Beyond Boring

Growing up there was one thing,
well several, I could not say.
One was that I was bored.
My parents taught me that
everything is interesting.
if I thought it was boring,
I just had not spent enough time with it.

Nothing is boring.
This is a lesson that has gotten me through
years of education,
books which did not initially speak to me,
professors whose style did not initially appeal to me.
Boredom was about me
not digging deep enough,
spending enough time with it
not having yet discovered its gifts
and all that it had to offer.

Today, when I feel something is boring,
I remember my early lessons and
spend more time with it,
continuing to get to know it,
explore it,
seeking out its gifts,
and that which, like us
makes us special.

Do I do this with everything,
sadly no
However, I am left wondering
what did I miss because
I was not willing to move
beyond boring

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Remembering

Oops, they did it again.
This person once again
did not live up to my expectations.
Once again I found myself frustrated
and not wanting to have anything
to do with them.
Then I remembered this is about me
and my expectations.
They never agreed to them,
I just expected them to do so.

Perhaps more importantly
I was allowing this one thing,
this one experience to make me
forget all the good they had done.
I had to work at remembering
the good things,
the times they were present,
the moments they were affirming, and
the moments they lived up to my expectations.

I am sure there are moments,
intentionally or not,
that I have not lived up to someone’s expectations.,
or that I have hurt their feelings,
and made someone forget
all the times I was loving,
nurturing,
and kind.
May we remember the goodness
in the wake of the pain.
May we remember for others
as we would like others to remember
about us.

Listening

Never speak with your mouth full,
my mother would say.
there is a time to speak and
a time to listen.
A time to hear and
a time to be heard
There is a time to eat and
a time to speak.

Learning to find balance
in our conversations with others
is about respect and honor.
It is about recognizing that
we each have something to say
and creating space for all to speak
and be heard.

It is more than just not speaking,
it is also about listening.
It is about hearing what is said and
not thinking about what we want to say next.
It is about learning to be okay
with moments of silence
as we process and reflect
before speaking

May we take the time to listen,
to think,
to speak,
and to create balance
in our conversations

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Blessed are the Strangers

I don’t know you.
I have never seen you.
We have never met.
However, today I saw you.
We may not have spoken
or interacted
in any way, shape, or form.
However, I do know we are
blessed.

I remember this day when
I saw a stranger and smiled.
Our eyes connected and
I said hello, and told her
have a great day.
I met her again
years later when she told me
you saved my life.
I hope you know
you are blessed.

We meet strangers
all the time
We do not know that
each opportunity is a
chance to bless and be blessed.
Blessed are we and
blessed are they as
we are strangers to each other.

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Ever-changing Landscape

When I think about traveling,
I think about planes, trains, and automobiles.
I think about leaving and arriving.
I think about new people, places and things.
I do not think about staying still.

Life, however, is an ever-changing landscape.
Nothing in our lives is exactly the same.
It is, as Alice Walker would say,
never the same river twice.
Our bodies,
our minds,
our souls,
the air we breathe,
nothing is ever the same,
we are and live in
an ever-changing landscape.

We travel through the seasons,
through the years of our life,
through the ups and downs,
through the losses and celebrations,
through changes in jobs,
relationships, and so much more.

We live in a constant state of travel,
earning frequent flyer miles of
experience and wisdom as we
travel through the
ever-changing landscape of life.

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Thank You

We tend to thank you
for so many things.
We thank you for
what we have,
our friends,
family,
and all we have been given.

Today may we also thank you
for what we do not have.
May we remember to thank you
for the illnesses we do not have,
for the challenges we do not face,
for the possessions we do not own,
for the poverty we do not experience.
For all we do not own,
we thank you.

We thank you
for our first world issues,
for the things we do not
even realize we have.
For all we have and
all we do not have
we thank you.
Amen.

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Attitude

Cleaning,
filing,
weeding,
grading,
the list of things
I want to say

I don’t like
can be ever growing.

Then I realized
it is about my attitude.
I can look at these things
as chores,
as things I dread doing,
or I can get
a new attitude.

