From The Restory - Conversations On The Journey (121)

Gratitude As Motivation

“You don’t get wormy apples off a healthy tree,

nor good apples off a diseased tree.

The health of the apple tells the health of the tree.

You must begin with your own life-giving lives.

It’s who you are,

not what you say and do, that counts.

Your true being brims over into true words and deeds.”

‭‭Luke ‭6‬:‭43‬-‭45 The Message ‬‬

~ ❖ ~

“My friends, this can’t go on.
A spring doesn’t gush fresh water one day and brackish the next, does it?
Apple trees don’t bear strawberries, do they?
Raspberry bushes don’t bear apples, do they?
You’re not going to dip into a polluted mud hole
and get a cup of clear, cool water, are you?”

‭‭James‬ ‭3‬:‭11‬-‭12‬ ‭The Message‬

~ ❖ ~

The Conversation

Elements From The Conversation

A taste of the list from Barbara Ann Kipfer's extraordinary 14,000 Things To Be Happy About.

~ ❖ ~

"To become fully human

means learning to turn my gratitude for being alive

into some concrete common good.

It means growing gentler toward human weakness.

It means practicing forgiveness

of my and everyone else's hourly failures to live up to divine standards.

It meas learning to forget myself on a regular basis

in order to attend to the other selves in my vicinity.

It means living so that "I'm only human"

does not become an excuse for anything.

It means receiving the human condition

as blessing and not curse,

in all its achingly frail and redemptive reality.”

Barbara Brown Taylor

~ ❖ ~

Music

In line with Barbara Brown Taylor's words above, it's interesting to see what Alanis Morissette is thankful for when she sings, Thank You.

In her own words:

"I felt that I lived in a culture that told me that I had to consistently and constantly look outside myself to feel this elusive bliss. And I achieved a lot of what society had told me to achieve and I still didn't feel peaceful. I started questioning everything, and I realized that actually everything was an illusion and it was scary for me because everything I had believed in was dissolving in front of me and there was a death of sorts, a really beautiful one ultimately, but at first a very scary one, and so I stopped. I stopped for the first time and I was overcome with a huge sense of compassion for myself first, and then naturally that translated into my feeling and compassion for everyone around me and a huge amount of gratitude that I had never felt before to this extent. And that's why I had to write this song, 'Thank U,' because I had to express how exciting this was and how scary it was and all of these opportunities for us to define who we are."

With great gratitude that we can be in conversation with you. And as always, with our love.

George & Matilda

Vanuit Die Restory - Gesprekke Tussen Reisgenote (110)

Die Week Na 'n Dood Sebastien op sy gelukkigste - by water, besig om vis te vang Die Gesprek Elemente Uit Die Gesprek Musiek Sebastien het altyd gesê, "I like old music.' Hy het. Billy Joel se Piano Man was vir baie lank die ringtone op sy foon. Dat ons só gelukkig kan wees, dankie Sebas. George & Matilda

Vanuit Die Restory - Gesprekke Tussen Reisgenote (120)

Skuld as Motivering Die Gesprek Elemente Uit Die Gesprek ~ ❖ ~ "I am convinced that guilt and shame are never from God. They are merely the defenses of the False Self as it is shocked at its own poverty — the defenses of a little man who wants to be a big man. God leads by compassion toward the soul, never by condemnation. If God would relate to us by severity and punitiveness, God would only be giving us permission to do the same (which is tragically, due to our mistaken images of God, exactly what has happened!)." Richard Rohr ~ ❖ ~ "It is about as hard to absolve yourself of your own guilt as it is to sit in your own lap. Wrongdoing sparks guilt sparks wrongdoing ad nauseam, and we all try to disguise the grim process from both ourselves and everybody else. In order to break the circuit we need friends before whom we can put aside the disguise, trusting that when they see us for what we fully are, they won't run away screaming with, if nothing wors

Vanuit Die Restory - Gesprekke Tussen Reisgenote (99)

'n Duisend Hande Die Gesprek Elemente Uit Die Gesprek ~ ❖ ~ "Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back, always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative [or creation] there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would otherwise never have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favor all manner of incidents and meetings and material assistance which no man would have believed would have come his way." W.H. Murray, Skotse ontdekkingsreisiger ~ ❖ ~ Cause of Death Uitstalling Ariana in vervoering Musiek Wanneer jy dinge nie so krampagtig probeer beheer nie, jou oorgee aan die vloei van gebeure en oop is vir die onverwagte, kan jy saam met Ian McKellen sing. Ian McKellen gee nie om saam met wie hy sing nie, solank hy dit net kan doen.

The Restory Retreat Centre

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