No one else can confer dignity on you; it is something that comes from within. You cannot fake it or acquire it as you would an accent. You can only receive the gift of dignity from your own heart. When you learn to embrace your self with a sense of appreciation and affection, you begin to glimpse the goodness and light that is in you, and gradually you will realize that you are worthy of respect from yourself. When you recognize your limits, but still embrace your life with affection and graciousness, the sense of inner dignity begins to grow. You become freer and less dependent on the affirmations of outer voices and less troubled by the negativity of others. Now you know that no one has the right to tarnish the image that you have of yourself....Even in compromising and demeaning situations, you can still hold your sense of dignity. At such times your sense of dignity will keep a space of tranquility about you. In the Third World, one is often struck by the immense dignity of the poor. Even hunger and oppression cannot rob them of this grace of spirit. If you do not give it away, no event, situation, or person can take your dignity away from you. The different styles of presence reveal how we belong to ourselves.
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Prayer is the act and presence of sending this light from the bountifulness of your love to other people to heal, free, and bless them. Where there is love in your life, you should share it spiritually with those who are pushed to the very edge of life. There is a very lovely idea in the Celtic tradition that if you send goodness out from yourself, it will come back to you multiplied ten thousand times. In the kingdom of love there is no competition; there is no possessiveness or control. The more love you give away, the more love you will have.
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Every friendship travels at sometime through the black valley of despair. This tests every aspect of your affection. You lose the attraction and the magic. Your sense of each other darkens and your presence is sore. If you can come through this time, it can purify with your love, and falsity and need will fall away. It will bring you onto new ground where affection can grow again."
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The human face carries mystery and is the exposure point of the mystery of the individual life. It is where the private inner world of a person protrudes into the anonymous world. While the rest of the body is covered, the face is naked. The vulnerability of this nakedness issues a profound invitation for understanding and compassion. The human face is a meeting place for two unknowns: the infinity of the outer world and the unchartered, inner world to which each individual alone has access. This is the night world that lies behind the brightness of the visage. The smile on a face is a surprise or illumination. When the smile crosses the face, it is as if the inner night of this hidden world brightens suddenly. Heidegger said very beautifully that we are custodians of deep and ancient thresholds. In the human face you see that potential and the miracle of undying possibility.
~John O'Donohue~
(Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom)
