Category Archives: Meditation

Reminders

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I had my work space all set up in a cozy nook on the second floor. The window offered a lovely view of the street, which becomes a mountain view once the leaves fall off the trees across the street. That spot also gets the best light in the house, and is the one place that is perfect for growing plants. But that spot isn’t big enough to provide a work space and a growing space. So I packed up my work table and bookcases and moved them into a spare bedroom.

It was a journey of thirty-five feet, but it took four hours and a bit of rearranging to get the space in good order (I snapped this picture about halfway through the process). With such a short distance to travel, I was surprised at how dislocated everything got. It took me almost as long to relocate everything in the new work space as it did to set it up in the first space.

In the grand scheme of things, this little move up a hallway doesn’t amount to much. In the present, this little move doesn’t feel as little as I thought it would. This dislocation and relocation are small tremors that barely affect my life, not full-on quakes that throw everything into chaos, and I should not confuse the two. Perhaps one of the gifts of this mini-move is a chance to put such things in proper perspective.

The work space is all set now; the table is in front of the window, so I get a lovely view of the side yard. I have yet to set up the plant space. I’m sure that will involve some dislocation and relocation as well…

Upkeep

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With two cats, two humans, a couple of plants, and workers in to finish this and that project, the floors require a lot of cleaning. It takes at least an hour a week to run the vacuum over all the upstairs and downstairs floors; it’s up to almost three hours when I wet-mop afterward. Throw in bathroom cleaning, laundry, dishes, dusting, and neatening and it’s an eight hour commitment every week to keep things in decent shape. Those eight hours of work aren’t making any noticeable difference: their effectiveness is only noticed in their absence. When there are no clean towels or dishes the value of such upkeep becomes visible. That upkeep is a necessary part of a life well and fully lived.

The older I get, the more I think daily prayer is the spiritual equivalent of keeping the house clean and in order. It doesn’t seem to get me very far and rarely produces obvious results, but things go quickly downhill in its absence. I need it to live a meaningful, full life. Over time, daily prayer has changed my spirit’s home, deeply and incrementally. I doubt I’d ever be at home in the world and in my own skin without it.

How about you?

The Eighty/Twenty Rule

Odds & Ends

Light bulbs, curtain rings, shelf liner, a couple of cleaners, and some paper bags – a bunch of stuff that didn’t make it into the more organized boxes. It took me a good two hours to pull them out of the box and put them in their proper places. Once this box was empty, I moved onto another full of thrown together things. It took another couple of hours.

A friend of mine who was a professional mover said that eighty percent of the packing and unpacking takes about twenty percent of the time; it’s the last twenty percent, the catch-all boxes and thrown together piles, that takes eighty percent of the moving time. That small percent of odds and ends consumes so much time and effort. Is it worth all that effort for these few things? Hard to say. I don’t think my life would have suffered much if I’d just thrown these items away.

Sometimes it seems like the same eighty/twenty rule applies to people – the high maintenance few taking a lot more time and effort than the lower maintenance many. Unlike items in a box, it’s clear that they are worth every effort – the lost, the fragile, and the difficult are treasures that we cannot discount or discard without incalculable loss to our inner and outer lives.

He told them this parable. “Which of you, if you had a hundred sheep, and lost one of them, wouldn’t leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the one that was lost, until he found it? Luke 15:3-4

Above All

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We don’t pray for a lack of conflict only, but an abundance of well-being.

We won’t settle for tolerance, and we will do the hard work to love our neighbors, strangers, and life forms beyond our knowledge.

We won’t stop at the folding-our-hands praying: we will move on to the roll-up-our-sleeves praying.

We will remember that our lives are connected to every other life on this planet – and maybe beyond.

We will live out the truth that nothing can separate us (and everyone else) from the love of God; we are beloved and unique, and our value is not measured against the lives of others.

We will pray for peace throughout the world, and we will choose to be a peaceful presence in our own small part of it.

We will, with the help of God and neighbor, live in peace.

Jane Goodall
Feeroozeh Golmohammadi

Can Anyone Hear Me?

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Goodall Prayer

Are my prayers heard by a loving creator who continues to create and sustain the life of this universe? Am I talking to myself, trying to convince myself that there’s more than emptiness and random encounters involved in the life I live and the life that surrounds me?

