I really like the movie Akeelah and the Bee, for many reasons. A good script, a heart-warming story and some solid onscreen performances.
One of the lines in the movie, a Maryanne Williamson quote (not that I have any idea who Maryanne Williamson is), often has echoes in day to day life, too. Today, I was thinking about providence. Do we often allow ourselves to have providence? Do we open ourselves to providence? Moreover, do we even allow beauty to seep into our lives? Why wouldn't we want beautiful things to happen to us...why wouldn't we deserve them?
And I remember:
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond imagination. It is our light more than our darkness which scares us. We ask ourselves – who are we to be brilliant, beautiful, talented, and fabulous. But honestly, who are you to not be so?
You are a child of God, small games do not work in this world. For those around us to feel peace, it is not example to make ourselves small. We were born to express the glory of god that lives in us. It is not in some of us, it is in all of us. While we allow our light to shine, we unconsciously give permission for others to do the same. When we liberate ourselves from our own fears, simply our presence may liberate others.
We are powerful beyond belief. Certainly not all-powerful. But within each person lies the opportunity to be wicked or to have grace. But one man is the one who destroyed peoples and one man who freed them from chain.
Why do we turn away from beauty and providence? Why do we not think "it's the right time" for it, or that "we are not ready" for something beautiful to happen to us. Why are we afraid of the good that walks upon the earth?
But alas, not all is lost if we are not willing to accept and allow beauty to permeate us from head to toe. Men and women, if they are showered with enough love, will unlearn the human behaviors of shirking beauty. No, what would be tragic is if we forgot how or refused to create beautiful things. Because to forget how to make things beautiful or to forget how to make beautiful things would be to forget what it is to be human.
