More than enough

Jack sharing his evening snack with Eleanor

The thought that there isn’t enough (money, time, love, good ideas, opportunities, …..) is common to everyone. It is a part of the collective mind that hasn’t quite woken up yet. In this spiritually asleep state (even when we have everything we need in the moment) the mind will say, “Yes, but you might not have it next week, next month, next year, and what will you do then?” Fearful thoughts about the future are not Spirit/God warning us. God is not the spirit of fear.

Many times people will justify this fear of the future by saying they are just being responsible, but there is a world of difference between planning a happy life (which may include our imagined future) and fear that spending now will leave us destitute. When we’re in that mindset, it is really hard to listen to guidance; to the Still Small Voice. We make a new purchase, one that feels right, and if we have a strong lack-mentality, the mind will jump in and start analyzing and ripping the purchase to shreds, making us fear that we’ve made a mistake, doubting the voice that seemed to encourage us, paralyzing us. A mind possessed by fear of the future, fear that there won’t be enough of something at a later date when we might really need it, makes poor decisions. And even if we go ahead and do the thing we felt we should, or make that purchase, the mind won’t let us enjoy it.

When I find myself thinking and feeling this way, I now realize that it is just a pointer, a gentle reminder (although it certainly doesn’t feel gentle!) that I have temporarily forgotten a spiritual truth, and believed (again) the lie that I live in a Universe of scarcity, that there isn’t enough for me to live the life that I want to live, and that I’m alone. An exercise that Jack and I’ve been doing lately to keep our belief in the abundance of the Universe alive inside, is to say to each other at the end of the day, “Every need was met today wasn’t it?”

Right now, this moment. This is my life. When I stay here, all is well.

“If you want fear and terror on purpose, get a future.” Byron Katie

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Being…. present

Esther

We watched a movie Saturday night called, The Departure. At one point the main character said about his deceased father, “Is this all there is to show for his life? A couple of boxes?” This made me ask myself, “What do I have to show for my life?” The more that I wake up spiritually, the more I am sure that life isn’t about leaving some physical/tangible thing. I think the only questions are:  Have I been authentic? Have I been honest? Have I expressed the Truth as it has been revealed to me? Have I been interested in the web of life  (the seen and the unseen) that I am such an integral part of? Have I taken the time to listen; to my deepest Self, to the deepest Self in others? Am I truly present for my life, now?

When I woke up Sunday morning, an old friend had sent me (by email) the obituary of a woman who I used to be very close to, but had lost contact with when I moved away from the seacoast 20 years ago. It said that she had died of a heart-attack while on a ski vacation with her sons and that her memorial service was being held that day at 2pm in Portsmouth, NH. Katy and I were the same age. I looked at her photograph and read the brief description of her “accomplishments” as an artist. But it wasn’t really her art itself that made Katy so unique. It was the way that she painted, taught, cooked, talked, listened. …lived.

Katy lived in the present moment. I remember taking walks with her (which were always meant for exercise in my goal-oriented mind) and being so annoyed because every little thing she noticed was interesting and fascinating to her, and she had the audacity to stop and look, when we were supposed to be getting a cardio-vascular workout! I didn’t understand her wisdom back then….it looked like foolishness to me.

As I sat in the filled-to-capacity South Church yesterday, I was reminded of the great wisdom of Katy Baucke and as I drove back home (about 2 hrs into my trip) I noticed my old habit of thinking about what time it would be when I got back, how the roads might be, what time I’d be getting to bed, and I stopped it and thought, “How can I be present for life right now?” I realized that I was hungry. I pulled into a sweet little town in NH and had dinner by myself. I’ve never done that before. I could feel my friend smiling at me.

“If you’re like most of us, since you were born, you’ve been running. Now it’s a strong habit that many generations of your ancestors also had before you and transmitted to you–the habit of running, being tense, and being carried away by many things, so that your mind is not totally, deeply, peacefully in the present moment. You get accustomed to looking at things in a very superficial way and being carried away by wrong perceptions and the negative emotions that result. …the practice is to train yourself to stop—stop running after all these thing. Even if you don’t have irritation, anger, fear or despair, you’re still running with this or that project, or this or that line of thinking, and you’re not at peace. So…train yourself to be here, to be relaxed, to stop, to come back to the wonders of the present moment.”

page 79 From the book, FEAR: Essential Wisdom for Getting Through the Storm, by Thich Nhat Hanh

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The time of your life

Ben sleeping... half on the soapstone warmer, half off

I grew up in a family that seemed to focus on what wasn’t there, what wasn’t right, what wasn’t good enough. There was never enough time, money, love, happiness. My parents rushed from the moment they got up in the morning until they went to bed at night, and we fell into that way of life too. No one sat down and gave anyone undivided attention. My parents were burdened by their children, burdened by the demands of their jobs, burdened by the world, and they dealt with this by always being busy and preoccupied. We learned not to ask for things for fear of being met with those exasperated eyes.

My parents still rush and still fear that there isn’t enough. Even though they are both in their 80′s, have plenty of money and don’t have anything that they must do. Before my mother even gets to an event, she is thinking about being back home. Back at home, she is wondering what she will do with all of her time. I find myself rushing too. Not so much in the outer world, but in my mind and I have been working to change this.

So what if I grew up in this kind of home? So what if much of society does this? If I want a quality of life that feels deep and rich and meaningful, I won’t find it in a rush. Rushing from one moment to the next is at best a bad habit, at worst a way to miss my life.

One of my plans for this weekend is to sit down and really read and absorb each comment that was posted yesterday. What about taking this weekend and making a decision to be as present as possible in the moment that you are in? To notice, if you find yourself rushing to the next moment (even if only in your mind) that you are missing out on what is happening now. There is a line in a song by Green Day that I love, “Its something unpredictable, but in the end it’s right, I hope you have the time of your life!”…and that time is right now…this moment…this is your life….don’t miss it.

The video below is so incredible. It is a slow motion video (captured by a security camera) of an owl flying directly at the camera. It is 59 seconds long and you will be very glad that you watched it. (thank you Sally for sending it!)

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A day to celebrate!

Tommy: embracing life 30 years ago!

I was 22 when my oldest son Tom was born. I had always wanted to be a mother, and didn’t have any idea of how young I really was. I was also completely overwhelmed by the responsibility of 24/7 care of another person. I remember one day saying to my mother, “I didn’t know that it was possible to love someone this much, and someday, he is going to leave home!” At which point I broke into tears. My mother just smiled and said, “I know honey, but that is a long way off. Why don’t you go take a nap.”

When I see young mothers now, rushing around like I did, feeling that huge pull of all the other “important” things that need to be done, I feel like saying, “Slow down. There is nothing more important than being with that little guy who will, before you know it, be grown and gone.” But I can still find myself living in the future (or the past)…thinking that true fulfillment will happen at some later point in time, or that I somehow messed up the past irreparably.

Today is a day to celebrate.  And in 2 days, when I will be, for the first time in many years, spending Tom’s birthday with him, it will be a day to celebrate too. It is time to love who we are right now, who is here, who is not, and know that this moment, right now, is as perfect as life can be. No future or past moment will be greater. All of life is now.

“Security in a relationship lies neither in looking back to what it was, nor forward to what it might be, but living in the present and accepting it as it is now.” Anne Morrow Lindbergh

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