9.08.2009

Quote Week: Day #2 - "Dance"


Today's Photo: "Like Yesterday's Except With a Bee"


"We're fools whether we dance or not, so we might as well dance."
- Japanese Proverb

A lesson I'm learning: People have opinions. In fact, people have a lot of opinions on a wide-range of topics. Additionally, a lot of people like to share their many and varied opinions with their pastor. And, in general, this is good and healthy and wonderful. It's great if people have a safe place to talk about their thoughts and feelings.

The topics of these personal opinions vary: the strength of Sunday's coffee, the appropriate roles of women, the history of the confirmation program, the music choices at worship, the bread used for communion, the color of my cardigans, etc.

Being that my heart leans toward the overly-sensitive side, I have a tendency to take the many and varied opinions people provide quite personally. Let me tell you a lesson that I know most of you already know: WATCH OUT! This "personally absorbing the opinions of everyone around you" is a terrible idea.

It's a one-way ticket toward becoming a bundle of anxiety! Overly enmeshed in opinions of the previously stated variety, I found myself rushing into the sanctuary this afternoon for a mini-breakdown.

We all encounter the many and varied opinions of those around us on a daily basis. So what are we to do with all this feedback and maintain a healthy sense of self and a feeling of inner balance?

Dance. I think we just take it and we dance with it. We greet those opinions with a smile, we take their hand for a little twirl around the dance floor, and then we let those opinions go and we move along.

Because, like the quote says, in such a silly and unpredictable world as this, "we might as well dance."

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