6-19-13 grateful for today

1.  My adorable dog
2.  Endless possibilities in every moment
3.  Unconditional love
4.  Breathing
5.  Awareness
6.  Great friends
7.  All of life and all of nature
8.  Music and chanting
9.  Creativity and talent
10.  The Light

There is a Quaker story told about a meeting between George Fox and William Penn.  The story goes that William Penn was a recent Quaker by convincement and was struggling with the question of wearing his sword or not.  Wearing a sword back then was part of normal dress of those of a certain status.  So even though the story when told usually focuses on the non-violence part of Quakerism and the sword was concern to William Penn as it is a weapon of violence, I also believe it had to do with being a status symbol in the community and addressed also the equality part of Quakerism.  The story as I heard it, as William Penn was struggling with his habit of wearing his sword, he asked George Fox how long he would be wearing his sword.  And George Fox replied, "Wear it as long as you can."

When I first heard this story, I thought it was talking about personal convincement.  When one fully accepts the Quaker testimonies, one would not be able to "wear the sword".  Recently, this story came to me to enlighten another aspect of my personal work.  I go to mental health counseling, and have done lots of work on healing my childhood trauma.  I survived through abuse, and part of the processing through and healing, is sometimes going back to those times to learn what "decisions" I made about myself and the world and to see if I need and want to change those decisions.  The process is not forced upon me, I'm the one that lets go and goes to whatever time my "soul" needs to show me where I turned away from the Light in order to survive.  Lately, after years of therapy and growth, I have been surprised to be still going back to some of the same times of abuse and getting more insight and more healing.  I've been wondering how many more times will I need to go back to those painful times to heal.  Then I felt the story of William Penn and his sword.  And I will go back as long as I can to heal.  Love and Light.