The Attitude Battle

I hope all my protestant and Catholic friends had a very joyous Easter! We Orthodox Christians still have another week of hard focus on spiritual discipline before we get to celebrate. Our Holy Week is always a challenge, but like anything else, the hard work makes for a greater payoff when it comes time to celebrate Easter.

This year, because I've been unable follow many of the traditional rules, I've chosen the battlefield of attitude. Some of that has been inspired by friends whose positive outlook amazes me, and some of it has been sheer necessity for handling issues at hand. The deeper I get into this struggle, the more I admire those who succeed.

I was reading old emails today and I came across a year-old note from one of you. One of the comments was, "I get the feeling you are struggling with more then you let others know." Well...yes. Maybe one of these days I'll be strong enough that nothing but joy will show, although I suspect that my own journey has more to do with being strong enough to be open with people. But yes, there's a lot going on in my life right now, and for most of the issues the only thing I can control is my attitude.

It's easy to talk about positive attitude until the stakes get bigger. When you realize that someone is on a harmful path or that a good outcome is the least probable, it forces you to evaluate what you have. There's not much that can't be stripped away, and if we have something "extra" like good friends and family, we have to recognize it for the blessing that it is. But family and friends can disappear too. At the end, we have four things: faith, integrity, love and attitude. When situations go bad, we can make our decisions based on our weakness or based on these four things that remain.

Pray for me, and if I know your name I'll pray for you. A positive attitude is an hour-by-hour, situational choice. It's not easy; sometimes the only comfort is knowing that we've made a choice to hang on to what's important.