knockin' me outta my chair...

here's a few goodies from ten minutes of
reading yesterday. somehow something was helping
me out a lot yesterday.......

these are all from 'my grandfather's blessing'
(mentioned below and all over the blog!)

'they had become experts at surviving.
surviving was a question of tenacity, of putting
safety above all other considerations.
living, on the other hand, was a matter of
passion and risk. of finding something important
and serving it. of doing whatever was needed
in order to live out loud.'

i read that and gasped.
it was until hours later that i realized i had
traded off some living for surviving....
and hadn't even realized it.

i corrected that.

and then....there was another part of the book
i was gonna include. but it's pretty long.
you need to get this book!!

she talks of oysters making pearls.
the whole section is really cool. here's a
little snippet tho that sums it up...

'sand is a way of life for an oyster.
if you are soft and tender and must live on
the sandy floor of the ocean, making pearls
becomes a necessity if you are to live well.'

'something in us can transform such suffering
into wisdom. the process of turning pain
into wisdom often looks like a sorting process.
first we experience everything. then one by one
we let things go, the anger, the blame, the
sense of injustice, and finally even the pain
itself, until all we have left is a deeper
sense of the value of life and a greater
capacity to live it.'

i pray with all my heart i will have a life
of doing this.....