Sandcastles As I walked along the pathway in the park….I noticed I was thinking about what I could do to make the walk as productive as possible…I also became aware of feelings of discomfort and guilt for doing something as meaningless as walking…old programming from the world I grew up in….telling me I always had to be “doing” something…working at something…producing something….like Martha and Mary ….I was used to feeling that sitting at life’s feet listening in was a sin….that to be living I had to be in the midst of some sort of action….used to making…..forcing a living by accumulating things…rather than letting myself live and allowing life to bring things to me. Work was not supposed to be enjoyed work was hard….…I took pride in working hard…..Smiling at work meant one was goofing off….it raised suspicion in others If one wasn’t stressed out…angry….and complaining about how hard work was…. I never really understood why some practitioners of Zen would make elaborate patterns in gardens of gravel then destroy them…. But I am beginning to understand….that maybe it is to learn to do things for no other reason than to live….to not hold dearly the things we create that fade into dust with time….but rather be there…live in the making of them…and not to hold to them as life itself…. We build sandcastles….simply to make them…not to impress….not to boast and brag on….not to make shrines or holy places of them….we build them and then kick them down…..it’s totally irrational behavior…. But we enjoy the doing of it….Its considered childish behavior yet Jesus told us to become like little children….not knowing any better than to take joy in living life in the present moment. When we see our daily labor as building sandcastles…which is what most of it amounts to….we do not have to make business such serious business….Life goes on throughout the day building sandcastles it needs not cease…..it does not end at the start of work and begin at the end of the work day…...if we stay aware of the nature of what we are creating….sandcastles. Life is not what we “make” of it….what we force it to be….life is what we allow it to be…you cannot “make” something live…you can only allow it to live and create conditions that make living favorable….by supplying an environment of love.…hope….faith…..the soil…..the sun….the rain that bring life to things….that bring “things” to life. If we want to bring life to our work we must bring to work with us the things that bring our work to life…..we must bring with us the soil…the sun....the rain to allow our work to grow into a living work…. Then we need not work for a living….nor live to work….work comes out of the living…rather than the living out of the work. Our works become the works of Christ himself….and work becomes something miraculous…. The work blossoms forth like a rose in the morning sun…. May the grace and peace of our Lord Jesus Christ be multiplied unto you as you continue to walk in awareness of his presence in the present moment Selah
Posted on: Mon, 12 Aug 2013 20:20:40 +0000
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