If gratitude is the heart-beat of honest spirituality, do you know spiritual CPR?

I do not doubt gratitude is at the heart of human well-being.  Personal well-being.  And the well-being of the Earth. 

Fear, anger, greed, grief, regret, guilt, anxiety, despair and a host of other negative emotions are all possible, and often reasonable and understandable responses to the events and circumstances of any given day.  All of these feelings, though, when we give them power and let them control our heart and mind, and our relationships and actions, are antithetical to happiness -- both our own happiness and the happiness of others.  

Gratitude, though, if we choose it as our spiritual home, our default mode, and our conscious base to which we always return, is key to our emotional and spiritual well-being, and our ability to live in ways that serve the well-being of others and of the Earth.

I wonder, though, how real gratitude is nurtured and maintained.  The kind of gratitude that is not just a response to good fortune and blessing ("Gee, thanks!  You shouldn't have.  But I'm so glad you did!  I'm really so blessed!), but is a choice to see and to celebrate the constant blessing in and of life itself, no matter what.

We all have heard or read stories of people who live with that kind of gratitude -- the cancer patient who lives with deep and joy-filled thanks for each day, a person who hits bottom and gives honest thanks for the landing, someone living in third-world poverty who at the drop of a hat shares and gives away all they have just for the joy of it.  

I assume that's kind of what gratitude looks like.

I also know it's not always the story of me.  Not what I see every day when I look in the mirror.  More often than is good for me, what I see there are some of those other things.  Yeah, I mean fear, anxiety, insecurity, lack of trust, anger ... do you really need me to name more?

So I wonder, if gratitude is the heart of real human being, of honest spirituality, and of sustained well-being for myself and others around me, what kind of CPR can I perform to kick-start my heart?  

What do you do, if you ever feel a need to live a little more gratefully?  What are some of your ways to revive your heart-beat of deep gratitude?

A (Home) Sense of Sabbath

Earlier this spring I had occasion to visit a nearby Home Sense store twice in a weekend.  On Saturday to make a purchase, and then on Sunday to return it.

We were looking for a shade to match a lamp we bought shadeless years ago at a discount emporium.  We pulled it down from the attic and wanted to use it, so we were scouring stores to find a shade that would "work."  It wasn't easy.  Especially because the only way really to know was to buy one (or more typically a few), bring them home to try them out, and then return them for refund as we continued to find out how incompatible a lamp we had bought.

Saturday when I bought two shades at Home Sense, I was surprised how empty were both the parking lot and the store.  Two or three cars in the lot, counting mine, and three clerks on staff to handle the three customers, counting me, who were meandering around the store.  I wondered how they could stay in business.

Until I returned Sunday on my way home from worship to return the shades.

The parking lot was full.  As was the store.  I couldn't count the number of people in the store.  Not exactly an "innumerable multitude" but a lot of people.  People strolling the aisles, surveying what was on display and available for purchase to meet any imaginable household need or whim.  Some with shopping carts already brimming with treasures found.  Others with hand baskets similarly laden.  Others still just looking.  And you could tell that for many, just looking would be enough.

It was reassuring for all, I think, just to be able to see the bounty that was available.  The needs that could be met.  The things that could be purchased at reasonable cost to make their house a home, and their home a haven.  Or a heaven.

The tip-off for me about what was going on here came as I stood in line in the cordoned-off check-out area, waiting to return my purchase and be given my refund.  It was a long line.  Even though all cash counters were staffed, it was also slow because of the number of things people were buying, the nature of some of the transactions, and the amount of easy conversation being exchanged between cashiers and customers.  And ... in spite of all this, in the face of all this, no one seemed impatient at all!

All seemed content and happy.  All seemed at ease and at rest.  Just grateful to be in a place like this, and be able to rest in the reassurance of abundance available from somewhere beyond themselves, but for themselves when needed or wanted.

In other words, it was an experience of sabbath rest.  And something in the hearts and spirits and bodies of those people in Home Sense that day knew it, even if they may not have known or accepted that language for it.  

