Sunday Reading 16 March 2008

Another Sunday. The week cycles through from beginning to an end that marks a new beginning. It’s gray outside my door today, but the signs of spring abound. Robins have returned. The first spring bulbs are showing small shoots of green. Temperatures have started to climb. The rabbits in the yard are surely feeling excitement at the thought of new food since they have almost completed stripping the bark off the apple limbs we left for them last fall. The fish in the pond swim about the top as the ice has melted completely for the first time in weeks.

The last two weekends I’ve been home. The projection equipment broke down at the theatre. I ordered what I thought were the necessary parts. I was wrong. So this week I’ll be bringing in a tech. Interestingly, the equipment breakdown happened right as my personal equipment was recovering from a bout with one of the viruses that seems to be so prevalent in the US this winter, a bout that made me feel more ill than I’ve felt in a quarter century. My son is getting married in a couple weeks. I have time to finish preparing. I haven’t seen him in over a year.

I’ve been feeding the geek side of myself by learning PHP and exploring a new blogging platform, Habari. I even started a new blog devoted to these subjects, Sag Rising, and transferred my software site, Cockrum Publishing, to the new platform. The Ambridge Family Theatre site will probably be transferred sometime in the next few months.

Periodically in our lives we go through times of major change. We roll along, one day following another, happy in our routine, then we conspire with the rest of the world to create a nexus, a point where we choose to remain as we are or to shift our focus. The road we’re travelling may start to become a bit rocky. Unsettling events may arrive from the dream around us to shake our shoulders a bit. Or we may find ourselves facing a choice that we’ve always wanted, but when actually facing it we feel fear and doubt as we ask ourselves, Is this too good to be true?

In The Parable of the Paradigm Karen Lynch talks about paradigms, the set of beliefs that lock us into one approach to living, and how they can be changed.

Dianne Sylvan makes a similar point in The Rest is Still Unwritten. Our paradigm, our world view, is a personal mythology that, while, it may not be easily changed, yet can be.

In Not Giving When You Know You Should: A Haunting Story Stephen Hopson tells a story about a decision point in his life. We’ve all been there. We’ve all had our lives shaped by such moments. Each decision closes off paths and opens new ones. Each choice defines us, but even more, if we’re awake, tells us who we are. Since he tells us this story, this event is one that has served such a function for Stephen.

Stephen, by the way, has just learned that he won in the category of Most Life Changing Moment in the Be the Next Best Selling Author for his inspirational video of a dream come true on YouTube. Go Stephen! I’m looking forward to the book.

At the root of all this is the belief that we create our own reality. Our minds, our bodies, our worlds are the objective results of what we believe. The concept is meant to be an empowering one, yet we often use it to try to avoid the responsibility, the freedom, and the joy into which it can lead us.

Christine Kane did a wonderful series on how we can use the idea that we create our own reality to keep ourselves in our self-created cages. The first article is The 6 Snarkiest Misconceptions about the Law of Attraction:#1. Follow the links at the top of each page to read the whole series. Chances are you’ll see where you’ve done each of these at some point in your life. I know I did.

I’d just like to leave this quote from Barbara Ling about knowledge.

Knowledge is the only thing you can freely bestow again and again and still not lose a jot of it yourself

Wisdom is another story.

Be well.

Technorati Tags: Karen Lynch, Dianne Sylvan, Stephen Hopson, Christine Kane, Barbara Ling, law of attraction, beliefs

Popularity: 9% [?]

This entry is filed under Personal Development. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.