ONE OF THOSE THINGS THAT MAKE YOU SAY hmmmm...

Suppose someone gave you a pen - a sealed, solid-colored pen. You couldn't see how much ink it had. It might run dry after the first few tentative words or last just long enough to create a masterpiece (or several) that would last forever and make a difference in the scheme of things.

You don't know before you begin.

Under the rules of the game, you really never know. You have to take a chance! Actually, no rule of the game states you must do anything.

Instead of picking up and using the pen, you could leave it on a shelf or in a drawer where it will dry up, unused.

But if you do decide to use it, what would you do with it? How would you play the game?

Would you plan and plan before you ever wrote a word? Would your plans be so extensive that you never even got to the writing? Would you take the pen in hand, plunge right in and just do it, struggling to keep up with the twists and turns of the torrents of words that take you where they take you?

Would you write cautiously and carefully, as if the pen might run dry the

next moment, or would you pretend or believe (or pretend to believe) that the pen will write forever and proceed accordingly?

And of what would you write: Of love? Hate? Fun? Misery? Life? Death? Nothing? Everything?Would you write to please just yourself? Or others? Or yourself by writing for others? Would your strokes be tremblingly timid or brilliantly bold?

Fancy with a flourish or plain? Would you even write? Once you have the pen, no rule says you have to write.

Would you sketch? Scribble? Doodle or draw? Would you stay in or on the lines, or see no lines at all, even if they were there? Or are they?

There's a lot to think about here, isn't there?


Now...
suppose someone gave you a life...

(From 6th Chicken Soup for the Soul)

I've been considering how we live our lives and do our jobs. Are we showing up, fully and consciously, with a positive outlook or is it just a way to earn our daily bread? Do we eat to work or work to eat? Do we consider our work holy...is it so joyful that it doesn't even seem like work?

Jesus advised, "Once you put your hand to the plow, do not look back." If you've ever seen a farmer plowing a field, you know s/he has to keep her eye on the horizon to keep a straight furrow...s/he can't look back.

What have you put your hand to do? Do you love your job...does it create energy and love in you, or do you dread each day? Kahlil Gibran, in The Prophet said, "If you hate what you do, it is better that you leave your work and go and beg alms at the temple from those who love theirs."

This week, take a look at your daily life. If it is not fulfilling and joyous, consider how you might change your outlook and your attitude, which would affect the results...OR perhaps look deeper into your heart's longing...something else may be calling you.

Do you long to make music and settle for collecting cds?
Does your hand itch to paint and you settle for doodles on a pad during telephone conversations?
Do you want to leap and dance and salsa and yet sigh and say, "I'm too old/out of shape/uncoordinated?"

Honor your deepest creative self! This week, put your hand joyously to plow ahead to live the life you desire. You are worth it!

As always, I'll hold the high watch!

Rev. Donna