Rejoice In Your Life
Robert Shuller used to open his sermons by saying, "This is the day the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it." You could do a lot worse than following this advice.
Take away the religious aspects if you wish, the idea is important to all of us. The Free Dictionary defines rejoice as a verb meaning to feel joyful, to fill with joy, or to have or possess. Every day you have a choice from the minute you wake up until the minute you go back to sleep. You can choose to sleep your way through the day, letting your internal robot control what you do or say, or you can wake up, and actually participate in the day.
Do you remember when you were a child? Each morning you awoke and knew there was something wonderful in the world, something Amazing. And each day you found it. That Amazing Thing may have been an anthill that you spent watching all morning, seeing the ants busily bringing home food and moving dirt to expand the colony, or it may have been a bright formation of clouds that you watched until the gathering rains turned them into blackened thunderheads with lightning flashing between them and the earth on which you stood. That Amazing Thing wasn't something found only once in a lifetime, but the most mundane event that can happen any day.
There is a Zen story in which an aspirant asks his master how he can find enlightenment. His master says "Attention". "I don't understand, master. What do you mean?" "Attention! Attention means attention!" This is one of the main differences between a child and an adult. The child still lives with intent, conscious of what he is doing, approaching life awake and eager. Adults, though, we have turned much of our living over to the servant of our mind, the robot, so we have little to engage us and find little to bring us joy.
Such a simple word, but it makes all the difference between being alive and being dead. Live with intent, with attention to what you do and how you do it, and joy will come more and more frequently.
Are you awake, or do you sleep?
I loved this post, and for me, I'll leave the religious slant in it. But as you so ably point out, it applies to all. We choose how we will live, how happy we will be, how many friends we will gather to us.
Blessings,
shirley Buxton
www.writenow.wordpress.com
Thanks for stopping by, Shirley! It was nice to meet you at Liz's place. I think it's one of the most important lessons to learn. As time goes on, maybe more people will do so. Stop by again, and look at some of the other posts, or just talk.
By the way, I couldn't find your anniversary pictures on your site, either. Could you tell me where to look.