What’s in the box.

There is a lot going on in my wee brain tonight, I’ll tell you.

“Life is like a box of chocolates.”  That is my least favorite line from the movie, “Forrest Gump.”  It has become so cliche’.  Nevertheless, it is true of this little column here.  You never know what you are going to get.  In fact, I never know what I am going to get, until my fingers hit the keyboard.  I can plan and premeditate on this, but it never works.  I have found this writing thing has to come at the end of the day, pretty much, spontaneously.

And… as Mama always said… “Stupid is, as stupid does.”

The writing of this  isn’t easy either.  Sometimes the words flow.  Other times… (and YOU know when it happens)… the writing is a REAL stretch.  I try to avoid controversial subjects, for the most part.    Because controversy is basically a prolonged disagreement among people.  And… heaven knows …. I don’t like to be disagreeable.

But the hardest part is the worrying.  When you write something… if you are lucky… someone will be interested in reading it.  And that is putting yourself “out there.”  I worry about if people will like what I have written.  I worry that I might have upset the apple cart with others.  I worry how the words will be construed.

Sometimes, we are products of our parents.  My dear Mother gave me the gift of worry.

But here it is.  I was going to take the night off.  Heck…. maybe ten.   I had planned on hanging this up for a while.  And I have been struggling with this decision.  For years now… off and on.  But I was thick as molasses on this tonight.  I was sticking to my decision not to write… once and for all.   There.  I had put my foot down.

And just as I stepped out of the shower, my phone buzzed.  I had a message.  It was from someone who had just read my column from last night, and was sending a personal message about it.

You may think I’m silly or loopy about this next part.  But I am often asking a “power greater than myself” for guidance.  For nudges.   For little signals about what the next right thing might be.  Call it God, the Universe, the Intuition, the Little Voice.  I don’t really care what you call it.  But you see… I call it.

So there I was, dripping wet from my shower, thinking about “the box of chocolates”… and how many Dr. Peppers Forrest Gump drank, when he visited the White House…. and how I don’t really like Dr. Pepper… and how that would have made for good writing…. but I’m not writing….  and my phone buzzes to talk to me about my writing.  The nudge.  And that was enough for me… as you can tell.  Here I am writing.

We humans are so much more than matter.  A table is composed of matter only.  I think.  Unlike a table….   We feel.  We know emotion and logic and spirit.  If we were simply a bundle of matter, we wouldn’t experience things such as sorrow, happiness, fear, joy, love, or compassion.

Yes. We have consciousness.  I believe this consciousness can exist on many levels.  And it will continue after the “matter” of our bodies is long gone.

The spirit with in us.  It seeks to be with other spirits…. to live and grow and be.  Our spirit wants to connect.   When we are compassionate, and loving, and kind…. .. we allow those connections to thrive, to flourish.

So here we are connecting.  Tonight, I am not worrying about this writing, because I simply want to connect… and tell you thanks. I want you to know how grateful I am for you.  TO  you.   For connecting.  And.  For helping my spirit to grow.

 

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“We cultivate love when we allow our most vulnerable and powerful selves to be deeply seen and known, and when we honor the spiritual connection that grows from that offering with trust, respect, kindness and affection.”  – Brene’ Brown

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“Love is our true destiny. We do not find the meaning of life by ourselves alone – we find it with another.”  ― Thomas Merton, Love and Living

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“Invisible threads are the strongest ties.”  ― Friedrich Nietzsche

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