Imagine that

Three Shaker prints that showed up on Friday

I was cleaning off a bookshelf and  picked up the little book, Gentle Manners, that I bought at the Shaker Village in Canterbury NH years ago. I periodically clean house and give things away and wondered if I should put it in the donation basket, but decided to keep it. I bought it when I was a chaperone on one of my son’s field trips and it was a good memory.

The next day, I stopped by a local thrift store, and these three prints were there. They were all done by a Shaker artist in the mid 1800′s. That same afternoon, I got an email that the next Netflix DVD in my queue was Ken Burns America: The Shakers. And believe it or not, that very day, I opened a chest, to put some candle sticks away, and noticed a magazine at the bottom with the feature story on …you guessed it, the Shakers, (with a photograph that had the same design as the middle print (the Tree of Life) that I had just brought home).

This would be sort of a “so what” story if there wasn’t anything deeper within it, but for me, it is”evidence” that my thoughts are creating my world, and that one thought attracts another after its own kind. It also reminds me to pay attention to what is showing up in my life, and if it is not to my liking, then I can do something about that; I can change my thought/feeling about it. It is the going back to “What do I want? instead of “What do I fear?” over and over again. This is no easy task; to train our minds to stay on the course that will bring more happiness, prosperity, comfort, and peace when all the evidence seems to be the opposite. Our minds can be like wild animals running all over the place, and dragging us along for the ride, but as difficult as it might seem, focusing our minds is something we can all do and just a little change will make a big difference in what comes into our lives.

“As a single footstep will not make a path on the earth, so a single thought will not make a pathway in the mind. To make a deep physical path, we walk again and again. To make a deep mental path, we must think over and over the kind of thoughts we wish to dominate our lives“. Henry David Thoreau

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The friendly universe

Luke: friendly and trusting!

I started going to the Manchester Thrift store 10 years ago. Oddly enough, I was somewhat intimidated by the volunteers…most were older women who lived in Manchester (a wealthy town) and wanted something to do with their free time. One woman in particular, Barbara, made me quite uncomfortable. I would try to be friendly with her, always saying something like, “Hi, or Good morning” but she rarely even acknowledged me. It seemed like she almost scowled when I entered the store.

I started imagining that she was thinking negative things about me like, “Why does she shop at the thrift store? This is for people who need help.” As time went by, I began thinking that I just wouldn’t go back there. Then one day, when a woman ahead of me was checking out, I noticed that Barbara was not acknowledging her either. The woman assisting at the checkout said, “You need to speak up. Barbara is almost completely deaf.”

Everything changed in that moment. It was my perception of the situation that was completely wrong and all I needed to do, literally, was speak up. Barbara has become one of my most favorite volunteers. She is 90 and funny and sweet and always saves me good books, after she reads them (the last one was The Help). I believe that we live in a friendly universe but we have to drop our unfriendly, fearful, insecure thoughts to access it.

“It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so”. Mark Twain

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