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SusanofO -> RE: Mother Teresa's dark night of the soul (8/28/2007 2:46:32 AM)
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This is something else I found on the Internet. Re: Mother Theresa - For those who insist on linking this thread to religion. But to me, they are inspirational even without being connected to religion.
Paradoxical People
Living the Paradoxical Life
Categories
About the Author
Origin of the Paradoxical Commandments
Paradoxical Commandments
The Mother Teresa Connection
The Universal Moral Code
February 13, 2006
The Mother Teresa Connection
The Paradoxical Commandments were written by Kent M. Keith when he was 19, a sophomore at Harvard College. He wrote them as part of a book for student leaders entitled The Silent Revolution: Dynamic Leadership in the Student Council, published by Harvard Student Agencies in 1968. The Paradoxical Commandments subsequently spread all over the world, and have been used by millions of people.
Mother Teresa, or one of her co-workers, put the Paradoxical Commandments up on the wall of Mother Teresa's children's home in Calcutta. That fact was reported in a book compiled by Lucinda Vardey, Mother Teresa: A Simple Path, which was published in 1995. As a result, some people have attributed the Paradoxical Commandments to Mother Teresa.
As Kent explains in his book, Do It Anyway: The Handbook for Finding Personal Meaning and Deep Happiness in a Crazy World:
"Mother Teresa, or one of her coworkers, thought that the Paradoxical Commandments were important enough to put up on the wall at their children's home, to look at, day after day, as they ministered to the children. That really hit me. I wanted to laugh, and cry, and shout–and I was getting chills up and down my spine. Perhaps it hit me hard because I had a lot of respect for Mother Teresa, and perhaps because I knew something about children's homes. Whatever the reason, it had a huge impact on me. That was when I decided to speak and write about the Paradoxical Commandments again, thirty years after I first wrote them."
What was on Mother Teresa’s Wall?
I published and copyrighted “The Paradoxical Commandments” as part of a booklet for student leaders in 1968. Unknown to me, the commandments subsequently spread around the world. The discovery that changed my life was the discovery that Mother Teresa had put the Paradoxical Commandments on the wall of her children’s home in Calcutta. I learned that in 1997.
But what exactly was on Mother Teresa’s wall? I am certain that was not the “Final Analysis” version of the commandments that has been circulating on websites under her name. That is important to me, because the “Final Analysis” version can be read in a way that is inconsistent with Christian teachings and the message of the Paradoxical Commandments themselves.
According to Lucinda Vardey, in Mother Teresa: A Simple Path (New York: Ballantine Books, 1995), page 185, there was “a sign on the wall of Shishu Bhavan, the children’s home in Calcutta.” This is what the sign said: ANYWAY People are unreasonable, illogical, and self-centered,
LOVE THEM ANYWAY
***If you do good, people will accuse you of
selfish, ulterior motives,
DO GOOD ANYWAY
If you are successful,
you win false friends and true enemies,
SUCCEED ANYWAY
The good you do will be forgotten tomorrow,
DO GOOD ANYWAY
Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable,
BE HONEST AND FRANK ANYWAY
What you spent years building may be
destroyed overnight,
BUILD ANYWAY
People really need help
but may attack you if you help them,
HELP PEOPLE ANYWAY
Give the world the best you have
And you’ll get kicked in the teeth,
GIVE THE WORLD THE BEST YOU’VE GOT ANYWAY.
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