Our life is part of something bigger than ourselves

On my walk through the neighborhood today I saw this.

Yes. We had happened upon a ‘jumper’. I pointed it out to the tall person and suggested that we try to talk it down. The tall person  told me that he had heard that some people talk to flowers and they do apparently respond.

Hmm. What do you say to a flower that has decided to end it all?

Then I remembered what Paramahansa Yogananda said, “Because God is Beauty, He created loveliness in flowers that they might speak of Him.  More than anything else in nature they hint at His presence.”

I relayed this message to the desperate flower.

We waited for a few moments and it didn’t move.  The tall person smiled and said that sometimes each of us needs to hear that we are valued and our life is part of something bigger than ourselves.

Have you ever looked at the sky and wondered?

Have you ever looked at the sky and wondered?

Well, on our walk through the neighborhood today the tall person and I looked up and instead of answers all we saw were more questions.

How wars start and snails get squashed

On my walk today I found a large snail halfway across the road.

Tall person said that it was lucky not to have been squashed by a car.

He picked it up and placed it gently on the grass verge.

I asked him why he had picked it up and he said that everything needs a helping hand sometimes. I thought about that for a few moments and then suggested to the tall person that the snail might not have wanted any help – it had already reached halfway across the road. Tall person smiled and said that knowing that the snail might have been squashed meant that he had an obligation to intervene.

I thought about that and suggested to the tall person that it might have been better to allow fate and free will to determine the snail’s destiny.

Tall person nodded and said that sometimes it is a judgment call but each of us knowingly or unwittingly changes the course of everyone and everything we meet and they change ours. Each life and its direction is determined by intervention.

We stood in silence for a while and then he said that the easiest and sometimes most difficult thing to do is to do nothing when you know you should intervene.

Ah, so that is how wars start and snails get squashed?

I knew there was no need for an answer as we turned and headed for home.

Michael Jordan would be proud!

“Obstacles don’t have to stop you. If you run into a wall, don’t turn around and give up. Figure out how to climb it, go through it, or work around it.”

~Michael Jordan~

On my walk today I saw how the builder of this wall had overcome this obstacle. Michael Jordan would be proud.

Doors to other worlds

I suppose each of us creates our own world and surrounds it with a wall or fence and guards its entrance with a door or gate.

I see glimpses of these worlds in my neighborhood where things join imperfectly or have decayed in time.

They are slivers of private worlds seen in the space between wood warped by the seasons of years.

Imperfect pieces of a jigsaw picture of a person’s life.

Sometimes a door opens as I walk by and I see inside.

And I see them look and I wonder if they know that they are glimpsing my world.

Which came first?

Yesterday the tall person and I were discussing causality dilemmas. He asked me “which came first, the chicken or the egg?” He said that this question evokes questions of how life and the universe began.

I thought about it for a while and suggested to the tall person that the question could be reformulated as: “Which came first, X that can’t come without Y, or Y that can’t come without X?”

He nodded in agreement.

On our walk today we found a little shop that had a tree in the middle of it.

Hmm, another example of a causality dilemma.

Which came first, the shop or the tree?

There are some things we can choose to share but…….

The tall person told me that the ancient Egyptians greeted the sun each morning with a ritual, part of which included the words, ‘May your rays illuminate the earth’. That sounds nice. I have my own ritual each morning. I usually wake before dawn and alert my pre-dawn companion (the tall person) that it is time to get up and let me outside so that I can ‘water the earth’. I then go to the toy room balcony and watch the sunrise. I usually perform this part of the ritual alone because the tall person has his own dawn ritual that involves a cup of strong black coffee.

Today was a little different. I waited on the balcony and watched as the sky got lighter but I couldn’t see the sunrise because the sky was cloudy.

The tall person assured me that the sun did rise but we couldn’t see it because of the clouds. He told me that the sun is always shining but sometimes we can’t see it because of the clouds. Ok, I have seen a cloud cover the sun during the day and noticed it was still there when the cloud drifted away but where does the sun go at night? The tall person smiled and told me that at night the Earth has its back to the sun. He explained that all the people and plants and animals in our world have to share the sun’s light and warmth so the Earth turns slowly and when it is dawn for us it is sunset for people and plants and animals on the other side of the world.

Ah, I think I understand. There are some things that we can choose to share but darkness and light is shared by everyone. ‘Yes’ he replied, ‘if you understand this you will accept that the sun cannot always shine for you and you have to share the darkness but you will also know that darkness will turn to light’.

Hmm, I think there was a deeper message here but it’s time for a nap!