No wonder they came here on a Sunday.  Perhaps human beings long for sabbath rest, even when we resist or feel we have moved beyond "religion" and "church" and boring, pointless things like "worship."  Perhaps even after we leave behind our more traditional sabbath practice of weekly worship, we still need something like it.  Something to reassure us that life is still good, that we are taken care of, that abundance is true, that what we most need is given for us, and that we can take home and take to heart what we need.  Even if it is just a new set of towels and linens, or that delightful ornament, or a new magic blender.  Or that one perfect lamp shade.

I just wonder, though.  

Lately I have also been spending a little more time than usual at the bedsides of people living with cancer and in the living rooms of people whose life partner has died.  And I wonder what Home Sense might have to offer to them?

Vacationing (or praying?) at the Metro

A month or so ago as Japhia and I began our vacation (now over for a few days already), I felt anxious about it.  We had one week planned at a cottage which we knew would be thoroughly restful and vacation-ish.  But I worried about the rest of the time, the three weeks in total we would have at home.

My anxieties were heightened by an article I read about that same time about how to make stay-cations into real va-cations.  It talked about things like finding a theme, planning outings you normally don't take time for, not letting the time just slip by, having an intentional and refreshing rhythm to the days rather than random-ness, and so on.

It sounded like a bit of work, but the kind of preparatory work that would pay off in vacation benefits and keep me from returning to work wondering where the vacation went and why don't I feel like I've even been away.  Not unlike the kind of prep work we accept as necessary to a good, refreshing and sustaining prayer life.  Because vacation time and prayer time have at least this much in common -- that both are a sustained step away from normal, active life that are meant to help us return to normal life refreshed, renewed and deepened in our appreciation of the world and our life within it.

I was worried, though, because we didn't have a stay-cation theme (and I didn't think Japhia was too interested in finding one).  Nor apart from the week at the cottage did I expect we would take any uncommon outings.  I worried that letting time flow by languidly like the Lazy River that meanders through every water park on the continent, would waste the vacation.  And as the vacation unfolded I wasn't sure that the rhythm we were finding -- of waking whenever, then easing our way through each day with light meals, reading (one book in particular we got entirely wrapped up in is The Last Resort by Toronto-based author Marissa Stapley), and napping would be as refreshing and renewing as I thought I needed.

Silly me.

It was wonderful. 

And one of the more wonderful parts of the whole month away?

It was the week or more at home when every day we would make a little trip together to the Dundas Metro to pick up a few things we wanted for a meal that day, or as treats for grand-kids who were coming over, and how every day we were there -- 5 or 6 days in a row, we would go through Val's cash line.  Not my sister Val, but someone as warm and personable.  

We have been served by Val for years at our Metro. But it wasn't until we ran into her in the Emergency Room at St. Joe's one night a couple of years ago -- she there with her married son and us there with Japhia's gastroparesis, that we really connected.  Since then, even though there are four or five cashiers we really like and look forward to chatting with when we're at the Metro, we now feel a special connection with Val as she seems to with us.

So it was nice when on our vacation, the first day we went to the Metro for a few little things, Val was the cashier whose line was the shortest, and we got to talk vacation stuff with her as she checked through our purchases.  The next day she was there again, and again with the shortest line.  The third day, there again but with one of the longer lines.  No worries, though.  We were on vacation so we took a spot at the end of her line and waited the extra time just to have a few-minutes chat with our friend as we settled up with the store.  And so it went for the whole week, until Val began her own vacation and we knew she would be away from work for a while.

And it's thus that a real stay-cation happened.  That we found a theme -- chatting daily and connecting with Val.  That we did something we normally don't -- went to buy groceries together, in little bits, one day at a time.  That instead of just enduring the time in the check-out line as wasted or dead, we made it a gift.  That we saw our ordinary world with new eyes, and felt a little heart-beat of delight as part of each day that week.

Great vacation.  Refreshing, renewing and deepening.  

We didn't plan it, or give it a lot of thought. 

It was just a matter of being open to, and aware of what and who was there.  And letting ourselves be both grateful for it, and intentional about it.

Kind of like prayer.

Namaste for the way

Vacation is almost over.  I could get used to this.  And as usual I figure it shouldn't be that hard to maintain -- or at least to make room for, this experience of rest, peace and openness to the present moment even when I'm back at work.

I wonder how (maybe even, if) others do it?  Maintain some practice of restful sabbath in their routine, workaday life?

