Awakening - Having the Life You Want by Being Present to the Life You Have

There could not have been better timing for this one than today when our little world here is at risk.

 

My goodness this is just about the most appropriate passage that could have possibly come up today. We do indeed need each other here.

 

yes.

yes. I feel as Caroline does and you Lulu.

 

Surely you don't suggest that THIS "little world" - this place where my new friends reside - is in danger! Did I read that right?

By the way, I arrived home from work to find a box on my Welcome matt. It is my own copy of Caroline's book! I didn't even take off my coat and shoes before opening to today's entry. Indeed, there could not have been a more pertinent entry for me either. What difficult days we are asked to journey. How we grow weary of the weight. Being Human is most difficult.

 

January 14 - The Life of Experience

~Even if one glimpses God, there are still cuts and splinters and burns along the way.~

So often we anticipate a reward for the uncovering of truth. For effort, we expect money and recognition. For sacrifice and kindness, we secretly expect acceptance and love. For honesty, we expect justice. Yet as we all know, the life of experience unfolds with a logic all its own. And very often, effort is seen, and kindness is embraced, and the risk of truth is held as the foundation of how humans relate. However, the reward for breathing is not applause but air, and the reward for climbing is not a promotion but new sight, and the reward for kindness is not being seen as kind, but the electricity of giving that keeps us alive.

It seems the closer we get to the core of all being, the more synonymous the effort and its reward. Who could have guessed? The reward for uncovering the truth is the experience of honest being. The reward for understanding is the peace of knowing. The reward for living is being the carrrier of love. It all becomes elusively simple. The river's sole purpose is to carry water, and as the force of the water deepens and widens the riverbed, the river fulfulls its purpose more. Likewise, the riverbed of the heart is worn open over time to carry what is living.

All this tells us that no amount of thinking can eliminate the wonder and pain of living. No wall or avoidance or denial - no cause or excuse - can keep the rawness of life from running through us. While this may at times seem devastating, it is actually reassuring, because while the impermanence of life, if fixed on, can be terrifying, leaving us preoccupied with death, the very same impermanence, if allowed its infinite frame, can soothe us with the understanding that even the deepest pain will pass.

 

Tears of warmth and love filled my heart as I read this because my mom used to tell my sister and I this, in her own way and family members. I felt my mom's spirit with me as I read this. She was a wise woman. She was my best friend and mother.

Also this had me remembering all the small and big hills and mountain I have climbed over the years and what life has brought to me.

♥

 

Me too. I felt united with the idea that the "reward to breathing is AIR" How simple, how compelling, to get a glimpse of the possibility that, as we move closer to the core, the effort and the effect are the same.
Wish that those of us following these postings could have a cup of coffee together - just quietly breathing the same air. Precious.

 

Wow, wouldn't that be great!!

 

This reading was really powerful and moving to me too in all its simplicity.

These readings are so much food for thought and so deep in meaning.

 

Yes it would!! Wonderful it would be ♥ ♥ ♥

 

January 15 - How Does it Taste?

~The more spacious and larger our fundamental nature, the more bearable the pains in living.~ - Wayne Muller

An aging Hindu master grew tired of his apprentice complaining, and so, one morning, sent him for some salt. When the apprentice returned, the master instructed the unhappy young man to put a handful of salt in a glass of water and then to drink it.

"How does it taste?" the master asked.

"Bitter," spit the apprentice.

The master chuckled and then asked the young man to take the same handful of salt and put it in the lake. The two walked in silence to the nearby lake, and once the apprentice swirled his handful of salt in the water, the old man said, "Now drink from the lake."

As the water dripped down the young man's chin, the master asked, "How does it taste?"

"Fresh," remarked the apprentice.

"Do you taste the salt?" asked the master.

"No," said the young man.

At this, the master sat beside this serious young man who so reminded him of himself and took his hands, offering, "The pain of life is pure salt; no more, no less. The amount of pain in life remains the same, exactly the same. But the amount of bitterness we taste depends on the container we put the pain in. So when you are in pain, the only thing you can do is to enlarge your sense of things....Stop being a glass. Become a lake."

 

Another great one.

 

Oh wow, I love this one Caroline. "Stop being a glass. Become a lake." Seems very appropriate for people who suffer with a disease like MM. We can either choose to be bitter or choose to not let the bitterness take over our lives. Excellent.

