Good Morning TSJ Peeps!
It is Wednesday!
I am on the deck as I write this (with my helpers, Solomon and SJ) and SJ wanted me to take a picture and post it. He is fascinated with media pictures. Solomon – not so much. It is never his desire to be in the media spotlight. He just wants to quietly sit beside us and guide us, but SJ (like most of us) does not find “sitting quietly” very fun or easy. He is in training.
But we did spend wonderfully quiet moments this morning and feel renewed by them.
After all, on Wednesday here at TSJ we get help to claim our hearts back. They get so wrung out by life’s challenges sometimes.
We need midweek renewal! Most of you are familiar with the concept of Friday (usually) “happy hour” as a way to relax, forget, and transition to a space of fun, food, and friendship. As an introvert (who happens to love people) that has never been my favorite place to relax. But I really like the idea.
In fact, we all long for happiness, joy, contentment, love, and peace . . .
Our hearts yearn. But our minds burn and turn.
Our minds race to solve the next worry, prevent the next disaster, look for the next bigger “wow” of pleasure and success. All necessary for survival, it seems, but oh so deceptive and destructive to our happiness and peace of mind.
Most spiritual leaders agree that we basically experience varying degrees of two emotions: love and fear. In times of stress we try to straddle these states and get weary and confused.
Oddly, both of those words stimulate controversy. But I am using them as base-line states of being. Diving boards of thought, so to speak. I don’t mean lovey-dovey pie-in-the-sky superficial infatuations when I speak of love and I do not mean knee knocking trembling of fighting giants and trolls when I speak of fear.
Oh no. I mean everyday challenges. We, I believe, were born to love and be happy, to create and be successful in our own ways. It is the DNA of our souls.
What stops us? Life itself presents unspeakable challenges, for sure. It raises fear in all its insidious forms, such as fear of inadequacy, of loss, of not being known, understood, worthy of love. Anxiety is rampant these days.
So… we need guards or maybe even “bouncers” to keep Fear from invading our happy hour.
And from what Solomon seems to be teaching us, we already have them. Their names? Trust and Gratitude. They are heroes of the heart. And we all like hero stories. Heroes save the day, even our lives sometimes.
Before you roll your eyes with this “soft sounding” information, please give it a moment of thought wherever you are. No matter if you or a loved one is facing humiliation, loss, disease, difficulty in parenting, there are moments when you feel much more in tune with anxiety, worry, sleeplessness, obsessiveness, defensiveness and anger than with joy and peace. That is fear’s work.
Our minds create anxieties but our hearts know love, joy, and peace when the darkness of fear does not block the light.
Trust and Gratitude are like light switches in the dark. Remember you cannot turn on darkness with a switch. You cannot command it to go away. You can only replace it with light. Scientists cannot measure the speed of darkness because it is merely the absence of light. We can measure the speed of light.
Solomon says we have a Shepherd for all challenges. If you are feeling anxiety and lack (one form of fear) what helps the most is to stop, find something in this very moment to say “thank you” for and trust the Source of Love for this moment only.
It will lift your heart and spiritual eyes just long enough to help you find the next step more clearly.
The Shepherd is in the pasture. I am trusting it and thankful for this moment.
Playing in well guarded pastures, with love, trust, and gratitude,
Margie and Solomon
