Knows My Need and Well Provides Me

i am a creature of habit.  i have a morning routine that i follow.  if i am unable to perform that ritual, i feel "off" the rest of the day.  even when i am traveling, i feel the need to preserve some parts of my pattern--meditating, working on languages, and browsing the internet, with a freshly made cup of coffee beside me.  each night, i plan the following day.  i know when i awaken that certain things are planned in a certain order.  if i am prevented from acting on my daily schedule, i am out-of-sorts.

i am compelled to keep objects in a certain order.  i cannot abide disorder.  everything has a place, and i want it to be there.  our pantry has to be organized in a pre-determined order, and, when new canned goods are added to it, they must be in their proper place, with the most recent additions behind the older cans.  everything i own--clothing, music, toiletries, cords and cables, tools--must be where i have determined they should be.

this compulsion is good up to a point.  it means that i can find what i need when i need it, that i can accomplish what needs to be accomplished, that there is an efficiency to life that avoids confusion and disorder.  however, i know that my need for routine and order is not always a good thing.  life is not always orderly.  things happen that cannot be forseen, things that disrupt plans that were made, things that prevent putting something back where it belongs.  when life goes awry, i am learning to let go of the need to carry out my plans and address whatever situation arises upexpectedly.  it has taken me a long time to reach the point where i can tell myself that it's ok if i am not able to follow my pre-planned schedule.   i have come to realize that people are more important than schedules and plans.

i know, too, that an unhealthy insistence on having life just as one wants it is the stuff of tyranny.  such thinking is born of an overriding need for control.  life is not about control, but about letting go.  if i cling to my need to have everything just as i want it to be, i miss out on the joy that serendipity brings.  surprises can be nice, even though they are not always so.  it is worth the risk of allowing some unforeseen act to interfere with my plans for the day and accepting that life is not always tidy.

may we be ready to accept what life brings us, even when it is not what we had expected or planned for.  may we deal with the unexpected with intelligence and patience, realizing that even that which is unpleasant may work for the good in the long-term.  may we be flexible, resilient, and capable of giving up control.  may we learn that chaos, randomness, and disorder are as much a part of the fabric of existence as is order.  may we laugh at our foibles and learn from our mistakes.  shalom.

Somedays We Forget to Look Around Us

as i look around the room in which i am sitting as i write, i see many things that awaken joyful feelings in me.  across the room, a cuckoo clock is ticking away.  in a few moments, the cuckoo will emerge to announce the time, two bird figures on the clock will feed their young in the nest at the bottom of the clock's face, and wooden figures will move in a circle at the top of the clock face while a music box plays a folk tune.  every time i hear the sound of this clock, i remember the happy day we bought it in an antique store about an hour's drive from our home.

not far from my chair, there stands a floor clock that plays beautiful chimes every quarter hour.  it reminds me of the happy christmas when my wife and i gave ourselves this lovely clock as a gift to ourselves.  several spanish porcelain figures sit on tables in the room, parts of my wife's collection of these pieces, and each one evokes a memory of the moment when it was discovered in a shop during one of our travels.  the room is illuminated by two antique lamps that cast a warm glow through their golden-hued glass shades.  these are also momentoes of our travels, and their significance in our lives is greater than their value as antiques.  indeed, they are reminders of happy times we spent together, times that we treasure.

on the opposite end of the piece of furniture on which one of the lamps sits, three porcelain vases reflect the lamp's light.  these creamware pieces are among my favorites, as i am a great lover of this off-white porcelain.  i remember a time when i turned in my chair at our informal dining table and knocked the tallest of this set off the hearth where it sat at the time, shattering it on the wooden floor.  we were both heartbroken that this beloved vase was ruined, but my wife began a search online for a replacement.   we were delighted when we learned that the vase was still being manufactured by the american company which made the one i broke.  we immediately placed an order for a replacement.  when it arrived our set was once more complete, and we delight in the beauty of the three vases every day.

my wife is a great collector, and one of her fascinations is small spinning tops.  on the table at the end of the couch, there is a wooden tray that was designed as a surface for spinning these small toys.  on it are about ten of the tops my wife found as we traveled.  one is a simple walnut top that we found in a gift shop in the train station in washington, d. c., on one of our trips.  it was rather expensive, but worth every penny because of the memories it kindles each time we spin it.  next to the chairs in this room are two small tables.  these tables sat at the end of the couch in my mother's living room for at least forty years.  when she passed away, we inherited them.  they are a constant reminder of my mother and of the happy times i spent in her company.

all of these things are important to me, not because of their monetary value but because of the memories they evoke.  this room and every room in our home is filled with pieces that bring back joys that have been a part of my life at some time or other.   the entire house is a summation of a happy life.  i hope that one day others will find as much happiness in these possessions as i have found.  these are not "things;" they represent experiences that are snapshots of our lives, like the pictures in a photo album.  we love them because of their association with the moments when we discovered them, as well as for their intrinsic beauty.

may we acquire objects and treasure them for their deeper meaning, not just for their outward appearance.  may we be grateful to all those involved in their creation, to those who made it possible for us to see and purchase them, and for the meaning they have in our lives.  may we remember that it is not the acquisition of things that is important, that what is important are the associations embodied in those things.  may we know that the memories remain, even when the things we love are lost.  may all that we have be an expression of the living of our lives and the love we feel for one another.  shalom.

