Something truly human: choosing love

Esther by my chair

Last week I pulled a comfy, old, cat-scratched chair outside, and put it on my tiny porch. Having it there makes opening the door a challenge, but this isn’t the door that we use most of the time anyway. After I make coffee and feed the cats, I come out here with my cup of coffee and sit. I do something else too… I think about the people who have asked for prayer, and the people and animals that I love, and the ones I’m still struggling with, and I see each one as happy and fulfilled. This way, I have loving relationships with all.

I love this spot, but I know that it doesn’t matter if I am sitting on this little porch, or on a mountain top, in a church, a monastery, or a temple. The portal into the Divine realm, the place of Infinite Good, is in my own heart. It is such a uniquely human quality/gift to be able to do this; to choose to love,…and this is what I was born to do…this is my job while I’m here on this earth.

“Of all the fears that haunt us, from fear of the dark when we are young to fear of snakes and high places, there is nothing to compare to the fear that we may have wasted our lives…The challenge is not to rise above the level of everyday life by some superhuman effort. The challenge is to find something truly human to do everyday of our lives.“

Rabbi Harold Kushner (from the book, When All You’ve Ever Wanted Isn’t Enough)

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looking for evidence

Eleanor always chooses the most comfortable spots!

The other day, I began imagining that a ball of light-energy was radiating love and good feelings from my center (solar plexus) to everyone that I met. I found that it took quite a bit of effort to keep focused on that image and not let my mind just wander wherever it wanted to go. Later that afternoon, I visited one of my favorite shops and a woman who works there looked up as I entered the store and said, “Hello sunshine!” She has never greeted me, in all of the years that I’ve known her, in that manner.

We are constantly sending out silent signals to the world, they are being received on the energetic level, and everything and everyone is responding, but so often we aren’t really aware of what our emanations (which are made up of our dominate thoughts) are. Petty complaints, worries, arguments, and concerns that flutter through our minds tend to produce unfocused, scattered, or frenetic vibrations, the world responds in kind, and a downward spiral of negative feelings and circumstances seems to follow.

But on a much more encouraging note, if we do our best to keep focused on some higher ideal of love, calm, happiness, or peace, and take it a step further, consciously sending this energy out to others, we will see and feel the result of this, and uplift not only ourselves, but everyone that we meet. We also create an upward spiral; good feelings go out and come back and things in our lives tend to get better and better.

How about giving this a try over the weekend? Choose a thought/feeling that you would love to experience, hold that thought and then as you interact with others, be aware of how they are responding to you. Look for evidence that what you think and feel, really is mirrored back to you.

“Love is an outreaching of the heart…it is an emanation. As you radiate love and goodwill to all, and as you wish riches for (others), you will at the same time bless and prosper yourself. Remember what you wish for another, you wish for yourself, and what you withhold from another, you are with holding from yourself. You are the only thinker in your universe, and your thoughts are creative.” Joseph Murphy

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Heaven on Earth

my morning coffee spot and new wind chime

I went out yesterday evening to shut my cars windows before it rained. The sweet guy who mows our lawn had just left and as I walked around the back of my car I noticed that the rear window was shattered. A stone must have flown up from our driveway and hit it. I am sure that he didn’t notice it as he zipped around on his riding mower, with his protective headset on.

I felt stunned and thought, “I should do something, but I am not sure what that is!” It was 6 pm and too late to call for an appointment to get it fixed. I decided to cover it with a blue tarp and went back inside. I sat down to read and opened to the words, “Heaven on earth is happening simultaneously with the way our lives are showing up, right now in this moment. The trick is to be able to access this coexisting state, day in, day out, moment by moment, not just when in pleasant, ideal circumstances.”

I was going to take a picture of my car to post with this blog and then thought, “So many wonderful things happened yesterday, why would I choose the one thing that felt not great to capture forever and show to the world?”  We do this sometimes. We “showcase” our pain/drama/chaos because it makes captivating reading, telling. It also becomes a way of life, and leads to a very emotionally rough ride.

As I repeated to myself, “This is not a big deal, the solution will be perfect”, and kept saying these words to myself, my emotions calmed down too and I started to feel the way that I wanted to feel instead of letting my thoughts/feelings take me on a wild ride and leave me exhausted and depleted at the end (still with a broken windshield that had to be taken care of today). It has taken me many years to realize that I can choose how to think about anything.

I ordered the windchime, in the picture above, last week and it came yesterday too. It is really magnificent. Yesterday was a great day. Today is a great day.

“A particular train of thought persisted in, be it good or bad, cannot fail to produce its results on the character and circumstances. A man cannot directly choose his circumstances, but he can choose his thoughts, and so indirectly, yet surely, shape his circumstances”  James Allen  (1864-1912) from the book, As A Man Thinketh (a great little book by the way!)

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Choosing our way

My office

I hold an open meditation (for anyone who wants to come) on Wed. and Sunday mornings. My office is in a very old building…the ceiling leaks at times, the heat is unpredictable, the entire building shakes when the train goes by twice a day, the firehouse (which is a two buildings down) blows the noon whistle, which is so loud that if someone is talking with me, they have to pause because I cannot hear them…I love my office anyway….it is like a comfortable and comforting old sweater.

I always come in at least 1/2 hr before the meditation to turn up the heat, but yesterday, as I opened my office door, I was met with a very warm room. This happens sometimes…for no apparent reason and just as unpredictably it cools off. The meditation started at 9:30 and it still felt boiling hot …

When I have a fearful, anxious thought, I get a surge of heat running through me. There must be a biological reason for this…maybe it is part of the fight or flight thing…we get all heated up so we can escape?…anyway, I sat (silently, hands on lap, eyes closed in what appeared to be a very peaceful posture) and thought, “Everyone here must be really hot too. What should I do…this is terrible. Should I open a window? Go downstairs to the Coop and see if they can turn down the heat?”…I felt hotter. Then I thought, “Maybe it’s just me having a hot flash.” I felt even hotter and more agitated.

Suddenly it occurred to me that while I couldn’t change the heat in that moment, I could change my mind. I said to myself, “Just imagine it being 65 degrees. See if you can cool yourself off.” I tried… my mind raced back, “No! It is too hot in here. People are suffering! Do something!”…then back to, “it is 65 degree and I am cool”…within a few minutes, I started to cool down. By the end of the meditation, I was warm but comfortable and no one had fainted.  I felt calm and peaceful.

Our minds tend to blow things so far out of proportion…tell us that everything is a crisis that must be dealt with NOW!  I can corral those crazy thoughts that race around like wild little monkeys trying to get my attention. It is not always easy. …it is a discipline. But what a gift to start to grasp. It may be  impossible, in the moment, to change outside circumstances but my inner life, my attitude and my thoughts are always my responsibility…..and always mine to change. One of the great books is Viktor Frankl’s, “Man’s Search for Meaning.” I used to carry it with me. He lived through the unthinkable but wrote these words;

“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”

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