My sister and her husband arrived in town to spend six weeks over the holidays with family and despite having a car packed to the gills, there was no room {Jaye has far too much common sense to even consider packing what is not truly needed} for a Christmas tree to put up in their rented condo. Really not a problem as we sisters have a mania for Christmas odds and ends and so I offered my extra tree and ornaments and began sorting through them.
Angels and birds, and more angels and birds! I have a large box, actually the largest box of ornaments, full of angel and bird ornaments. I confess, none of these will go to her as I discovered while sorting that most contain memories of small hands - my boys - giving them to me. Looking into the box, I saw wings of fanciful color made of feathers, metal, glass, clay and some kind of woven grass. And, in addition to wonderful memories, I also discovered that the possibilities available to creatures with wings, causes an ache deep inside myself: I have always desired flight.
Sometimes my desire for flight is nothing more than the longing for the instant change of being somewhere else - away from rather than going to; sometimes the desire for flight is impatience over the slowness of life's unfolding and I wistfully fantasize wings taking me instantly to what I desire. Wait! that's not flight - it's time travel! Well, it's a fantasy after all and wings would seem useful in turning fantasy into reality.
My longest running fantasies always involve experiences of freedom which makes sense as I once believed that my greatest personal need was for freedom. It seems to me that freedom would be more readily available if one had wings - with wings I could suddenly take flight when feeling too bound or confined. Over the past couple years though I have discovered a deeper truth about myself and as much as I love - and need - a sense of freedom, the deeper desire, the hunger that pushes the word freedom to the surface of my thoughts, is actually the word flow - the sensation of be completely and effortlessly engaged. Birds when flying appear to effortlessly flow through the air. Angels, at least to my mind, are effortlessly engaged in goodness. Clearly I have believed this ability to engage effortlessly was because of wings! My true desire is wings for experiencing the joy of flow; engaging life wholeheartedly.
To engage is to be involved or entangled with: when I engage something or someone, I join myself to it; we become part of one another's 'now' experience. Flow occurs when this kind of mutual engagement is total and creative. Great conversation, love-making, cooking and/or eating a delicious meal, journaling and writing, coloring mandalas, creating with my buttons and putting together collages are each occasions high in my personal potential for flow because when engaged in these acts I allow myself to engage creatively and I flow through time and space as though I were a bird or an angel with wings extended catching the upward draft of air.
Wings! When I experience flow, I do have wings. My 'wings' unfurl as I intentionally use the power of thought to be completely present. Each of the occasions I mentioned, I know to be delightful and so 'wings' of intention unfurl without needing to even think about doing so: I expect enjoyment on those occasions and so I relax and voila! wings of thought extend and catch the flow of goodness: I fly and soar in the freedom of wonder and delight while doing what I expect to enjoy.
Ruminating on these ideas, it appears that I do have wings. It also appears that my wings and the wings of birds and angels are a tad different:: birds and angels seem to use their wings as a natural part of living: birds don't think about flying, they fly. Angels don't think about carrying goodness around, they just do. How then, do I, use the wings available to me more effortlessly?I
I suspect the answer is in the above paragraph: birds and angels catch the updrafts of energy for flight because they know why they exist and flight is simply a natural part of carrying out their purpose.
Ralph Waldo Emerson understood his purpose for being alive and described it as: "I am an organ through which Spirit executes It's will and Creative Power." I read these words almost three years ago and have recited them, written many, many times about them in my journal and lit enough candles while uttering those words so the intention of the words is now engaged within my heart. When I am able to live from those words, the Spirit Emerson refers to, does give me wings for catching the updrafts of goodness ceaselessly flowing in life and having been deliberate about extending myself to catch their flow, I am able to flow through much more of my day than I once did.
Despite my deliberate intention, I neither fly nor flow perfectly - not even close to perfectly - but today, after almost three years of engaging Emerson's words and making them mine, my wings of intention unfurl more frequently and more easily. Sometimes I really am one with those lovely wings that I have always yearned to have for now I know, I do indeed have 'human' wings ... the wings of intentional thought.
In the world of religious thought the Spirit is generally depicted as a dove and although there are many images of traditional religious belief that I do not take as mine, I'm completely engaged with the image of the Spirit as a Dove: it's a bird; it has wings; it flows ceaselessly upon the energy of Goodness - yes indeed, I will indeed be an 'organ' or vehicle of such energy. After all, I've always longed for wings and now I know where they may be found and how to use them.
Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Monday, November 29, 2010
First of the B's - Blessing
It was the word All that got my attention.
"All God asks is for us to be open to the one hundred blessings placed in our life each day."
How can it be that 'all', meaning the only thing God would ask of me would be to be open to blessing? What happened to all the shalls and shall nots? Where was sin in this all? How could I have spent my entire life wondering if what I was doing was right or wrong when this statement says that the only thing God wants of me is to be open to blessing? I was so intrigued by this idea I made the decision to try living as though it were true. This choice was in some ways a no brainer: worry about 'sin' or simply be open to being blessed a hundred times a day! Which would you choose? Simple right?
Like all simple things however, it turned out to not be easy to actually live. For one thing, 100 is a lot! My logical brain broke down the number into a ratio of 100 blessing divided by the average number of hours of being awake and it came out to being aware of 6 or 7 blessings every hour! Finding and acknowledging 6 or 7 blessings every hour would mean paying attention- really close attention!
At first I was really lousy at this particular scavenger hunt. For one thing, I kept forgetting I was looking for blessings. As I became aware that it was difficult to pay attention to finding occasions of being blessed, I discovered the problem is that we are pretty much trained to pay attention to mistakes and difficulties. I discovered my mind could 'chew' on difficulties or mistakes endlessly and then I discovered that chewing on problems obscured blessings. Ah-ha! That discovery became a big bundle of blessing, but how do I make it different?
