SUNLIGHT AND SHADOWS

By now, if you have read any previous blogs, you have picked up on theme that I can't seem to shake; light and darkness!

Fall has arrived in Minnesota complete with colorful reds, bursting orange, dropping leaves and a chilly dusting of snow over everything. It's early Saturday morning and the sunlight and shadows are dancing over this new pallet of green grass, white snow and yellow, red, brown leaves. I'm waking up slowly from a night disturbed by lack of sleep. In th middle of the night I was woken by the stress of discerning my place in the world.

Recent events have caused me to wonder: Am on the right path? Has anything I done made any difference at all? Does it matter that I am here? Is all this disturbance just to open me up to the next curve in the road? Why me? Why not me?

In the middle of my sleepless tossing, I got up to drink some Easy Now tea and ran into my son. He was on a different mission...that of helping to rescue a lost dog he and some friends found in the park last night. He was busy writing a sweet note to explain why we would be finding a dog in his room when we woke up. What a sweet boy and what a sweet dog! The night was suddenly lit by the compassion and caring of my sons's heart.

So while the seasons and the canvas of my life keep changing, the sunlight and shadows continue to dance over the top of it. While I've been struggling to heal from some punches to the tender spots on my soul, I've also been finding more and more light shining in my heart. I have also been thinking about how grateful I am for all of the love and music and joy that has come to me through God's love, through the kindness of friends and blessings of strangers. God/Love really is so close that we can just reach out and touch each other or just sit and listen and the whispers of wisdom are there.Singing really does create community and bring healing. There is healing! there is peace! There is joy! There is compassion! And it does make a difference!

And do I want a life without the beauty and richness the shadows create over the gorgeous canvas of my journey? And do i want a journey with a canvas that never changes or evolves? If we truly are created in the image of God, then God loves creativity and change as much as I do. So while I fight the disturbance, I also welcome the change and creativity that will grow from it.

We are one. All of us and all of creation and all of the universe. We are one. All of the light and all of the dark, all are nothing and all are everything. There is only one reality...love, a love that runs so wide, so high and so deep that it can wrap around all that we are and all that we can be. I am grateful!

Peace to all of you sisters and brothers!

jules

Wanting nothing and wanting everything

It just sort of creeped into my thoughts yesterday. I really want nothing. I don't really care if I have money. I don't need to have new clothes. I don't need fame. I don't need to be top dog. I don't need to be better than everyone else or than anyone else. I don't need my own room or my own closet. Ownership is not important. I really want to be empty. I have too many things, too much to keep track of and be responsible for. And all of it has a way of weighing me down and holding me back from total freedom. I watched the movie "Clare & Francis" the other day about St. Francis of Assisi and St. Clare of Assisi. St. Francis gave up everything including the clothes on his body to follow Christ. Though he lived a hard life, he was also known for living a joyful one. As I watched I could see how the freedom of things was also the freedom of responsibility for those things. Of course it is not as simple as that but I wondered how it would feel to truly want nothing and be free.

Of course, what I really want is everything. I want energy and love to overflowing. I want to be so filled with light that I can't help but give joy. I want to have enough money, clothing, shelter to support my family, send my boys to college and help them create their own homes. I want to travel to the ends of the earth and have time to sit with friends and strangers praying and talking and singing about peace and love and hope. I want to gather my family, the one that is spread to the other side of the globe that we might find that deep love we need from each other. And if i could have left overs I have more people i would want to share with. I want to be thinner in my body. I want to be healthy enough to follow my passions for another 50 years. But all of these things, though honorable desires, bring with them work, struggle, responsibility.

My geography professor at Dana College, used to say that there was one rule that you could count on for the way the earth works, "there ain't no free lunch." I've discovered that applies to pretty much everything...including most relationships. But Love isn't Love if there is a charge is it? or is it the other way around? Love isn't Love if it didn't cost you something.

I really don't want anything. and I really want everything because I want no less than fierce love...to give and to live in. Am I asking too much? or am I not asking enough?