Monday, July 5, 2010

Choices

When life seems to be going in all directions without focus or reason, and it seems our choices are not our own but belong to others more concerned with their own rewards, and not how their actions are affecting others ... what is the answer to living with some amount of serenity, calm, and assuredness that everything is truly advancing according to the greater plan and trajectory of life?  How can we see the perfect workings of God's perfect creation ... that each and every turn, each participant, is truly perfect at that moment?  Can it be perfect when there seems to be so much pain and suffering in the world ... so much doubt and uncertainty ... so much that is seemingly wrong?
"All things work to the glory of God."  All things ... not some ... not only the pleasant and beneficial ... All.
 Abundance and scarcity, joy and pain, certainty and doubt, faith and hopelessness.  All things are needed ... all things serve a purpose ... all things.
As the seasons change and the trees give birth to leaves, providing shade and nourishment, which then fall to the ground, dead, to nourish the soil and begin again ... so our lives go in endless cycles of blessings and need.  We get so caught up in the moment ... Tolle writes that there is only "now" ... we find our balance in now.  But when now seems to be in the vortex of a tornedo of doubt and uncertainty ... when life seems to be spinning according only to friction caused by opposing winds and temperatures ... when there seems to be only turmoil and strife ... where is the serenity in the moment ... in now?
So I think it is more than that ... more than "now" ... it is the necessary balance of opposing forces that drives our lives ... our growth comes in recognizing the fleeting, temporal nature of the moment and that there is harmony in opposition.  Great evil demands great good ... great selfishness demands great philanthropy.
Imagine a world where the difference between excess and want is so small that there would be no need for heroism?
The golden rule of selflessness and benevolence points to our natural ability to eliminate disparity.  What a wonderful picture ... yet as we are only infants in our ways ... still fighting for our needs to be met now ... it's hard to see the big picture ... and so our comfort comes in the belief that everything is necessary ... and our desire to be on the giving end of the continuom ...
Our choices within the malestrom of life - to love, give, support and build - to accept and adjust and adapt - to the extent that we can, to teach, and honor, and give thanks.  Our choices reside in the stillness found when we let go of our fears ... in the moment ... and trust that the universe and all the worlds, nations, people, animals, plants and cells ... are working in concert and accomodate our choices as necessary workings of the greater whole ... in that moment and realization ... we find the glory of God.