TAKE THIS TO HEART
Recently, while cleaning out a desk drawer (!), I found this and it absolutely stopped me in my tracks. I could only ponder and even marvel as I read and re-read it. I don't think it was just the whirlwind day I was having. I sat in meditation over this—even as everything else was going on all around—for almost twenty minutes. I began on the personal level, moved into the communal, and then for our Diocese and our national Episcopal Church, ending with our nation in this time of crisis and fear.
While praying this for our life as a congregation, its applicability to this great moment in our time, the Capital Campaign, inevitably came to mind. The campaign is going very well indeed, and it has brought much excitement, happiness, and strong morale to All Saints', but even so this is also a time of intensity, mixed emotions, anxiety, and even fear. So, read this and own it. SSJ +
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 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.
We were born to make manifest the glory of God 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 fears,
our presence automatically liberates others.
“A Return to Love: Reflections on A Course in Miracles”
by Marianne Williamson
