No change please

Imagine an angel came into your dream and asked you,
'pick one moment of your life in the past that you would like to change'.

I remember the moment. I was away on holiday with my folks, sitting by the beach on a rock, I had been thinking about my 'courtship' which was a couple of years old then.  In that moment I had had second thoughts about his(my husband's) suitability, 'rightness' for me.  But I retreated from those thoughts and did not dwell deeper.  Is that what they mean by the callowness of youth?

IF nothing else will change,  I would choose to change how my thoughts proceeded at that moment in time. 
But that would be impossible unless I forget all else that I have to be thankful for now because of that moment.   So dear Angel, I do not wish to change.

Our instincts work perfectly, we only see it in hindsight,  ....  it's just that our hearts don't always sync with our brain.  Life's like that, we know what must be done in our heads but the heart, is it stronger or does it just lag behind?  Maya Angelou(poet) is right to have said  'I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel'.
So why would the angel ask me this?  Perhaps that's a sign - to purge that moment,  a gentle reminder to STOP dwelling on the past because now I know I would not change it. 

Voltaire said 'Life is thickly sown with thorns, and I know no other remedy than to pass quickly through them. The longer we dwell on our misfortunes, the greater is their power to harm us.' and he is right too.

Co-incidence

Co-incidence or a sign!
I had read Farila's(Chapters from my Life) short post on Friday last week that she had had a power failure and hence could not use the internet or blog and it felt like withdrawal. And I had commented that I understood what she meant.
So guess what, come Saturday, there is this wonderful lightning storm(which pulled down trees) and which for some strange reason disrupts just the internet line, (only and nothing else is wrong) and so then I had no internet connection for the entire weekend at home and none til Tuesday when they will send a technician.

What do you think? Was it a test for me, ok.. my hands aren't shaking...
Of course I had to jump on my blog first thing (at the office), this morning.
.. I think I'll survive .. til Wednesday ....mmmm ... maybe.

Emptiness for Fulfillment

I've been readng 'Encounters with Merton' by Henri J M Nouwen and I wanted to share a part that interests me and that is on 'emptying oneself' which was also discussed in M S Peck's book. Thomas Merton was into such deep contemplation of the meaning of life, the search for God, his self and so much more; his thoughts and journey is so complex I am not able to spell it out clearly.
Merton reflects that emptying our selves will  help us do away with fear.  This is done by detachment, to claim nothing and possess nothing not even his life. We will then be able to "stand without fear in a violent world"  Nouwen adds that "detachment does not mean shirking one's responsibilities. Rather it is a supremely active deed that makes it possible to move unprejudiced and unafraid into the center of the evil".
Merton wrote "If I remembered that I have nothing called my own that will not be lost anyway, that only what is not mine but God's will ever live, then I would not fear so many false fears."

Merton reflected that learning the secret of our nothingness will lead us to find our true selves, because what will be left, is us 'made in His image and likeness'.
Paradoxically it appears, emptying our true selves will give us our fill of answers to many questions and we will then know the way to go.

I have come some way(a tiny fraction) of letting go and giving it up to Him and that has truly made me feel less afraid of the unknown.  So I can only imagine what it must feel like (thousand times more liberating ?) IF I COULD go the whole way.