Hit the Pause Button

The pause button on our technology puts the drama in a holding pattern enabling us to take a break--walk the dog, answer the phone, get a bite to eat. It's a great invention and the metaphor applies to the spiritual domain as well. When life comes at us fast and hard, sometimes we need to hit the pause button.

Life can come at us hard externally. Death and taxes, as the saying goes. Also, love lost, physical aches and pains, hurricanes and disasters, crime, divorce, and all the hurts of a full life. Don't you wonder as you think about your own hurts or watch the devestation of others play out on television what the Big Dude is thinking as HE watches the dramas of earth play on? Perhaps he hit the pause button long ago and is off wandering in some eternal galaxy with his version of a dog.

Life can also come at us hard internally. We mess with ourselves. If we really were living in the moment, things might not be too bad, but our mind is reeling out catastrophic thoughts or bad memories or worries about the future. And so, we drink or gamble or read voraciously. We watch TV, play video games or golf. We try to numb the endless thoughts that threaten to bury our creativity and optimism.

So, here's where the pause button comes to the rescue. We can stop, take a breath, and bring our attention to a focal point. The last few days, when outside walking the dog or gardening, I've tried this. I've stopped physical movement, taken a breath and looked at the tree tops framing the sky. I experienced a sacred moment. Everything seemed to pause. Colors seemed brighter, shapes seemed both sharper and more muted at the same time.

I wonder if the Big Dude gave US the pause button and we haven't yet become comfortable or familiar with that spiritual technology. You've probably heard the saying that we're spiritual beings in a physical world. So, we have to live our our physical nature; it's our task in this realm of existence. I'm thinking the Big Dude didn't want us to forget our spiritual essence and he engineered us with the capacity to reconnect in an instant by halting all the physical/psychological shit. That's all we have to do, really. Just halt it, hit pause. Then, there's room for the sacred hush of grace to show its face. Just for that moment, we remember what's real.

Turn off the technology of our humab condition or at least pause it. Oh, there you are, Big D. Roxie