Thoughts and Reflections from the Interim Executive Director

Every day we are faced with having to make decisions.  Some that require tremendous thought, others that seem to just happen without much thought at all.  

I am not one to make decisions lightly.  In fact, I can spend so much time weighing the pros and cons that I miss the opportunity before me.  What I had hoped or dreamed never comes to fruition, because I feared making the wrong decision and by default, no decision gets made at all.

Howard Thurman writes:

“The ability to know what is the right thing to do in a given circumstance is a sheer gift of God…The process is very simple and perhaps elemental…we weigh all the possible alternatives. We examine them carefully…There is always an abundance of advice available…Each bit of it has to be weighed and measured in the light of the end sought…Then the time for action does come at last…Once the decision is made, the die is cast. Is my decision right or wrong, wise or foolish? At the moment, I may be unable to answer the question.  For what is right in the light of the present set of facts may not be able to stand under the scrutiny of unfolding days. I may not have appraised the facts properly.  My decision may have been largely influenced by my desires which were at work at the very center of my conscious processes. In the face of all the uncertainties that surround any decision, the wise [person] acts in the light of [her] best judgment illumined by the integrity of her profoundest spiritual insights. Then the rest is in the hands of the future and in the mind of God. The possibility of error, of profound and terrible error, is at once the height and depth of [humankind’s] freedom.  For this, God be praised!”

                                                     Meditations of the Heart, “Every Man Must Decide”

Perhaps you are finding yourself reflecting on decisions you have made.  I would imagine you have come to realize that some of those decisions may have not been the right decisions.  And if you could turn back the clock you would do things very differently.  Unfortunately, once the die is cast, we must move forward.  Life goes on.  And hopefully, all that we have learned and gained, and perhaps lost, by making the ‘wrong’ decision, will help us to choose a path that will lead to us becoming the person we aspire to be.