Wisdom Bytes

About two weeks ago, I was feeling bleak and I demanded a miracle from the Big Dude. I didn't ask in supplication or meekness; I was seriously pissed with his failure to right the terrible natural events occuring in the world and the minor losses occuring in mine.

Let me recount the big and small events and words that appeared after I made my demand.

EVENTS

I fell apart with a trusted friend and surfaced frightening and sorrowful feelings. It was as if my heart broke open and spilled allowing room for the series of mini-miracles that followed. At the end of our conversation, the friend said to me, "You need to spend time with people who love you."

My little sister through BBBS is one such person so we got together, baked a pizza, and watched a movie while snuggling under my down throw with the dog. Afterwards, this little "Goth" person with her heavily blackened eyeliner and piercings asked me what I thought about God. That precipitated a half hour conversation about black holes, creation, heaven, faith, and the end of the world. She shared her fear of not being. All I can say is that I was channeling my dad in this interaction. I remembered having these kinds of conversations with him, sharing my fears with him. He was always calm and rational in his responses making me feel that such thoughts and feelings were natural and normal. I had the privilege of passing that gift along to my sis and also of re-experiencing those moments with Dad.

Then, I broke my toe the day before my birthday. People who loved me flocked to help me. Friends almost carried me to a restaurant. My housemate returned early from a trip. The neighbor children walked my dog. I sat with my foot elevated on an ice pack and watched the Ophrah Winfrey final shows. In her last episode, she spoke words from the Unity Church services and songs--"Be Still and Know That I Am" and "To God Be the Glory." As a former choir member and pianist at the Unity Church, I hear these words in music--the words of two of my favorite songs. I was struck by her use of Unity phrases and felt a oneness with her. I would never have watched if I hadn't broken my toe.

WORDS

That brings me to the wisdom bytes I've come across in odd places. You could say that the coversation with my sister was one such place. I heard myself say to her, "I don't think faith is believing in god so much as it's accepting life as you find it and believing it is good that way." Those words were as new to me as they were to her. They "came" to me.

Oprah's invoking of Unity principles sounded another chord of wisdom that resonates in my soul and has done since the first time I heard a Unity Church service on television thirty years ago. I have had the tenets of the Unity Church clipped to my refrigerator every since, following me through 6 different houses since then. "Be still and know that I am [God]." Those words summarize my hope of spirituality--to be able to do just that would be enough and everything.

At 7:15 a.m. on my birthday, my younger son called from Germany and sang "Happy Birthday" to me on the phone. Since our contact is always by video chat, I was completely surprised and burst into tears. In that precious conversation, he shared that "everydayness is what we have." He said, "It's what we have to work with." Wisdom byte.

My international student mentee emailed me and said, "I listened to you and I respected my mother. You were right that I needed to respect her as I'm forming a relationship with a girlfriend." Wisdom byte bouncing back to me.

On a conference call with work colleagues, the speaker opened by saying, "Some things that can be counted don't matter, and some things that matter can't be counted." The call was about institutional evaluation and such a phrase was the last thing I expected. It's so true though. Love, wisdom, joy, hope can't be counted but they matter.

Perhaps I wouldn't have been able to recognize or receive the miracles coming to me if my heart hadn't broken first. When we're in a dark night of the soul, it's good to remember that we're composting the sacred shit so the dahlias and peonies can shoot up through the ground and burst into riotous bloom.

Wisdom bytes are in the most unlikely places. Roxie