When worries and fears come my way – and it happens often – nothing comforts me more than the realization that I have a warmhearted and durable relationship with everything in the universe – everything. I am an eternal member of the boundless association called Life. All of the hundred trillion cells that make up my body have a kinship with the most ancient stars, and thus so do I, and all the atoms of oxygen I’m breathing in right now connect me with all the places they have visited in their billions of years of existence. The Universe is an alliance of endless numbers of ‘friends’, all as interconnected as my fingers are to each other and to my hands – and I am a vital and everlasting member of that alliance. The same words I speak today are being spoken even now around the world among numberless people, and all the feelings I will have today have been – and will be – felt by countless other people forever and ever. There’s no way I can avoid or break the relationship that exists between seemingly small and separate ‘me’ and the vast universe. We – meaning every person, squirrel, drop of water, and star above – are all members, forever, of the eternal partnership called Life. Fears and worries have very little power in the presence of such an authoritative and friendly confederation!
WORDS LIKE LIGHT
Wednesday, June 30, 2021
INVENTIVE
Every moment today will be thoroughly inventive. Each one will be a brand-new creation by our endlessly skillful universe. I’m sure I’ll occasionally, as usual, get bored with things and fail to see the cleverness, the astonishing novelty, of each moment, but it will be there nonetheless, always. This day, you might say, will be daring, always willing to try a new trick and open a different kind of door. The hours will be masterly as they lead me through one unorthodox moment after another, and the individual moments will unfold in quirky, never-before-seen ways. This will be an offbeat type of day. I might often tilt my head and squint my eyes and stare in astonishment at what this virtuoso day presents. There will surely be what will seem like both successes and setbacks, but I should probably whisper praise for all the moments as they put on their unparalleled performances.
And tomorrow will be more of the same … and tomorrow, and tomorrow.
CONNECTED
This is one of my all-time favorite words. It shines its irresistible light into the smallest corners of life. Everything is connected – every smile with all smiles, every sorrow with all sorrows. None of us – no humans, no squirrels, no winds over rivers – can escape being softly lashed together in this indissoluble household called the Universe. The oxygen atoms I take in each moment have made their home in people in Peru and rabbits in the Sierra mountains and waves on lakes in valleys. The sunlight that shines on me is shining, at that very instant, on ants and roads and elderly ladies for thousands of miles around. We are all fastened together in shatterproof ways – old with young, mountains with deserts, sorrows with sorrows, smiles with smiles. Today, when I feel a fear coming on, I will know that it is not only my fear, but the fear felt by the almost 8 billion people with whom I share our planet. We all participate in the same fears and pleasures and worries and ecstasies, simply because we are inseparably connected. My loves are everyone’s love, and my resentments, too. When I wake each morning, I’m fortunate to find myself, again, gathered together in a closely connected brother-and-sisterhood with sparrows and grass blades and breezes and people, all bringing our best gifts to this new day of inescapable, trustworthy relationship.
CONNECTING THE DOTS
(about Patricia F., 46, Blessings, CT)
She loves
connecting the dots all day.
She sees how the dot
of someone's sorrow
is linked with all the dots of sorrow
from St Louis to Sudan,
and she discovers connections
between the dots of the happiness
of birds and bright-eyed boys
and even elderly elephants.
She smiles to see all the dots link up,
and she knows her smiles
are members of the Association of Smiles
for thousands of miles around.
EVERYDAY MIRACLES: An Occasional Journal of a Life Lived in Wonder 