All is merry and bright

A line from a song is running through my head about how all is merry and bright, hang your stockings and say your prayers ’cause Santa Claus comes tonight.

All is merry and bright…

I flew across the country to visit my family and sitting in my old bedroom, after a delicious Christmas dinner I find myself struggling to find meaning in this day. When I was a kid it is easy. The day used to be all about the wide and bright grin on the face of a neighborhood boy this morning. He was happily riding his new scooter and there was such pure joy and happiness in getting just what he wanted, his dream fulfilled. Today I find myself struggling to find that well of pure joy. There are no small children in my immediate family so I now find that the opening of gifts, while certainly fun, isn’t where meaning lies.

Please don’t get me wrong, I certainly don’t mean to sound ungrateful. I am truly grateful for everything that I have received, from the lovely framed set of program covers from a series of plays I adored this year, to beautiful handmade prayer shawl, to a pair of cozy Keen boots, to the “How to Cook Everything Vegetarian” cookbook, to the copy of Eat, Pray, Love. Everything has me feeling seen in very unexpected and humbling ways.

All is merry and bright…

Yet somehow, after all of the presents have been opened, after dinner has been consumed, the kitchen cleaned up and as we each retired to our corners to watch the basketball game or nap or write a blog entry, I feel as though something within me is not quite content.

All is merry and bright…

There is this bittersweet feeling in me. Maybe I have too many expectations. Maybe I want to hold on to this moment of being together knowing that it is not guaranteed to happen again. Maybe it is being in my old home so far away from my adopted home and what now brings me comfort. Maybe I am comparing my experience to some ideal standard that no one actually lives. Maybe I am missing feeling of service by volunteering at the local food kitchen. In this moment, all I know for sure is that meaning can come from so many different places and I will take comfort in knowing that I get to decide what will make it truly be merry and bright.

“Our obligation is to give meaning to life and in doing so to overcome the passive, indifferent life”~ Elie Wiesel

Integrity is…

Words from another can sometimes feel like they are exactly what I need to say, to think, to hear, to marinate in. I often find that I am easily overwhelmed by sheer amount of inspiration around me. I expand my arms wide and say yes. I buy books, I join e-courses and am cracked open to the wisdom of others, and then, like clockwork, the feeling of overwhelm washes over me.

Which inspirational thread do I follow?

Whose words do I try on for size?

Which of the four or five books in the coveted space on by bedside table do I actually finish first?

In my state of overwhelm, in all honesty, I often just drop things that excited me just days, weeks, months before because it all feels too much to digest. I step back, I and fall into mindlessness (usually in the form of reality tv or Law and Order marathons) and zone out until I am called back to my life.

Recently, something that called me back was a favorite and cherished friend’s blog where I saw that she had created a button that read “Integrity is Sexy.”

Hmmm…

integrity

1 : firm adherence to a code of especially moral or artistic values : incorruptibility

2 : an unimpaired condition : soundness

3 : the quality or state of being complete or undivided : completeness

The phrase has really stuck with me. It has me thinking not only about what integrity is but also about where I am living out of integrity in my life.

As I began to explore my ideas of integrity, I began to notice the glaring places where I fall short. I have begun to notice that I spend so much time looking outside of myself for guidance, for inspiration, for answers but I haven’t spent nearly as much time looking inside to see which things feel sound for me, which things provide a sense of completeness.

So far I have decided:

There is integrity in culling through my Google Reader only subscribing to blogs that ignite my soul, going through the books on my shelves and holding on to only those words that speak to me.

There is integrity in choosing (even when the choice turns out to be oh so wrong).

There is integrity in following that choice to a natural conclusion.

There is integrity in changing course.

There is integrity in claiming my voice – in drinking in all of the inspiration and then making a translation all my own.

In the end, isn’t that where integrity lives? In the distillation within our being that takes any inspiration and transforms it into something else unique, re-worked, and ultimately undeniably you.