Unless you are deprived of something, unless others are not willing to share or have the authority or audacity to take some thing away from you, don’t you have enough?

The seemingly homeless man on the side of the road held a sign.

“I have EVERYTHING I need except money.  Do you have the COURAGE to give?”

As a matter of fact, I happen to have some dollar coins from our visit to the amusement park last week.  Let me share some of our abundance.  Let me ask him where he lives.  Let me hear that he does indeed live around here; that he thinks this is a nice place to live.  As I agree with him, I look directly into his eyes, smiling yet wondering how this could be a lovely place to live if he’s standing on the side of the off-ramp asking for money.  He did say he has everything else he needs.  Money isn’t everything.

Visiting a dying friend, before I took my leave, I said, “Love to you, my friend.”  Drugged as she was, she half-laughed.  ”You said love.  How can you  . . . ”  Her voice trailed off.  I understand.  We’re not close friends.  My coming to her is largely in part of a pastoral visit, but in my visits to her, sincerity wins over any sense of obligation.  ”I try to share my love with everyone,” I tell her gently.  ”It’s part of our responsibility in this life to share God’s love with one another.  You are my sister.”  Eyes closed, she smiled subtly.

We do not see reality the same as one another.  Our perspectives and interpretations are different.  Ultimately, there is one Earth.  One Source.  Our time here is too precious to live in fear, in a sense of lack.

What if we believed we had everything we need.  What if we made sure that we all had everything we needed?  Sure, take care of you and yours, but where does your responsibility end?  Is there a limit to abundance?  I don’t think so.

I only hope I can live into the dream of everyone having everything they need.  Enough to live.  Enough love.  Enough is enough, gently said.

In kindness.

Lips dry and cracked or

Glossed in rosey hue,

I frame my greeting in sentiment

Pure and true.

Without a word

I hear your ache and loss,

Your fear.

Do you dare respond with such vulnerability,

Heart wide open?

Does it help if

I also feel your dreams and joys and

See the light in you,

however dim and disguised?

Please.

Let me smile.

Accept this token given freely, not even my own.

This grace.

God’s love.

We have so many opportunities to connect with one another.  Fortunately, we also have the opportunity to connect with nature, the plants and trees.  Our world can be so beautiful, but we have to be aware.

I venture to say that we are each beautiful, too.  Our souls shine brilliantly with the the Light of Wisdom.  From a twinkle of the eye to a visible aura, we each hold this gift in our being.  We don’t have to do anything; it is there.  It is about our be-ing.  We have to be open, selfless, and vulnerable.  We have to be heard.  We need others to help listen us into this beautiful being, and we need to be good stewards to others and everything around us in return.

Who listens to you?  Who calls your soul forth with the tenderness of a bonded mother with her nursing babe?  With whom can you communicate with a smile or a glance?  Can you gauge how others feel just by being in their presence?  Do you realize you have the power to share compassion with them without saying a word?

I hope you have those who listen to you, that you can check in regularly to see where you really are in this life — who you really are.  May you be one who listens.  Be fully present to those around you.  Be aware.

You are a gift to us all.

My dance right now takes me into a new room, just as large as where I was before. I’m just having to learn new steps, become familiar with my new partners. It’s still dancing. There’s just a different music playing. Fortunately for me, the music permeates from within the University like a ballroom would, I imagine. Walking across campus yesterday, I wondered if all campuses feel that way on warm fall afternoons: still, studious, alive, wise, full of potentiality. A university campus is so full of those so young, most eager, as well as those who have learned so much, most wise. It’s an electric blend, I suppose, palpable.

So we dance with one another. We share our gifts with ease, no matter how difficult the steps may be. We learn our way into cultivating our talents through practice, practice, practice. No matter where we are or what the music, whether we like it or not, we keep dancing.

And we realize that we are in this together.

I’m meeting many new faces these days, learning new stories, discovering new personalities, hearing new laughter.  This also means, of course, that I’m uncovering other aspects of myself.  In particular, I’m noticing how people relate to me, now that I’m in the “professional” realm (for which motherhood has been the best training ground), and also how I relate to them.

Through my world-view, my lenses, I easily see everyone as child, regardless of age, and somehow I feel how to relate to them as fellow child or as mother.  I find myself listening with compassion.  It’s not unusual to see glistening eyes in this other who is not so different from me after all.

