Saturday, June 9, 2018

Grace and Grattitude and Life


I wonder about the world today.  Two famous suicides this week and CDC statistics not looking good for us humans trying to make a life here on planet Earth, it seems.  And that is just it, “It seems.”   I haven’t been engaging my brain much of late, except for the necessities of work and family.  I can’t help but think about the future sometimes and how on Earth I can even remotely consider achieving my goals.  Some days it seems I’m running out of time, or there are too many steps here in order for me to get there.  So, I let all of those thoughts go and take a breath in the present moment where there is nothing but life and breath.  In those moments, there is nothing but what is.  There is this quiet and peaceful place or beingness, just observing all around me...birds still singing, sirens still blazing and my thoughts just flow.


I don’t have any answers for the world at large about anything.  I don’t have any bright advice that might save this world.  For starters, it isn’t my job and no, I am not apathetic.  I care a great deal but I tend to focus on that which I can influence, affect or change.  But lately, it doesn’t seem like I can change anything.  There is always one thing I can change and that is me, my thoughts, what I choose to perceive or entertain.  This world can be so dark and heavy sometimes but I just can’t align with only that or carry the emotion of that.  Even in this world when life seems so very pointless, there is a little spark inside of me that says, “just keep going, you can’t see the future, you don’t know what is around the next bend or at the top of the next hill you are about to climb.”  Thank God for that little voice. Were it not there, leading me and guiding me, I might have joined the 30% who gave up or gave in many times along this road of life.  My heart goes out to them (those who decided to leave) and to their family and friends.  I feel such a sense of sadness when I think of those who have packed it all in and just bailed out.  I get it.  I understand and I hold no judgment for them.  Only compassion.


So many struggle daily just to open their eyes in the morning, to breathe, to move and to exist.  I have no answers for them but I have love and I have compassion and if nothing else, I can try with all of my might to send that energy up and out for them, not to change them but just to surround them and let them know that at least energetically, they are not alone.  I think I’m becoming more of a realist these days; dealing only with what is directly before me.  Lofty dreams and ambitions are no longer my thing.  Making a difference in life for me is about those with whom I come into contact.  Can I be a good human in a moment, lend a hand, a meaningful thought or a smile?  That seems the most important thing for me today.  I smile at strangers and make eye contact whether or not I can do a single thing for them (including the scores of homeless I see routinely, daily now).  I can save none of them.  I can change not one thing about their experience other than to acknowledge them from one human being to another as if at least to say, “I see you and you matter, you are here, I feel you.”


I’m in a good place, really, having achieved a goal over the last decade and that was really to achieve peace.  Despite the thoughts I just laid out there, I am peaceful and calm.  I take in everything around me with a deep abiding appreciation for life on its terms, not mine. I watch the leaves sway in the trees, notice the colors, notice the art in motion, people moving, living and how amazing it is that things come and go in this world, or plane of existence.  Appreciation and gratitude can be such a balm to a weary soul.  There is grace to be found at the heart of every single experience we embrace if we but believe it will be there, it is always there and it will come to each and every one in a pure moment of readiness.  This, this is what keeps me moving in life.  The amazing awe and wonder not only for the existence in this moment but the moments to come.  Life is magical, terrifying, ugly and beautiful all at once.  It is incredibly chaotic sprinkled with moments of peace.  It is what it is.  I wish you great blessings of comfort, warmth and ultimate peace.  Be so very good to yourselves out there and try if you can not to get so caught up in the drama of life or the heavier emotions of your experience...like the seasons, these things always have a beginning and an end.  This thought or perspective, I realize,  is a tough one but certainly it is not an impossible one.  If you can, maybe try to believe or better, trust that deep within your souls somewhere is a spark, a beautiful spark of grace that will speak to you, guide and carry you each day of your life. 

Rest in peace Kate and Anthony and all of the rest of you beautiful human beings who tried with all of your might to make it here.  You will all be greatly missed.

© 2018 Jaie Hart (photos and words)

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