Month: January 2022

I was in the checkout line at the grocery store the other day. The young girl working the register and the old guy bagging my groceries were engaged in a chatty conversation. Every once in a while, the guy would hold my can of tomatoes or jar of almond butter poised for several seconds before carefully placing it in the cloth bag I had brought with me. The girl at the register would slowly reach for the next item while she considered her response to his comment as if she was carefully listening to him while at the same time trying to do her job. I thought, Could they possibly move any slower? Followed by, What does God have in store for me at this moment? Is this a lesson in patience? I mean, where else do I really have to be right now?

The old man was saying how tired he was, that he had been there since 6:30 that morning. “Wow, you really must be tired,” I said, sincerely concerned for his wellbeing. He was obviously retirement age. I wondered if he had to work or if he liked to work. Turns out it was a little bit of both. “I get up early. Real early. I like to be busy,” he said. “I like to get up and do things. I hate sitting around. I feel like I’ve lived a full day by 11 a.m. But these shifts are long. I can’t wait to get home.”

“And I’ll bet you’re just getting up at that time,” I said to the girl. She smiled and said, “More like noon for me, if I can.”

My participation in the conversation didn’t make the checking and the bagging any slower, but it did make the time more pleasant. When the guy reluctantly placed the last item in my bag, he held onto it as if he didn’t want to let go.

“Well,” he said, making a fist and lightly tapping a few times on my cereal box poking from the top of the bag, “you have a real nice day now.”

“Thank you, sir, and you as well,” I said.

As I walked away, I thought, How much trouble is it really to be kind rather than impatient? I probably spent less time shopping than checking out at that register, but I didn’t contribute to impatience and meanness in the world. That old man’s tap on my cereal box is what I remember when I say a little prayer for him, thankful for his service and hoping he is having a good day.

Possession in Great Measure

Fire in Heaven above:
Thus the superior man curbs evil and furthers good,
And thereby obeys the benevolent will of heaven.

The I Ching, hexagram #14 Ta Yu

The sun throws the shadows of nine bare crepe myrtle trees in sharp relief against the privacy fence. I watch as shade retreats from the yard.

The furnace hums.

My body feels rested though drained and heavy from yesterday’s illness.

I am content.

“I have told you these things, so that in me you may
Have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take
Heart! I have overcome the world.” – John 16:33

The words we say to ourselves matter. Any time I find myself thinking:

I overate last night. I’m starting to binge again. No agent will accept my book. I can’t wait for the contest results. Life is passing me by. I’m a failure. I’m not enough. I’m not. I’m not. I’m not.…

I switch it up with:

I am enough. I am golden. I am precious. All is well. I am loved. I am love. I am.

Quietude fills my head. My body relaxes. I breathe easily.

Phew!

It’s a habit, this distorted thinking phenomenon. And it is distorted, truly, for we are beautiful, incredible creatures, you and I. All of us, whether we believe it or not, are “fearfully and wonderfully made; wonderful are Thy works, [those works include you and me] and that my soul knoweth right well [whether or not my head does!].”

Our souls know we are good.

The next time you catch yourself thinking distorted thoughts, replace them with I am enough. I am golden. I am wonderfully made. Say those words out loud and feel your body relax.

Your soul will sing, and so will all the angels and saints and heavens. You can’t help but be good because you are. Repeat I am enough. I am golden. I am wonderfully made throughout the day as many times as you need and your body and mind will respond in kind.

Let go of distorted thinking. Relax. And breathe.

And if I say: "Surely the darkness shall envelop me,
    and the light about me shall be night,"
Even the darkness is not too dark for Thee,
   but the night shineth as the day;
   the darkness is even as the light.

For Thou hast made my reins;
   Thou hast knit me together in my mother's womb.

I will give thanks unto Thee,
   for I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
   wonderful are Thy works,
   and that my soul knoweth right well."

--Psalm 139

Heart slobber.

We are starting our third month in a new land of mountains and streams, having moved from our home in Illinois to fulfill my dream of 36 years to move to North Carolina. We have no close friends here, no family.

My husband commutes to his old job during this transition before he quits and starts a new one. He’s here with me in the mountains for two weeks and then returns to the cold flatlands of the north for two weeks. This pattern of the past two months will continue for another two or three.

I, meanwhile, sit at home alone with my dogs. Yesterday we hiked in the mountains among dormant rhododendrons and along a singing mountain stream. This morning I lingered in the quiet after an hour-long qi gong practice and found myself yearning for that time when I have friends and am involved in social activities.

And then I thought, wait. This is my life right now. Why yearn for a future that will come in time? Can I be present to this moment and be grateful for it? Yes, I can. This period in my life is a gift, this quiet meditative time alone. A retreat of sorts every two weeks. I appreciate and reap the riches and accept this phase for what it is—a kind of limbo, a further letting go into the unknown.

At the same time, I see no fault in leaning towards a future with hope and anticipation. Joy is present. Gratefulness for the change I live now is present. And so is loneliness and the knowledge that this too shall pass. I appreciate this time. I breathe it in and swim in it.

“You begin the warrior’s journey when you choose one path and stick to it. Then you let it put you through your changes. Without a commitment, the minute you really begin to hurt, you’ll just leave or you’ll look for something else.

The question always remains: To what are we really committed? Is it to playing it safe and manipulating our life and the rest of the world so that it will give us security and confirmation? Or is our commitment to exploring deeper and deeper levels of letting go?”

-- Pema Chodron Uncomfortable with Uncertainty, teaching #88

When I was little, my stuffed animals were my God. They spoke to me and loved me and gave me comfort. I spoke to them and loved them and returned that comfort. I kissed each one at night, saying their names and patting them on the head.

My parents didn’t go to church but by fortune of grace sent me to a nursery school run by the Episcopal Church. There I learned the Lord’s Prayer. I loved that prayer, though I didn’t understand all the words. I loved the poetry of it, the music of it. The words “Our Father” filled me with peace and hope. Our Father, everyone’s father, your father, my father. It gave me the sense that I wasn’t alone in the world. Same as my stuffed animals. They too, gave me the sense that I wasn’t alone and isolated in my body and mind, wasn’t a little “I” floating around all by herself out there.

The church song, “Jesus loves me, yes I know” I didn’t get. Who was this Jesus? I didn’t know Jesus, had never met him. It was as if all these kids who went to church belonged to a club I didn’t and I felt left out. But I figured Jesus must have been a nice guy, at least he was supposed to be, but I didn’t take that for granted. I didn’t like the Bible “telling me so.” That was my first tip off that something wasn’t right. The Bible? I hadn’t read it. Plus, Jesus wasn’t in heaven. Some book tells me this guy Jesus loves me? That was alright for all the other children, but I’d stick with doggie and foxy and Brandy the basset hound, and Our Father.

God comes to us however She may. If stuffed animals work, so be it. Whatever way She has to awaken our hearts to Her voice within works. I heard that sacred voice in my heart through my menagerie covering my bed side to side. “There’s barely room for you, bunchy bone,” my mother would say. And I would pat their heads and smile and say, “I like it that way.”

I still like it that way. There is barely room for me. God fills me fully and completely.

Oh Lord, fill me wholly with thyself. Let there be no room for ‘I and mine,’ only Thy and Thine.

The river of love overflows its banks and the lotus blooms in the devotee’s heart.

Kabir