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. There’s endless room in all of us for compassion and patience and love and lightheartedness that can last forever. 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.”  

This morning, on our bike ride in the early coolness, we passed this mist-covered field, and I wanted to call out, “Come on in, mist! There’s plenty of room!”

Instead of impatiently complaining about things like mist and storms and dry spells, I’m slowly learning that this universe – and me – has room for infinite situations, and, if I patiently wait, ‘this too shall pass’ – mist will in due course become sunshine and frowns will become smiles. In our immeasurably spacious universe, that’s simply the way it works.