Lesson 20: Life Like a Song: The Harmonious Chord of your purposes
Forgive Yourself and Start Fresh
by Mary Hayes Grieco
Lesson 20: Life Like a Song: The Harmonious Chord of your purposes
“There are paradoxical truths about seeking one’s purpose that we need to understand and live by if we want our souls to sing well in the chorus of human expression.” As was explained in the previous essay, living one’s purpose is a paradox of simultaneously accepting some things and changing others. It is also composed of different levels that play harmoniously (or not!) like a notes in a chord of music.
Examine the levels of your purpose now:
Existential – You are just here.
Are you letting yourself take up space and just BE HERE, breathing? That’s all you have to do. ‘Productivity‘ is nice when you can have it, but you don’t always have to be productive.
Social – This is the job you have or the roles you perform in society:
a volunteer, a mother, a writer, a postal worker. It’s how we show up and participate in structures and positive expectations and duties with others.
Symbiotic – Purpose in partnership and relationships.
Mutually beneficial collaborations and personal teachers. We are all teachers and we support each other benevolently with our gifts, examples, and complementary talent and services.
Note! Some people in our lives teach us through challenge and friction. Their presence challenges us to up our game with our confidence and spiritual lessons. “Appreciate your enemies because they point out your faults, and your faults are your obstacles.” – Benjamin Franklin
Spiritual Purpose – The development and sharing of soul qualities.
This is what we discussed in Lesson Five – We effortlessly share the light and love of our native soulful energy with others, and that is a fine purpose indeed!
And we bring ourselves to the task of developing the strengths we are deficient in. It’s consciously being a student of human greatness, and bringing ourselves to that tough learning laboratory.
Our Common Human Purpose – To Learn and to Love
This is simple and self evident, if you are awake and aware at all. Enjoy the story below about how I learned this from my delightful old Aunt Ann.
Evolutionary Purpose – The advancement of the higher consciousness in the human race. Whether it’s your recycling efforts, or your commitment to voting or ending poverty or bringing wells and education to women in the underdeveloped nations or praying for peace in global conflict situations, or performing random acts of kindness … we are the only animal that can decide to grow and raise our consciousness to oneness with all so we can improve our lot, individually and together.
Your playing your part in these levels of purpose can be a quiet and singular song, like a solo piano sonata. So you’re sick or unemployed? Be. Breathe. It’s your song. Maybe your life song is a lively duet! It’s all about being with your mate, and helping each other out and enjoying what the world has to offer. Or a quartet, or a full orchestral ensemble belting out Beethoven’s Fifth. It is your song, and none is more worthy than another – each life’s song has its own kind of glory.
How are you living purposefully today?
Here’s My Song for Today:
Existential____________________________________
Social_________________________________________
Symbiotic (who are your helpers? Your teachers through blessing? Your teachers through friction? Who are you helping and teaching?
______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________
______________________________________________________
Today’s Learning and Loving____________________
Spiritual______________________________________
Evolutionary___________________________________
Bravo! Beautiful! Go, You.
Further reading:
“Our Common Human Purpose”
from The New Kitchen Mystic
by Mary Hayes Grieco
Anyone and everyone can have a purpose if they want to. It doesn’t matter if you are very young or very old, schooled or unschooled, pretty or plain. It doesn’t matter what your IQ is, and you don’t need start-up capital to get on with it. It doesn’t even matter what kind of a mess you’ve made of your life until now — you can embrace this purpose today, and immediately begin to reap the reward of knowing you are living a worthy life. What is this purpose — our common human purpose? I am here to learn and to love. I learned this from my Aunt Ann.
My Aunt Ann was a committed alcoholic all of her life. You could count on her to be drunk most of the time. She tried a few AA meetings once, but it never “took.” She was well-adjusted to her character defects, and much more interested in satisfying her curiosity about life and other people than doing any serious personal housecleaning. So, drunk she remained. Nevertheless, Aunt Ann never lacked company for long. She was warm, witty, and insightful, and despite the fact that she slurred her words, she was a great conversationalist.
