Falling or Floating?

“…almost everything we come across in life is nonlinear, that is, the shortest point between A and B is not a straight line because there almost never exists a straight line to follow in the first place. The line is an evolving path that actually changes according to the first steps we ourselves take to begin the journey. Most paths, in fact, metaphorical, literal, or mathematical, take the form of an iterative equation, an equation where the values and events it produces are continually fed back into the equation again and again, influencing any future values it may throw out. Every action, then, no matter how small, influences every future action, no matter how large....Without the fiery embrace of everything from which we demand immunity, including depression and failure, the personality continues to seek power over life rather than power through the experience of life. We throw the precious metal of our own experience away, exchanging it for the fool’s gold of superimposed image, an image of what our experience should be rather than what it actually is…”

David Whyte – The Heart Aroused

There may be no emotion so powerful, so compelling as the need to bring resolution to some area of tension or pain in your life. You may feel like a trapeze performer who, having let go of the bar, finds yourself tumbling, slow motion, in mid air waiting for the other trapeze bar to appear. Neither here nor there, you feel ungrounded, exposed, wondering if it will be there in time. Consider though, for just a moment, if you found yourself floating, suddenly weightless. Would that not make a difference in the waiting? The bar will eventually come swinging within your reach, though you often cannot control it’s arc or timing. But there is something that you can control. Falling or floating, how you view the waiting is up to you.

Blessings,
Sam

Solitude

"In solitude we can slowly unmask the illusion of our possessiveness and discover in the center of our own self that we are not what we can conquer, but what is given to us. In solitude we can listen to the voice of the One who spoke to us before we could speak a word, who healed us before we could make any gesture to help, who set us free long before we could free others, and who loved us long before we could give love to anyone. It is in this solitude that we discover that being is more important than having, and that we are worth more than the result of our efforts."

- Henri J.M. Nouwen. The Only Necessary Thing.


In the west, we are accustomed to valuing our worth and the worth of others based not simply on what we achieve, but also by the level of our independence from others. "Self-sufficiency" is especially coded into the American gene. Even in our spiritual lives we want to insist on independence, understanding all possibility, all completeness, as inherent within ourselves. In the quiet we can find the balance necessary to see both our immeasurable worth and our finitude. We can celebrate our dependance, looking to the One who is beyond all and opening ourselves to receive that which comes as the greatest gift: unconditional love.

Blessings,
Sam

Practicing the Presence

"We are challenged on every hand to work untiringly to achieve excellence in our life work. Not all men are called to specialized or professional jobs; even fewer rise to the heights of genius in the arts and sciences; many are called to be laborers in factories, fields, and streets. But no work is unimportant and should be undertaken with painstaking excellence. If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry. He should sweep streets so well that all the host of heaven and earth will pause to say, "Here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well"

- Martin Luther King Jr.


It can be hard to remember that our lives take their shape as the accumulation of a hundred small acts, thoughts and decisions which we make every day. Because of this, nothing is inconsequential. Everything matters. Nothing is so small that our future course cannot be altered by it, no job so mundane that it does not warrant our full presence and attention. God is found in the washing of a dish, the life we dream of in the sweeping of a street…if we sweep with purpose and resolution. As we bring attention to the moments of our days, our lives (which are the accumulation of those days), are attended to as well. The broom becomes a tool of our practice and a doorway to peace of mind and acceptance. And acceptance allows us to see with clarity and move freely, staying or moving on as we desire. There are no small acts.

Blessings,
sam