Angels

A small girl and her grandparents

Angels

A big black, extended cab, pickup truck was parked across the street when I pulled into the driveway.  Once parked, I released my seat belt, opened the door and stepped out onto the cold concrete.  But, it didn’t stay cold for long.

Three people crossed the street to greet me and their warm smile-filled greeting radiated warmth that seemed to flow through my body right into the cement I was standing on.  It also allowed me to immediately let go of the expectations I had mentally manufactured about this moment.  I had to laugh at myself.  Again!

A preconception is an idea that isn’t, “out there.”  It lives only in one’s mind.  And, in some ways, such ideas are also an amalgamation of personal experience.  The interesting thing is that personal experience is never fixed.  It continually changes and grows.  It is dynamic.  That means our personal ideas are constantly challenged.  I call this, the principle of “Dynamic Contest.”

The principal of Dynamic Contest simply means that the longer a person lives, the more their ideas about living are questioned.  And, it doesn’t ever end, no matter the length of a person’s life.  There seems to be an infinite number of lessons a person can learn throughout a lifetime and it can make life seem to be a continual battle or endless wonder.  And, we all get to choose.

We can choose to see everyone else in the world as wrong.  Or, we can choose to anticipate wonder around every corner.

I wonder at the human ability to create beauty.  I saw pictures of a new u-shaped sky scraper being built in Manhattan a couple of days ago.  It is an engineering and visual marvel that had never entered my mind before its vision on a computer screen expanded my mind.

I wondered at new combinations of flavors and tastes that blew my mind while perusing new recipes to attempt on my smoking grill.  New ideas to combine salt, sweet, savor and spice I would never have considered were all presented to introduce me into a culinary world I’d never dreamt about.

And now, I was standing on a cold driveway that seemed to be melting right along with my heart.  A big black, extended cab, pickup truck was parked across the street when I pulled into that driveway.  But, it didn’t stay cold for long.

Three people crossed the street to greet me and their warm smile-filled greeting radiated warmth that seemed to flow through my body right into the cement I was standing on.  It also allowed me to immediately let go of the expectations I had mentally manufactured about this moment.  I had to laugh at myself.  Again!

Two loving and caring grandparents walked toward me with their granddaughter.  They were all holding hands and smiling.  Of course, the grandparents referred their little one as their “Angel.”  “Because, it took us a long time to be able to adopt her,” Sandra Harkins explained. 

“Angels!”  I said to myself as I laughed inside.  “Sandra and John Harkins don’t look like any angels I had ever envisioned before.  They’re far more glorious than I could have ever created in my own mind!”

Covered in Tar

“Give yourself the space and opportunity to grow into who you’re becoming!” – Chris Leader

Covered in Tar

The little fourteen-year-old dog jumped straight up on to the seat of the bar stool next to me.

“I can’t believe he can still jump like that!” I exclaimed.

This small, curly, bronze colored cutie still has spunk!  I looked into his aging eyes, as we sat next to each other.  Clouds were starting to gather over the lenses of his eyes.  But, other than that I was hard-pressed to notice any other effects of his venerable age.

“He showed up at our door step when he was about three-years-old.”  Jamie replied.

“He was covered in what looked like tar!  His whole body was saturated in it.”  Burk continued.

“His hair was all matted and his neck was growing around his collar!”  Jamie continued.

Burke and Jamie Castleton are wonderful people!  I sat looking at their little friend.  He was happy, well cared for and healthy.  Yet, it had taken him time to get there and this one thought had barely entered my mind when another thought tagged it.

“Give yourself the space and opportunity to grow into who you’re becoming!”  I could hear my Chris Leader, my coach, say to me once again.

This loving, beautiful dog was a living example of what Chris was attempting to convey to me.  And, the lesson was taken from my mind directly into my heart, in the form of the small, delightful little creature, sitting next to me at this very moment.  Chris’ message was now real!  It had taken form and presence.  Here’s what a little dog taught me about the “Principal of Becoming.”