Unlike last year, this year we made it to the cottage.  Thank you, John and Judy for your continuing generosity.  It was a thoroughly peace-ful week.  Japhia calls the place God-kissed, and that means a lot coming from her. 

For me, a great gift of the week was the opportunity to visit the Tisarana Buddhist monastery featured in a recent issue of Broadview (the new incarnation of what used to be The Observer) as one of ten "spiritual road trips" worth taking in Canada this summer.  When I saw it and noticed the monastery was just a little over an hour from Varty Lake -- just a few kilometres south of Perth, and that they welcomed day visitors, I knew I would get there.

Online I learned that Saturdays at 1:30 they host a Public Meditation, described as an hour-and-a-half to two hours that begins with chanting, then 45 minutes of meditation, followed by a talk and a time for Q/A.  So Saturday morning I looked at the maps, wrote down directions to help navigate the backroads I would have to take, checked one last time that Japhia didn't want to go and was okay with me leaving her at the cottage for the better part of the day, thanked her for the lunch she made for me to eat on the way, and I set out.

Twice along the way I lost the route.  The first time I just flat out missed the sign for the road I needed to take.  The second time the roads themselves had been changed from whenever the directions were posted, so a turn I needed to make wasn't where and how I was told it would be.  So twice I drove for a ways in a wrong direction, turned around when I realized it, and asked for help (can you believe it?) from strangers to find the way again.

The first time even after asking I almost decided to go in exactly the opposite direction I was advised.  Even though I was in unfamiliar territory I thought I knew better because -- oh, it pains me to admit this level of Western white bias! -- the man advising me was a Korean convenience store owner who spoke broken English.  The second time -- yeah, you guessed it! -- the advice came from a young, tanned, blond, White man who I listened to readily.  Both knew the territory better than me.  Thankfully I asked for help and, regardless of bias and prejudice, accepted it from both.

And isn't that the way?  

And isn't the way more important in the end than the destination itself?  The choosing of it, the losing of it, and the continual re-finding of it in ways we don't expect, with the help of strangers, over and over again?  And, just as important, knowing peace and gratitude in, in spite of, and because of each present moment of the journey, no matter how we might feel about it?

Which is exactly, of course, something that Buddhist awareness, mindful meditation, and the life of faith are all about.  

As I was reminded of, in the Public Meditation at the monastery which, by the way, I reached with time enough to spare.

Neighbourhood break-ins lead to locked doors. Opened doors lead to ...

The back door is open right now.

The cool gathering damp of the June evening creeps into the kitchen.

From a chair at the table just to the right of the door I look out onto the back deck.  

Two chairs and a small glass table nestle into a corner of the railing that surrounds the upper level of the deck.  

A row of Rose-of-Sharons rises like a wall behind the chairs and the railing, and already is threatening to make a twisted mockery of the chain link fence that separates ours from our neighbours' yard.  A separation now more conceded and softened by the spreading Rose of Sharon wall, than enforced by the symmetric geometric wire of the fence.

And beyond that greening growth between growing friends, at increasing distance stand the taller and rising maples and pines and other trees anonymous to me growing up and covering the escarpment face.

Birds sing their evening songs.  Last chirrups and lilting chants in advance of night that soon shall come with its silences. 

Crickets offer their own sweet endless chorus.  Dogs bark.  Some near; others far off in the slowly darkening distance.  

Such a soothing calming backdrop to my sitting here and writing.  Sitting here and savouring.

Or is all this not backdrop at all?  Is maybe Earth and its seasons and its creatures and its unending daily and nightly play of light and shade and sound and song and silence rising and falling without end really maybe the main show?  The headline act?  Centre stage?  The real thing for which all else is secondary and meant to be only complementary?  And complimentary?

And am I, sitting at a table beside and inside an opened door, a mere passing observer?  A witness quickly passing and surpassed?  Simply grateful for this moment to see and hear and know the glory that is.  That always has been.  That always will be.

Even apart from me.  Continuing even after I close the door.

And (oh, is this the grace?) always willing to welcome me back into awareness the next time and the next time and the next time after that, too, that I open it.

Lookin' for that backward walk

(Ok, it's already Thursday where I am; is it still Wednesday anywhere?)

If only we could live all our life with the clarity that comes at the end.

