let your life speak

...it's an old Quaker saying and also the title of a book I have read and still read here and there. It's the kind of book you can open in the middle, beginning or the end and still learn something...so yes...let your life speak.

It's more of an invitation- not so much my life motto- not yet.

It means to live authentically- to find your center, embrace your values and truth, to be who you are regardless of who you're with or where you are...this is what the Quakers intended with the saying...and I hope I do the same...with time.

Have you ever seen "Runaway Bride"? Well it is a simple movie and definitely not one of my favorites- but there is a scene in that movie that I always play over and over in my head- it is when Julia Roberts (I don't remember her screen name) is trying to decide how she likes her eggs. It was made known to her that her favorite type of eggs changed depending on what situation she was in or who she was with. I feel this way sometimes about myself. I mean I'm not that completely lost...I like my eggs scrambled for all those you might get a little concerned...but at times I feel like I am sort of floating when I should be grounded. Does that make sense?

well so I sojourn...

Many of you suggested titles for my blog that related somewhat to family and being a mother...well of course- of course- these experiences are teaching me more about life than I will ever know- but I wanted to somehow separate myself from "mommy" and make the title more meaningful for me- anyway...

Here is an excerpt from the book:

"Then I ran across the old Quaker saying, 'Let your life speak.' I found those words encouraging, and I thought I understood what they meant: 'Let the highest truths and values guide you. Live up to those demanding standards in everything you do.' Because I had heroes at the time who seemed to be doing exactly that, this exhortation had incarnate meaning for me--it meant living a life like that of Martin Luther King Jr. or Rosa Parks or Mahatma Gandhi or Dorothy Day, a life of high purpose.

"So I lined up the loftiest ideals I could find and set out to achieve them. The results were rarely admirable, often laughable, and sometimes grotesque. But always they were unreal, a distortion of my true self--as must be the case when one lives from the outside in, not the inside out. I had simply found a "noble" way to live a life that was not my own, a life spent imitating heroes instead of listening to my heart.

"Today, some thirty years later, 'Let your life speak' means something else to me, a meaning faithful both to the ambiguity of those words and to the complexity of my own experience: 'Before you tell your life what you intend to do with it, listen for what it intends to do with you.'" ~Parker J. Palmer