First, life can be harsh on all of us.  Others can treat us poorly and we all live with the consequences of our own learning decisions.  I say learning decisions because it can be argued that our purpose in living is simple, to learn what we need to learn, so we can become better than we are now, at every stage.  Accepting and understanding this one principal, solely, will change one’s vision of living completely. It will also transform the experience of living for everyone who embraces it.

Second, when it appears as if everyone in the world is evil and doing malicious things to us, that “we don’t deserve,” it simply isn’t the truth.  Yes.  There are people in our world that do say and do bad things to those around them.  And, there are wonderful people, like Burke and Jamie Castleton, who are standing by to rescue, heal and love us.  There are indeed angels living amongst us!

Third, the amount of time we spend suffering is up to us. Once we choose to leave the bad behind and become open to receive love from others, guardian angels will come to our aid.  We simply have to be open to receive them along with their good works.

Finally, all we need to do in return is to love our rescuing angels without reservation.

The little fourteen-year-old dog jumped straight up on to the seat of the bar stool next to me.

“I can’t believe he can still jump like that!” I exclaimed.

This small, curly, bronze colored cutie still has spunk!  I looked into his aging eyes as we sat next to each other.  Clouds were starting to gather over the lenses of his eyes.  But, other than that I was hard pressed to notice other effects of his venerable age.

Oh, my! I almost forgot!  I did see one other thing in his eyes.  Love!

An Anonymous Path

An unknown man with a snow blower

 An Anonymous Path

Yes, you remember the day!  The day of the big snow. The schools were closed.  The county offices too. But, that’s not the reason why, the reason why, I remember that day.  I remember that man.  I remember that man, the man who cleared my way.  That anonymous man, who cleared the snow.  The anonymous man I didn’t know!

The storm had passed and the going was not fast.  But, lots of people were beginning to go.  Yes. they were people I didn’t know.  And, now, they were people on the go.  I could see them go.  I could see them, going slow.  It can be slow work, the work of digging out of the snow. 

And, I was out too, out on a drive.  I was out driving in snow, I was driving on roads, so I could go, go through the snow.  I needed to go, go out to see.  I needed to go, go see someone I didn’t know. Yes, yes even see someone I didn’t know, in lots of snow.  And, the drive was not far.  Not far at all.  Not far, on roads that were slow, still slow because of snow. Yes, the roads were slow. They were slow to be sure.  They were slow, they were slow because, well, because of big snow.

I drove to a house to see two sisters, two sisters I didn’t know.  Two sisters who were also out.  They were out and on the go.  On the go, in lots of snow.  And, now the sisters were waiting, waiting in their car.  They were waiting for me, watching what they could see. And they were parked on the ice, the ice by the curb.  They were watching more people as they emerged.  They watched as the neighbors began to emerge, emerge from their homes, out by those curbs.

It was time to go in.  Go in through the snow.  That’s when I took a step.  I stepped in that snow.  The snow was so deep, that snow gave me grief.  It swallowed my legs, right up to the knee.  So, I had to shuffle along.  I had to break a trail.  And the sisters followed my path right in, right in through the house’s door.

The home welcomed us in and seemed to beg us to stay.  Its voice was tempting us and called us to play.  And, our stay?  Our stay, was not long.

We remembered the cold.  We remembered the hard walk.  And, we hadn’t given the neighbor a second thought.  No second thought, for the neighbor next door, the one blowing snow outside his front door.  The neighbor blowing snow, the one we didn’t know. 

We opened the door.  We opened it wide, and our eyes couldn’t believe what we saw outside!  The man next door, the one we didn’t know had come and gone, for how long, we didn’t know.  But, there it was.  A path very clean.  A path very wide.  It was a path he had been made, while we were inside.

Yes.  The man who was there, was now the man who was gone.  He was the man who, the man we didn’t know.  He was the man who had cleared the snow!  The anonymous man, who cleared the snow.  The anonymous man we didn’t know.

Yes, you remember the day!  The day of the big snow. The schools were closed.  The county offices too. But, that’s not the reason why, the reason why, I remember that day.  I remember that man.  I remember that man, the man who cleared my way.  That anonymous man, who cleared the snow.  The anonymous man we didn’t know!