weekly post March 3, 2006

The "what to give up, what to give up" edition

Disclaimer: Parts of the following email are not original thoughts or ideas. Instead they were taken from other sources(my spouse). In other words, not all of what I'm writing is mine!

Hello my friends & loved ones,

I felt I should add that bit at the top since the book world is being turned on its head again. First came the James Frey debacle as it was discovered that his book should have been labeled fiction instead of non-fiction. Now comes news that Dan Brown, author of "The DaVinci Code", all but plagiarized the book "The Holy Blood, and The Holy Grail" while he was writing "DaVinci. "

Lent is upon us and I don't know what your childhood was like during this time but I don't remember ever really giving anything up or my family focusing on it. My mom and dad were only semi-religious. Someone at work asked me what I was going to give up for Lent this year and I really had to think about that. Then I heard Jim's Ash Wednesday sermon and....voila! The past!!! Big applause now. Everyone give up the past. Come on now. What? But isn't the past supposed to be dead? Well, duh! However, many of us, myself included, continue to walk around with the past squarely on our shoulders. The past hurts, the past insults, the past behaviors. Jim likened this to pulling over on the side of the road, picking up a dead woodchuck, making a necklace out of it, putting it around our necks and wearing it. Meanwhile, as the woodchuck continues to rot, we complain about the smell of it. Why don't we just take it off and chuck (sorry) it? What's the difference between doing that and chucking the past? Throw away the past insults of, 'you're not good enough,' 'you're not worthy,' 'you'll never amount to anything,' 'you'll never be loved.' Throw all of those things away and live the now, live the present. The past is just like that rotting woodchuck: Dead. We can't bring the past back (unless we can resurrect H.G. Wells and get him to build a time machine for us). We are worthy, we are loved, and we are good enough. I'm reminded of that character from Saturday Night Live, Stuart Smalley. At the end of his segment he used to turn to a mirror and chant to himself, "I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and doggone it, people like me." We may have laughed at this (I did) but sometimes we need to remind ourselves of that otherwise the past may stink up our lives.

Until next week: Remember, you are good enough, you are smart enough, and doggone it, people like you.

peace out,

paul