Spiritual Journey Thursday: Words to fall back on

Karen is hosting this month, and has asked us to  

reflect on "words we fall back on" this Spiritual Journey Thursday.

Her post is here.

In difficult times, some like to say "This too shall pass."  I prefer the prayer of St Julian of Norwich, part of which is engraved on a spinner ring I bought when I had a lot of plates in the air at once:

"All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well."

Those words give me hope, and remind me that all experience generally works out for the greater good, the Universe is on my side, "the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice", as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr so eloquently stated.  (Come to think of it, that quote is a great one to fall back on, too.)

Speaking of experience, I just revisited one of my favorite quotes, by Alfred, Lord Tennyson from the poem "Ulysses":

I am a part of all that I have met;

Yet all experience is an arch wherethro'

Gleams that untravell'd world whose margin fades

For ever and forever when I move.

How dull it is to pause, to make an end,

To rust unburnish'd, not to shine in use!

I used to just end the quote at "when I move."  But re-reading the stanza, the next two lines speak to me now more than ever--the need to continue moving, learning, reaching for that fading margin.

The actions from our experience lead to some kind of result.  This line from Kelly Barnhill's The Girl Who Drank the Moon will just not let me go:

"Consequences.  Everything was consequences." (page 370)

For now, these are the words I'll fall back on.  That no matter what I'm going through, it will turn out okay.  That it's important to keep going, being mindful that my actions have consequences that can steer my path for better or worse.

Thanks, Karen, for the thought-provoking prompt and the hope it has sparked in my heart.