I can see them
as an opportunity,
a time of decluttering,
a time of creating holy space,
a time of creating a sacred space

It is all about our attitude
and how we perceive things.
They can be opportunities or not.
May we be intentional about
approaching things with a new attitude
and give thanks instead of complaining.

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Practice Makes Perfect

Practice makes perfect,
I hear that all the time.
If you keep doing something,
you will eventually master it.

We all have habits we have mastered,
which are unhealthy,
dysfunctional,
and harmful.

What if we practiced habits,
which were spiritual
transformative,
uplifting,
and healing.

What if our spiritual habits
were not practiced
now and then,
but daily

What if we were as
devoted to practicing
our spiritual habits as
the negative ones

So today let’s begin
practicing those practices
which are spiritual,
transformative,
uplifting, and
healing.

Let’s practice them
until we have mastered them
and we feel the protection
which comes from within and
from above.

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Knowing God

If you want to know God,
then serve God.
I think that is what I read.
So how do you serve God?

What if we started by
seeing and serving the God
in others.
What if we begin by seeing
everyone we meet as God?

If I see the Divine in you,
then I see qualities in you
I could not see before.
I get to know you and in doing so
I see the Divine in you and get to know
new things about God

When we open our table
to the excluded,
we come to see how God shows up
and shows out
in the widest diversity of
humanity.

Do you want to know God?
Take the time to know others,
build relationships,
and see how God works in them and
through them.
By knowing others,
you will come to a deeper understanding of God

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Nothing

“Nothing lasts,
nothing is finished,
and nothing is perfect.”
These are three simple realities.
Yet there are things in my life
which have lasted
for decades.
There are things in my life
which move me spiritually.
There are things which
appear perfect, even in
their imperfections.

There is a sense of
everything,
in this nothing.
There is an authenticity
in this nothing.
There is a longing and melancholy
in this nothing.
There feels like something
in this nothing,
but that something is the
essence of nothing.

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Judge Not

Judge not,
lest ye be judged.
Yet we judge all the time.
We judge
people,
places,
things, and
everything else

We fail to see that
everyone and everything
has a purpose
and a place.
What if we sought
the goodness and value
in every person,
place,
and thing?

May we seek
to see the presence
and blessings of the
Ultimate in all.
May we remember
to not judge others
and may we pray that others
not judge us.

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Willing to Embrace

Forgiveness is a gift,
it is about setting us both free.
it is about reaching across
all the divides,
across all the barriers,
across everything that makes us not
want to be willing to embrace.

Being willing to embrace
is not physical,
its about allowing our love
to be unconditional
and transformative.
it’s about being able to
move through all barriers,
defy all the odds,
embracing in the
unconditional love
which lives within us.

Being willing to embrace
is about being resistant
in a world that teaches us to be
mean,
petty,
vindictive
and cruel.

Being willing to embrace
is about opening our hearts
removing all the scabs
all the hard spots we have
allowed to grow
and embracing others
with the same grace,
goodness,
and unconditional love
given to us.

This is not just about embracing others.
It is also about embracing
ourselves.
It is about loving ourselves
unconditionally.
it is about being
willing to embrace
ourselves as God
embraces us.

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Hope

Hope is about trust.
Hope is about walking in faith
not always knowing
where, how or even why,
but knowing their trust
in the Ultimate
will guide them
and their journey.
Hope is what
the spiritual leaders before us had.
Whether it was
Jesus,
Ghandi,
Rumi,
Doris Day,
Buddha,
Moses,
Mary,
or someone else,
they walked in hope,
of a journey
they could not forsee

Walk in faith.
That is what many
spiritual leaders did.
They walked in hope
knowing their faith would
guide them forward.
We hope that the same
is true
for us.
We live with a promise in our hearts
Like those before us,
we may not know
where,
how, or why, but we know
from whom.

I get by

I  say this
and I start singing
I don’t want to get high
with a little help from my friends,
but I want to remember I get by
with a little help from my friends.
This reminds me that the same is true
for my friends.
They get by
because I offer some help.

We are there to help each other through,
to help lighten each other’s burdens,
to lighten the burdens of the world.
if we each did what we could to
lighten the burdens of the world
and others, then
we would all get by a little easier.

