Not the noblest...

"God does not necessarily select the noblest or most deserving person to carry out divine purposes."

--Gail Godwin

But each to fulfill the purpose to which we are called...and to realize the humility and hope that allows each to be true self before God and others.

Knowing compassionately

[The writer's] job is to see people as they really are, and to do this, you have to know who you are in the most compassionate possible sense. Then you can recognize others.
Anne Lamott, pp. 97-98

We are called to be kind. Love others as you love yourself may not be so easy. In knowing ourselves in the most compassionate way, we open the door for authenticity and trust. We are also invited to take the risks associated with speaking and living truth.

In humility, I might come to have a better sense, some day, of what that means. I am grateful for the companions who help show the way.

Stripped bare

It's autumn and the leaves are falling/have fallen. Once again we can see the river from our hilltop perch.

When you write about your characters, we want to know all about their leaves and colors and growth. But we also want to know who they are when stripped of the surface show.
--Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life, New York: Anchor, 1995, pp. 82-83.

Stripped of image, frills, leaves, labels, security, resources....what's left of me under the surface?
I don't always like what I see, and that is a good challenge.

There are lots of things I need less of: food, anger, talking, clutter, stuff, ...
and some things I need more of: water, exercise, prayer, listening, writing.

Manfred MaxNeef makes an interesting distinction between needs and satisfiers--or false satisfiers. It raises questions: what do I really need? What do I accumulate for the wrong reasons? I would like to live more simply in many different ways.

You can see the underlying essence only when you strip away the busyness, and then some surprising connections appear. Anne Lamott, p. 84

Sometimes I lose sight of the connectedness of all things. It is good to strip away the things that make it hard to see/experience/live a connected life--in which we are all one in the one Body of God.