The Guest House

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn't serve the world. There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We are born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us, it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."

- Marianne Williamson

What Life Asks of Us

This moving statement by Victor Frankl, though written about those who survived extreme and deprivation in concentration camps, seem to be equally relevant to those who are trying to survive great losses in their lives and those who are attempting to deal with extreme suffering going on around us. (I am updating the language a bit without hopefully distorting his timeless message)

"We who lived in concentration camps can remember the people who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a person but one thing: the last of the human freedoms--to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.

It did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us. We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead think of ourselves as those who were being
questioned by life daily and hourly. Our answer must consist not [only] of talk and mediation, but in right action and in right conduct. Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly set for each individual.

When we are no longer able to change a situation-- we are challenged to change ourselves.

A person who becomes conscious of the responsibility he or she bears toward a human being who affectionately awaits for him or her, or to an unfinished work, will never be able to throw away his or her life. They know the "why" of their existence, and will be able to bear almost any "how."

Each person is questioned by life; and they can only answer to life by answering for their own life; to a life they can only respond by being responsible.