{"id":142,"date":"2011-04-18T16:16:15","date_gmt":"2011-04-18T20:16:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/insweetcompany\/?p=142"},"modified":"2011-04-18T16:16:15","modified_gmt":"2011-04-18T20:16:15","slug":"the-easter-gift","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/insweetcompany\/2011\/04\/the-easter-gift.html","title":{"rendered":"The Easter Gift"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>\u201cI think spirituality is also about the reconciliation of opposites. It\u2019s about diving deep inside yourself beyond the polarities to a place of unity where everything holds together. &#8230; It\u2019s very holistic. &#8230;\u00a0 When you operate out of the wounded places within yourself, places that are not your truest, the extremes seem irreconcilable. Life is too deep for cynicism or polarization. It just is. Compassion enables you to transcend these polarities at a place within yourself where you stand for the dignity of every human life.\u201d<\/em> &#8212; Sister Helen Prejean, IN SWEET COMPANY: CONVERSATIONS WITH EXTRAORDINARY WOMEN ABOUT LIVING A SPIRITUAL LIFE<\/p>\n<p>In a world where the waters are often choppy and the sky is dark 50% of the time, where so much is beyond our control, it\u2019s often difficult to feel as if we have the power to steer the little boats of our lives with any degree of self-governance. It\u2019s hard enough to manage the things we can control &#8212; remembering where we put our car keys, mustering the self-discipline to ignore a craving for potato chips and a Coke, deciding what movie we want to rent. And so on and so forth. Sometimes, we actually get to decide things &#8212; a marriage partner, a job, a move. Most times things happen to us and our task is to decide how we respond to them.<\/p>\n<p>Though it\u2019s one of the hardest things we do, and often seems beyond our control, choosing how we use our words is still within our scope of influence. Not just being clever or effective, but being kind. Even, and especially, in the face of conflict and dissent.<\/p>\n<p>This issue seems to come up for me around this time of year, particularly since kindness is one of my core values. The words, \u201cForgive them for they know not what they do,\u201d become personal as I labor to let go of anothers&#8217; harsh words, to not take an unkindness directed at me personally. (I have 42 planets in Pisces! I think this is one of my life lessons!) I manage to see, early on, the pain beneath the others&#8217; rant, as well as my own contribution to the drama. Putting myself back together in the wake of unkindness takes me longer to do.<\/p>\n<p>Today, after another \u201cEaster gift\u201d presented itself, I sought out a lovely book I have about Saint Therese of Lisieux to gain inspiration from her life. I opened the book randomly, I thought, to the bookmark slid between its tattered pages. Albert Einstein, also a Pisces, stares back at me. Beneath his photo is a quote that says, \u201cGreat spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.\u201d\u00a0 I laughed!<\/p>\n<p>I turn the bookmark over and read, \u201cEinstein\u2019s reverence for all creation, his belief in the grandeur, beauty and sublimity of the universe ( the primary source of the inspiration in his science) his awe for the scheme that is manifested in the material universe &#8212; all these things show through his work and philosophy.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>These words, their inherent kindness, comforted me. This is where the power to steer my little boat comes from. It is always my Easter prayer.<\/p>\n<p>Your thoughts?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cI think spirituality is also about the reconciliation of opposites. It\u2019s about diving deep inside yourself beyond the polarities to a place of unity where everything holds together. &#8230; It\u2019s very holistic. &#8230;\u00a0 When you operate out of the wounded places within yourself, places that are not your truest, the extremes seem irreconcilable. Life is&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":231,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,1],"tags":[39,35,34,36,37,38,28],"class_list":["post-142","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-personal-transformation","category-spiritual-journey","tag-albert-einstein","tag-easter-gift","tag-easter-prayer","tag-forgiveness","tag-kindeess","tag-sr-helen-prejean","tag-uplifting-quotes"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The Easter Gift - In Sweet Company<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/insweetcompany\/2011\/04\/the-easter-gift.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Easter Gift - In Sweet Company\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"\u201cI think spirituality is also about the reconciliation of opposites. It\u2019s about diving deep inside yourself beyond the polarities to a place of unity where everything holds together. &#8230; It\u2019s very holistic. &#8230;\u00a0 When you operate out of the wounded places within yourself, places that are not your truest, the extremes seem irreconcilable. Life is&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/insweetcompany\/2011\/04\/the-easter-gift.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"In Sweet Company\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-04-18T20:16:15+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Margaret Wolff\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The Easter Gift - In Sweet Company","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/insweetcompany\/2011\/04\/the-easter-gift.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The Easter Gift - In Sweet Company","og_description":"\u201cI think spirituality is also about the reconciliation of opposites. It\u2019s about diving deep inside yourself beyond the polarities to a place of unity where everything holds together. &#8230; It\u2019s very holistic. &#8230;\u00a0 When you operate out of the wounded places within yourself, places that are not your truest, the extremes seem irreconcilable. Life is&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/insweetcompany\/2011\/04\/the-easter-gift.html","og_site_name":"In Sweet Company","article_published_time":"2011-04-18T20:16:15+00:00","author":"Margaret Wolff","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/insweetcompany\/2011\/04\/the-easter-gift.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/insweetcompany\/2011\/04\/the-easter-gift.html","name":"The Easter Gift - In Sweet Company","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/insweetcompany\/#website"},"datePublished":"2011-04-18T20:16:15+00:00","dateModified":"2011-04-18T20:16:15+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/insweetcompany\/#\/schema\/person\/9e1d77d12de19dd0d4fbc84d1f7fc52a"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/insweetcompany\/2011\/04\/the-easter-gift.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/insweetcompany\/2011\/04\/the-easter-gift.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/insweetcompany\/2011\/04\/the-easter-gift.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/insweetcompany"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"The Easter Gift"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/insweetcompany\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/insweetcompany\/","name":"In Sweet Company","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Margaret Wolff","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/insweetcompany\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/insweetcompany\/#\/schema\/person\/9e1d77d12de19dd0d4fbc84d1f7fc52a","name":"Margaret Wolff","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/insweetcompany\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/insweetcompany\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/673\/67331f0571f27a0987e8cbfde3e832b4x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/insweetcompany\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/673\/67331f0571f27a0987e8cbfde3e832b4x96.jpg","caption":"Margaret Wolff"},"description":"Margaret Wolff has a gift of luring people into becoming who they really are. She speaks and writes about things women care about: how to make our lives and our work be about what we value most; how to navigate challenge and change; how to live with integrity and grace, to look at error in ourselves and others in a forgiving way and view life as an invitation to transform ourselves into instruments for the Greater Good. \"I laughed, I cried, I was silent, I cheered. Most of all, I loved.\" Spoken by a woman at In Sweet Company Retreat, these words express what women experience when Margaret engages them in dynamic, soul-searching conversations about their lives. Margaret holds degrees in art therapy, psychosynthesis, and leadership and human behavior. Her work takes her to universities, to conferences and retreat settings, to living rooms and board rooms -- wherever women gather. Her articles, essays, and stories are featured in numerous magazines; her women\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s spirituality retreats are held throughout the U.S. Margaret\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s last book, In \"Sweet Company: Conversations With Extraordinary Women About Living a Spiritual Life\" (Jossey Bass), is a collection of intimate conversations she had with 14 famous women of various ages, faiths, and backgrounds about how their spirituality nourishes them and serves as a steady compass for their decision-making. Olympia Dukakis, Riane Eisler, Zainab Salbi, Margaret Wheatley, Sri Daya Mata, Lauren Artress, and other women artists, activists, religious leaders, and visionary thinkers shared their lives with her. 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