A Season For Nonviolence Reflections: Week 9

"Two kinds of gratitude: The sudden kind we feel for what we take; the larger kind we feel for what we give." - Edwin Arlington Robinson

Marshall Rosenberg states that he believes that all human beings have a desire to give. He calls it natural giving. He has created a whole language on helping people stay connected to this natural giving that we all have the potential to live out.

Rosenberg the founder of Nonviolent Communication, says that many times people play the "Who's Right?" game and that what he wants to encourage is for more folks to play the "How can I make your life more wonderful?" game.

Imagine if we focused more on making life wonderful instead of being right or looking out just for our own interest.

We are all connected. The earth, animals and people. Just like the trees in a forest are all connected to the earth and nourished by water we are all interconnected. For this reason it is important to consider all these things in our decisions. One way to do this is to simply ask, "How can I enrich life today?"

When what we are doing is enriching life we have a sense of purpose that brings peace and harmony to our life. Max Lucado writes in The Applause of Heaven, "There are certain things that you can do that no one else can. Perhaps it is parenting, or constructing houses, or encouraging the discouraged. There are things that only you can do, and you are alive to do them. In the great orchestra we call life, you have an instrument and a song, and you owe it to God to play them both sublimely."

The world needs us to find our gift or talent and the world waits expectantly for us to not only find it but to use it to contribute to life. But not just when it comes to our gifts and talents, may we also enrich life in the small things too. 

Practice:

Think of an act of kindness that you can do for the planet like picking up trash or recycling paper. Give to someone without them knowing. Acknowledge another for their service and/or use your talents to serve others. Take your pick or do them all this week. May your life be one that is serving life and is bringing you and others joy.

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