A Brick in Disguise

You know those moments when you look around and feel grateful for your life. You have had them; we all have. People around you are struggling through big changes and yet your life seems tranquil and happy. You smile inside.

The thing is, it is just a matter of time before that tranquility and happiness you feel disappear into the abyss of change in your own life. Change always comes. It is the one constant. It cannot be avoided. It is the nature of the force that creates life. That force is fluid, not static. Things do not stay the same for long.

I had one of those moments recently, driving along in my tranquil, happy life when BAM! Change happened. What I imagined would be another nice experience on my long trail of "happy" turned out to be a brick in disguise. Not a dinky, reality check brick, but a huge, smack you hard on the head kind of brick; a send you reeling, give you a nasty concussion kind of brick. 

And when I awoke from my concussion, I realized it wasn't just one brick that hit me, but a whole truck load of them. Change happened. Life as I knew it will never be the same. I'm not completely surprised, given the energies of this Nine Fire Monkey year (see my Feb. 16th post). It all fits.

After years of building a deeply spiritual, more authentic relationship with myself and my life, much of it disintegrated before my eyes in a single moment of reaction. How can this be happening? I wondered, I've worked so hard. But it was happening; it did happen. Change happened. It always does.

Sometimes change feels good; great, even. But the brick that hit me did not. It was merely disguised as something good; great, even. And I trusted it. I fell for its disguise. I walked right into its path and practically asked it to smack me. 

It can be hard to recover from a smack like that. I find myself struggling to understand it, asking the useless "Why?" questions. I will not find any answers; not now. It is too soon. The bricks and I are still rolling through the dirt, kicking up dust. Answers won't come until the dust settles, if they come at all. 

In the meantime, I find a bit of comfort in two things I believe: 

1) that everything happens for a reason, and 

2) that the Divine Source from which we come always works with us and never against us. 

These two beliefs are my lifeline of hope; my breadcrumbs back to a tranquil, happy life. We hear the first - that everything happens for a reason - often during difficult times, but do we really know what it means? 

The way I understand it is this: Everything happens for a reason, and the reason is so a higher purpose or good can be realized. We have the opportunity to evolve as Human Beings and perhaps even as Souls while we are here. The experiences we have in life provide those opportunities, if we take them. Despite how they feel to us, every experience is an opportunity for a higher purpose, a higher good, to be realized. And even as I grow through the comfortable experiences, I seem to grow more through the uncomfortable ones.

Just because an experience feels uncomfortable does not mean it is moving us in the wrong direction. Quite the contrary. We tend to get complacent in our comfort. Forgetting is easy when we are comfortable. We might even get smug about it.

But when we are uncomfortable, we tend to wake up and pay attention. We examine what is happening more closely; we want to ease the discomfort. We come back into ourselves and our lives more fully. We reconnect with our sense of humanity and compassion. 

If we are willing to embrace the discomfort, we return to a state of humility, surrender and openness to that which is greater than ourselves. We ultimately find the illumination of our own Being. This is a good thing...and worth every bit of the discomfort.

It is easier to find the willingness when I remember the Divine Source always works with us and never against us. Believing this allows me to rest into the notion that we are held and guided by something much greater than ourselves. We are never truly alone, for the loving, Divine Source always has our back, gently nudging us (or giving us a powerful smack in the head) toward the evolution of our Soul. 

You can believe whatever you want. This is just what I believe, recognizing that it is not only our triumphs but our struggles that pave the road, brick by brick, to our most evolved Self. It is my mission to grow as much as I can while here because I haven't resolved the issue of life, death or reincarnation for myself. I would rather take full advantage than realize later that I missed a precious opportunity because I was too arrogant to consider it. 

In the end, the bricks in disguise that smack us upside the head aren't such a bad thing, although they are uncomfortable. They may be exactly what we need to catapult us into a higher level of Being. We have to deal with them one way or another. I choose the high road. I choose to embrace the discomfort and use it as a gateway to the illumination of my Being. 

Anyway, my tranquil, happy life will return soon enough because one thing is for certain: change happens.

Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness

This 4th of July got me to thinking: What does it mean to be patriotic?

Everyone has their opinion. Here is mine (and that is all it is - my opinion. Opinions are not necessarily agreed upon by everyone and everyone has a right to their opinions...):

A patriot is defined as: "a person who is devoted to and ready to support or defend his or her country." Being patriotic, then, could mean your intentions are aligned with the support and defense of your country.

I was born and raised in Texas. I love this country for many, many reasons. It is beautiful. Its borders are open (mostly) to people from anywhere on the globe. It strives to offer its citizens "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." I interpret those founding words of the US Constitution to mean 1) you won't be killed for your beliefs, 2) you have a right to freedom, to live outside of captivity and 3) you can pursue things that enable you to feel positive about yourself and your life. Of course, "you" means every single person who lives here, not just some people who live here...and that is where my patriotic feelings start to waver.

As an example, consider this: Just one week ago, many Americans celebrated the US Supreme Court's epic decision to allow same-sex couples to legally marry. I would say this decision upholds all three basic Constitutional rights, yet there are also many American citizens who are outraged and feel imposed upon by it.

While I understand not every person is homosexual, it is also true that not every person is  heterosexual. To uphold America's basic Constitutional rights, all citizens - whether heterosexual or homosexual or someone in between - must be free to live the life that is most aligned with their truth, period. Setting up protections to make sure that happens equally for every American citizen does not mean anything is taken away from anyone else. It means that to honor the founding principle of "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" in America, what one citizen has access to, all citizens have access to.

To allow one group of citizens to enjoy certain rights and privileges but disallow other groups of citizens those same rights and privileges is called discrimination (i.e, "unfavorable treatment based on prejudice") in this country. And rightly so.

Historically, we've had a lot of that going on around here. And it persists today. Just listen to any right-wing, conservative radio talk show and you will find yourself blasted with all kinds of discriminatory ranting. The interesting thing about these shows is that most of what is said is not based in truth or fact. Instead, information is distorted and manipulated into conspiracy theories of amazing sorts and spun into political and violent outcries in the name of patriotism.

Patriotism...really? Let us not confuse patriotism with an aggressive fear of losing (sharing, really) what all citizens in America have a right to and are striving for. You guessed it: life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.