Sometimes I think of the word, nevertheless, as an accordion word. Just thinking it whenever we are stuck opens another little space for something else. I wonder if both compassion and creativity aren’t part of that word? No matter how we may define the world or how it impinges on us, we can nevertheless imagine more, live more, love more, and open our lives to new possibilities.
This lovely word tucked into our hearts is full of music and can always have the last word!
Phrases posted on Facebook, January 2015
Words, they have been my friends for many decades. I have some favorites that seem to trigger shifts in consciousness. Here is a juicy one to start this New Year with. The word is nevertheless—my January topic.
For me, under the seeming objectivity of the word nevertheless, there is an invitation to be courageous. Here are a couple of examples of someone using the word like a meditation 1. I just lost my job because of a foreclosure. Nevertheless I am not defined by joblessness. I am a capable, resourceful person. 2. I didn’t pass my examination. Nevertheless I will study like mad and try again.
Nevertheless invites us to see more opportunities than meet the eye. For instance—it’s raining cats and dogs. Nevertheless the picnic blanket is on the living room floor with the BLTs and the carrot sticks. The hot dogs are good for another day and there aren’t any ants sharing the picnic here.
Haven’t you found that sometimes something truly ugly nevertheless has a strange beauty about it?
Has it happened to you that you have had an experience of being betrayed and trust is broken? Nevertheless your love for the person who betrayed you grows greater than the pain they caused you.
The most confining of circumstances such as severe physical disability, severe financial limitation or profound loss are nevertheless powerful circumstances that can reshape us if they don’t break us.
Why don’t we say neverthemore? since nevertheless seems to invite more?
Maybe neverthemore invites less. I wonder?
Here’s one we’ve all experienced. I hate doing these dishes again (or whatever you hate doing) And we are out of paper plates. But the job is waiting and it is mine nevertheless.
I am a woman with all that goes with that. Nevertheless I can act in a manly fashion when necessary. (Now, reverse the gender on this one.)
Doesn’t it free us to be all that we can be?
To be really free, one nevertheless has to have a focus, a discipline and a way of life. They go together.
I feel a little shiver despite the furnace chugging along. Snow is dusting the garden. The temperature is below freezing. Nevertheless the hyacinth and crocus bulbs are stoking up strength and nourishment for their springtime beauty. Isn’t that a hint about what we can do in the inevitable winter parts of our lives?
Our unique humanity puts us where we are with all its joys, sorrows and limitations . . . in other words, earthed and embodied. Nevertheless in every moment we are also in infinity—the unbounded vastness of the universe expanding without limit. Remembering that we are part of that majesty will make our small, particular lives more precious than ever.
It’s a wild and white Tuesday morning. The storm hitting the Northeast is not over yet. Our back door is sealed shut with two feet of fluffy stuff. Curious how storms in our lives (inner or outer) can nevertheless provide us with chances to rest and have some delicious hours of quiet.
Have you ever been so numbly tired that things become suddenly goofy and funny? When you can’t do anything more about anything because the tank is empty and you are running on fumes, you can laugh. It’s the best nevertheless I know of.
It’s the last day of a snowy January. I love to think about how each snowflake is unique and different and yet the same as all other snowflakes. Isn’t that true for us humans, too? We are so much the same and nevertheless unrepeatable and precious.
