the Horizon

It’s Tuesday and you know what that means. Pretty soon, i’ll be visiting Nurse Amy and her buddies to get my weekly infusion of life juice. I’ve decided to quit thinking of it as poison, because it puts my head in a bad place. Thanks to these cocktails Dr. W has come up with I sit here typing 16 months after getting a death sentence. I think that’s pretty cool actually.
Attitude. Seems to be the flavoring that gives everything it’s taste. Mine was horrible last week at this time, and it showed. Nurse Amy had to call me out and beat me up a bit. She ended up typing a little verse of sacred writ on a piece of paper and laminating it for me so  I could carry it with me. It says essentially: “Do not be anxious about anything … and the peace of God which transcends all understanding, will guard your heart … ” Good stuff.
I had a book recommended to me by Zen Master Dae Gak this past week. It’s titled “Search for the Meaning of life; Essays and reflections on Mysticism”. Written by Willigis Jager, a German Catholic priest it is a treatise on seeing beyond our normal line of sight. I am only about three chapters into it, but am really impressed. Here’s how he starts chapter one: “Everyday human consciousness may be compared to a passenger on a ship. the passenger can see only as far as the horizon. But what lies beyond the horizon is greater and mightier by far than everything in front of it”. Sometimes one sentence has the ability to sum up what some of us have been struggling to say with paragraphs. This was one of those sentences for me. We have so much all around us that is not visible to us. What is required to “see” is a heart that is still and open. The open heart is simply a matter of making a choice and saying to the Universe/God, “open my heart and fill it with love today”. The stillness is something that does have to be worked on. Do you have a place where you can sit quietly for five or ten minutes a day. Perhaps with a cup of hot tea. A place where you can hear life and all it’s richness around you? If you don’t I hope and pray  you will create such a place and find the time every day to sit and listen.

Thanks for listening.

One thought on “the Horizon

  1. Your courage and attitude in the face of this insidious demon, cancer, is an inspiration to us all. Thank you.

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