wisdom of our mothers

There is much we can do in the world that matters. We are needed. "We are here to be good to each other." my mother in law always said.

Sometimes we have to make choices about how we spread our goodness around.

Seven days. We all got seven days a week.

Our resources at times are limited.

Yet when we give, aww yes, when we give we receive. 

You can go around with the weight of the world on your shoulders but you can only carry it for so long. There are many burdens out there that can crush our little human hearts. We must choose what ones we can carry and do our best with those. That does not mean we bury our head about the others. Of course not. We just do what we can with what we have.

When I look around my own community I see so many needs. The needs I see beyond my community are even greater. Sometimes it is so overwhelming you could do nothing. The only answer, though, is to do something. Some little thing that gives back or adds to the coffers.

In a way I suppose I do this for me. It makes me feel better. It relieves a little guilt for my own good fortune. Why on earth do we feel guilty for good fortune? Yet so many of us do. It does not matter the reason you give of yourself, or even how. I think it just matters that we do. That we find a way to help others.

In this I think we find a way to help ourselves. There are so many among us who need us however little or much we have to give, it is worth something. Yesterday I drove to the city with Terry, who works with me. She said one of her mother's mantras was "You don't have to look far to find someone worse off than yourself."

My own mother was quiet, never saying much but her actions in life showed me she felt the same. I always remember her receiving a call to come work in the post office. She thought it over and decided that Mrs. Kitty, our neighbour, who had just lost her husband needed the job more. Mrs. Kitty worked there for years. My mother continued to clean the ferryboats. For her it was no sacrifice. She loved cleaning the boats with all her friends,

I think these thoughts and actions of our mothers are more than old expressions. They are worth carrying, worth holding onto. The wisdom of our mothers. How they lived. What they said. Most of us could write a book on it. They told us what they knew in their way. And most likely, told it over and over again.

We are the mothers now. We tell the same stories over and over again sometimes to our children. We repeat the old adages from generations past and we have added our own. There is wisdom in the colloquial. It is not hidden in the books of stoics. There is wisdom in the everyday stories and expressions that we ourselves may be tired of hearing.

 You don't have to look far to find someone worse off than yourself.

We are here to be good to each other.

Give onto others.

Love your neighbour as yourself.

I think it might be easier to carry these thoughts around with me than the heavy burdens that clamour at me from screen to screen everywhere I look. Though I am frail, and will fail even at these time and time again. I feel they are an easier weight for me to carry. In fact they might be all I can mange.