August 2008 Newsletter
Online Issue # 19
In this Issue:
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The Front Page
MINING VS UNDERMINING
Shouldn't I be writing about surviving in a difficult economy and trying to calm widespread fears about job losses, echoing how awful everything seems right now? Wouldn't that be the responsible thing to address, given the focus of my work?
Being who I am, I can't go there. I need to focus on what I want to grow: trust in living true to our own selves, guided by our own wisdom, regardless.
Some have wisely said that it's not what happens, it's our response to what happens that matters most. This applies to the big things and maybe more to the everyday things: what we eat and drink, what we think and speak, what we buy and borrow, what we do or don't do.
Sometimes I wonder if I watched too many “hero to the rescue” television shows when I was a child. I clearly remember the wonderful rush, feeling how it would be to arrive just in time to turn around another tragedy in the making. A smart, chubby young girl with long braids, I wanted to be a hero who rode or flew off to my next adventure as the theme music played in the background.
In comparison to my heroic, childhood imaginings, tidying up my office for a client, returning phone calls, and preparing for a group might seem like a letdown. But I know that most of life is lived in the in-between. I still love heroic rescues, but there are billions of ordinary moments to love and live, all with their own untapped potential. These are the overlooked, almost invisible moments when we are getting by, hanging out, or waiting for some other moment. It doesn't take much to mine the treasure in these moments, if we remember. We can choose to focus our attention, gifts, and compassion on the situation surrounding us. Or we can ignore, whine, complain, undermine, and feed the popular frenzy about you name it.
On occasion, we all dismiss these in-between non moments, relating to them as though they were disposable packing material wrapped around the real highlights of our life. It's important to acknowledge that the moments that make up life's nonevents actually equal years of our lives. These moments hold the undeveloped potential for being more alive and awake to life. Instead of getting through them, wasting precious time counting down the hours and the days, we can choose to more fully inhabit all the moments of life. We can notice who or what is before us, right there in front of us, needing what we bring.
In the words of poet Marge Piercy, The Art of Blessing the Day, we can choose to “be glad for what does not hurt.”
With gratitude,
Laurie Mattila
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