Be ~ Here ~ Now
Happy Wednesday TSJ Peeps!
Here is offering you three simple words to etch into your heart for whenever you need them. I will explain in a moment the story that brings them to you. Today is a Solomon day.
I confess I very often write about stillness, living in the now, knowingness vs. knowledge, trusting vs. worrying, progress vs. perfection. I think that means these are things I most need to learn. So over and over I try new strategies, find new simple reminder-type phrases, experience new challenges to help me learn.
Imagination is helpful and a wonderful gift given to us Planet Earth peeps. And at TSJ that is where Solomon (stuffed as he is) and his legacy bearer who is small but equally stuffed (SJ) come in.
Solomon has achieved a measure of wisdom and SJ who is a bit lopsided but equally cute and lovable, is wallowing in wonder. In other words, he is filled with questions, doubts, impatience, temptation, and daily troubles – most of which he brings on himself. Just like us.
Today is a Solomon answer to an SJ problem of thinking when he should be sleeping or even if he should be just enjoying his day’s adventures.
Todays’s story:
Thousands of us do this. We lie awake in the night and count how many hours we have left to get some sleep before the alarm goes off. In my generation, parents often told kids to “count sheep.” It has never worked for me but it is a good strategy.
That is the thing about strategies. None of them seem to work for everyone and very few work flawlessly all the time. But they are still useful!
One sleepless night this week I came up with a new-to-me strategy. (Certainly the concept is everywhere.) It was one of those long nights. I was not even particularly worried or anxious. My brain was simply “on.”
And my busy brain needed sleep. My brain even told me that. But it could not put itself to sleep. It was too busy thinking.
And you cannot think sleep. You can only experience sleep.
You cannot think stillness or peace or even love. You have to experience them.
You cannot “think” experience.
That is where the deceptiveness of our brain steps in. We think we are experiencing whatever crosses our mental image and we do relive emotions that way sometimes. But that is still imagined and removed from the purity of this new moment we are in!
I was thinking ahead. You can think ahead and there is a time for that. You cannot BE ahead.
I was thinking back. Again, you can think about your yesterday and you can even relive some of the feelings but you cannot BE in yesterday.
I was thinking about sleep. I even thought about God, peace, gratitude, hope, life, joy. Again, thinking about is different from the actual experience.
I turned and tossed.
Then it happened. Three words came to me like a message dropped in my mind’s mailbox.
BE~ HERE~ NOW
Immediately my attention came into my body and landed in my inner being all wrapped up in my physical body lying under the covers on the bed supporting me.
I whispered these words. First strongly and firmly. Then more and more slowly until the moment came I was sound asleep. Like Divine anesthesia.
When you are in a state of being here right now you can grab a moment of relief from looking back, thinking ahead, or pondering about. It is a brain break instead of a coffee break! Your whole being will thank you for it.
Picture yourself “picking up a few groceries” on your way to pick up your kids. There is no time for a friendly chat with anyone. Yet you bump into everyone. This is how we live during the day and our brain often does the same in the night hours.
So just for today, in the pastures of your life…. slowly tell yourself. ” be …. here … now.”
Perhaps this is what David, the shepherd, in the book of Psalms meant when he said “Be still …. and know….I am God.” (Psalms 46:10)
Hmm. Ancient wisdom says what modern minds are learning. You cannot think “stillness” you have “to be there.” I is the way of “knowing.”
Playing in the pastures,
Margie and Solomon
