Distance

PLENTY OF ROOM INSIDE

Over the years, it has occasionally seemed that I simply couldn’t handle any more difficulties, almost as though my life was a somewhat small room that could contain only so many troubles. I’m not sure where that thought came from – that belief that my inner spirit is a compact and cramped place – but as the years have passed, I have come to see it as far from the truth. My inner spirit, my “heart and soul”, like all of ours, is vast beyond measure. There are no walls to someone’s inner being, no boundaries to a person’s thoughts and feelings and vivacity and passion. The inner spirit that all of us have can spread itself out across infinite distances inside us. When we passed this view of farm land and distant hills on our 10-mile bike ride this morning,

I thought of the endless room inside all of us, enough to hold vast distances of compassion and patience and love and lightheartedness. There’s boundless space in our hearts and souls, both for all the blessings of life and for all its countless disappointments. As difficulties arise in my life, I simply need to say, as I do when success shows up, “Come on in. There’s plenty of room.”  

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TALKING TO THE WORLD

Outside his window 
the wide world is growing
and getting more wonderful. 
It does this all the time, 
taking its sweet time 
to show how it makes miracles 
even while he’s sitting silently 
with a cup of tea. 
Talking to the world 
is easy 
when it's so wide open 
in front of him 
as he sips 
and silently speaks 
so his thoughts 
softly throw themselves 
across the everlasting distances 
of this world 
into which he somehow came ashore
back in 1941.