By nature I am both stubborn and a problem solver and sometimes this combination of traits is useful because I refused to give up until I at least discovered a way to make my scavenger hunt somewhat successful. Which is how I began talking to myself. Follow me around now - after two years of playing this game of hunting for blessings - and you will hear me say out-loud, countless times (I'm hoping it's at least 100), 'Oh thank you!' ' Oh, that was helpful, thank you!'
Saying thank you out loud was how I began to change my old thought pattern of paying attention to mistakes and difficulties. Saying thank you out loud meant I was using three of my senses each time I discovered a blessing: I 'saw' it; I spoke it; I heard myself. Using three senses each time meant I increased my learning by 3! Increasing my learning capacity this way for each newly discovered blessing meant I learned more quickly and became better and better at discovering blessing.
Discovering blessings all day long meant I was attaching myself to 'freely bestowed' goodness over and over again throughout my day. Attaching oneself to goodness this frequently quite naturally changed the thought patterns of negativity and discontent encouraged in our culture. Deliberately attaching oneself to moments of goodness a hundred times a day means that blessed energy enters you. Enters: becomes part of. Wow - talk about a natural energy drink!
Allowing one hundred small infusions of goodness to become part of my living, changed my life.
My life was not changed by the quote at the top of this page. My life was changed by the deliberate decision to live the meaning of the quote. My life was changed by a willingness to believe it's truth and therefore to not give up when living from it was initially difficult and so I needed to learn how to work with it's ideas. My life was changed by the willingness to be open and receive the goodness. My life was changed by learning that blessings are often quite small: a smile from a stranger; a 'remembering' that left to my own devises would have been a forgetting of cell phone, keys, sunglasses; a delight or wonder that I felt seeing clouds move across the sky or my glorious flowers growing wildly. My life was changed as I also became willing to accept and receive larger blessings. My life was changed as I began to understand that if other people were part of my blessings, perhaps I am to be one of their blessings.
Meister Eckhart, a mystic from the Middle Ages, said that if the only prayer you ever pray is 'thank you', that is enough. I am beginning - after two years of living this way - to understand those words as truth.
My blessing for you, are these words and a sincere hope you might join me in this scavenger hunt of blessings.
"All God asks is for us to be open to the one hundred blessings placed in our life each day."
How can it be that 'all', meaning the only thing God would ask of me would be to be open to blessing? What happened to all the shalls and shall nots? Where was sin in this all? How could I have spent my entire life wondering if what I was doing was right or wrong when this statement says that the only thing God wants of me is to be open to blessing? I was so intrigued by this idea I made the decision to try living as though it were true. This choice was in some ways a no brainer: worry about 'sin' or simply be open to being blessed a hundred times a day! Which would you choose? Simple right?
Like all simple things however, it turned out to not be easy to actually live. For one thing, 100 is a lot! My logical brain broke down the number into a ratio of 100 blessing divided by the average number of hours of being awake and it came out to being aware of 6 or 7 blessings every hour! Finding and acknowledging 6 or 7 blessings every hour would mean paying attention- really close attention!
At first I was really lousy at this particular scavenger hunt. For one thing, I kept forgetting I was looking for blessings. As I became aware that it was difficult to pay attention to finding occasions of being blessed, I discovered the problem is that we are pretty much trained to pay attention to mistakes and difficulties. I discovered my mind could 'chew' on difficulties or mistakes endlessly and then I discovered that chewing on problems obscured blessings. Ah-ha! That discovery became a big bundle of blessing, but how do I make it different?
By nature I am both stubborn and a problem solver and sometimes this combination of traits is useful because I refused to give up until I at least discovered a way to make my scavenger hunt somewhat successful. Which is how I began talking to myself. Follow me around now - after two years of playing this game of hunting for blessings - and you will hear me say out-loud, countless times (I'm hoping it's at least 100), 'Oh thank you!' ' Oh, that was helpful, thank you!'
Saying thank you out loud was how I began to change my old thought pattern of paying attention to mistakes and difficulties. Saying thank you out loud meant I was using three of my senses each time I discovered a blessing: I 'saw' it; I spoke it; I heard myself. Using three senses each time meant I increased my learning by 3! Increasing my learning capacity this way for each newly discovered blessing meant I learned more quickly and became better and better at discovering blessing.
Discovering blessings all day long meant I was attaching myself to 'freely bestowed' goodness over and over again throughout my day. Attaching oneself to goodness this frequently quite naturally changed the thought patterns of negativity and discontent encouraged in our culture. Deliberately attaching oneself to moments of goodness a hundred times a day means that blessed energy enters you. Enters: becomes part of. Wow - talk about a natural energy drink!
Allowing one hundred small infusions of goodness to become part of my living, changed my life.
My life was not changed by the quote at the top of this page. My life was changed by the deliberate decision to live the meaning of the quote. My life was changed by a willingness to believe it's truth and therefore to not give up when living from it was initially difficult and so I needed to learn how to work with it's ideas. My life was changed by the willingness to be open and receive the goodness. My life was changed by learning that blessings are often quite small: a smile from a stranger; a 'remembering' that left to my own devises would have been a forgetting of cell phone, keys, sunglasses; a delight or wonder that I felt seeing clouds move across the sky or my glorious flowers growing wildly. My life was changed as I also became willing to accept and receive larger blessings. My life was changed as I began to understand that if other people were part of my blessings, perhaps I am to be one of their blessings.
Meister Eckhart, a mystic from the Middle Ages, said that if the only prayer you ever pray is 'thank you', that is enough. I am beginning - after two years of living this way - to understand those words as truth.
My blessing for you, are these words and a sincere hope you might join me in this scavenger hunt of blessings.
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