Friday, March 20, 2009

Champagne for the Soul: Gleaming Everywhere

[Photo caption - took this one myself, on the beach in SE Asia last summer.]

Here's more Champagne for the Soul (last quoted here.)
“During my experiment I had to look closely at what joy actually feels like in practice. God kept changing my view of it, showing me more and more angles, with the result that joy became more readily accessible to me in all manner of situations. If I’m looking for a perfectly clear crystal stone on a beach, I may not find one, but if I look for the crystalline in stones, I’ll see it gleaming everywhere.

“It takes wiliness to be happy. When cornered, we have to look at all the options and find the way out. We have to know how to outwit the heebie-jeebies, how to think faster than our blackest thought. We must be able to slip the nooses of condemnation, lethargy, self-pity, confusion.

“Have I been happy today? Yes, richly so. Yet I’ve also been processing deep undercurrents of disturbed feelings. Can these two states coexist – joy and profound disturbance? Strange to say, they can. An unsettled joy isn’t the same as clear, singing joy, but it’s joy nonetheless. Though there be clouds in the sky, the sun can still shine brilliantly.”

(Mike Mason, Champagne for the Soul, p. 26)

See also: Personal Development - On Pulling Away (11/5/08)

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