Grace is ever replenishing, but I wonder about this truth when I wake up into my dead end steering, my tank empty with no fueling stations in sight. My little body scooter carries me so wonderfully, but the mind, unexamined, tells a different story of where I find myself. I think of Job when my thinking runs me into ditches. Comparatively, my demonstrations have nowhere near the drama of his story, but I thank Job for playing out extreme, existential, hyperbolic loss loss loss. I would like to talk about Job more often, but somehow he doesn’t make his way into many conversations. So helpful it can be to see the human in extemis for our learning; here now with me I do not have a body full of deep sores; there is no burned-down, total destruction, but it is my own gracelessness (actually, thoughts about my gracelessness not actual gracelessness) that leads me to suffering. What am I to do when I feel like I am riding on the fumes of grace, that I have diminished myself in some way and I can’t seem to rectify with any thinking or doing. Job’s total loss example helps me with the way I can spiral into the same conundrum over an over again, the way faith and loss seems to repeat. Am I courageous enough to live in a way that leads to the total loss and resetting again and again? At my reset point — grateful, humbled, and open. Grace flows into my tank upon this admission. Grace is running out of gas for my own good and accepting the full tank, both. Grace is acceptance of the headache, the rejection, the wobbling, again and again, yet still returning my (loved)bum to the daybed in my case, but could be the yoga pad, meditation cushion, curb:) too, and making room for stillness to be seen, seeing without defining. I hold you close, heart sick companions, in the flow of graceless and graceful, only ever in this now, grasping not at what was or is going to be. Whew! Compassion increases exponentially now in my own admission for myself, and thus everyone. Awkward am I in this life. And thank god for that. Once seen, grace brings laughter and lightness again.The return to my own ridiculousness and freedom are never far. I live this truth, too: the path always returns to laughter and ease no matter where it seems to be occurring now. It cannot not. Truly.
Sometimes I think the comedians and the poets are the most aware ones here. As we engage in our lives, it is helpful to remember that we can be any Larry or Bruce we want while we discuss the budget with a furrowed brow (while laughing every chance we get).
This writing feels didactic and I question why am I putting into words a philosophy of one? I don’t know. Maybe just a sticker on a map. Maybe a look in the mirror. For some reason, this morning, I’m covering myself in a humble patchwork quilt of pieces of practice\al philosophy gathered from one set of feet, one pair of eyes, marching through the time of a life in a body.
It’s okay – I’ll let it flow, for no good reason and then move on to the next thing…
Starting here: No matter how much circumstances seem contrary to okay, life is ultimately okay.
Okayness is true as seen from the small still point inside of me that is never not there.
This still point is within, a radiant, patient sun inside the solar system of me around which everything in the show revolves. Remembering this point, learning to dwell from this point, gives me the stability of moving within the world with more spaciousness even in the moments that seem chaotic or in crisis. This space accepts me “back” to this point, no matter how long I’ve forgotten that I am dwelling here; thank goodness, it’s always accessible and open for business. We are always here, actually, but there is some aspect of taking on this life that allows us to forget. Mysterious this!
Life is a ride, “a” not “THE” ride. Here, a clue in the articles – each one of us on a ride, the whole (of me and of us) ride is beyond my comprehension.
It used to seem like a long ride, but it is ever more clear that this ride is not very long at all.
The body has a mind of its own. It is best to recognize this and communicate with it (through it) by learning to dwell in the body’s awareness as much as possible. Wordless wisdom comes through the body suit – profound messages, information, and access to God (our spacious still point again) is through the body, not from somewhere else. Though it may feel like indigestion, a muscle cramp, dread in a seizing stomach, the body has a language all its own. I’ve been learning to inhabit this body garment and finally listen after so many years to the wordless words of a billion cells in symphony to make this ride of me.
I’ve been told I am loved, and I have enormous confirmations of this; however, some dynamic of this ride allows me to forget this, to feel so alone, and so vulnerable to harm, to hurt, to hopelessness.
The shifting of perspective – that’s it – changes what I think is happening. BUT hearing this idea might not help. This life is a 3d riddle, an optical illusion, a Escher painting lived.
What is real is difficult to determine, perhaps impossible to determine, with reason alone. Real is known within – when within is not obstructed by false thoughts which make real difficult to perceive.
Breath centers.
Center knows truth because it is truth itself – our flame that can’t go out.
Until there is not breath, there is stilla chance one can clear obstruction to truth.
Other people and life circumstance (including leaky roofs, ahmmm) are a reflection of where I am and how I am perceiving. From the center point, I exist from a space from where, in interactions, I have a room that gives perspective in real time. I can see from this spot the deeper thread and zoomed out view at once more clearly which gives me pause in micro-time before I move with words or action which provides more skill and ease and compassion. When I am not moving from this space, I can observe my tendency to rush or soothe or dismiss or avoid, as well, so all motion in the world is teaching at all times.
This is just some truth from this one spot along the way. Marking the map with “I am Here, Now” this morning, as it rains and shines and the temperature falls and rises – ever instructing our skin. Blessings for us all, sisters and brothers. Which version fits today?
Life as Improv 