“The secret of my vigor and activity,” Lowell Thomas confessed, “is that I have managed to have a lot of
fun.”
If life is really for the living, then the trick to living well is to learn to live it fully, to soak it up, to revel
in it.
What we too often fail to realize is that living fully depends a great deal more on our frame of mind, on
our fundamental spirituality, than it does on our physical condition. If we see God as good, we see life
as good. If we see God as a kind of sly and insidious Judge, tempting us with good things in order to see
if we can be seduced into some sort of moral depravity by them, then life is a trap to be feared.
Living well has something to do with the spirituality of wholeheartedness, of seeing life more as a grace
than as a penance, as time to be lived with eager expectation of its goodness, not in dread of its
challenges. We are not given life in order to suffer. We are given life in order to learn to love the
Creator through the joys and beauty of creation. We are given life in order to deal gracefully with the
natural suffering of being mortal creatures.
When we fail to meet life head on, we fail to live it fully.
Life is not simply what happens to us—though in moments of surprise life waits, too—but life is also what
we ourselves make happen.
We become what we do. We become new inside when we urge ourselves to do new things. We become
awake when we do not allow ourselves to simply sleep through life. We become more sure of ourselves
when we forget our age and trust ourselves enough to refuse to fear everything in life from a pair of
stairs to a mountain incline.
We aren’t “past” life unless we allow life to pass us by.
It is time now to begin again, to become new, to find ways to enjoy life, to seize every opportunity to
be an exciting, interesting, significant person. We owe the world the best of ourselves because all the
rest of the world is struggling with something, too.
–from The Gift of Years: Growing Older Gracefully by Joan Chittister (BlueBridge)
fun.”
If life is really for the living, then the trick to living well is to learn to live it fully, to soak it up, to revel
in it.
What we too often fail to realize is that living fully depends a great deal more on our frame of mind, on
our fundamental spirituality, than it does on our physical condition. If we see God as good, we see life
as good. If we see God as a kind of sly and insidious Judge, tempting us with good things in order to see
if we can be seduced into some sort of moral depravity by them, then life is a trap to be feared.
Living well has something to do with the spirituality of wholeheartedness, of seeing life more as a grace
than as a penance, as time to be lived with eager expectation of its goodness, not in dread of its
challenges. We are not given life in order to suffer. We are given life in order to learn to love the
Creator through the joys and beauty of creation. We are given life in order to deal gracefully with the
natural suffering of being mortal creatures.
When we fail to meet life head on, we fail to live it fully.
Life is not simply what happens to us—though in moments of surprise life waits, too—but life is also what
we ourselves make happen.
We become what we do. We become new inside when we urge ourselves to do new things. We become
awake when we do not allow ourselves to simply sleep through life. We become more sure of ourselves
when we forget our age and trust ourselves enough to refuse to fear everything in life from a pair of
stairs to a mountain incline.
We aren’t “past” life unless we allow life to pass us by.
It is time now to begin again, to become new, to find ways to enjoy life, to seize every opportunity to
be an exciting, interesting, significant person. We owe the world the best of ourselves because all the
rest of the world is struggling with something, too.
–from The Gift of Years: Growing Older Gracefully by Joan Chittister (BlueBridge)
MEETING LIFE HEAD ON
 |  |  |  |  |
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Home||Benedictine Sisters of Erie||Catalogue||Joan in the News||Contact Benetvision Fund for Prisoners||Retreats||About Benetvision||Ideas in Passing Benetvision • 355 East Ninth Street • Erie, PA 16503-1107 • Phone 814-459-5994 benetvision@benetvision.org • Fax 814-459-8066 Copyrighted © 2007 Benedictine Sisters of Erie, PA |
