Sputtering
I started today’s letter while standing in line at the grocery checkout.
The place was packed.
Surely I can jot something out, I thought.
I was going to tell you about a dream I had last night….
That I went to the grocery and everyone was pleasant, respectful and kind to one another.
I was going to tell you the dream came true!
And it did….
The trouble is I didn’t really have a dream about going to the grocery last night.
And, I value honesty.
So….
here is a bit of truth.
This morning I shared a call with a woman in Ireland, an Australian who lives in Hong Kong, and a woman who was traveling by train to her New York office. We discussed our values.
At the top of my values list is presence….
working to be right here
right now.
And wouldn’t you know I found three sources to support me?
In Anthony De Mello’s book Awakening, meditation 233 reads:
Visitors were always struck by the Master’s leisurely manner.
”I just don’t have the time to be in a hurry,” he would say.
In Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White, after Wilbur fails to build a web with a piece of Templeton’s dirty string, Charlotte tells Wilbur about the Queensborough Bridge, comparing it to men building a web.
“What do people catch in the Queensborough Bridge—bugs?” asked Wilbur.
“No,” said Charlotte. “They don’t catch anything. They just keep trotting back and forth across the bridge thinking there is something better on the other side. If they’d hang head-down at the top of the thing and wait quietly, maybe something good would come along. But no—with men it’s rush, rush, rush, every minute. I’m glad I’m a sedentary spider.”
And finally, a quote from Canadian physician William Osler:
Live neither in the past nor in the future, but let each day’s work absorb your entire energies, and satisfy your widest ambition.
Do you value presence?
Can you find presence in the midst of activity?
I’m still a work in progress….