There was a story of a man visiting his 94 year old grandmother on a beautiful sunny day. He sat with her in the room she lived in and she commented on how gloomy and grey the day was. It was then that he noticed that the window was filthy - hadn't been washed in a year. The old woman chuckled and said "Got a dirty eye, see a dirty world."
It is the same with our minds and hearts. For our very self is the one window we have into this life. And so often, we suffer the mood of a dirty window, believing the brilliant world gray.
Perhaps the purpose of authentic relationship is to help each other keep our minds and hearts clear. Perhaps inner work is the ordinary art of window washing, so that the day is fully the day.
This definitely had me contemplate my mood the past couple days. I have been viewing things through a dirty eye, distorted visions due to my own negative thoughts. The idea of authentic relationships also strummed a chord within me. This past week or so I have been recoiling in on myself, feeling sorry for myself and pouting - the emphasis of my negative thoughts has been on "myself." I've been focusing on past resentments, sharing and reliving past traumas, convincing myself that I am somehow failing, and in those failures I will lose the people I care about.
Which brings me to the reading today that opened with "As long as we see what has come to pass as being unfair, we'll be a prisoner of what might have been." I see so many of my beloveds struggling with this lately, as I am struggling with it. Our situations are all very different, but the underlying theme of hurt is a singular one.
I offer what has surprised me in my pain; that life is not fair, but unending in its capacity to change us; that compassion is fair and feeling is just; and that we are not responsible for all that befalls us, only for how we receive it and for how we hold each other up along the way.
I have not been a very good friend lately. I have been distant and quiet and wrapped up in my own head and heart, licking my past wounds while also fabricating new ones with a dirty eye on the world. Rather than being gentle with myself and offering myself loving kindness as I navigate through some murky waters, I have have been moody and disgruntled and just in a funk. I have let frustration and depression get the better of me.
I'm trying to pull myself back out of it. Take a look at what it coming up in my thoughts and why, and shaking it off. Shaking it off and releasing the negative self talk into the universe. Opening myself back up to relieve the blessings.
While rearranging my room, I came across an old stamped coin. On one side is a dove, soaring in flight. On the other is scripture: And by this we know that He abides in us, by the Spirit He has given us. ~John 3:24
I have no idea where it came from. It was in a box of knick knacks that I had collected as a little kid. Maybe I bought it in Rome? Maybe some other Divine force is at play and made sure to put it in my hand when I needed it? He abides in me. Even while I've been off pouting in a corner like a sullen little kid, I feel the warmth of His Love dropping around me like a soft blanket.
"There, there, little one. You're so tired that you're getting fussy. Come, have a snack and something to drink and lets have a cuddle to calm you."
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