An occasional series based on stuff that hangs in my room… or my heart.
First, an admission. For most of my life, I wasn’t into affirmations or contemplating 
quotes from people, famous, infamous, or anonymous. I thought it was more important to find my own way, to set my own course.
That all began to change when I returned to Catholicism after a thirty-plus-year absence. It turned out that, who knew, a lot of those famous sayings actually came from the Bible. And how do you not listen to wisdom that’s been around for centuries?
Then in 2013, I wrote a daily devotional about women saints, and delved into the writings of many of them. I found that what many of them had to say (Teresa of Avila, for example, saying she never heard a homily that she couldn’t get something out of) was challenging and inspirational… and resonated with stuff going on in my life.
Now, I’m a fool for a good affirmation. I have several items like the one pictured hanging in my room. My daybook has affirmations too. So, I decided to write occasionally here about what I learn from them on any given day…. starting with the first line of this picture: “Live Your Dream.”
When I was in college, my dream was to live in New York or Boston, working the overnight desk for an international news organization, maybe one day owning a small cottage on Cape Cod. Not that I’d ever been to New York, Boston, or Cape Cod, mind you. But that was the dream.
Then for many years, I dreamed of not having to work so hard. I carried a load of financial obligations when I was married and in the years afterward. It wasn’t that I was unhappy, but I didn’t laugh a lot. There wasn’t time.
Today, I smile when I read this sign before leaving in the morning and before turning out the lights at night. Because I am living my dream. I am blessed with a strong faith community, a good family, wonderful friends, work that challenges and feeds me, good health, a place to sleep, plenty to eat, and enough money to do what I need to do. Who could ask for more? And when those things go away, as things have a way of doing, I pray that I will smile just as much about the new dream.
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