paravanes:meditations

Please see the link in this post's title if you are unfamiliar with parental alienation. If this post has attracted your attention, you are probably aware of parental alienation. Google the phrase to learn more. Briefly, parental alienation is a process (not a single act) through which a child (of any age) becomes alienated from a parent that child once had a loving relationship with. You may wonder if it is possible for this to happen. The answer is "yes." I have some experience with this and my experience is the basis for my writing on this subject. Please use the search box on this blog to read my previous posts on parental alienation. What's next after parental alienation? First, one must accept the new normal. This doesn't mean giving up; this means accepting how things have changed and releasing the need to recreate the past relationship. All of the parties involved in parental alienation are changed by the experience. As a result, you cannot ...

A colleague at work shared a story with me, a very short story, with a sentence that jumped off the page: “It is not important.” After I finished the story, that single phrase, “It is not important”, kept floating through my mind. How many times might I have avoided irritation and setbacks if I could have remembered: “It is not important”? Unimportant things often scream for attention, demanding an immediate and often totally emotional response. Truly important concerns seem to wait quietly in the background--waiting for a reason-able mind to address what is meaning-full . I will try to remember to ask myself “is this important?” the next time my mind, will, or emotions scream “do it!”, “say it!”, “believe it!” If events stay true to course, about fifty percent of the time, the answer will be “it is not important.”

Calling and Service We initiate service. Service is when we are doing something for somebody. The feeling that we have to do something easily causes resentment. When it is a service chosen by us, we may feel out of control all day. God initiates calling. When God calls us to do something, there is a certain sense of peace about doing it, even if it takes all day, or whatever time it takes. When we know we are called, the results are all in God’s hands and we don’t care what happens. There is no anxiety, no ‘should’s.’ We trust that everything will be okay. Thomas Keating

“For a thousand years in thine eyes [are} As yesterday in that it passed away, Or [as] a watch in the night.” --Psalm 90:3, Rotherham Translation Am I in a hurry today? Am I in a hurry to get somewhere, do something, or make something happen? Am I in a hurry to make a change in myself or someone else? Am I in a hurry to learn something new, perfect a skill, or see an outcome? Why am I in a hurry? I have as much time as God allows, and God’s timetable is quite different from mine. Just as I mistrust salespeople who try to create “a sense of urgency” when pitching a product or service, I must distrust in myself the sense that things must happen right now. Why right now? In one of my favorite books, C. S. Lewis’ The Screwtape Letters , the author reminds us God’s perspective and timetable are correct, not just God’s way of seeing things. God sees things as they truly are. We are the ones who have a skewed perspective on time and urgency. God’s urgency is my urgency, b...