What if we all tried to be there
for each other
and for the world.
What if we did what we could to
help each other through the rough times.
What if we did what we could to help each other
get by.
How much better would the world be if we
did for each other and
did not just think of ourselves?

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Divine High

I have friends who drink
to get high
do drugs
to get high
gamble
to get high
shop
to get high and
engage in all kinds of behaviors
to get high.

I have had my own moments of
getting high.
They come in moments of
transformation
moments of Divine grace,
moments of revelation
where I become intoxicated
in a way that involves nothing but
the presence of the Divine.
This is when I experience
a high that can only come
from being in the presence 
of the Divine.
This is my Divine High

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Embrace the Moment

That was not what I wanted to hear
It was not what I wanted to happen,
It was one of those moments
that made me want to avoid it,
run away, hide, and pretend it
does not exist.

However, what I have learned is to
embrace the moment.
Good or bad, I have to
embrace the moment.
Whether I want to or not,
it is through embracing the moment
that I grow, evolve, and transform.

Sometimes we think something
is the worst thing that could happen
in our lives, but the worst thing is not
embracing the moment.
There is a blessing in the hardest of moments,
like when I lost the feeling in my leg,
lost part of my vision,
lost my paratransit services
lost ___________________.
However, when I embraced all of that
I found peace, power, strength, and grace.
Whatever you encounter,
embrace the moment,
and give thanks for the blessings
and the lessons.

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Thank You

To all the people who have gotten on my nerves,
Thank you.
You have taught me so much
about myself.
You have taught me to
turn the mirror on myself
and see that same quality
in myself and learn from it,
so thank you.

To all the people who have hurt me
Thank you.
You too have taught me to
look at why I allowed you to do so.
You helped me grow and become
more aware of where I needed to heal,
what expectations I needed to release, and
what else I needed to release in my own life,
so thank you.

To all the people who have not lived up
to my expectations.
Thank you.
You have taught me to look at what
I was still expecting and not aware o.
You have reminded me of the difference
between expectation and agreement.
You have helped me to seek clarification,
in those situations where I did not have it,
so thank you.

To all those who have helped me to grow,
because something you did hurt me,
disappointed me,
let me down,
irritated me,
or just got on my last nerve,
thank you.

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Just for Me

It was one of those days,
when I just wanted to cry,
when everything seemed
harder than it should be.
It was one of those days
when nothing seemed
to fall into place and
things and people were dying.
Then I was reminded that
I was created for a purpose.

So this morning I am working
on remembering that
the world was created just for me.
That all that is happening
is just for me.
The challenges I am going through
are just for me.
Everything God is bringing me through
is just for me.

It is to help me
grow and evolve.
It is to help me
be more patient and understanding.
It is to help me
see the Divine in all of life.
It is to help me remember
it is just for me.

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Saying Goodbye

It was almost 30 years ago
when I bought that black sweater.
Over the years,
it has kept me warm,
gone on dates,
seen me through
good times and bad.
My black sweater stayed
with me longer than
some friends.

Then the day came,
that I had to say goodbye.
I was so worn out and tattered
I could no longer wear it
not even at home.
There was something about saying
goodbye
to this sweater that had seen me through
30 years of life.

So as I prepared to let it go
I took a moment to give thanks
for all the dates it had been on with me
for the days it had kept me warm,
for the tears and the laughter it has shared, and
for so much more then
I could remember
or I could put into words.

As we release the old,
may we remember to honor
all it has seen us through
and give thanks for the ways
we have been served and blessed

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Is that God?

Sometimes we try to be courteous,
we try to be nice
and respectful.
We don’t answer the phone
when we are out with people.
We try to pay full attention
to the one we are with.
We try to be present.

Then the question was asked
what if that is God calling?
What if we are sitting here talking about nothing
and God needs you to be of service
do we answer
or do we ignore.
Does it matter on who we are with
and what they say?

What if those moments in life,
we view as annoyances are really
Divine interventions?
What if we could see the Divine
in those moments we want to ignore?
What if those moments are
our invitations to be the Good Samaritan?
What if God called, and we did not answer?

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