I find your comment intriguing. I was curious about your own working environment? Are you working withing your talents?

It’s too bad the link in the e-mail to read the story was behind a lock and key.

My oldest nephew, not yet 21, recently announced his engagement. Chatting with his equally-young bride-to-be, I said, “Remember, honey: God honors commitment, even on the days you don’t like each other.” Of course, this means nothing to her now . . .

However, I do think that perhaps the sign of a deep faith is those times of darkness. If it was all joy and feel-good, everyone would sign on, wouldn’t they. Whatever this book “reveals,” I will continue to think of Mother Teresa as “a good and faithful servant,” surely a sign of true leadership!

I’m reminded of the joke about the wife who complained to the marriage counselor that her husband never told her that he loved her. When the marriage counselor asked him why, he answered the question with a question: “Didn’t I tell you that I loved you when we were first married years ago?” “Yes,” she admitted. “Well,” he retorted, “if anything changed, I would tell you!”

Mother Teresa got her marching orders from the Godhead and she responded. Her ability to follow that directive and serve the poorest of the poor allowed her to smile, gave her genuine joy. Her efforts to believe what she had been taught about God brought her doubt and psychic pain. Perhaps she would have been able to let go of the pain if she had let go of the beliefs that she had. “By their fruits, you shall know…” said Jesus, whom she said she followed. Her fruits were undeniably good. What else matters?

Any God worth worshipping would certainly understand and accept that limited human beings often have doubt and sometimes are incapable of sincere belief, based on their experience of the world. How can a limited human being understand a God who created the heavens! What a tiny God that would be, to fit into a human brain!

So if one doubts, there may be value in proceeding to doubt honestly. Accept the doubt! Let it be! Maybe the doubt was God speaking to her, saying, “I’m not over there, where you thought I was. I’m bigger than that, different from that. Give up that belief and walk in faith. Then you will find me.”

All the saints, perhaps all of us, have a dark night of the soul when God seems very far away. This is illusion. God doesn’t move. We need only turn toward the light, toward what gives us joy and fulfillment. The plan, as described in the Garden of Eden story, is for abundance. The plan hasn’t changed. I’m told that the Aramaic word for “forever” is the same as “abundance.” So every time Jesus promised life everlasting, another translation could interpret it as abundant life. In one place, most translaters agree, he said, “I came that they may have life, and have it more abundantly.” Who wants eternal life anyway, unless it’s abundant with joy and peace and love?

Mother Teresa chose a life of very strict deprivation, sleeping on the hard floor, fasting, etc. Perhaps her austerity contributed to her difficulty in understanding a God who wants all of us to thrive, as the head of any body wants the entire body to be well. (See the first letter to the Corinthians in Christian scriptures, chapter 12.) By ministering to the poorest of the poor, she brought healing to a part of God’s body.

…or so I’m inclined to believe. Thanks for letting me say so, and for introducing this topic to RFL. Vision is key to leadership, as Marcus Buckingham explicates in _The One Thing You Need to Know About Great Managing, Great Leading, and Sustained Individual Success_. He also points out that we should notice things we don’t like to do and stop doing it. Mother Teresa hated to doubt, hated to struggle, hated to think that maybe she didn’t believe. Apparently, she didn’t know she could stop doing that. She could have accepted that she didn’t believe as she thought she ought to, and let it go at that. She could have decided that a God worth worshipping wouldn’t want her to experience all that pain. Her struggle was with the “ought.” Let it be! Accept what is! We are not called to judge that it’s “good” to believe one way and “bad” to doubt. We are not called to judge at all, and in her heart of hearts, Mother Teresa knew this because she taught that we cannot love a person if we are judging him, for we are not utterly just and utterly merciful like God. We ARE called to love, for God IS love (as pointed out in 1 John 4:8, again from Christian scriptures). To the extent that Mother Teresa loved, and she loved powerfully, she experienced God every day even though she yearned for a different way of experiencing God.

