Like an Ever-Rolling Stream

do you find yourself anxious from time to time, having set an artificial deadline to accomplish something or to be somewhere?  i know i do.  i decide that i must be dressed and out the door to head to the grocery store or some such at a certain time.  it's not that i have an appointment that i must keep.  i've just set that goal for myself, and, when i see i'm not going to make it, i become anxious.  this is an old habit that is difficult to break.  as i sense this feeling of anxiety coming in, i remind myself that the deadline is one of my own making.  i don't have to be where i'm going by a certain time.  no one is expecting me to be there.  i've created an unnecessary goal and then made myself suffer because i may not accomplish it.

i suspect that most of us do this sort of thing, especially if we're goal-oriented and overly time-conscious.  now that i'm retired, i don't have a lot of appointments to keep.  i don't have to be at work on time, and i don't have work-imposed deadlines to meet.  i have some meetings to attend occasionally, but most of those can go on if i'm late or if i don't make them at all.  i have doctor appointments from time to time, and i'm scrupulous about being on time for them.  other than that, i can pretty much ignore the clock.

i've been trying to step back from my mind-controlled time-goal addiction and see it for what it is: another opportunity for my monkey brain to control me.  i catch my mind chattering away, fussing at me for taking so long to get ready as it tells me that i'm not going to accomplish my self-imposed goal.  i don't have to hurry.  i can take another five or thirty minutes and still have plenty of time to do what i need to do.  nothing bad will happen if i don't meet my needless challenge, except that i'll feel unreasonably guilty.  this is a difficult habit to break, and i'll continue to work on it the rest of my life, i imagine.

may we see the guilt we create for ourselves for what it is: the mind's desire to control.  may we step away from such habitual self-induced regret producers.  may we see that hurrying usually creates mistakes and may we let go of the need to be controlled by both our internal and external clocks.  may we rejoice in the present moment, rather than destroying the joy we could find there by creating a future goal that is unnecessary.  shalom.

Of Everything We've Been Through

recently some friends came over to play cards and eat with us.  as we visited around the card table, our talk turned to our son and his partner.  we told our friends that both of them were great believers in being unencumbered by possessions.  our friends, like us, are collectors.  both our homes are filled with objects that have great meaning to us.  the meaning is not so much in the objects themselves, but rather in the memories they evoke.  as my wife explained it, when we see certain decorative items or pieces of furniture, we remember where we were when it came into our possession, what we were doing, or who had owned the object previously.

for instance, in our living room are two end tables that belonged to my parents.  my mother loved these little tables.  they were in my childhood home for as long as i can remember, and each time i look at them i am reminded of happy times and of my beloved mom.  some of the utensils and dishes in our kitchen belonged to my wife's mother and grandmother.  we are reminded of those two lovely women each time we use them.  they fill us with gratitude and happiness.  we rejoice that these useful items continue to benefit us in the same way they did those who went before us.

all over our house are things that rekindle fond recollections of people, places, and circumstances.  these things may not have much meaning to others.  many of them will be disposed of when we are gone, but we hope that a few of them will bring joy to our children, especially our daughter who is more sentimental than our son.  there are those who urge us older folk to "clean out the clutter" before our deaths so that our heirs won't have to deal with what we have left behind.  as our friends said to us, all over our houses are things that have meaning for us.  they bring us joy.  the inspire happy memories of times past.  we can't part with them prematurely because they are parts of us.  to rid our homes of them would be like amputating our arms or our legs.

may we separate the desire to cling to things because of their monetary value from the need to hold onto a past that has brought us great joy and carried us into the present moment.  may we value beautiful and useful objects because of what they mean to us rather than what they are intrinsically.  when the time comes for us to end our earthly existence, may those who look around us see a home that was filled with joy.  shalom.

When All Our Years Have Sped

a few mornings ago, i awakened from a deep sleep to find my mind racing with scattered thoughts.  perhaps a dream i couldn't remember was the beginning of my mind's busyness, but it was unusual to have so many things running through my head, seemingly coming out of nowhere.  some of the thoughts were of a trip that i am planning for my wife and myself, along with one of her sisters and brothers-in-law.  other thoughts were of stories about my family i heard as i was growing up.  these are stories that have been passed down orally, and suddenly i felt the need to preserve them for my children and for my nephew and his children who will be the only family members to carry on the family name to a future generation.

it's odd that i feel this compulsion to pass on what i know of my family's oral history just when i am feeling confident about living in the present moment.  i know that some of the need to write these tales down comes from having just celebrated my 76th birthday in the awareness that i may not have many more years left to tell the stories of my ancestors.  we can trace our family histories from sources like local records and gravestones, but there is more to the record that a list of who begat whom or was married to whom.  The little anecdotes about various family members tell us who we are because of who our forebears were and how they lived their lives, what they valued, and why they behaved as they did.

last week i wrote about memories, and this week my head is full of them begging to be written down.  these are not memories associated with things, like the bed in my garage that i'm giving away, but rather they are memories of people and the stories they told, memories that helped define me.  so i think it's important that future generations of our family know something of these stories that are our family history.  we say that everything is connected, and so the past is connected to the present, the past influences the future.  it is all a part of the continuum that is life.  we cannot live fully in the present moment if we do not know something of the past.  celebrating our histories is not the same as living in the past.

may we each relish those tidbits of information about those who have gone before us.  may we appreciate their joys and struggles.  may this present moment be lived more fully because we understand where we have come from.  may we honor the memories that have made us who we are.  shalom.

