The matter at hand is serious. It’s grave. We need to get serious about the relationship. We need to get serious about the task. Maybe what we really need to do is learn to lighten up. Nations rise and fall, heroes are born and die, the sun rises and sets, and you want me to take seriously the notion that arriving to church wearing the right clothes is going to make any difference at all? What matters is what’s in our hearts. “The reason angels can fly is that they take themselves so lightly,” G. K. Chesterton once wrote. Once you stop taking yourself so seriously and let go of the gravity of all that you do, you can learn to fly, too. God, help me lighten up.
~ Melody Beattie, Lighten Up
Notes:
- Image Source: distantpassion.
- Prior “Lightly child, lightly” Posts? Connect here.
- Post Title & Inspiration: Aldous Huxley: “It’s dark because you are trying too hard. Lightly child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly. Yes, feel lightly even though you’re feeling deeply. Just lightly let things happen and lightly cope with them.”
Live & Learn 
Indeed my friend, indeed – we are not so great that we should take ourselves so seriously (to paraphrase Golda Meir), and we are great enough to take ourselves lightly (to paraphrase me).
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Thanks for sharing Mimi. (Red faced. I had not heard the Golda Meir words. They are powerful.)
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Love this passage as well as Mimi’s observation. Beattie has been to the bottom–she knows whereof she speaks.
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please let me remember this…………..
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Me too. Me too.
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yes, yes, yes.
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Reblogged this on Views from the Hill and commented:
Wonderful thoughts. I do believe we often get in trouble because we take ourselves too seriously.
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Great inspiration. Reblogged on my site. Thanks for sharing this
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It is. Thanks for passing it along.
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Dave,
Amen! And a wise quote from one of the trio we spoke of yesterday; G.K. Chesterton.
It is good to see the importance in things, but don’t take anything too seriously; least of all one’s self.
-Alan
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Yes Alan. I smiled at the coincidence when I came across it after you shared the recommendation. Synchronicity!
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Yes indeed 🙂
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