If we love as completely and thoroughly and unconditionally and nonjudgmentally as Mother Teresa, we will truly experience God deeply and also lead with our best selves.

In some traditions, it’s called “channeling:” energy out draws energy in. That’s my experience, too. I don’t get energy til I give it. Whenever I give it, I get some. It’s cool, the way this works. Seems like an idea in a book I once read: _The Wounded Healer_. Like, being wounded is a condition of serving as a healer. A paradox, but we are not called to understand; we are called to love.

Faith grows and is cultivated not only in the sunshine of answered prayer and great miracle but especially in the pits of doubt and battling demons and coming to terms with our emotions.

Another of my favorite stories in the scripture is that of Jacob who wrestled with God on the night before he encountered his twin brother Esau. Jacob presumed that Esau, jealous and veangeful was coming to kill him. The wrestling match with God crippled Jacob for life and inspired a name change to “Israel” which means literally, “One who has wrestled with God.” This life changing wrestling match is an important piece of the life of faith.

A wise boss of mine began interviews for employment at a hospital with, “Tell me where you are hurting in your life.” People unable to share their vulnerabilities were politely excused. Jim shared his reasoning, “Pain can create in us capacities for empathy and compassion that are necessary ingredients in caregiving in a hospital setting.”

The Mother Theresa revelations post mortem make me a greater admirer of the woman.

I thought I would share some things that I repeat to myself when dealing with my job. This comes from practicing yoga for the last 9 years and gaining some great personal insights from Taoist philosophy.

There are four agreements that are part of the yogic tradition that is based on right action not results. The action is in your control, the result is based on your reality and the other person’s reality and therefore out of your control:

1. BE IMPECCABLE WITH YOUR WORD. If you keep your word, you are true to yourself and others.
2. DO NOT TAKE ANYTHING PERSONALLY. How someone else reacts is part of their world and experience and has nothing to do with you. How you react is part of your world and your experience.
3. DO NOT ASSUME. You cannot assume why someone else is responding the way they do. They see and perceive the world differently than you do. Everyone else speaks a different emotional language than you do. You cannot assume what is driving their behavior without asking.
4. ALWAYS DO YOUR BEST. If you have done your best, that’s all the Universe asks of you and all that you can ask of yourself.

So, in summary, it is right action that counts, not the result. Mother Theresa lived right action and the results of her behavior are changing the world. Her right action is even more impressive, given the angst she experienced.

Leadership starts within,
Dottie Deremo

Mother Teresa certainly had a nose with which to smell the decaying flesh of dying people she carried to the hospice - and tears to shed for the “unfairness” and inhumanity of it all. Nonetheless, she carried them. If that is not leadership, if that is not saintly, what is.

Which makes her life all the more remarkable. She lived with the poorest of the poor without any monetary expectation, and, it seems now, without any spiritual gratification as well.

How can you relate to someone who’s on the “fast track” to sainthood? It’s these struggles with faith, and the pain, suffering and sense of emptiness that make her more human. She knew she must silence her doubts and appear cheerful and complete in order to inspire others to give up their comforts and dedicate themselves to a life devoid of worldly pleasures.

Who would follow someone who questioned her beliefs, appeared sullen, empty and detached? Perhaps her leadership lesson is this: to know in your heart that you are on the right path and lead others, regardless of personal struggles or private demons. To inspire, with the hope that your followers find peace, faith and fulfillment in their work, even when it that evades their leader.

The “Course in Miracles” is a step by step way to see the truth in us all and to awaken to seeing through the eyes of Christ.

Mother Teresa was a power house because, She did not let this fear and doubt stop her from doing the work of helping others to see the truth

I am reminded of the true meaning of fear

False
Evidence
Appearing
Real

When you find your self in fear and doubt, ask for help from above and it will be taken from you. This is the true meaning of forgive. For Giving To Holy Spirit.