Me Thinks

 

This was a required book this term for my chaplain class and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I learned many principles and lessons, such as:

Each of us is unfinished, a work in progress.  Perhaps it would be most accurate to add the word “yet” to all our assessments of ourselves and each other. It changes everything (pg. 223).

God’s presence in the house is an inner experience that never changes.  It’s a relationship that’s there all the time, even when we’re not paying attention to it.  Perhaps the Infinite holds us to Itself in the same way the earth does.  Like gravity, if it ever stopped we would know it instantly.  But it never does (pg. 265).

Each of us heals in our own way. Some people heal because they have work to do. Others heal because they have been released from their work and the pressures and expectations that others place on them.  Some people need music, others need silence, some need people around them, others heal alone. Many different things can activate and strengthen the life force in us (pg. 18).

As women, we knew there was something simple and natural in just being there, together.  Women have always been present at these times, at death and birth and in many of the other transitions in life. Women have gathered at the transitions, as comforters and companions, as witnesses, to mark the importance of the moment (pgs. 44, 45).

When we listen, we offer with our attention an opportunity for wholeness. Our listening creates sanctuary for the homeless parts within the other person.  That which has been denied, unloved, devalued by themselves and by others. That which is hidden. Listening creates a holy silence.  When you listen generously to people, they can hear truth in themselves, often for the first time. And in the silence of listening, you can know yourself in everyone (pg. 220).