Memories Bring Back You

over the past couple of days, my wife and i have been putting away and organizing our "chrismas closet" in the garage where we store all our decorations.  we've also been cleaning and doing some reorganization of the garage as a whole.  we have a large three-car garage, and we only have one vehicle at the moment.  because of this, we have lots of space that can be used for storage.  this is where we keep things that aren't needed frequently.  

among our collection of items in the garage, we had a beautiful antique bed that belonged to my maternal grandmother.  from her, it passed to her sister, my great-aunt bess, then to my mother, and from her to our daughter.  when our daughter did some redecorating, she no longer had room for the bed, so we took the bed despite not having a place for it in our home.   i couldn't bear for the bed to leave the family, so it's been taking up space in our garage since then in the hopes that another family member would claim it.  that hasn't happened, so we made the difficult decision to donate the bed to a local charity as we cleaned and straightened up the garage.  the bed's headboard and footboard have been blocking access to a cabinet where some gift wrap items are stored, and my wife needs to get to those things.  there was no place else to put the bed pieces, and we decided it was better for someone to have it who needed the bed, rather than gathering dust in the garage.

as i've thought about the bed and what it means to me, i've come to realize that, while the bed is beautiful and perhaps valuable as an antique, i don't connect it with my grandmother.  she didn't particularly like it, which is how it came to be in her sister's possession.  my mother didn't use the bed until after i was grown and on my own, so i don't associate it with my time growing up.  the only time i ever used the bed was on the infrequent occasions we spent the night at our daughter's home.  it was hard for me to come to the realization that i was holding onto the bed because it had been in my grandmother's home at one time.  it isn't the bed that connects me to my grandmother.  rather, it is my wonderful memories of happy times spent with her as i grew up.  the bed is simply an object, and someone ought to own it that will use and appreciate it.  it will soon leave my possession and will, i hope, make someone else happy as they use it.

when i go into the garage and see how much more functional moving the bed and doing some rearranging because of the extra space created by its removal makes the space, i realize how impractical it was to hang onto a thing that was of no use to me.  we will enjoy the space in the garage much more and someone i will never know will benefit from the decision to give the bed away.  we humans have difficulty with change, despite knowing that change is the only constant in our lives.  we don't want to change even when it's to our benefit.  the bed was something that held me back and made life more difficult, yet i didn't want to let it go.  now that the decision to release it has been made, i'm happy to have made it.

may we see how clinging to things that connect us to the past often gets in the way of living in the present.  may we appreciate our memories without allowing them to hold us back.  may we see that it is not things that are important.  may we embrace change, rather than resisting the good that can come from it.  shalom.

Fill Me With Life Anew

we often think about what has happened in the past, reliving times of pleasure or pain, inflicting guilt on ourselves for something that happened long ago or longing to repeat happy times that can't be duplicated.  we think, too, about the future, telling ourselves that if only something comes to fruition or when we reach some goal we will be happy.  in reality, all we have is the present moment, and each moment that we have is precious.  our lives are made up of a series of "nows," each being unique and unrepeatable.  our minds don't want us to live in the present but it is all that we have.  we must learn to embrace the gift of each breath we take.

to quiet the mind so that we can live in the present and fully appreciate what life brings us is the challenge.  as i sit here with my fingers flying across the keyboard of my computer writing, my mind wants to pull me away to think of the events of yesterday or last week or to think of the upcoming trip that is planned for later today.  what is important is what i'm doing now, sitting in my favorite rocking chair, with one foot propped up on my footstool, breathing in the oxygen that sustains me and expelling the carbon dioxide that is left from my most recent in-breath.  i am at ease and filled with peace.  that peaceful calm will stay with me so long as i stay in the present moment.  it can go with me throughout the day if i am still in the midst of the day's activities.

our minds are useful tools, but we allow them to take over.  they become who we think we are.  they chatter constantly if we don't step back and observe what has happened to us as we allow our minds to control us rather than us controlling our minds.  we do not exist because we think, we exist in spite of our thoughts.  i often rehearse conversations with myself, telling myself stories about what i would or should say in a certain situation or recalling past occasions when i wish i had behaved differently.  like so many, i overthink my life and, in the process, make life more difficult than it has to be.  as i have gotten in the habit of meditating at the start of each day, i find that i am less inclined to live in my thoughts so much and more inclined to let life take its course.  the more i practice letting go of control and stepping away from my busy mind, the happier i am.

may we each find that inner self that is the real us--the self that should be controlling the mind rather than allowing our minds to hide who we truly are.  may we value each moment as it comes to us, letting go of the past and not waiting for some future that may never come to be.  may each breath make us aware of the happiness and beauty around and within us.  shalom.