The circumstances of our lives
are what they are, but there is a wide range of different ways that we can
experience or relate to those circumstances. If, for example, we believe that
all things are in God’s hands and that He is with us in all things, we are able
to remain relatively calm even in the midst of turmoil. Let me give you an
example:
A couple of weeks ago I was
invited out to lunch by a friend I haven’t seen in a while. I was looking
forward to the occasion. But, alas! That morning it started to snow and as the day
went on the snow kept getting worse. We had to cancel our luncheon and arrange
for a rain-check.
When I was a younger man, I
would have been angry at the snow, and angry at my fate. A barrage of negative
thoughts would be passing through my mind, and as the day went on, the commentary
about my disappointment would have ruined my mood and spoiled any possibility
that something good would have come along later in the day. The stronger and
more virulent the commentary, the lower my mood.
But now, I look at events differently.
It was snowing. We couldn’t go to lunch. God sent the disappointment and I have
learned through experience that the best thing to do is simply to surrender to
the disappointment and move on. And so I did. End of story. Very little
commentary.
When I meditated that evening,
the thought about the cancelled luncheon came up as a distraction. I noticed
it, returned my attention to my breathing and to the Jesus Prayer, and let the
thought pass through me without attaching any commentary at all to it. And the
meditation continued. As thoughts or emotions came up, I would let them pass
through. If I began commenting about the thoughts or feelings, as soon as I
noticed what I was doing, I would stop commenting and return my attention to my
breathing. Most of the time the thoughts and emotions would pass.
The moral of the story is that
we will always have thoughts and feelings about things that happen in our
lives. That isn’t going to change. But what we do with them does change
as we grow and evolve. As Martin Laird says, “thoughts and feelings continue to
come and go, but our relationship with them changes.” (A Sunlit Absence, p. 18) He continues: “The external circumstances of our lives continue to be whatever they
happen to be at any given moment, but now we experience these circumstances
differently. (p. 21)
We had lunch a week later and it
was a wonderful experience.
God bless you.
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