contribute to the group or appreciate the people around me. If I am out of sorts, they can help me feel better, but I also find that if I’ve taken time to prepare my heart for giving, I’m more able to appreciate the evening and relate to my friends. If I am at peace with myself, I find I can concentrate on the give-and-take of the group instead of being distracted by my own thoughts. If I am in tune with myself, I play better with others. Making music together means being prepared by knowing your instrument and being in tune.
The essence of all art is having pleasure giving pleasure.
— Mikhail Baryshnikov
A symphony and a community both serve the greater whole. It is a pleasure to make music together and to value each individual’s part. There are times for solos and times for instruments to play together. There are melody, harmony, counterpoint — and the rests that breathe in the silence between notes. We move together through the measures of passing time.
The next time you are with a group of people, check to see if your heart is in tune. Are you listening to what is being said? Do you hear what is not being said? Do you resonate positively with the group? Are you sensitive when silence is called for? Are you willing to speak up when the need arises? Do you respect yourself and respect others? Is everyone allowed to make a contribution? Are you competing or collaborating? Do these people harmonize with your values? Do you hear the music of life when you are in this community?
Music’s not a competitive thing. I don’t want to deal with someone who’s in competition with me, I want to work together and make music.
— Eddie Van Halen
Whether you are playing in the bar, the church, the strip joint, or the Himalayas, the first duty of music is to complement and enhance life.
— Carlos Santana
All my thinking about art is haunted by a mystical belief that in its practice one is tapping sources of truth.
— Roger Hilton
Love from the center of who you are; don’t fake it. Run for dear life from evil; hold on for dear life to good. Be good friends who love deeply; practice playing second fiddle. . . . Laugh with your happy friends when they’re happy; share tears when they’re down. Get along with each other; don’t be stuck-up. Make friends with nobodies; don’t be the great somebody. Don’t hit back; discover beauty in everyone.
— Romans 12: 9–10,15–17 (The Message)
How you play a note is just as important as what that note is.
— Henry Kaiser
*****
Encouraging Ourselves
It is never too late to be what you might have been.
— George Eliot
Soup for the Soul, Tea for the Spirit
Teach us delight in simple things.
— Rudyard Kipling
It’s a cold, wet day, with rain turning to sleet, and snow is expected by nightfall. Normally I wouldn’t mind the weather because I work out of my home. I can batten down the hatches and ride out the storm, never having to stick my nose out the door except for a chosen appointment or activity. But today I am feeling frustrated, restless with cabin fever. I’ve stayed home and worked hard over the last several days. Now I want to spend time with friends at our weekly gathering, when we sit in a café and eat, talk, laugh, and listen to music. It’s my favorite songwriters’ night in Nashville, and I was planning on going as my reward for a long, intense workweek.
But, unfortunately, a cold front is moving in and the rain is turning to a wintry mix of sleet and snow. Driving to the other side of town could be treacherous, and Nashville drivers aren’t used to snow and ice. If it gets too snowy, the café will close early. Snow days are infrequent in the South, so in wintry conditions, wise drivers stay off the roads when at all possible.
I look out the window and see wet gray. I hear the slop-slosh of tires as cars pass my front door, windshield wipers going full tilt and headlights glowing in the gathering dusk. I have a choice to make. What will I do about this unexpected kink in my festive plans? Will I slump passively in front of the TV, grumbling because my big social night is a bust? Or will I find other ways to re-energize my weary soul? After an intense week of writing, I need a break.
It’s time to do a little self-nurturing, some physical encouragement after all that concentrated mental work. Time to make a pot of onion soup, complete with crusty bread and bubbling-hot cheese on top.
I stop, take a breath, and let go of my anxious agenda. I realize that I have been squeezing myself into production mode instead of enjoying the process of creating a book. Deadlines, demands on my time, lack of energy, and my own limitations have caused my wider vision of the work to narrow to a too-tight focus on production instead of process. Now, as I pull focus and step back from my need to produce so many pages in an allotted time, I realize that I have been subtly losing the soul of what I dreamed of communicating to my readers.
As I chop and sauté onions and add seasonings and broth, creating a delicious dish-for-one that will both nourish and nurture, I remember that my creative work is itself a soulful broth. I am the writer/chef, serving up a tasty dish for my readers — a morsel of quote here, a sip of idea there, a seasoning of attitude adjustment added to the mix. A new serenity permeates my day and renewed wisdom flows out onto my page. In the act of trying to distill encouragement on the page, I had forgotten to encourage and comfort myself. Now a steaming pot of soup reminds me that I must fill my own well in order to quench the thirst of others. I need to let go of my agendas and schedules, to give God room to surprise me and my soul room to expand.