I realize people are beautiful, in so many different ways, on so many different levels . . . myself included.

What?

In one of those moments of clarity, it all makes sense.  Our greed, rage, mistrust — ultimately fear — all rest in the fact that we do not recognize each other.  We do not see one another, truly.  We have lost our connection with humanity, our connection as a collective whole.  For some it gets lost immediately; there is no sense of family or home.  For some it exists strongly to include their nation or even their religion but goes no further.

Our readings at church on Sunday included Jesus’ commandment to love one another.  So simple.  Our priest went on to say that this doesn’t mean we have to love-love others like we love our spouse/children/mother/father/friends.  I wish I could find a reference, but I’ll take her at her word when she said that one of the best translations for what Jesus said when he said “love” was “to connect.”  Connect with your self.  Connect with your neighbor.  Connect with the stranger on the street.  Connect with your enemy.  “It’s not all warm and fuzzy,” she said.  We just have to connect with them.

I see this as not only connecting with them as fellow humans, but there is something electric in the connection that ties us to the Divine.  For me to truly connect with you, I have to let that God-spark in me recognize the God-spark in you.  No matter what choices you’ve made in this life, or me, either, I cannot change that we are of the same Holy stuff, and that connection carries us beyond any rational comprehension on my part.

I believe our connections are nurtured by the beauty of nature, by kindness, by good will.  I cannot help but wonder if our connections are dimmed by the magnitude of currents surrounding us these days by technology.  In some ways they tie us together (I’m getting to share with you on my blog), but in so many others, they alienate us from one another (how many hours do you spend alone at the t.v./computer?).

I took a mental health day and went hiking with friends and my youngest on Tuesday.  On the soft, worn path, between a bluff and a boulder, below a spring-green canopy, I was fed, fueled for a moment in what is good and true.  No words were spoken.  Just a connection made.

Contrast that with last night’s Cinco de Mayo night out at a local dive.  So many people coming together to “celebrate” by getting inebriated and singing karaoke.  Were these people connecting?  Or were they moreso trying to fill the void they feel by lack of genuine connection?  Is it easier to commiserate in idle play/nonsense than to face our realities as they are?

Jesus didn’t say we had to approve of each other’s choices.  We just have to connect to one another enough to see each other — all of us — for what we truly are — holy.

So simple.

I remember the night I sat in a class about the “authentic” journey, making a list of those I admire.  I remember the shock, near horror, of being told that I possess the qualities of those I admire.  How could I possibly possess their qualities, their potential?  But my denial or disbelief doesn’t change what is.

Now it’s a new year, particularly the Twelfth Day of Christmas, and I find myself richly blessed, ready to embrace the present truly as the gift it is.  I give thanks for all the past has brought me.  I read through my gratitude journal from the past year, and I could feel the radiance of love, warmth, and joy.  Looking forward into this year, I know these blessings will continue.  I have an optimistic yet realistic view on what this year brings.  It includes hard work, but it also brings growth and progress in all aspects of my life.  I hope your friendship will endure my work.  Though I may not seem as available as I’ve been, know that your presence abides with me.

I realize that you, too, are on the list among those I admire, and you, too, teach me much about who I can be, who I am.  Your love, companionship, laughter, warmth, appreciation, humor, gratitude, hope, inspiration, gentleness, faith, doubt, will, strength, perseverance and openness are just a few of the things I count among our treasures.  Thank you for teaching me and allowing me to teach you, as the aikido sensei is fond of saying.

It may be a new year, but it is just another day.  Each day the sun rises, we have the opportunity to take yet another cleansing breath, let it all go, and begin again.  Thank you for sharing your journey with me.  I look forward to all that is to come, but mostly, I give thanks for all that is.  You here, now, is a gift.  You have my love and gratitude, now as always.

xoxo,

Sara

Ironically, I sat on the stationary bike reading in preparation for a class I’m leading today.  The topic:  HeartMath, compassion, patience, changing my concept of time, being fully present.  My legs pedaled along, my eyes moved forward, and I tried to sit quietly, absorbing my reading.  I appreciated the irony of my multi-tasking.