Where the Clouds Are Far Behind Me

sometimes it seems that it is not the major events in our lives that cause the greatest suffering, but rather those petty annoyances that creep into our lives.  the garage door opener isn't working properly, it rains and we can't do the yard work we had planned on doing, the clothes rack in the laundry room falls from its position, or any one of a thousand little things that can go wrong does go wrong.  it is in those times that one wants to curse life and say, "why does everything happen to me."  it seems that as soon as we plug one hole in the metaphorical dike that is our daily life, another begins to leak.  

this past week has been one of those "leaky dike" weeks for me.  this was brought home to me in a dream i had.  in the dream, we had moved into a new home.  everywhere i looked there were little things that needed to be done.  the furniture and all our belongings were in place, so the major tasks were completed, but there seemed to be a million minor things that demanded to be taken care of.  my wife, as is her custom, was busily making lists of all these jobs that we had to face, and i could feel my frustration growing.  i was about to say in my most irritated voice, "stop with the lists.  it's too much!" when i awakened, relieved  that it was only a dream.  in that moment i realized that my dream was the summation of the petty annoyances of the week that i had not been very good at dealing with.

i was reminded of the part of my daily meditation where i pray, "may i be constant."  by that, i set an intention of remaining calm and peaceful regardless of the circumstances.  i hope to view all of life with equanimity, accepting the bad with the good and dealing with it all without allowing excess emotions.  what one intends and what one does are not always the same, as the past week demonstrated.  none of us is perfect.  my reactions to all the little mishaps that were part of my life in recent days reminded me that i am only human.  i always have work to do to become the person i intend to be.  everything worked out in the end.  all the broken things were pretty easily repaired or replaced.  the schedules that didn't work out caused only minor inconveniences.  life was still awfully good, even if it wasn't perfect.

may we stop and smell the roses.  may we let go of anger and frustration and appreciate all the good that life brings us.  may we do the work that is needed to live out our intentions.  may we be grateful for trials that teach us how to become better people.  shalom.

Let Freedom Ring

the country in which i live was built on compromise, a quality that we seem to have forgotten today.  during this month when we celebrate the birth of our country, it is fitting to think of one of our founding documents, the constitution.  we speak reverentially of our constitution.  it is a remarkable document.  some, including one of the members of the committee investigating the january sixth insurrection at the capital and one of the witnesses that appeared before it, have gone so far as to say that it was divinely inspired.  to proclaim divine inspiration for the constitution of the united states is to place it on an undeserved pedestal.

our constitution made our country possible.  it is a brilliant work, but it is flawed, as we have seen in recent times.  in order to secure the support of the former colonies for a strong central government, its writers made essential compromises.  they allowed slaves to be counted as part of each state's population, giving states with large slave populations more power than their voting residents justified.  one of the ugliest parts of the constitution declared a slave was only three-fifths of a person, relegating those held in bondage against their wills to sub-human status for political purposes.  without this compromise, southern states that thought slavery was necessary for their economic well-being would not have ratified the new constitution.

another compromise was the electoral college system for choosing presidents, rather than a direct popular vote.  smaller states were given more power than their populations justified in order to secure their support for the constitution.  this system gave each state a number of presidential electoral votes equal to the number of its members of the house of representatives plus its number of senators.  every state has two senators, regardless of the number of residents, while the number of representatives is based on population.  thus states with large populations had fewer votes relative to their population than did smaller states.  in the early days of the constitution's adoption, this compromise allayed the fears of states with fewer residents than the larger states, like new york and virginia, would have too much power in the election of a president.  this system has proven to be unfortunate in today's presidential contests, as we see elections decided, not by the will of the people, but by states whose population is small but whose power in the electoral college thwarts overwhelming majorities of voters.

now we have a supreme court on which the majority of justices were appointed by presidents with less than a majority of the popular vote.  our disgraced former president appointed three of those justices, and those appointees have swung the court toward radical right-wing decisions which threaten the country.  they have reversed gains in women's rights that were won half a century ago, they have gutted the administrative power of the executive branch to enforce the laws passed by congress, and they are poised to endorse a radical theory that gives state legislatures inordinate power over elections while stripping state judiciaries of their power to review election laws passed by the state legislatures.  one of the conservative justices has suggested that the right of people to marry the person they love should be revisited and possibly done away with.  since the constitution grants supreme court justices lifetime appointments, the only remedies for the current situation is for congress to adopt laws that counter the extreme rulings of the court or to increase the number of justices by act of congress so that the conservative majority becomes a minority.  supreme court decisions are final and become the law of the land unless altered by congressional action or constitutional amendment, so we are in dangerous, untried waters with the decisions of the present court.

the writers of the constitution were wise in placing mechanisms for amending the constitution as new situations arise or as provisions of the original document are seen to be in need of revision.  unfortunately, our current political landscape makes it unlikely that the constitution will be amended to correct problems that have developed in recent times, since conservative majorities are in control of too many state legislatures.  it is these legislatures that must ratify changes to the constitution.  the republicans who control many state legislatures have devised means for remaining in power through their drawing of congressional maps, even when the majority of the people in their states vote for democrats.  if the supreme court increases the power of these republican-majority legislatures, their control will be all but impossible to undo.

may our people awaken to the damage they do when they cast protest votes for republicans because of temporary economic conditions for which the party in power, now the democrats, is blamed.  may we see that electing a republican majority in the congress will further limit our ability to protect the rights of women, gays, minorities, and all those who are disenfranchised.  may we work together to strengthen our freedoms and make it convenient for every eligible voter to cast a ballot.  shalom.