There was a lacrosse coach from Wisconsin who told me that Hemingway said that nobility isn’t being superior to others but being superior to your former self. I would say this differently. I’ve found nobility to be a matter of staying true to the process of erosion that wears away what no longer works. Ultimately, nobility is the moment of grace, however fleeting, when nothing remains between our soul and the rest of life. Everyone longs for this exquisite rawness, though we fear being this naked. Yet after the shock of being so vulnerable, we’re empowered by our sensitivity to be of some use.
When I listen long enough, everyone starts to reveal their nobility, which has less to do with being superior and more to do with offering the bareness of our being to anyone who needs something solid to lean on.
~Mark Nepo
when you need some lifeline……..
inquiry for today~ reflect on your past few days…..how do you live well?
it kind of feels ok to be in this life
How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. What we do with this hour, and that one, is what we are doing. A schedule defends from chaos and whim. It is a net for catching days. It is a scaffolding on which a worker can stand and labor with both hands at sections of time. A schedule is a mock-up of reason and order—willed, faked, and so brought into being; it is a peace and a haven set into the wreck of time; it is a lifeboat on which you find yourself, decades later, still living. Each day is the same, so you remember the series afterward as a blurred and powerful pattern.
~Annie Dillard