Years add wisdom, difficulties build strength, love moves mountains, tears nourish growth, dreams reveal purpose, character buries superficiality...Truth IS.

Saturday, November 17, 2012

My Happy Thanksgiving....

Good Saturday morning to one and all!

Today, in the spirit of Thanksgiving, which is quickly approaching, I thought I would post of things I am most thankful for.  As past posts have dictated and I shall reiterate...Thanksgiving is my very favorite day of the year..and hands down, the BEST holiday EVER!!  It is a day where I can flex my culinary muscles, dig into my creativity, and throw down a feast for the most important people in my life...and their friends (or family) as the case may be.  It is a day where I can count on my children and I sitting around the same table, having comedic table talk and coming together in our home filled with all manner of yummy aromas and all kinds of taste-bud tickling flavors and textures..and just the general feeling of warmth and satisfaction that come with a full belly and good company!!  Onto my list:

1)  I am most thankful for LIFE.  Without it, there would be nothing else to be thankful for.  I am grateful to wake each morning, breathe the air, see the sunshine, feel the rain, watch the snow fall, take in the natural scenery all around me, the ability to walk, talk, hear, see, feel, dream, think, work, and most importantly...good health.

2)  I am thankful for the ups and downs of life...without those, the life I am so thankful for would be boring.  It has been through my walk through the valleys of this life that I have come to truly appreciate reaching the summit.  It is through the hard truths I've had to face and own that I am able to recognize untruth.  It is through the detours I've taken or have been forced to take that I've learned how to eliminate the stories I tell myself about myself and create and embrace fresh ideas with happier outcomes.

3)  I am thankful for the lives and health of my children.  Without them, a large part of my heart would not have matured to develop the traits of selflessness and sacrifice.  Without them, I would not have given everything I have ever done my best shot.  Without them, I would not have learned so much about myself.  Without them, I would not know the blessing of a mother's love and a bond like no other.  Without them, I probably would have had a harder time reaching my summits...as their watching eyes were the consistent fuel that kept me pressing on.  The love, respect, and support they offer me is their gift and my treasure.

4)  I am thankful for my cozy home.  It is my place of solace and rest.  It is a place of shelter and comfort.  It is where I ground and express myself.  It is a storehouse of memories, laughter, tears, struggle, victory--and is the center of the true love in my life.  That LOVE gathers here every Thanksgiving.

Wrapping it up...I am also thankful for creation, forgiveness, acceptance, peace, courage, resilience, flexibility, faith, hope, strength, honesty, smiles, hugs, kindness, compassion...in a world that tests them every day.  I am also thankful for the tests...as they ignite courage, produce knowledge that leads to wisdom, and and most importantly...when the fog clears... inner peace.

God Bless and Be Well!


Monday, November 5, 2012

Within the Space of Relevance--Part I

Hi everyone!!

As I sit here this Sunday morning, listening to the church bells chime, looking at the snow-covered rooftops, and enjoying my second cup of hot fresh coffee...I am mulling over the events of the past week and have again experienced epiphany.  Ecclesiastes 3:1 says:  "For everything there is a season, a time for every activity under Heaven."  At first glance, one would probably say that this means that there is a "right time" for everything...I mean..flowers don't customarily grow in the winter, we don't learn to drive until we're old enough--ya know, stuff like that.  When tragedy comes and things don't pan out of our plans the way we envision them, we can also look to this passage and say "it just wasn't the right time."  One thing is for certain...everything that happens happens for a reason and the things that don't don't for a reason...and a lot of times, we will say "it was or wasn't meant to be."  I am a firm believer in this.

More than being "slaves to time and space" as the message of this passage can also be understood.  Time/under Heaven--I'm coming to understand that our human nature may indeed be influenced by time and space...but who or what is the RULER?   If time and space is the scientific embodiment of life here on earth...then what is the spiritual rule or component to this?  It is relevance   If we go further into this chapter, in Ecclesiastes 8:6, it says:  "For there is a proper time and procedure for every matter, though a man's misery weighs heavily upon him."  Throughout this book...the author will say repeatedly "this is a meaningless chasing of the wind."  If we are to read this book (or any of them) without FIRST looking deeply into ourselves--we would undoubtedly feel as if "I'm damned if you do, and damned if I don't."  It will read as if  life is really meaningless and not worth living, that everything we do, say, and feel---is just a waste of time.  This book, as well as ANY spiritual guide book REQUIRES introspection, honesty, and insight in order to be understood and become applicable.  This may be the reason why spirituality is so misunderstood in the Western world---we are led by fear to COMPETE.

