By Robert Browning Hamilton
I walked a mile with Pleasure
She chatted all the way,
But left me none the wiser,
For all she had to say.
I walked a mile with Sorrow,
And ne’er a word said she;
But oh, the things I learned from her,
When Sorrow walked with me!
Robert Browning Hamilton was an American poet.
“I don’t think you can ever really love yourself.” -Lauren Parsons
“A grace given to you by something greater than yourself.”-Lauren Parsons
“Love what you do for a living.” Veronica Tinajero
“I can’t believe I love him so much.” -Brenda Salgado
What is unconditional love? “I don’t think it exists.” -Jamal Mir
“Forgiveness is a lot about trust.” -Sarah Ryan
“It’s easier to forgive than be forgiven.” -Lauren Parsons
“Unconditional love is like a weed that won’t die.” -Chantell Frazier
By William Bridges
Transition is very different from change. Change is situational. Transition on the other hand, is a three-phase psychological reorientation process that people go through when they are coming to terms with change. The difference between change and transition can be illustrated with the example of a geographical move. The change is the relocation itself; it involves packing and taking a trip. The transition involves all the confusion, distress, and excitement that you go through. Changes are always unique to the situations in which they take place, but transitions show a remarkable similarity, one to another.
Change:
External
Situational
Event-based
Defined by outcome
Can occur quickly
Transition:
Internal
Psychological
Experience-based
Defined by Process
Always takes time
Transition is made up of three parts: the experience of an ending, the experience of confusing in between time called the “Neutral Zone” and the experience of a new beginning. It is important to our well-being that we recognize and respect this three-part process, for transition is the bridge which we cross to enter the next chapter for our lives and to renew ourselves.
Generally, people who do well during this in-between time are people who have good sources of elements of the acronym, CUSP.
3. New Beginnings: The ending disengages us and the neutral zone is a kind of fallow time when old habits are extinguished and the new possibilities are born. It is out of the neutral zone that the third and final phase of the transition (the beginning) emerges. This beginning is not to be confused with the “start” of the new situation, which may have happened on Day One. The beginning is when people really buy in, get on board, and feel at home with the new.
Transition is the psychological process that the person must go through to unplug from his or her old identity and become reoriented to the new one. The person must leave behind an old life, not just a job or relationship. Needless to say, transition takes longer than change. The new circumstances may take shape immediately, but the new life, the new reality, the new identity will take months to fully take form.
To make matters more difficult, there is a third factor besides the changing circumstances and the transition process; that is the personal resonance. Some current situations “resonate” disturbingly because of our past experience with comparable situations. If your parents separated when you were young, the breakup of an adult relationship will stir old fears and resentments that do not exist in someone with a different childhood experience.
Circumstances-Process-Resonance: The circumstances are the situational elements that are changing in the person’s life, the process is the inner transition from the old way of being to the new one, and the resonance is private meaning that is triggered in memory by the present event. The way to deal with resonance is through counseling or psycho-therapy, just as the way to deal with circumstances is through analysis, planning, and careful management.
How do you deal with the transition process? The first thing to understand about transition is that it has three stages or phases: an ending, a neutral zone, and a beginning. The second thing to understand is that the ending comes first, not last. People in transition are always forgetting that an old life, an old way of being, an old identity has to end before a new one can begin.
The external details of the change may be unique and confusing, but the real transitional task is all the same: to let go of some reality or strategy or personal identity that characterized the previous leg of our journey. The question life asks is always, “What is it time for you to let go of?”
William Bridges, PhD was an American author, speaker, and organizational consultant.
Based on the work of Ronald Rolheiser.
“This cycle is not something that we must undergo just once, at the moment of our deaths, when we lose our earthly lives as we know them. It is rather something we must undergo daily, in every aspect of our lives. Christ spoke of many deaths, of daily deaths and of many rising and various pentecosts. The paschal mystery is the secret to life. Ultimately our happiness depends upon properly undergoing it.”
Ronald Rolheiser, OMI is a Catholic priest who writes on spirituality and systematic theology.
A guided mediation for closings.
This spiritual exercise is adapted from the Buddhist practice of the four Abodes: loving kindness, compassion, joy in the joy of others and equanimity. It helps us to see each other more truly and experience the depths of our interconnection.
Sit in pairs facing each other (you can mill first so that people do not feel “not chosen”). Ask people to look into each other’s eyes.
In many cultural settings, it is considered rude to look directly into another’s eyes. In high schools and colleges, sustained eye contact may provoke embarrassment. In such situations, suggest that the partners still sit facing each other, but with their eyes closed, picturing the other’s face in the mind’s eye. Then, from time to time as they wish, they can open their eyes and look at the other’s face to refresh their memory, for as long as it comfortable. Then read the following:
Face your partner with eyes closed, remaining silent. Take a couple of slow breath, centering yourself and exhaling tension.
Open your eyes in soft focus and look upon your partner’s face…. If you feel discomfort, just note it with patience and gentleness, and come back, when you can, to regard your partner. You may never see this person again; the opportunity to behold the uniqueness of this human being is given to you now.
