Sprituality | Tracks In The Dust

Archive for the tag “Sprituality”

29 May 2013

Looking for the Big Finish

You know those movies where there is the big “reveal” – the ultimate secret that no one in the movie knew?

Lately I have been having those kind of dreams. Like some long story with a lot of mystery and conflict. Then it comes time for the answer and bam! … I wake up.

Answers like that seem to become elusive. I am sure some dream analysis person could tell me all about why I dream that way, or why I wake up before someone reveals the “big finish” to the dream.

But then for many of us life can also seem that way. Always waiting in anticipation for the revealing secret that is going to make everything fit together so well. That “ah-ha” moment. It is going to provide that release for the tension and un-sureness that life brings and let us ride off into the sunset with our heads held high.

From my perspective I guess, seems like that will be an elusive thing for all our lives if we let our subconscious keep gnawing away at our fears, chipping away at our confidence and providing fuel for the worry of not knowing where the plot will end things.

However, there seem to be chapters in life where things will come to a place where there are moments of clarity. Loss of loved ones, gaining new friends or lovers, celebrating the personal and emotional milestones …. things like that will jar things loose for a bit. They can make the story of living so clear as something that has purpose or doesn’t have… but as the page turns the new plot begins and its time to continue life’s story.

To me there is only one way to settle this. It is to trust in your spiritual being. To give to Him. To make adjustments that allow you to have faith in something bigger than you. It can put a lot in perspective and allow for a different look at how the “final” end to the story will look. It can be the ultimate “ah-ha” moment. The big finish will be the last day of your life, when all is certain ( as that day is certain to come) – you will be able to enjoy the ultimate secret.

That will be when the life/movie credits roll and the screen will show thanks to all who contributed, “The End” – or will it be the beginning? It’s all on how you live it now I guess.

Posted in Before and After Things Change and tagged Acceptance, anticipation, Cencer, Change, choices, Dream interpretation, Dying, Eternity, Faith, Interpretation, Life, moments of clarity, Postive Thinking, Reality Check, Sprituality, subconscious

01 May 2013

The Trust May Be Gone, But Keep the Faith

Recalling a “time of trust” in our world, things have seemed to change.

In the old days we would believe sales people at our local stores, we would rely on news from the network TV newscaster to see a window to the world from a trusted person we let into our living room. Even more so , in the days gone by we would believe our politicians.

Were we naive in the old days? Very likely we were not worldly enough because our perspective was contained inside a smaller circle – local stores, one newspaper, 3 TV stations to choose from. Perhaps we were stronger by faith itself.

It seems like that has changed. Have we just learned our lessons over time and got smarter? Or likely we have gotten just more jaded?

We have lost faith in our politicians – ( in the US that really happened in the early 70’s with the Watergate scandal I think) I know many of us couldn’t imagine some of our past US Presidents being under the scrutiny they are today and coming out as unscathed as they had in the past. These days the news media, the social media has started with the premise of dis-trust. And in a matter of seconds the trust (or lack of it) shoots into the ether-web and becomes someone else’s truth.

Today I couldn’t imagine taking an order to buy a high tech device or an appliance simply on the recommendation of the 20 yr old in the big-box store. That itself as led to the demise of so many of the retailers this past decade.

Today I couldn’t imagine just believing everything you read just because it was in-print or accept the news – like back in the days when the US landed on the moon… Walter Cronkite said “that’s the way it is”. Yet it seems in some ways people still do believe way too much of what they read on Internet- listening to extremes from so many talking heads who have no perspective on facts or truth- then they even write books about it.

Then roll all of this up this with our society’s ever decreasing attention span, and layer in the endless amount of choices we are exposed to – and throw that into the sea of anonymity. For many… top it off with the lack of spiritual faith- in-something- bigger leaves so many with no trust, faith or foundation in the Truth. It has left way too many people as distrusting skeptics; with each other, with our leaders, with the information we are presented every day we seem to view the world as hopeless. It is truly not, we need to keep the faith!

Posted in Doing Things That Will Change Your Life and tagged Acceptance, Belief, Change, choices, Definitions, Faith, Fear, God, Media, Opinion, Reality Check, Sprituality, Trust

19 Apr 2013

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Being Rich with the Grace of Living

The rich get richer. Least I always saw it that way most of my life.

