This week I spent time preparing for a memorial service to celebrate the life on earth of a precious soul. This week I also joyously celebrated the birth of newborn babes. This week I shall spend time preparing the marriage ceremony for beloved friend. Each of these momentous experiences are enormous milestones of our soul.
As couples embark on the sacredness of marriage and become life partners before friends, family and all to witness, life shifts from the power of one to the connectedness of two souls for even greater creative power. The balancing and complementing of each other allows all the qualities of the Divine to be brought forth into full expression.
With the birth of babies, we experience the joy of giving life and the excitement of the possibilities for this new expression of God to move fully in the world. Encouraged by their inner guidance and supportive family, this precious new being brings all the qualities of God into their human manifestation. There are unlimited possibilities in that precious little baby.
As life in this human experience moves toward its end, we know that the eternal soul lives on and evolves to its next divine expression. Yet there are in the hearts of loved ones sadness in missing the comfort of the physical closeness of mother, father,wife, husband, grandmother and grandfather. In time, we return to peace and acceptance of knowing that we all shall one day journey from this form to the next.
These are seminal moments of life that profoundly get our attention. There are so many more moments of each day that are before us in great grandeur and come with the invitation for our engagement. Each of these moments of each day invites us to experience and appreciate God in expression as the birds, the trees, the flowers, the scents of nature, the sights and sounds of life. They call us to taste the richness of life and they call us to feel the presence of God in what seems to be the simplest manifestations. When was the last time you watched an insect at work? When did you take the time to watch the bees, the ants, the mosquitos or even the cockroaches? You may call them water bug or palmetto bug. Call them whatever you like but a cockroach by any other name is still a cockroach!
Kahlil Gibran says "for in the dew of the little things the heart finds its morning and is refreshed". While most people enjoy celebrating the milestones and "special" events of life, we needn't wait for a big momentous occasion. We might begin by being mindful of the precious gift enfolded in each moment. Simply noticing the breath can bring us to a sense of appreciation for the ease with which we breathe {on a day that the pollen count is in our favor}.
Pause with me, right here, right now and close your eyes. Allow images and thoughts to roll through your mind. Capture the first that causes you to smile. Hold that image. Allow that thought to be with you for one full minute. At the end of that minute go on about your day reminiscing of that image, that thought which caused the corners of your mouth to turn upward. Think often about the image that lightened your heart and perhaps your mood with a smile.
Take note in how easily you found a memory to bring you joy. As you go about your day, pause each and every hour at the very least, to notice something or someone around you that brings you joy, causes you to feel appreciation, or to simply notice your breath.
Upon practicing this for one week, I am certain you will be well on your way to noticing and celebrating the little things in life. I am certain you will see the sacred in each moment that happens between the coming and going in this world. I am confident that you will appreciate the smallest details of each day that happens between the biggest of life's moments.
For me, I am grateful to be present at the sacred times of people's lives be it marriages, birth into this world, or transition to the next adventure of a soul. I am grateful for the stillness, for the noise, for the sunrise, and the moon glow. I am grateful for the ants and the bees, beginnings and endings and everything in between. I am still searching for ways to be grateful for the cockroaches!
Please join me this Sunday as we step into May by visiting the women in the Bible. This Sunday we'll spend a little time with Jezebel! You know I'm saving a seat for you because it's never the same without you!
Blessings in the big and the little of life!