Wednesday, September 19, 2007

part of a beautiful life

currently i'm reading a book i picked up at greenbelt called "the beautiful life: ten new commandments: because life could be better." it is written by a long-time priest of the church of england who now works at a grocery. i think it might be one of my top three books. in it, he invites the reader to go on a journey of transformation leading to a freedom and a better understanding of self. i could quote the whole thing, but this is a small bit on self-observation that i read this week which brought real conviction:

"The workplace is not always a happy place. Long-running hostilities often exist. People arrive at work knowing who they like and who they do not like. A splitting of humanity has quietly taken place, a separation of good and bad. We will display charity towards those whom we regard as good, but give little room to those deemed bad.

Self-observation quickly exposes such personal vendettas, however, and questions the low-grade happiness we experience in their pursuit. How different the day at work wold be if we refused to split humanity, and started the day with a clean slate for all.

If the sea can twice daily wipe clean the beach, then once daily I can wipe clean the past."

(sherry)

1 comment:

Unknown said...

mother teresa once said: "unless we see God in our neighbor it would be very hard for us to love." i do resonate with that reality. i am a pastor here in the philippines and attempting to create new intentional christian communties. i had an experience working in the secular world before going back to full time ministry and its really tough out there in the real world. loving people is such a divine task.