Be Creating

Often circles or a crooked path are used as metaphors for your personal life journey.  Instead I find as I listen to others talk about their life journey there are themes that are repeated.  Some of these themes started in childhood and continue to be repeated well into adulthood.  For example I had a women in class the other day, who in elementary school had been kicked out of class repeatedly, found herself kicked out of school into an alternative setting, was presently incarcerated, sent to a work-release program which she was kicked out of and thus back in my class.  As she told me this story I asked her if she heard a theme in her life journey. I then asked- It sounds like you know how to get kicked out - are you interested in figuring out how to stay in. One theme I think we all share is defining our purpose, another is coming to terms with our own parents and our role as a parent. In your late teens you may have questioned your life purpose -- focusing on high school graduatio

In the poem The Guest House by Rumi , he invites the reader to think of emotions as if they are guests in our home. "Be grateful for whoever comes, because each has been sent as a guide from beyond." This morning as I prepared a lesson for my class and myself for my day,  I reread this stanza several times. I was thinking that the lesson applies to everything in our lives, not only our emotions but the people and events we experience.  If you and I could manage to be grateful for who and whatever comes into our lives knowing that each is a guide we may live our life in a new way.   Observing and embracing each as a lesson along this human journey, enjoying the learning experience. Not resisting, not wishing they/it would hurry up and go away but as an invited guest, that we wish would stay just a bit longer.   Today as you go through your day be grateful for the people, emotions and events and treat them as an invited guest.

Living a life full circle begins and ends your day with a ritual or a routine that connects you to your source.  I have begun a new ritual in the mornings one I'd like to share.  Before getting out of bed and starting my day I gather my thoughts  "Thank you for showing me how I can be of service, be loving and honoring of all  today." Many great spiritual leaders talk about how being of service is the most important thing we can do with our energy.  Being of service can be as simple as opening a door for someone, taking a moment to be totally present with someone at the drive through window, smiling and saying a heartfelt thank you, or picking up some sticks off the sidewalk of a neighbors yard after a storm. As role models for children when we perform an act of service we are teaching a powerful lesson. Today how can you be of service to your family, to others, to your community to the world?