If we are to look at relevance as the spiritual component to "everything happens for a reason and there is a time for every activity under heaven" we will see that pretty automatically, we teach and learn when and ONLY when the information is relevant (applicable) to us.  We don't teach our babies how to look both ways before crossing the street before they can walk...nor do we have a sex-talk with our children along with their kindergarten ABC's lesson.  We really don't need any kind of "rule book" or step-by-step instruction on precise age, time, or place to teach and learn these things...because it is INNATE, built-in...it is a sense that "it is time."   A scientist or doctor did not write the rule book and we followed.  Any information written on when to teach and when to learn were all OBSERVED and recorded phenomenon of what already IS.   So there is no need to play chicken and egg here.  The amazing things we come equipped with and capable of are often overlooked and go unnoticed when we live within the confines and become distracted by time and space.

"A chasing after the wind"...hmmm...could this mean that we are SO bent on controlling how life unfolds that we put into place all of these plans...in lieu of an imagined final outcome?  Because let's face it...anything in the future IS imagined--although I do believe that the past is a good indicator of the future, the past is also the ONLY catalyst for change--so it cannot be forgotten if we are to evolve in any way stronger, wiser, and better in moving toward our tomorrow.  I feel it pertinent to mention that a "catalyst" is only a precipitatory motivator.  It is not the CAUSE for change...it only motivates it.  Our WILL is where the true spiritual growth hormone resides and it is through a passion that this WILL becomes engaged.  I believe that what the author is trying to tell is is this:  Live in the moment and do the best with that moment that you can--stop beating yourself up storing, and preparing for an imagined outcome that may very well NOT turn out the way you imagined it.  And when it doesn't...use HINDSIGHT to see why it didn't.  Chances are...what was relevant yesterday is NOT what is relevant today.

The order of relevance is a shifting and changing consciousness.  It is an element of growth and without change, there IS no growth.  We don't need to ever be retaught (unless there is some physical tragic infirmary of some sort) how to read, how to write, how to walk, talk.  BUT...we do, through the years, SHARPEN these skills as the need for this becomes relevant--and from this sharpening, a branching-out naturally occurs.

A lot of mistakes we make that our "misery weighs heavily upon us" may not even be mistakes at all.  They may not have been a relevant issue at the time...but at the point of being miserable over it---IS THE EXACT moment OF it's relevance.  Understand?  If there is something that bothers you about today that you can see would be different today had you "known better" then...NOW is the relevant time for that KNOWING NOW to be used in moving forward.  I watched T.D. Jakes this Sunday (as I do every Sunday) and he preached a sermon about the eagle and the dynamic of the nest.  He metaphorically explained that the mother prepares in advance the nest...and that the nest is a history book of where the mother has been, every branch, every blade of grass.  She makes it so that all of the points of the branches are OUTSIDE to guard the nest from predators--but that the inside is smooth and comfortable for the expected babies.  As they begin to outgrow the nest...she "stirs" the nest and brings the pointed ends of the sticks INTO the nest to make it uncomfortable for the now older babies to encourage them to leave it and move to the next  moment of their lives--on their own.  So...relevant to put everything she has into making a comfortable and safe home for her babies when it is best for them...and relevant to make it unsafe and uncomfortable for them when it is best for them...but each in its time.  So, just because something feels perfect and becomes comfortable to you at one stage of your life doesn't mean that in moving forward, it wasn't MEANT TO BE.  It may just mean that the lesson in it wasn't relevant at the time, but would eventually become so.

Think about this a little bit...let it brew a while..I'll be back to continue my point and further illustrate the importance of understanding this concept.

To be continued......

"Learning is about simply acquiring new knowledge and insights, it is also crucial to unlearn old knowledge that has outlived its relevance."~Gary Ryan Blair.

"Existence is no more than the precarious attainment of relevance in an intensely mobile flux of past, present, and future."~Susan Sontaq.