For the Glory of God and our own Delight, Day Thirty One

For love of God and my own amusement. This is the phrase that comes to me now, and perhaps this would be a sweet way to consider our day.

Bach, supposedly, when asked why he had 22 kids, or whatever it was, and wrote a thousand works of music, or whatever it was, and his answer was:

"For my own amusement and the Glory of God."

What would the day be like today
and tomorrow
to see if both these
could be part and parcel
(whatever that means)
of the great game of life.

Sometimes I see the two aims of being present
and being of good cheer sufficient
to keep my life at a very sweet
and fine level.

And the Glory of God
has a slightly different ring to it
than being present,
though in the present the glory
of being alive
certainly shines through.

This is your game today,
just be delighted with whatever and all that
you do,
and find some deeper glory
to it.

How?

This is your discovery.

Dig in.

Wake up.

Slow down, less effort, more attention.

Learning.

All for you, all for God.

For the glory of God
and
your own amusement.

See where that goes!!!


Good.

84: What is amazing in your life?

Amazing: a friend re-discovered a new way

What is amazing in your life?


What is amazing about life?

Think about this all day.

Write a list.

Breathe the question.

Be open to all of life. How amazing to be able to read. How amazing to be able to taste. How amazing to have the blue sky. How amazing that you can drive or walk or ride a bike or play a musical instrument or pay movie and go to a movie or get a library card and check out a book.

Many times think about this.

Many times write down a bunch of things.

Enjoy.

Discover.

Recover missing delights, or re-discover what you used to delight in and have somehow forgotten the charm.

How many charmed moments and aspects of life. That people have different color hair, or skin, on eyes. That people speak different languages. That people who speak the same language think in very different ways.

That we all have certain things in common.

And so on.

Take the day.

Have some fun.

Expand out into the answer you are discovering and writing down.

Day 52: What to do? Wake up to who we really are.

Without the story, and the froth: who am I?

We are all real and amazing at our core.

And: those are just words: “real and amazing” But who are you are your core? Can you sense yourself in the present and add on being aware of what you are hearing in this instant, and add on light coming into your eyes, and from the fullness and stillness of that, discover/ sense/ feel/ understand/ experience who you are?


This is today’s assignment. Discover yourself when you are being who you really are, and when you aren’t.

And this is tricky ( and fun). As soon as you concoct a set of words about “Who am I?” you might want to ask if the experience of yourself in that moment has anything to do with the words that you use to paint the picture/ explanation of “Who am I?”


Tricky, tricky.

Fun, fun.


And somewhere in there, if you are in the mood, you can let the work of Byron Katie help you, if you come up with thoughts like, “I should be able to do a better job of saying, or knowing, ‘Who I really am?’”

And if you start to think, “I am a mother, I am a farmer,” go a little deeper, ask what else you are, or what’s beneath the “doing” roles we have.

Who are you?

What are you?

Who are you really?


Be calm, and easy, and persistent and playful and open and keep asking and listening and experiencing: Who are you?

Eating, walking, working, talking, quiet, keep asking: Who am I?

Things change, hmm

upside down, sort of, in a house we have long left behind:
things change,
hmmm


in life
and in love:
things can change

in life
and in learning:
change is what keeps
us sparkling and finding out more
and more of the richness of life

and does that mean
we have to leave behind anything
"good" that happens to us?

no.

And...everything "good"
that happens to us,
changes.

The seed becomes a tomato
and we eat it,
and compost the bush later.

The child is a baby,
and learns to learn
and crawl
and walk
and talk,
and goes off to college
and then is on the other end
of the phone
helping us when life gets "hard."

The loved one
decides:
ah, yes, this was sweet,
and now,
time for something else.

And they
don't need to know what that is:
loving them means this:
I want that for you,
sweetheart,
I want that for you.


hmmm.

a paradigm shift

as is the moving/ brain/ learning
work we do:

good

it's late,
the other post at
108 days: "This is the wrong time to end our relationship: Is that true?"