“As a man thinks in his heart, so is he.” It is never easy to think differently in order to perceive and then act differently. My thought constellation gets stuck in just that, my thoughts. Thoughts are past tense, thinking is generative. “Felt” is past tense, “feeling” is present tense and also generative. They say we have between 75,000 and 125,000 thoughts every day and that 90% of them are merely a recycling of what we already believe and think. The way out of some of our difficulties is to get into them through fresh thinking.

My thoughts adjust how I look and feel about the world. These adjustments change the way I then behave. My different behaviors are likely to stimulate different reactions from people and situations I face. These changes effect my interpretation and process of making meaning, and ultimately my core beliefs, and once my core beliefs change, I am different, and likely for the better.

What are we doing to think differently in the key situations and relationships we face today?

Just some thoughts from Parker Palmer that once again struck me as I read them again today:

By identity I means an evolving nexus where all the forces that constitute my life converge in the mystery of self: my genetic makeup, the nature of the man and woman who gave me life, the culture in which I was raised, people who have sustained me and people who have done me harm, the good and ill I have don to others and to myself, the experience of love and suffering - and much, much more. In the midst of that complex field, identity is a moving intersection of the inner and out forces that make me who I am, converging in the irreducible mystery of being human.

By integrity I mean whatever wholeness I am able to find within that nexus as its vectors form and re-form the pattern of my life. Integrity requires that I discern what is integral to my selfhood, what fits and what does not - and that I choose life-giving ways of relating to the forces that converge within me: Do I welcome them or fear them, embrace them or reject them, move with them or against them? By choosing integrity, I become more whole, but wholeness does not mean perfection. It means becoming more real by acknowledging the whole of who I am.

Identity lies in the intersection of the diverse forces that make up my life, and integrity lies in relating to those forces in ways that bring me wholeness and life rather than fragmentation and death.

The young writer Keats captured a flavor of our present when he wrote: “Axioms in philosophy are not axioms until they have proved upon our pulses; we read fine things but never feel them to the fullest until we have gone the same steps as the author.” These words reflect the hunger of our own hearts; not the hunger for an explained meaning, but the hunger for actual experience. We want things proved upon our pulses. In everyone there is the desire for greatness however subjectively explained, but very few seem to do what is necessary to experience a life where the pulse of beauty, love, and depth of meaning resonates deeply within. Everyday, our history fades a little bit more, and we become once again active in trying to make our hopes come true. The ringing sounds of our life can linger, but an essential melody may never come.

What are the needs for us to realize an expanding experience where we realize more of who we are? What are the essentials of moving beyond self-centeredness, or mere transactional relationships where usery is the norm? How do we build days that accentuate an ubiquitous beauty that is only seen by those who foster an inner aperture that stays focused on the deep spiritual truths? It seems that we live lives that no longer have time for the upkeep necessary for these types of experiences. The quiet errosion is missed in the hurry of our seeming essential activity. Yet in all of this, our lives are lived, and the experiences we say we crave, are never proved upon our pulses. For too many, life is written in sand.

Life is best when we listen to the deep places within our own selves. The essence of greatness is discovered in the place where silence leads us. Silence moves past motion and reintroduces us to our core principles, our identity, our loves, and our voice. From these foundations faithfully tended, we position ourselves in the center where life springs ever new, and very much our own.

Wow! This Friday morning I once again meet with about seven Executive Directors of Independent Living Centers for people with dissabilities. We have met for the last six months to look at what they can do to be more successful in impacting their communities and the clients they serve. We have spent hours looking at how we determine what constitutes a person with dissabilities, and what does not. As they have defined it thus far, I feel like I am in that client line. . .and I bet you would as well.

It is amazing how all of us resist the qualifying of ourselves as people of dissabilities. This does not play well in the prevailing world that we live in. This is either far too honest for most, or exposing a weakness that in the end will impede our opportunities. Thus we create a spin that speaks of our lives as being far from having any real weaknesses.

I sent out an email to one of my clients yesterday and stated that I had received some not so flattering feedback on him as a person and as a professional. I knew that these words would provoke his own inner agony. I knew that this would trigger a down and in movement within his own inner world. As predicted, his first response was one of fatigue and despair. He seemed to be living for the day when this kind of labeling would end.

I get that frustration and hope that I observed in my client. We want to believe that we can find a place where public or private looks of askance will go away. We want to be perceived and engaged with as people who are free from discrimination and mere tolerance. It is painful and ugly deep within ourselves, as well as within the world, whenever there is mere management of our inabilities versus acceptance and love for who we are and what we can offer today.

Ramps and adjusted furniture are tangible expressions of an initiative, but real success in our communities, and yes in our lives, will be when we see the playing field as flat - not that everyone is the same, but that everyone is equal in value, and that everyone experiences equal opportunity.

It has been said that there is no longer any “there,” it is all now a matter of “here.” The new question is: What is here? Shall we begin here?