Rummaging for You...

Lord,

   How is it that when I lift my eyes to you

   so often all I see is that splat of daily chaos... 

   my old kitchen, my trusted utensils, the gas stove, the baking grill.

I want to do glorious deeds –

 but now I have to iron white shirts, water my garden, polish my shoes, struggle with my laundry  

 and boil my daily oatmeal.

I want to be a saint today – one of the architects of your good world—

 but you know my story better than anyone else,

 and I am considerably less than a saint.

And yet somehow, the most honest meditation I have had with you is happening over this ironing board... 

   this honest sort of meditation can be stirred into a perfect ironed shirt... 

   or a rummaging for You !  

I don’t really see visions or see you in the sky... yet I am aware of thy nearness.

   as cool water drip from my garden hose over my geraniums,

                                           they gently whisper your warmth!

I don’t really have to achieve saintliness to know your love...

    I don’t really have to be someone I am not.

Help me worship you the way I know...

Help me worship you in my garden, in my kitchen, in my study,

                                   in all my going outs and in all my coming ins. 

So be it Lord!

***

The Connect..

 For kits, it is a thread that connects itself to someone,                   who keeps them afloat. Without that connection,                                                kits are lost and doomed.

   How about me? Which is the thread that keeps me afloat? 

***

My blessings... my smiles.

One of the saddest aspects of modern living is that we forget to count the daily blessings that we receive. Claiming our blessedness is an art. I have always felt the great energy and peace that flows into me, when I tell myself that I am blessed... when I confess my blessings... when I accept who I am and see the positive aspect of myself.

The endless distractions of modern living, the fastness of the financial world, the stocks and the investments, the philately and many things that follow me have really set forth a voice that has become a noise in me. Then comes the importance of caring the family, the home and the social living... this too is a calling from which I can never walk past. Yet, the trick is to keep them beside me and walk life with a deep realisation of myself.

There is a problem with modern living: we are too busy to realise that we are blessed... that we are being blessed. To hear the blessings ring around us is to keep a conscious eye on the good things that follow us daily. It doesn’t mean that I go around closing my eyes and believing that the world is all goodness. No! It does mean that I believe in goodness and that goodness has overshadowed the effects of evil in my daily living.

The fun is that blessings need not be invented. They are there... all around us. We need to only remain conscious of it. The omnipresent God, in His Grace and Mercy has overflowed the universe that He has created. Can we realise it? The beautiful buildings, the architecture, the sculpture, music, trees, beaches and the mountains are some of the places where we must discover the blessings that God has freely given. These gentle reminders tell us of God who has called us by name and has asked us to remain blessed. The Holy Bible says that God knows every line drawn on my open palm.    

So, I accept my blessings today and I’ll try to walk conscious of myself and the world around me... conscious of my breath... conscious of my steps... conscious of my words and conscious of my smiles. 

***

Permanent ?

“Suicide is a permanent solution                                        for a temporary problem”

 ( As I reflected on this, the T-shirt clad youth with this message on his garb just rushed away into the crowd. )

 

To walk...!

One of the most noticeable milestones in the growth of a child is as he takes his first step. His mother and father will never forget that moment. Today’s parents can photograph those precious moments of their child and cherish it for a lifetime.

Treks are my 'master walks' 

Walking is the most normal means of human movement. Many of us will never master this. With today’s means of transport and commuting, we never do a walking that we appreciate. For me, my treks are the grandest walking that I accomplish. Many see trek as an adventure. However, I go beyond... treks are mindful walking that takes me to distant places. In a long trek, though sometimes the feet ache, still the simple act of placing each step and pushing forward is an absolute joy. The tranquillity of the great mountains, the cool clean air, the occasional sight of birds, the autumn leaves and the peace that is available in each step is trek all about.  

As a child, I loved strolling through  the beach, leaving my footprints on the sands. Then I will wait for the surf to come and wash them away.  I enjoy such acts even today. Growing up hasn’t taken away those joys from me.

Recently, I was reading a 'walk' poem written by contemporary Buddhist writer, Thich Nhat Hanh, that left me thinking:

Take my hand.

We will walk.

We will only walk

without thinking of arriving anywhere.

Walk peacefully.

Walk happily.

Our walk is a peace walk.

Our walk is a happiness walk.

Then we learn

that there is no peace walk;

That peace is the walk;

That there is no happiness walk;

That happiness is the walk.

