The weather here in Adams County has been October perfect. Chilly nights and sparkling days are just warm enough to be comfortable. My friend and I walked this morning, both of us soaking in the glorious day, the flowers and trees and gentle mountains that encircle our little town. After she left, another friend stopped in to share a book, some cookies, and a pleasant chat. Once she left, I couldn’t help but sit back and reflect on what a perfect day it has been and how grateful I am for each day, but especially golden, end of the season days like these.
I recognize that not everyone has the leisure I have to revel in a beautiful fall day, one of the blessings I appreciate of aging. Life can be hectic and overwhelming, I realize, yet looking back at my own life, I realize I was the one who caused my anxiety and feelings of being overwhelmed by trying to do too much, catering to too many people, and not taking time out to just be. I did not know how to say “no.” I did not know how to set my boundaries. I was afraid of offending others and tried to do too much and almost lost myself in the process.
I am all too aware that we can’t live another’s life for them, but oh how I wish I would have listened to those who told me to slow down and smell the roses back then. Perhaps this is the main reason I keep blogging several times a week, for I eventually got there, though that awareness did not occur until midlife when I was confronted with my mortality. How I hope that my ramblings have even a small influence on others in reminding them to shape their days by periodically breathing in gratitude, and breathing out thanksgiving.
The faith of my youth was based primarily on ambition and rules. By midlife I was ready to chuck the whole messy lot, even though I was a pastor at that time, but as I grew older I rediscovered my faith, not the faith taught by the church, but faith in the power of love to restore and redeem even the most broken of us as exemplified by Jesus. And especially the power of authentic gratitude, which, for me, is the highest form of any human expression of love.
I’ve been watching a number of documentaries about ancient cultures, all of which practiced some form of worship in a higher power, leading me to suspect it is impossible for humans not to participate in some form of spiritual awareness, that is the sense that there is something way beyond our human capacity to understand.
We have ignored the care of our planet to our own detriment. We have polluted our air and water to the point that the very things upon which we depend for life are no longer safe and are eating away at our insides. We have ignored the wisdom of the ages that there are higher goals for humanity than the worship of wealth and power. If we are to listen to the wisdom of the ancient myths that appear in the book of Genesis and reappear in the stories told by aboriginal people all around the world, of times when humans became so sinful that they built towers to the sky, sacrificed human life, and engaged in many forms of “sin”, those civilizations crumbled from within, were destroyed by invading armies, or as the hypothesis of the documentaries I have been watching, a great universal flood occurred wiping out most humans and most of the animals of that time, around 11,800 years BC. The projected cause of the flood? The melting of the polar ice and glaciers and fires ignited by meteor showers and human causes.
Karma is the belief that what goes around comes around, that we reap what we sow. One of the vast mistakes of Christianity, I believe, the only religion with which I have any knowledge, is personalizing faith and our ideas about salvation which turns us into individualists. If we are realistic, there is no such thing as personal salvation for we all flourish or die as part of a larger whole. One of the wonderful things about gratitude is that one does not have to believe in any particular God or faith to practice gratitude. Gratitude, after all, is the foundation for love and respect for the world and the people around us. Gratitude is that which gives meaning to life.