Here, Take This Gift

Everything gets down to choice.

We live a storied life.

Be in the moment.

Forgive.

Trust is fundamental to forward movement.

Living an intentional life brings happiness and fulfillment.

Rely on spiritual principles.

Remember life is precious and short; therefore, consider what is truly meaningful.

Everything points to your belonging.

Offer your gifts to the world without need for recognition.

We transform the outer world from within ourselves.

Live life from your side. (Take responsibility for your life).

Know what you are in agreement with.

Spend time in nature.

Learn to let go.

These are fundamental principles that most of us strive to understand and live by. They are good soil for a rich and meaningful life. However, there is one dynamic that makes all these principles a reality. If we do not manifest this one dynamic there will be stagnation, frustration, and isolation. Life cannot be meaningful. We must, above all else know how to engage this one dynamic to make everything else work.

This dynamic is that of giving and receiving. We must be like everything else in nature, which means to be in a constant state of reciprocity with the world around us. We must become masterful at giving and at receiving.

Giving and receiving are one and the same and occur simultaneously—we cannot truly give unless what we give is received. And we cannot receive without haven been given.

Everything depends upon our capacity to give and receive.

One of my first spiritual teachers, Colleen Brenzy, spoke about “proper” giving and receiving. The zero point agreement points to what it means to “live life from our side,” so that this reciprocity is active and ongoing. Proper giving and receiving allows for a mutual influence, appreciates the timing of giving for both giver and recipient, doesn’t over-give, and doesn’t demand something in return. The “return” factor will occur naturally in proper giving and receiving, as both giver and receiver experience reciprocity.

To receive means to be receptive.

To give means to be generous.

Receptivity is your gift back to the giver who experiences the generosity of their giving.

Like the earth is receptive, and the sun generous in its offerings, –the boundless reciprocity of life and possibility continues.

There is so much to give. There is so much to receive.

So, in receiving lessons from great friends and teachers I offer this lesson up from Parker J Palmer as a further gift to you. In my reception of his teaching I gift him back by being a living expression of his work in the world. And, I gift myself further with promises of “more” rather than less. Here is a quote I lifted from a recent graduation address he gave: “Instead of ‘either-or,’ live the ‘and.’ ” Parker encourages us to live in the “and” which opens us up to greater potentialities and opportunities. We cannot receive the gifts this world presents to us if we badger ourselves with “either-or.” As I open to this new chapter in my life (our only daughter leaves for college in the fall), I gift myself this living in the “and.” I receive the “and,” of life which brings with it such a rich reciprocity of even more “and”.

I challenge you to explore this dynamic of giving and receiving and to experience the reciprocity and vastness that life truly offers each of us, each moment and at each turn of the wheel.

what was that? I will ask you, looking back.

I expect you will just smile.

 

it wasn’t real, but I made it so.

 

dragged its edges outward

until it became a huge chasm, because

I didn’t know enough in passing,

how to leave a moment

where it was.         –Rebecca Cecchini, poet, writer