Good news, the Mansion Men’s Group, which got off to a tottering start, is now scheduled for Monday afternoon, and I’m eager to give it another shot.
I was unsure what happened the other day – nobody showed up – but I have some thoughts about it. I got to thinking about the virtue of flexibility.
I was thinking yesterday during my quiet hour about flexibility, and I’m guessing I will need to be flexible for this to work. I see it as a spiritual issue.
Curiously, our big maple and apple trees got me thinking about flexibility. The trees seem so powerful and robust compared to the reeds that blow in our pasture or the flowers in the garden.
But when the winds came through the other day, the big strong trees were so easily uprooted, and the flowers weren’t affected.
Flexibility is a moral virtue and mine, and a spiritual one as well.
I have often had a habit in my life of clinging tenaciously to my positions – I still have that problem – and fighting against letting my heart and soul be moved back and forth a bit by the ideas or actions of others.
Like the big trees, I can easily be broken, and in recent years, I have learned about active listening.
This morning, Maria had an honest and open talk about our marriage and relationship, one of those conversations that keep a marriage strong and healthy but can be difficult.
I needed to be flexible, and I think I was. It felt good.
I call it the flushing of the marital toilet, for lack of a better term. Flexibility is important, whether in a marriage or in a men’s group.
Being flexible doesn’t mean being wishy-washy.
It means learning how to bend without breaking. And once in a while, breaking is a good idea. I need to be listening to those men and to be flexible about what they want and need.
Rigid people are humorless, often angry, and opinionated; rigidity of the kind we see sweeping our country is not healthy; it seems to spark anger and bitterness and leads more to division than anything else.
The tragedy unfolding over the rights of women is a class study, a historic study in rigidity about the issues that divide us, but that can’t be resolved without flexibility.
I’d rather be the flower than the tree, I think. The wind is always blowing.
One virtue of flexibility its inherent spirituality – it leads to calm and peacefulness in the soul. Change your mind once in a while, I tell myself. It’s like putting oil in a car engine or lawn mower.
I think I will need to be flexible with my men’s group if they show up this time, a gift both to them and me. I think I need to be flexible period.
The men’s group may be more interested in playing games than in talking, and being flexible about that would be good.
That’s fine if that’s what they want. It’s up to them. My sense is there are a number of different things they are interested in.
Where my mother lives, someone goes room to room to invite each person to the activity just before it starts. She and her neighbors can’t remember that Monday at 10:30 is chair yoga, 2:30 is Crossword puzzles, etc. Most of them get to meals but some are even confused by that. (And she isn’t in a memory unit). C’mon, you know the Mansion men were interested when you told them about it. You know it’s a great idea. And we all know there are lots of stories and ideas and sensitivity in these guys.
Thank you for the insight of flexibility vs rigidity in nature and people.
It is excellent food for thought.. I came from dysfunctional environment. If I percieve i am being critiqued (less than perfect) or corrected, I can become rigid too, and argue with a piece of concrete. ?
I am on a journey of self awareness and change. Better to start today than a year from today.