My aunt lived in a high-rise on the North Side of Chicago, and received regular visits from her son John, his wife Meg, and their children Brigid and George. She needed a little looking after because she had drunk away the use of her legs, and used a wheelchair. John and Meg scolded my aunt in fear and exasperation when they came and found her passed out on the bathroom floor in a puddle. She frequently sported lumps and bruises, and even a sprained arm, but nothing phased her.
“God, Mom! I told you to use those handrails we put in. How long have you been on the floor?” “Oh, Jeez, Johnny — I don’t know. Did you bring my whiskey? How’s Brigid? Is she feeling better this week?”
My sister Hannah encouraged me to visit Aunt Ann when I came to town. Hannah, a writer, enjoyed plying Aunt Ann with questions about our family life in the 20’s and the 30’s. Despite the astonishing amount of alcohol her brain cells were swimming in, Aunt Ann’s memory and her present-time faculties were incredibly clear. Young Hannah always left from her visits feeling invigorated and nourished by stories. “Go see her, Mare,” said Hannah. “She’s so much fun and she’s sharp as a tack.”
I did. I waited patiently in the hall for Aunt Ann to unlock her door. I could hear her fumbling with the locks and swearing under her breath for several minutes. When the door finally swung open and I looked down at my tiny aunt in her tiny wheelchair I could see it must have been hard for her to get the top chain off the door. It was high over her head. “Well, Mary Brigid!” she exclaimed in that familiar gravelly voice. “It’s so good to see you! Come in, come in…”
My aunt tip-tip-toed her way steadily along down her linoleum hallway ahead of me in her wheelchair, her little feet covered in those absurd hospital slippers with the pom-poms. Her head was held high and her thick shock of uncombed white hair radiated independent self-expression. Her cigarette smoke streamed delicately behind her like a banner in a parade. I felt like a visiting dignitary.
“Your mother tells me you married a great guy — Frank? Fred! And you’ve opened a business together. What do you sell?” She leaned forward, ready for all the news.
I gave Aunt Ann the full report. Her bright blue eyes absorbed every word with rapt attention, and her smoke ascended thoughtfully to the ceiling. As I talked, she asked me lots of questions, and occasionally declared, “Well isn’t that wonderful?!” I felt so good. The sunlight poured like a blessing through her high-rise windows. The half-empty bottle of whiskey on the table glowed like liquid amber. The scattered newspaper on the sofa could only hold good news…what was this feeling? My heart was warm and my person was safe as I talked with this old blue-veined sprite of an aunt. What was this? Oh, yes. This is what Love feels like.
One day Aunt Ann’s son Ralph came to officiate at one of our cousin’s weddings. Ralph was a Catholic priest, and was enduring a long-term dilemma about whether to remain in the Church. He did a nice job of it anyway, as he always does, and later at the reception he found himself sitting with a thoughtful Aunt Ann. “Ralph —” she said slowly, “What is the purpose of life?” Ralph didn’t know ’til that moment that he knew the answer. “Mom — the purpose of life is to learn and to love.”
“To learn and to love . . . yes . . . That must be it. . . I like that . . .Thanks, son.”
“Sure, Mom.”
The next Tuesday, Meg went to Aunt Ann’s for her regular visit. They always watched her soap opera together at noon. Meg was surprised to find the door unlocked. She was even more surprised to find Aunt Ann sleeping peacefully on the couch, neatly tucked under an afghan with her hands folded. She was wearing a fresh house dress and for once her hair was combed. The sun streamed in on her old face as the television chattered softly in the background.
“Mom?” said Meg, softly touching her knee.
There was no answer. Aunt Ann was dead. She had died of natural causes about fifteen minutes before Meg’s predictable Tuesday visit. She somehow had the foresight to arrange to go with some dignity. At her funeral, we traded our favorite Aunt Ann stories, including the one about her last conversation with Ralph. We all came to the same conclusion that she apparently did—our Aunt Ann had learned and loved, and her life and her death were blessed with purpose.
“The purpose of life is to learn and to love.”
-Cousin Ralph