Last week in the two-part finale to The Big Bang Theory as Sheldon finally reached the end of his quest -- a Nobel Prize in Physics, he also came to an epiphany about what was the real strength and meaning of his life.  Not the singular achievement of greatness and everyone's recognition of his unique superiority; but rather the unwarranted acceptance and tolerance of his friends, and the deep unbreakable bond of love and mutual care that had quietly, persistently grown among them, him included.  Rather than feeling entitled, he knew he was indebted.  Instead of feeling rightfully congratulated, he felt deeply grateful.

A clarity of life worth living into.

A few days before that finale, I heard of the death by suicide, almost exactly a year ago, of Scott Hutchison, founding member, lead singer and primary song-writer of the indie Scottish band Frightened Rabbit.  I liked the band from the first time I heard their music -- archetypically moody, Scottish-depressive, self-deprecating.  I felt especially connected with them after Aaron and I saw them at The Horseshoe Tavern in TO maybe ten years ago when they were touring their disc, "The Midnight Organ Fight."

I was not surprised to hear Scott struggled with depression and a sense of inner bleakness.  The news of his death shocked and deeply saddened me, but didn't surprise me.  What most caught me, though, was the two texts or tweets he sent his bandmates and other friends on his way from the pub the night of his death:  "Be so good to everyone you love.  It’s not a given.  I’m so annoyed that it’s not.  I didn’t live by that standard and it kills me.  Please, hug your loved ones" and "I’m away now. Thanks."

A clarity of life worth living into.

If only we could live backward from what we know at the end.  

Or, I wonder, do we really already kind of know what we will know then, and sometimes just don't (or can't) find the courage (or whatever it is) we need to be able to live into it?

Scott, RIP.

Fluxxed!

I thought it was Life that  I liked.

I was wrong, though.  When I googled it, it turns out it was just Careers.  

One of the websites did offer the comment, though,"if only real life was as simple as the game of careers."  Maybe I'm not the only one who has ever confused the two.

Careers was a board game we played as kids.  Success was measured by achieving levels of fame, money and happiness that each player decided for themselves.  Winning was being the first to achieve your own goals.  And everyone played on the same board by the same rules.

We played it a lot.  And enjoyed it, no matter who won.  Kind of like life.

But this past Saturday I played a new game.  My sister and brother-in-law and their son Sean -- our nephew, were over for dinner.  We were celebrating both Jim's and my 65th birthdays, which seemed far less a milestone than we had thought they would be.  Both of us are still working full-time for a few years yet because life and careers haven't turned out quite like we were taught they would -- like they did in the old days.

The game was Fluxx -- a card game Sean gave me a few Christmases ago, that it turns out I had not yet even opened, but that he and his friends enjoy playing.

The game is chaos.  I found out the only unchanging rule is you play the cards you hold in your hand.  Beyond that?  It's anyone's guess.

The cards are of four types -- Actions you can take, Goals you can put on the table for all to have to achieve, Keepers that help you achieve a goal, and Rules you also put on the table that become binding for all players as soon as you put them there.  Within the four categories, every card is unique.  And sometimes odd and irrational.

The result as people play is unsettling.  Both the goal of the game and what you need to achieve it constantly change.  The actions you can take at any time are random, limited and sometimes unhelpful.  The rules of the game are never set and are constantly being changed, added to, manipulated, and even erased by other players.  Which means at almost every stage along the way you have no way of knowing really how close or far you are from achieving anything like success.  Kind of like life.

No wonder it's called Fluxx.  

I can think of other names for it as well.  Including a few I can't mention here.  But maybe also including Life.  And Careers.  At least as we experience these things today.

Sean really liked it, though.  He did well.  In the end he won with an amazing, complex play of the ten or twelve cards he had amassed in his hand that in a sequence of plays he used to change the goals, rewrite the rules in his favour, make good use of his keepers, and make him the winner.  

He not only survived the game's intentional chaos, he revelled and excelled in it.  I, on the other hand, had by that time already emotionally checked out. I was exhausted by the chaos.    

I used to like Careers.  I probably used to like Life as well.

But I also find myself wanting to play Fluxx again.  

I wonder if I might get better at it.  I wonder if it might be therapeutic.  Somehow healing, to learn to play well the cards I have in my hand.  As unique, odd and irrational as they may be.