Living the Dream

Life is not drudgery, nor a journey to plod.  These few decades are all we have.  We have a few memories to gather.  The most important thing, to us, on earth, is our own soul.  Until we honor that, there is no honor. What we will take from this life is the spiritual growth that we make, the compassion we have given and the passions we have felt.

Eckhart speaks of ‘enjoyment plus the added element of a goal or vision to work towards…You will feel like an arrow that is moving toward the target-and enjoying the journey.” (P301)  He is not speaking about goals as things of form.  I believe he is speaking of spiritual goals.  We have to dare to be ourselves and have passion in that.  How wonderful we are…what miracles…how can we not celebrate our absolute uniqueness?

Warning - When I Am An Old Woman I Shall Wear Purple - Jenny Joseph

When I am an old woman, I shall wear purple

with a red hat that doesn’t go, and doesn’t suit me.

And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves

and satin candles, and say we’ve no money for butter.

I shall sit down on the pavement when I am tired

and gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells

and run my stick along the public railings

and make up for the sobriety of my youth.

I shall go out in my slippers in the rain

and pick flowers in other people’s gardens

and learn to spit.

You can wear terrible shirts and grow more fat

and eat three pounds of sausages at a go

or only bread and pickles for a week

and hoard pens and pencils and beer nuts and things in boxes.

But mow we must have clothes that keep us dry

and pay our rent and not swear in the street

and set a good example for the children.

We must have friends to dinner and read the papers.

But maybe I ought to practice a little now?

so people who know me are not too shocked and surprised

when suddenly I am old, and start to wear purple.

What a great deal of outer and inner stress we add to our lives by living other people’s passions and enthusiasm.  Eckhart writes:  “When there is stress, it is usually a sign that the ego has returned and you are cutting yourself off from the creative power of the universe…” (p302)

We miss so much joy. We invite misery.  Henry David Thoreau once said, “…most men lead lives of quiet desperation“.  Without enthusiasm, we are nothing more than beasts of burden.  We wake up wishing we could sleep.  We sleep wishing we could not wake up. Every day is a burden.  H.W. Arnold wrote, “If you always do what you always did, you’ll always get what you always got.”  I have written about the ripple in the pond.  What we send out, we can expect back in some way.  “Enthusiasm has a high energy frequency and so resonates with the creative power of the universe.” Says Eckhart, and then he adds, that enthusiasm is a derivative of an ancient Greek word “en  theos”, meaning God and “enthoesiazein” means to be “possessed by God”. (p302)  What does feeling like life is hard and wishing only to have it different, and feeling put upon and miserable and pitiful and joyless have to do with being possessed by God?  We say we have faith in a Creator and yet we fear death.  We say we believe and then we walk in fear, believe every fear-monger, change scriptures to fit our frame of mind, control everything and everyone we can when we know we have been given “free” will….all things have free will…even fate/karma. Whatever we call it, has free will.

“When enthusiasm encounters obstacles in the form of adverse situations or uncooperative people, it never attacks but walks around them, or by yielding or embracing turns the opposing energy into a helpful one, the foes into a friend.” (p303)  The most bankrupt thing in the world is the person who has lost his or her enthusiasm. Julia Cameron says “Enthusiasm is not an emotional state. It’s a spiritual commitment, a loving surrender to our creative process.”  Enthusiasm is a gift in that it has its own energy.  Ellen Corby declared, “You must have enthusiasm for life or life is not going to have a lot of enthusiasm for you.”  That is a powerful statement but speaks to that ripple in the Universe that we send out each thought, each moment, of our life here.

Physically, intellectually, emotionally and spiritually, we reflect what we feel.  When we are enthused, it shows in our posture, our gait, our every movement.  Our thoughts we think and/or share evolve from what we choose to feel about life.  I am sure you have noticed “:dark cloud” people:  whiners, complainers, bitchers and bellyachers, Pessimists, cynics, doomsayers, negative people who drain you, can sway you, and attempt to rain on your parade.  As we try to live soulful lives, we need to avoid these kind of people as much as possible.  They are enthusiasm murderers.  They will be judgmental because they loathe themselves and their lives.  Linda and I used to call these kinds of people, “Sapsuckers” and that is exactly what they are.  Sapsuckers drill and drill and drill until sap leaks out.  Sapsuckers are not primarily interested in insects for food. Instead, they’re looking for tree sap. They collect sap using their long brush-tipped tongue as the sap flows out of the holes they’ve drilled.  Sapsuckers do not seriously harm their host. The holes are shallow and the wounds do not cause significant or permanent damage. But sometimes a particular tree becomes a favorite feeding place for an individual sapsucker. We get enmeshed into the cycle of negativity of that person who drinks us dry with their negativity.  The host, then, may be weakened and become more sensitive to other problems in that the wounds themselves may attract harmful insects. Sound familiar?  Have you ever been the victim of a Sapsucker?  They simply are not worth your time here on earth.  It is short and you have much to do…and how can you do it with enthusiasm when what you have around you is a peck and heck of negative people that create negativity in you, if you allow it?

The Art of Disappearing - Naomi Shihab Nye

When they say Don’t I know you?
say no.

When they invite you to the party
remember what parties are like
before answering.
Someone telling you in a loud voice
they once wrote a poem.
Greasy sausage balls on a paper plate.
Then reply.

