Category: Sunday Letters

The Compass

Let’s face it. We aren’t going to fix the world in our short days here. But we can contribute to its betterment by filling our days with the choices we make for goodness, hour by hour, in our own lives.

Inside us all, regardless of the form our beliefs take, is a compass that guides us toward the recognition of beauty, and goodness, and truth. We may not always succeed in following that guidance. We’re all too easily distracted by the promise of satisfaction of less worthy desires. We give in to anger and resentment, to the glitter and thrill of false gold and false gods. We grab at immediate satisfaction of passing desires instead of taking a more long-range view and aiming toward higher goals. We choose ease over effort.

But our inner compass continues to guide us nonetheless. Its light cannot be extinguished. And in that fact lies our hope.

I may have fallen short of my ideals today. But the ideals themselves survive. And at every moment, I am free to choose to make choices more in alignment with them. Even when I don’t feel like it. Even when I’m tired, and worn, and discouraged or depressed. And something in me knows, absolutely knows, that choosing the thoughts, the words, and the deeds toward which my inner compass points will bring me deeper satisfaction and more joy than persisting in my mistaken ways.

I can choose to act with kindness and respect even when I am awash with irritation or disgust. And doing so will shift things. It will expand my capacity for patience and open me to the possibilities for compassion, and forgiveness, for friendship, for love.

As it to prove my point, the outer world suddenly throws my train of thought off the tracks. Interruptions are the greatest enemy of the writer I once heard a fellow author say. They can make you want to pull your hair out.

I decide to take a break to gather my thoughts and to walk outside to greet the beauty of this mild spring day. Tulips and a daffodil are blooming in my garden, and wildflowers grace the hill. I stoop to take photos of them and of the unfurling ferns. Then I return to my laptop, a fresh cup of coffee at my side, and begin to focus. Before I can type a single word, I become aware of a slight tingling on my upper arm. It’s a tick, burrowing into my flesh. I race to find the cedar oil to spray on it, causing it to back out, and the tweezers to remove it.

I notice a wave of anger and resentment rising in me. The toxicity of the ticks we have here is, my research has led me to believe, man-made, much like the strain of virus that has set the whole world into a tizzy. The evils we face are horrendous and pervasive. As you become aware of them, it’s tempting to sink into despair. But that would be a surrender to them. And as a committed Joy Warrior, I refuse to allow them to win.

As I return to my writing, I pause for one last glimpse out the window. The chipmunk has come to eat the walnut meats that I set out for him on my walk. Behind him, the growing leaves of the lilac bush dance in a gentle wind. I let myself drink in the loveliness of the scene and it acts as an elixir, extinguishing my anger, replacing it with an awareness of omnipresent grace.

It’s a choice. We can be conscious of the wrongs that assault us and rail against them. Or we can open ourselves to the abundance of goodness that surrounds us and find in it hope that we will yet overcome the forces of darkness. If we can do that, if we can look for the good, we can build on it. We can allow it to clarify our understanding of what nourishes life and decide to play our parts in furthering those things.

Each of us has our own unique role to play, our own unique set of weapons to use in the fight for goodness. It’s our job, our duty, to discover and develop our most suitable roles, to hone those strengths that are most suited to us individually. And we do that by attuning ourselves to the guidance of our inner compass and determining to follow it. Yours will likely be a wholly different role than mine. We need us all. We are in this battle together. And every choice that we make counts. Even the smallest, the ones we make moment-to-moment.

Be strong. Be determined not to give in. Be honest. Honor and respect the roles that others play. Do good wherever and however you can. Forgive yourself and others when we fall prey to the weaker sides of our nature, and lift each other up. Believe in our resiliency. Believe in your inner compass, and know that its name is Love. Then fight on, choice by choice. We’re counting on you.

Got a Minute?

Every now and then I like to pull a book from my shelves and see what’s waiting on the page to which I randomly open it. It’s a fun game, and more often than not, the words I find seem surprisingly relevant to whatever is going on in my thoughts or circumstances at the time.

On a whim, I did that today. And what I found was this little verse:

Life is just a minute
Only sixty seconds in it,
Forced upon you, can’t refuse it.
Didn’t seek it, didn’t choose it,
But it’s up to you to use it.
You must suffer if you lose it,
Give an account if you abuse it,
Just a tiny little minute,
But eternity is in it.

For those of us who are still spending our days closed in our homes, every minute just might feel as if it lasts for eternity! Somebody made a comment on social media this week that she felt she was living in the movie “Groundhog Day,” where every day was exactly like the one before.

But the truth is that every minute is wholly unique. Everything is constantly changing. And it is our choice how to view that minute, how to use it. Like our breath, it’s a precious gift. It’s a moment of our life, holding all life’s mystery and potential. And we are completely free to choose how we will spend it.

We can let it pass by without notice, our attention lost in dreams of moments past or in fantasies of moments yet to come. Or we can use it as a stepping stone that moves us closer to accomplishing a goal we have in mind. We can see it as an opportunity, a invitation to move in a new direction, a door opening to a future where we get to be exactly who we want to be.

We can see it as a vehicle to carry away what we no longer want or need–our sadness, our pain, our anger, our despair.

It’s so malleable, so open, so completely ready to be whatever we choose to make of it. Isn’t that absolutely amazing?

It’s easy to think that this minute must wear the colors of the moment that came before it, that it must continue the same line of thought, the same mood. But that simply isn’t true. This minute, this one we’re living in right now, is wholly subject to our will. We’re free to make of it anything we choose.

But not only are we free to do with it as we will, we’re responsible for how we will choose to use it.

We can choose to let it be a moment of clarity and excellence and purpose. We can use it to fuel ourselves, to give ourselves rest. We’re free to stand still in it and see its incredible beauty, or to dance in it, or to fill it with love and kindness or with laughter and joy.

We’re free to waste it, too. But don’t do that. A minute might seem like such a little thing. But you only get so many of them, you know? And you never know when the next one might be your last. Make ‘em count.