I guess if you stop to consider the definition of rich, there is a way you could change that meaning. After all the richness of life has nothing to do with the money and items we possess. It is about much much more than that. Sure it can sound like the movie “It’s A Wonderful Life” or something where you can accumulate your friends and family around you and greatly appreciate that they are there for you.

That is a richness of life that many wish they could have, and in these times when tragedies of life seem to be more part of our daily lives, I think it gives us pause to reflect on what is really important.

When the Boston Marathon explosions occurred, people were reaching out to people to do what ever they could. Mobile phones and social websites lit up with people wanting to know that their friends and family were safe. They provided condolences and well wished sentiment of prayers to all effected. It has happened again and again in the face of adversity ( like the Connecticut school massacre, the recent fertilizer plan explosion in Texas and so many before that). It snaps everyone to attention about how delicate life is- how precious and quick it can change forever.

But deeper than that we all looked around at our loved ones – closest to us and asked the important questions. How we measure the value of our lives is important, and the richness of it is not accumulated by the things around us, but the people around us and the people we connect with each day – even for the slight moments we pass by people on the street or at work. It would seem that it is the richness of this grace in living that we need to embrace to help us all make sense of the changing world surrounding us all. Least that’s the way I see it.

Posted in Before and After Things Change and tagged Acceptance, Compassion, Fear, Grace, life is precious, Love, Postive Thinking, Reality Check, Sadness, Sprituality

02 Apr 2013

The Yearning for Home

I realized over the weekend that in some ways we are all yearning for a place called “home”.

It feels like for many of us, we continue the journey each day trying to embrace the concept of “home” in our lives. The place that we can feel comfort and safety, surrounded by familiar things. Familiar (root word family) in such a way that it creates an ideal combination of the emotional and spiritual things we desire in our lives.

Some say home is where the heart is. Indeed that is an element. Others get a taste and smell of it with “comfort foods” that can allow them a type of time travel back to a time of feeling safe- perhaps with their parents or a wonderful time with their friends or just alone time. The smells of the food, the texture, the way it tastes triggers the senses and the memories that go with it.

Some of it may be the colors that surround you, the home and hearth of another time and place that can make you change a bad mood to a good one. A comfortable chair perhaps. A warm blanket, a sunny afternoon in the yard, the fireplace, the smell of the ocean. Add the things together like a recipe for home in your head.

And home is not defined by one persons idea of it. It could be the home in the woods, or on top a skyscraper over looking metropolitan landscapes. It could be near water or on top of a mountain. In the end as we travel the journey of our lives, many of us will continue to reach out for that “home-base” in our lives. Just that reality check that we need in some way to make the rest of reality tolerant. It’s wrapped in the senses of our spiritual place and needs our attention.

Posted in Learning Lessons Along the Journey Of Life and tagged choices, Comfort food, Happiness, Home, lifestyle, Reality Check, Search for home, Self-Awareness, Slow Down, Sprituality

01 Mar 2013

Freedom from Fear and Guilt

Can you let go of your fears and guilt?

If you asked your friends or family how they defined “freedom” what would they say? Maybe something like…

“I can do anything I want,say whatever I want to say and no one can tell me what to do.”

Sounds selfish, even if you took it to mean that you would do things that wouldn’t harm or hurt you or other people, there would still be a lot of things that would be difficult to accomplish in reality.

Fear and guilt get in the way of freedom.

We may have guilt about the things we hadn’t done in our lives, or haven’t attended to and should. We can feel guilty about not spending more time with our family, or ourselves. We can feel guilty about what we said to someone, what we meant to say. It could be that the specter of guilt is there about severe things like cheating on your spouse, or short cutting things at work, or thousands of other things that accumulate over time.

Our fears get in the way of freedom. We have so many unspoken ones. Surely we may state that we are fearful of spiders or snakes or bears or sharks or something. We may have a fear of heights or flying. We could fear the dark or the unknown minute yet to come. There are the unspoken fears of emotion and weakness. Those fears that can stop us cold from “getting involved” with a someone, or getting involved with a situation. And then the compound as fears layer on top of fears. And the ultimate fear of death will play its own role.

Fear and guilt are real, and they stop us from that “freedom” we all wish for in many ways.

Can you imagine your life with no guilt, no fear? What would it be like? How would you find it?

Let me end with something that keeps me going; something in the face my life with cancer helps to calm my fears. “…there is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear” (1 John 4:18) “If the Son sets you free, then you will be really free” (John 8:36)