This struck me today:
“The next time you pause to review your life and examine your conscience, you might find it beneficial for spritiual growth to move beyond the Ten Commandments and address the following questions:
- Have I failed to take the initiative in alleviating fear, anxiety, and heartache in my home, my neighborhood, and the local community?
- Have I had contempt for others: the less educated perhaps, or people of different ethnic, racial, economic, or religious groups?
- Have I dismissed senior citizens as anachronisms and not tried to make them feel their worth and dignity?
- Have I in any way stifled the personal development of another?
- Have I sought to be respected without respecting others?
- Have I often kept others waiting?
- Have I carelessly forgotten (or simply not kept) an appointment or a date?
- Have I been difficult for others to reach, feeling too busy to put myself at their disposal?
- Have I not paid attention when someone is speaking to me?
- Have I kept silent when I should have spoken out?
- Have I responded only to those whose friendship might prove profitable to me?
- Have I blackened the character of anyone by harmful remarks, whether false or true?
- Have I betrayed a trust, violated a confidence, or involved myself in the lives of others through indiscreet words and actions?
- Have I concentrated on what’s in it for me rather than what’s in me for it?
- Have I failed to appreciate what is because of might-have-beens, should-have-beens, and could-have-beens?”
Brennan Manning
The Wisdom of Tenderness p.119-120