A yes to the first question brings peace and the strength to make of my life something holy.

A yes to the second is a doorway to a profoundly anxious loneliness.

I trust in the Great Spiritual Power. How else can there be so much love and beauty among all the heartaches and pain?

We Pray Because

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Why do I pray for things to be different – for myself to be kinder, for the world to value the least and lost, for strength and wisdom to move from folded hands praying to boots on the ground praying? Is prayer meant to change me or to change something and somebody beyond me? Do I trust that my prayers are heard by a loving creator, or is it all so much whistling in the dark?

I trust that there is more good than evil in this world, and that most people are kind when given the chance. I am not self-created, and I trust the life force that brought me and everything else into being. I know that sincere prayer has changed me, and that the prayers of others have blessed me in ways I cannot comprehend. I know that no one becomes her or his best self in isolation, that no one makes it through life without the loving presence of others. Or, as Jane Goodall puts it:

hope and faith

Can we live in a way that honors all life?

We can, with God’s help.

Rejoice

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A Prayer For World Peace

Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice. Phil. 4:4

We pray that we may learn the peace that comes with forgiving and the strength we gain in loving; that we may take nothing for granted in this life; that we may learn to see and understand with our hearts; that we may learn to rejoice in our being. We pray for these things with humility.

Rejoicing in what is, finding joy in the messy here and now that I do not and cannot control, is an impossible task if I require all things to align with my own wants and needs. Joy is a response to seeing the world as the amazing place that it is; it is not accomplished so much as it is glimpsed and fallen into. I can’t make it happen, I can only accept that it can arise wherever I am, in whatever circumstances I find myself.

Every time I take a walk on Barnumville Road, I rejoice in the beauty of the mountain in front of me, the hydrangeas across the way, and the birds flying all around. I didn’t create any of these, and I have no part in their flourishing. Yet, whether I am happy, sad, tired, satisfied, or hurting, they bring me joy. I can’t earn that joy, and I can’t take credit for it: I can only pray to God to be aware of it, regardless of my own condition and the condition of the road I’m walking.

Seeing

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Heartsight

The saying is that love is blind, and there’s some truth to that. Love blinds us to imperfections and red flags, and allows us to dismiss warning signs we would be wise to heed. But it’s nothing in comparison to the blindness that comes from lack of love. What we do not love, we do not cherish. What we do not cherish, we are willing to neglect or use for our own purposes.

It is with the heart’s eyes that we understand the intrinsic value of the life around us, in its many forms.

Nothing For Granted

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When I was a child, a neighbor I knew told me that she’d almost married a man who became a wealthy, prominent politician. Instead, she chose another man who didn’t achieve great wealth or fame. Although she never said it aloud, it was clear to me that she regretted her choice.

As I grew older, she spoke of this choice many times. It wasn’t until I was fifteen or so that I thought through the implications of such a choice: three children that would not be born, extended family that she would never know, decades of experiences she wouldn’t have, the love winding through all of it never to be. She would never have her life particulars had she not made the choice she did.

There’s a precious uniqueness to the life that comes from our choices. Had she made a different choice, she may have had more money and social standing, she may have had a happier marriage – she may even have had children she would love fiercely. But she wouldn’t have the ones that her life had brought. Would she really be willing to wish them out of existence, or did she take it for granted that they would somehow, impossibly, be given even if different life choices were made?

Would I be willing to lose the holy what is, with all its complexity, for an unknown what is not? Would you?

Picking A Fight

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Why don’t you pick on someone your own size?

That question came up every so often in the neighborhood, usually spoken by an older sibling. Picking a fight with someone who didn’t have a fighting chance wasn’t something the kids in the neighborhood accepted; the bully faced a crowd rather than a single, smaller victim.

How would you like it if…

someone hit you…someone didn’t take care of you…you were forced to fight or carry heavy loads without rest…the people around you treated you like garbage?

Bullying and cruelty end when we put ourselves in someone else’s shoes. Empathy, compassion, action: these come only when we can see value in the lives of others – especially in the lives of those with fur, feathers, and fins.