If they say We should get together
say why?

It’s not that you don’t love them anymore.
You’re trying to remember something
too important to forget.
Trees. The monastery bell at twilight.
Tell them you have a new project.
It will never be finished.

When someone recognizes you in a grocery store
nod briefly and become a cabbage.
When someone you haven’t seen in ten years
appears at the door,
don’t start singing him all your new songs.
You will never catch up.

Walk around feeling like a leaf.
Know you could tumble any second.
Then decide what to do with your time.

That is not to mean that you should show no compassion.  Of course you should.  There are authentic people out there who have authentic misery; physically, intellectually, emotionally, or spiritually.  They need nurturing.  And, we all have those down days.  It is best to keep yourself away from others when you have nothing to give.  But, should that “nothing to give” last longer than a day, then you need to find a way to pull up your bootstraps and find something to be enthused about.  When you have done what you can do and a person still continues to suck, just know they will eventually suck you dry.  I know the feeling, truly, because I worked in a high risk burn-out career for 23 years.  There is little recommendation, recompense, and reverence for such if you do not own it in the first place.  I have been called “Mother Theresa”, a “Do-gooder”, a permanently Idealistic person”, and I met some huge Egos in that field.  They are the kind of people who do not care about Right, but care about their rightness. They saw the area we worked in as a place to exert power and control, rather than surrender.  They were Teachers, by god, and they missed the whole joy of it.  Part of my enthusiasm that emoted was that I was a learner/teacher, teacher/learner.  They forgot that they were “in service” to others.   But, along the way, I met magnificent teachers and administrators.  I have seen Principals and administrators weep over children.  I have walked out of an office where we had just been in conference with a mother and a twelve year old who had tested positive for HIV because the mother’s boyfriend was a carrier and had sexually abused this beautiful young girl and stepped back in for some reason, and found the Principal with his head down on his desk, sobbing.  His authenticity touched me and gave me the reason to believe in what we worked at.  I have met a principal who absolutely put the child first.  He spent time in his office every day, one by one with the students in the school, day after day, just visiting with the kids.  He was their greatest mentor and they loved him for it.  He could have sold them air.  There was such reciprocal respect, honor and grace in  an area and an arena where disrespect and chaos could have ruled…and did rule after he left the position.  This principal had his off days, of course, but it was always centered around the kids, and when the time was right, and if necessary, centered around the compassion he felt for his staff.  He was an amazing man to work with.  He treated his staff like peers.  How often do we find that in an Administrator?  He enthused us all to be better teacher/learners, to seek and understand and make yourself holistically available to those we served.  He made working such a holy place.  But, of course,, there were those areas where work was truly difficult on the body, mind, heart and soul.  Somehow I had to see God everyday in those I worked with…and I was blessed in having that right up until the last.  When it got to be that I did not want to go to work, I knew I was done.  I let the Sapsuckers win but when I knew I could not save even myself, it was time.  Someone once said, “Get a job you like and you will never work a day in your life.”  When there was more negativity, no enthusiasm, and it began to affect every area of my being, it was time to remove myself.  I spent a couple of years faking it until I made it but came a time when I could no longer fake what I could not feel.

Norman Vincent Peale, wrote that “You will never have enthusiasm in your life unless you steadily put some in. This is basic,” he said. “To have enthusiasm, you must practice enthusiasm. It is based on the “as if” principle. Act as if, and that which you practice will tend to be.”  It was time for me to surrender to the fact that I no longer felt the right kind of passion and I could not bear to pass that on to those kids that came to me each day.  It was the greatest gift, at that time that I gave myself.

Love After Love - Derek Walcott

The time will come

When, with elation,

You will greet yourself in arriving

At your own door, in your own mirror,

And each will smile at the other’s welcome,

And say, sit here, eat.

You will love again the stranger who was your self.

Give wine,  Give bread.  Give back your heart

To itself, to the stranger who has loved you

All your life, whom you ignored

For another, who knows you by heart.

Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

The photographs, the desperate notes,

Peel your image from the mirror.

Sit.  Feast on your life.

Eckhart states:  “…You can only manifest what you already have.” (p305)  We were each given the gift of passion and enthusiasm.  How long will we leave it wrapped away?  It is contagious either way.  Wouldn’t you want to feel like there is purpose, there is reason for Joy, there is reason to believe that this is a miraculous opportunity…that every moment is a miraculous opportunity to connect to the One, no matter what it is, either negative or positive?  Oh let us bear it, let us lift banners of our belief and show that we know we are children of one great Creator who would have us collect all the gifts that come our way, no matter how they come.

“I want you to get swept away. I want you to levitate. I want you to sing with rapture and dance like a dervish. Be deliriously happy. Or at least leave yourself open to be. love is passion, obsession, someone you can’t live without. If you don’t start with that, what are you going to end up with? I say fall head over heels. Find someone you can love like crazy and who’ll love you the same way back. And how do you find him? Forget your head and listen to your heart. Run the risk, if you get hurt, you’ll come back. Because, the truth is there is no sense living your life without this. To make the journey and not fall deeply in love — well, you haven’t lived a life at all. You have to try. Because if you haven’t tried, you haven’t lived. ” - William Parrish, Meet Joe Black

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