Success from A Higher Point of View

I don’t know which David Orr penned the following, but whomever he is, I really love the sentiment:

The planet does not need more successful people.  But it does desperately need more peacemakers, healers, restorers, storytellers, and lovers of every shape and form.  It needs people who live well in their places.  It needs people of moral courage willing to join the fight to make the world habitable and humane.  And these needs have little to do with success as our culture has defined it.

Amen.  And Amen again.  But saying it, and tattooing it on my hand or forehead for everyone to read, means nada, nothing, if I don’t practice it myself.

For too long I worried about achieving success, acclaim, admiration, fame, and well—even a best seller.  I suspect age brings us up short when one day we come face to face with reality and say to the cute person in the mirror “You know, that probably won’t happen in your lifetime!”  There’s a moment of grief, then acceptance.  Or it was like that for me.  

The oddest thing happened, however, when I surrendered those kinds of ambitions.  Instead of climbing toward my dreams, somewhere along the way I decided maybe, just maybe, it would be better to start living out God’s dreams instead.  Forget mine.  Mine are powerless anyway, gone in a flash.  God’s dreams are bigger than that.  I realized I could simply do my part, no more, no less.  Depending on the day, and my shape or form for the hour, I can choose to be a peacemaker, a healer, a restorer, a storyteller, and a lover of every shape and form.  Most days, if I choose to do the right thing in the moment, I can live well in my place, whatever the circumstance.  It’s when I get out of my place, typically projecting myself and my ‘stuff’ into the future, that I get into a dither.  Thank God, in God’s patience with me, someone or something comes to snap me back out of that and into a humble reality.

Sounds so easy on paper.  It’s not, in practice.  But we keep practicing.  And practicing.  And some days, we get to glimpse a success or two.  Makes it all worthwhile!

That’s the view from my desk today, mental tattoos and all.

Grace and joy,

Julie