My three-year-old changed my course, again, as she decided to go home with a friend.  Suddenly, my morning opened even more.  Pottery?  Writing?  Sewing?  What to do next on my own.

I had told a friend we would come play, but now I was alone.  I called her anyway, and found her scurrying to clean before her mom showed up.  But her toddler insisted upon being carried.  I found myself volunteering to come help her clean for a bit; I’d still have time to go home and do something before my afternoon appointments.

At my friend’s house, rather than cleaning, I was asked to hold the toddler.  He melted into my arms and chest and soon fell asleep.  All I had to do was hold him.  All I had to do was be calm and still.  I was given time to sit, holding that precious reminder that children bring us just to be.  My friend got to clean without an aching back, and I got time to be still, snuggling with her warm babe.  I left not long before her mom arrived to a house mostly restored.

I didn’t have time to go back to my own home, but I did have time for coffee and a snack at another friend’s house.  I arrived at my afternoon meetings peaceful and present.

Maybe I should let my youngest help me make decisions more often.  Maybe I just need more time to sit.

Thanks be to the children.

My husband and I were most grateful to have a friend come visit us last week, just overnight, but also in conjunction with a pizza party, brick-oven style.  I have a lot on my plate at the moment, and I was primarily consumed with thoughts of preparing for the cabin retreat I was organizing for the weekend.  Somehow I missed that our guest was actually staying the night in our house.  Ack!  Now I really had to clean the bathroom and make sure there were clean sheets on the bed.  (You don’t just willingly sleep in a kindergartner’s bed unless you know for certain it’s been cleaned; at least, I don’t!)

As I scrubbed the kids’ shower, I thought surely my husband had invited his pal to stay over so that I would get the house nice and clean before I left for the weekend.  I didn’t blame him; it needed to be done, and I was glad to do it.  Our paths crossed in the kitchen a few minutes later, when he came in from his yard work for something.  I told him what I thought.

“The funny thing is,” he said, “is that I figured you had invited him so that I’d finally get the yard all cleaned up.”

We both had a good chuckle and carried on with our work, knowing that we truly weren’t out to get the other for any inadequacies.  We were indeed working together with a common purpose and happy hearts.

Most of our friends know we work best under pressure, and somehow everything that had to be done got done.  My husband yet again wowed us with his pizza-making skills, and I left the house mostly clean the next afternoon.

Thank you, Casey, for everything, and thank you, Ryan, for coming to visit!  Come back any time!  Let this be an open invitation to all our out-of-town friends. 

The days have just been hot enough to make you sweat, and many nights have been cool enough to cut the a/c and open the windows.  I sense a pull to what is natural, intuitive.  I’m making decisions based on a gut feeling, and great things are happening, however seemingly small they might be.

All this is related in that by clearing out some of the stuff that’s filling my days, my house, my mind, I am making room for quiet, for creativity, for Divine energy to move about and through me.  I love being aware of the synchronicities as they unfold, and I love having time to participate in them.  I offer unbounded thanks to those who are able and willing to participate with me.

This morning, after daddy took the older children to school, I was clearing the breakfast table (from a yummy feast of omelets and potato cakes).  Table clear, dog having eaten the leftovers, I gathered up the compost.  The youngest had been going in and out the back door, revelling in her ability to open and close the sliding glass door, talking in her suddenly realized vocabulary about the cat and dog being in and out, out and in.  I watched her through the window when she was outside making a barricade of her body so the cat couldn’t go any further.  Of course, the cat just walked around her.  Suddenly, she ran inside to get a “tiny bowl.” “Mommy come?” she asked.  I slipped on my shoes and grabbed the compost.  It was time again to get a little raspberry snack.  I dumped my bowl of scraps and grounds and then searched with childlike enthusiasm for the dark red treats, wondering why I had ever worried about the birds and the bugs getting them all.  We have to share.  With our snack-sized bounty, we turned to the house.  Behind the glass door, I saw my husband smiling, coffee in hand, and I relished the moment when our little one realized her daddy was back home.

It truly is the little moments that make life rich, even if we tend only to remember the big events.  As I continue my late summer and early fall clearing, I hope to continue to embrace the time given to do what need be done but also be who and where I need to be.  I wish no less for you, with love.