A PILGRIM

A pilgrim is a person who is committed to a difficult journey to a mysterious and sacred place. This journey will continue throughout your life. The goal is to find the goodness by becoming a person that God wants you to be. No need to imitate anyone else; no need to model yourself after anyone because, from the start you are already unique.

This journey is discovering who you really are, taking charge of your life, making use of your strength and accepting your weaknesses and learning from them.

The energy that you will need will come from a deep and stubborn FAITH in the reality of your goodness, especially during those times when you cannot feel it or cannot see it.

The vehicle for this journey is INDEPENDENCE. Independence is making your own decisions about how you will think, feel and behave today. It is taking charge of your life to make your own kind of future.

WISDOM is your protection. It gives you the ability to make good judgments and decisions. Understanding the individuals' differences, accepting mankind's weaknesses and strengths and appreciating the goodness that lies from within.

COMPASSION is your food. To love your work is the best key to open the difficult and tightly closed door for learning. According to Mother Theresa, “You cannot do great things; you can only do small things with great love.” Even washing the plates- there must love. Even writing your name- there must love. To love the individuals unconditionally is the greatest mission that God wants you to be. Compassion means to love yourself and others for all the goodness that is there and to forgive all the weaknesses and failures that are a real and unavoidable part of human living.
HOPE is the air that you will breathe. Hope is the confident expectation that despite of all the obstacles, twists and turns of your journey, you will come home to the goodness that fills all of life.

The journey is a circle. When you reach the sacred place, you will discover that what you have found you have had all along. When you let go of what you think you need, what you seek comes to you when you give it to others.
Life is a cycle of searching, finding, possessing and letting go when what you have found no longer serves its purpose- and then searching, again. To grow is to know that what we have been hanging on to is no longer working or has never worked, and letting it go. Not being able to let go of whatever it is that we are hanging on to, becomes increasingly stressful. There is a fear-panic that if we let go, we'll have nothing left, there will be nothing to hang on and something terrible might happen.
Looking at it in another way, in order to live, you need to breathe in, hold the breathe and then breathe out, confident that after the letting go, new air is waiting to come in. Growth problems are caused by holding our breath.
You must take care of my journey. May you recognize and accept the truth of who you are and to grow in your true self. And may you contribute to the building of a community of good news.
God did plan everything for you. He is the owner of time and energy. He is the one.