To enter the first abode, open your awareness to the gifts and strengths that are in this being… Though you can only guess at them, there are behind those eyes unmeasured reserves of courage and intelligence… of patience, endurance, wit and wisdom… There are gifts there, of which even this person is unaware… Consider what these powers could do for the healing of our world, if they were to be believed and acted on… As you consider that, experience your desire that this person be free from fear…. Experience how much you want this being to be released as well from greed, from hatred and confusion and from the causes of suffering… Know that what you are now experiencing is the great Loving-kindness… closing your eyes now, rest into your breathing…
Opening them again, we enter the second abode… Now as you look into those eyes, let yourself become aware of the pain that is there. There are sorrows accumulated in that life, as in all human lives, though you can only guess at them. There are disappointments and failures, losses and loneliness and abuse… There are hurts beyond the telling… Let yourself open to that pain, to hurts that this person may never have told to another human being… You cannot take that pain away, but you can be with it. As you draw upon your capacity to be with your partner’s suffering, know that what you are experiencing is the great compassion. it is very good for the healing of our world…
Again we close our eyes, opening them as we enter the third abode. As you behold the person before you, consider how good it would be to work together…on a joint project, towards a common goal…. What it would be like, taking risks together…conspiring together in zest and laughter…. Celebrating the successes, consoling each other over the setbacks, forgiving each other when you make mistakes… and simply being there for each other….. As you open to that possibility, you open to the great wealth, the pleasure in each other’s powers, the joy in each other’s joy..
Now entering the fourth and last abode, your eyes open, let your awareness drop deep within you like a stone, sinking below the level of what words can express… to the deep web of relationship that underlies all experience…. It is the web of life in which you have taken being and which interweaves us through all space and time… See the being before you as if seeing the face of one who, at another time, another place, was your lover or your enemy, your parent or your child…. And now you meet again on this brink of time, almost as if by appointment…. And you know that your lives are as inextricably interwoven as nerve cells in the mind of a great being… Out of that vast web you cannot fall… No stupidity, or failure, or cowardice, can ever sever you from that living web. For that is what you are… Rest in that knowing. Rest in the Great Peace…. Out of it we can act, we can risk anything.. and let every encounter be a homecoming to our true nature.
From Coming back to Life: Practices to Reconnect Our Lives, Our World by Joanna Macy and Molly Young Brown.
By Ken Untener
It helps, now and then, to step back and take the long view.
The Kingdom is not only beyond our efforts; it is even beyond our vision.
We accomplish in our lifetime only a fraction of the magnificent enterprise that is God’s work.
Nothing we do is complete, which is another way of saying that the kingdom always lies beyond us.
No statement says all that could be said. No prayer fully expresses our faith. No confession brings perfection. No pastoral visit brings wholeness. No program accomplishes the church’s mission. No set of goals and objectives includes everything.
This is what we are about.
We plant the seeds that one day will grow. We water the seeds already planted, knowing that they hold future promise. We lay foundations that will need further development. We provide yeast that produces effects far beyond our capabilities.
We cannot do everything and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that. This enables us to do something and to do it well. It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way, an opportunity for the Lord’s grace to enter and do the rest. We may never see the end results, but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker.
We are workers, not master builders; ministers, not messiahs.
We are prophets of a future not our own.
Ken Untener was a Roman Catholic bishop in Saginaw, Michigan.
By Dorothy Day
“I really only love God as much as I love the person I love the least.”
Dorothy Day was an American journalist, social activist, and anarchist who started the Catholic Worker movement.
Adaptation of Psalm 23 by Toki Miyashina.
God is my pace-setter, I shall not rush;
God makes me stop and rest for quiet intervals;
God provides me with images of stillness which restores my serenity.
God leads me in ways of efficiency through calmness of mind, and God’s guidance is peace.
Even though I have a great many things to accomplish each day, I will not fret, for God’s presence is here.
God’s timelessness, God’s all- importance will keep me in balance.
God prepares refreshment and renewal in the midst of my activity by anointing my head with God’s oils of tranquility. My cup of joyous energy overflows.
Surely harmony and effectiveness shall be the fruits of my hours.
For I shall walk in the pace of my God and dwell in God’s house forever. Amen
Toki Miyashina was a Japanese poet.
By Pedro Arrupe, SJ
Nothing is more practical than
finding God, than
falling in Love
in a quite absolute, final way.
What you are in love with,
what seizes your imagination, will affect everything.
It will decide
what will get you out of bed in the morning,
what you do with your evenings,
how you spend your weekends,
what you read, whom you know,
what breaks your heart,
and what amazes you with joy and gratitude.
Fall in Love, stay in love,
and it will decide everything.
Pedro Arrupe, SJ was a Spanish-Basque priest who led his Jesuit community in the implementation of the Second Vatican Council.
By Pablo Neruda
You start dying slowly
if you do not travel,
if you do not read,
If you do not listen to the sounds of life,
If you do not appreciate yourself.
You start dying slowly
When you kill your self-esteem;
When you do not let others help you.
You start dying slowly
If you become a slave of your habits,
Walking everyday on the same paths…
If you do not change your routine,
If you do not wear different colors
Or you do not speak to those you don’t know.
You start dying slowly
If you avoid to feel passion
And their turbulent emotions;
Those which make your eyes glisten
And your heart beat fast.
You start dying slowly
If you do not change your life when you are not satisfied with your job, or with your love,
If you do not risk what is safe for the uncertain,
If you do not go after a dream,
If you do not allow yourself,
At least once in your lifetime,
To run away from sensible advice…
Pablo Neruda was a Chilean poet, diplomat, and politician.