April 15th, 2017: Trying to Create the Morning Habit

So...this morning's readings...nothing really catchy...one addressed finding the quiet in mediation, and pointed out

that, when we do that, we are finding the silence from whence the world was born - from whence we were born.  And in that silence, we can find Spirit - the "Big Breath" - the "Universal Om."


The other reading re-framed "desires."  For example, we think, "I want an ice cream sundae," even though we are on a diet and/or are diabetic and/or allergic

to dairy - or whatever.  Once we eat it, we find out that it really didn't "hit the spot" the way we imagined that it would - and might wonder "why did I go and do that?"  The reading suggests that the "desire for ice cream" is thinking me, rather than the other way around, i.e., me thinking I want the ice cream.

 The problem lies in not driving the choice, but in the choice driving us.  

 Well.  OK.  Intellectually I "get" both of these.  And neither strikes a chord with me  like the readings did yesterday morning.  Except...hmmm...I am feeling the tuggings of the silence.  Something that will give me that...focus...and I am so much better at "silence" when I am "doing."  Last week's "hill reclaiming" was good medicine for me. 

Hiking is good medicine for me.  






Music is good medicine for me - and today I have this ticket to listen to a friend's concert being given in the Met's

Cloisters - a museum where there is silence - and less doing, I must admit.  (And believe it or not, the picture is actually her group singing in the place where the concert is today.)



If someone were to ask me - no - if I were to ask myself, "What do you really want to do today?" I would probably answer them this: I want to dig in the dirt...purchase plants...start a garden in pots...find and drive to a nursery where someone can tell me what to plant on my hill that the deer won't eat.  Then, I want someone to cook dinner for me, and eat it outside on the small red table that looks up at the hill - where I would be able to see all of my day's work laid out like the food on the table.

In a weird way, this relates back to the first reading.  It suggested that once we have been sitting in that space of silence, in the space of Spirit, we will want more and more of it.  For me, right now, digging in the dirt, and then taking time to see what's been done, is - in a way - existing in that silence.

And yet the adventure - of finding The Cloisters, walking, breathing, perhaps doing some of my own singing, eating with friends and then dancing at my "home dance," - has its own appeal as well.  I will be in my own silence, while being surrounded by beauty.  Alone for the train ride in, for my walk in the museum, and during the music - even though I will be around others.  

Perhaps this is what it means to "Worship, with Attention to..."

"Sunset Waltz" by Phyllis Kapp...