We walk for ourselves.

We walk for everyone

always hand in hand.

Walk and touch peace every moment.

Walk and touch happiness every moment.

Each step brings a fresh breeze.

Each step makes a flower bloom under our feet.

Kiss the Earth with your feet.

Print on Earth your love and happiness.

Earth will be safe 

when we feel in us enough safety.


***


Photos from Hampta Trek, Himalayas and  from the beach.


***

Values...

Once a man unearthed in his field a marble statue of great beauty. And he took it to a collector who loved all beautiful things and offered it to him for sale, and the collector bought it for a large price. And they parted.

And as the man walked home with his money he thought, and he said to himself, “How much life this money means! How can anyone give all this for a dead carved stone buried and undreamed of in the earth for a thousand years?”

And now the collector was looking at his statue, and he was thinking, and he said to himself, “What beauty! What life! The dream of what a soul! – and fresh with the sweet sleep of a thousand years. How can anyone give all this for money, dead and dreamless?” 

                                                                                                                            .... Kahlil Gibran 

To leave behind something....!

In me, like most others, there is a question that I ruminate: What do I leave behind when I die?  For a middle-aged man, this question may seem nonsense... “After all, I have so many years to go by and why should I think of death?” Then one day I realise that life was like an onion being peeled: I can peel and peel an onion until there is nothing left but a few tears in my eyes!

The question our culture asks about people’s lives is, Did they become someone important? What mark has he left on earth? ‘Rich and famous’ are two words that go together these days.

One of the greatest ironies of living is that we think either of yesterdays or think of tomorrows. The question, “What do I leave behind when I die?” bridges both the past and the future: it looks at the past and dreams about the future!     

The trick is to suppress these questions and take life at a time. I can tell myself, “Let me go forth this day and leave the rest in God’s hands”

***

“Maria, please wait! I am willing...”

The most inexplicable aspect of today’s living is my inability to wait for many things to happen in my life. How can I wait? What am I waiting for? How long must I wait? And, the silence can be cruel... and the sound of waiting can be enigmatic. Life has to go on in all these waiting... seconds fly by and time ticks away. A graffiti that I read on the last day at my engineering college was this: 

“Maria, please wait! I am willing...”
 

Quoting Hermann Hesse from ‘Narcissus and Goldemund’  tells me this : O, how incomprehensible everything was, and actually sad, although it was also beautiful. One knew nothing. One lived and ran about the earth and rode through forests, and certain things looked so challenging, promising, and nostalgic: a star in the evening, a blue harebell, a reed-green pond, the eye of a person or a cow. And sometimes it seemed that something never seen yet long desired was about to happen, that a veil would drop from it all; but then it passed... nothing happened, the riddle remained unsolved, the secret spell unbroken, and in the end one grew old and looked cunning... or wise and still one know nothing perhaps, was still waiting and listening”

One Wild and Precious Life...

Tell me...

What is it you plan to do with your

One Wild and Precious Life? 

When in a bookstall, I like to do lots of reading....
a 'trek-shop' tells me to do  lots of trekking

Like a Butterfly, visit the beauty in everything.... 

... and to grasp the secrets of nature. 

and walk away into my eternity...

... my boat

When I am on my boat, I try best to find out how I am going. I want a picture of my boat sturdily pulling through the backwaters. Of course, I cannot walk out of the boat and turn back to take a ‘click’, to take a photograph.  I try going round and round the limited space on the deck to find some way I can shoot a picture of my boat streaming through the water. But I find not my boat... but lots of others boats. In frustration, I click here and there from the deck to get the best of other boats... but not my boat.

After boat journey, I realised a golden truth: sitting in my boat, I will never discover my own goings in different perspectives. It takes others to tell me if I my goings are well... if I am overloaded... if I am getting lost. Sitting in my boat, I can easily find the best in other’s boat and the worst in other’s boat. And I need to listen to someone yelling at me from another boat, “Hi! Your boat is taking water!” or an accolade, “Oh, what a great going it is!”

Often it takes a ‘going out’ to take a relook at our own boat... 
I got to walk out of my dwellings to relook at my life. 
Is that why a pilgrimage holds good even in modern times? 
Is that why I got to drop the regular routine and walk away to distant places? 
Is that why I have to walk away to greater heights so that I can take a different ‘look’ upon my life? 

***