 

January 16 - I Say Yes When I Mean No

~I say yes when I mean no and the wrinkle grows.~ - Naomi Shihab Nye

There have been many times that I said yes when I meant no, afraid of displeasing others, and even more afraid of being viewed as selfish. I think the first time I decided to get married, I said yes when I meant no. Young and inexperienced in being myself, I agreed to be a fish out of water for as long as I could, so as not to hurt or disappoint or displease. Not surprisingly, it all ended badly.

And how many times, once trained in self-sacrifice, do we have the opposite conversation with ourselves; our passion for life saying yes, yes, yes, and our practical guardedness saying, don't be foolish, be realistic, don't leave yourself unprotected. But long enough on the journey, and we come to realize an even deeper aspect of all this: that those who truly love us will never knowingly ask us to be other than we are.

The unwavering truth is that when we agree to any demand, request, or condition that is contrary to our soul's nature, the cost is that precious life force is drained off our core. Despite the seeming rewards of compliance, our souls grow weary by engaging in activities that are inherently against their nature.

When we leave the crowded streets and watch any piece of nature doing what it does - tree, moose, snake, or lightning - it becomes clear that the very energy of life is the spirit released by things being what they are. And those of us committed to love must accept that care is the inner river flooding its banks. Yet if the soul's river can't be fed by its source, there will be no care.

 

I'm ordering this book Caroline!

 

It is a great book June. Make sure you stop in here everyday though when you get it to give us your input on the daily post.

The readings are so powerful and usually what I need to read that day. I can see myself in them and also see some of the things I have learned and all of the new things that I need to learn.

When I read the last paragraph of todays reading about nature I thought of you June and how much that part would mean to you.

 

Yes, it was the perfect metaphor for me. I get that.

 

"There have been many times that I said yes when I meant no, afraid of displeasing others, and even more afraid of being viewed as selfish." Gosh, this is me all too often. :-\

 

This was very, very good. The next to the last paragraph really got me. I do that, and I feel that. Actually it was all good.

 

I believe this invites us to live life in certain context. I believe that is scriptural. Psalm 90 is the Psalm of Moses. In this poem, Moses places human life and the time it takes to live it, in the context of 'everlasting to everlasting,' and throughout the everlasting past and future, while man lives and dies, and becomes dust once again, God remains God, all powerful God:

Psalm 90
BOOK IV
Psalms 90–106
A prayer of Moses the man of God.

1 Lord, you have been our dwelling place
throughout all generations.
2 Before the mountains were born
or you brought forth the whole world,
from everlasting to everlasting you are God.

3 You turn people back to dust,
saying, “Return to dust, you mortals.”
4 A thousand years in your sight
are like a day that has just gone by,
or like a watch in the night.
5 Yet you sweep people away in the sleep of death—
they are like the new grass of the morning:
6 In the morning it springs up new,
but by evening it is dry and withered.

7 We are consumed by your anger
and terrified by your indignation.
8 You have set our iniquities before you,
our secret sins in the light of your presence.
9 All our days pass away under your wrath;
we finish our years with a moan.
10 Our days may come to seventy years,
or eighty, if our strength endures;
yet the best of them are but trouble and sorrow,
for they quickly pass, and we fly away.
11 If only we knew the power of your anger!
Your wrath is as great as the fear that is your due.
12 Teach us to number our days,
that we may gain a heart of wisdom.

13 Relent, LORD! How long will it be?
Have compassion on your servants.
14 Satisfy us in the morning with your unfailing love,
that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days.
15 Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us,
for as many years as we have seen trouble.
16 May your deeds be shown to your servants,
your splendor to their children.

17 May the favor[a] of the Lord our God rest on us;
establish the work of our hands for us—
yes, establish the work of our hands.



I believe these two verses are instructive here.

12 Teach us to number our days,
that we may gain a heart of wisdom.

15 Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us,
for as many years as we have seen trouble.

The afflictions Moses speaks of are the salt of life, bitter. But through these afflictions God teaches us wisdom. We are not born with wisdom. Wisdom comes through experience. Experience comes through surviving afflictions, tasting salt. So unless God allows us to taste the salt, we cannot grow in wisdom, the end result being that God continually conforms us to His image, one facet of that image being wisdom beyond comprehension.

Thanks for taking the time to post these entries, Caroline.

Hank