The sign on the wall at the YMCA in a small town in North Carolina said: “Start where you are; use what you’ve got; do what you can.”
I was taken by this advice, and especially by that first part: “Start where you are.” Because it seems to me we are forever wanting to imagine we are somewhere else than we are, or thinking that we can’t get started towards anything good unless we can change the starting place. But, guess what? We can’t change our starting place. Where we are is where we are, no matter how much we wish we were somewhere else.
Start where you are. Not where someone else thinks you are, or where you are pretending to be in front of everyone else. START WHERE YOU ARE. Where are you today? Where am I? You might be sick, wishing you were well. Start where you are. You might be deeply hurt because you have lost a good friend. You might be wishing so badly you hadn’t lost her or him, but you have. Start where you are. You might be in jail wishing you had never gone to that party last Friday night, but you went and one thing led to another. You are in jail. Start where you are. You have made a number of mistakes as a father, and now you’ve barely got one child that will speak to you. You can sit around and make all sorts of excuses about it all, but whatever you want to pretend, you are where you are – alone on your birthday again. Start where you are, even if its hard to admit it.
Some of us are working so hard to avoid the truth of our lives, to avoid facing our real situation. Some of us are just brokenhearted from some deep losses, some terrible mistakes, some tragic misunderstandings. And, we are spending all the energy we have inside us to avoid facing what we feel deep down. We are trying to drink it away, play it away, shop it away, eat it away or drug it away. We are trying to keep so busy we won’t even be able to notice what has happened, what is happening to us.
But, as Jackson Browne used to sing: “Now matter how fast I run . . . I can never seem to get away from me.”
Start . . . where . . . you . . . are. . . Those four words come to me as good, holy and somber words. It also occurs to me that in order to be able face where you really are in life, you usually need to be able to tell another person, as hard as that might seem to do. Often unless you have someone to tell the truth to, you can never bear to tell it to yourself. Start where you are. Not such an easy thing to do. It requires going down to that bedrock of truth inside of us – that foundation we rarely get to in human life.
I pray to God that you will be given the grace, the courage and the love of another that will enable you to go to this starting place deep in your soul, in that place where God dwells. Amen.
I was taken by this advice, and especially by that first part: “Start where you are.” Because it seems to me we are forever wanting to imagine we are somewhere else than we are, or thinking that we can’t get started towards anything good unless we can change the starting place. But, guess what? We can’t change our starting place. Where we are is where we are, no matter how much we wish we were somewhere else.
Start where you are. Not where someone else thinks you are, or where you are pretending to be in front of everyone else. START WHERE YOU ARE. Where are you today? Where am I? You might be sick, wishing you were well. Start where you are. You might be deeply hurt because you have lost a good friend. You might be wishing so badly you hadn’t lost her or him, but you have. Start where you are. You might be in jail wishing you had never gone to that party last Friday night, but you went and one thing led to another. You are in jail. Start where you are. You have made a number of mistakes as a father, and now you’ve barely got one child that will speak to you. You can sit around and make all sorts of excuses about it all, but whatever you want to pretend, you are where you are – alone on your birthday again. Start where you are, even if its hard to admit it.
Some of us are working so hard to avoid the truth of our lives, to avoid facing our real situation. Some of us are just brokenhearted from some deep losses, some terrible mistakes, some tragic misunderstandings. And, we are spending all the energy we have inside us to avoid facing what we feel deep down. We are trying to drink it away, play it away, shop it away, eat it away or drug it away. We are trying to keep so busy we won’t even be able to notice what has happened, what is happening to us.
But, as Jackson Browne used to sing: “Now matter how fast I run . . . I can never seem to get away from me.”
Start . . . where . . . you . . . are. . . Those four words come to me as good, holy and somber words. It also occurs to me that in order to be able face where you really are in life, you usually need to be able to tell another person, as hard as that might seem to do. Often unless you have someone to tell the truth to, you can never bear to tell it to yourself. Start where you are. Not such an easy thing to do. It requires going down to that bedrock of truth inside of us – that foundation we rarely get to in human life.
I pray to God that you will be given the grace, the courage and the love of another that will enable you to go to this starting place deep in your soul, in that place where God dwells. Amen.
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