Hidden Choices

Letter 4518

The fork in the path was obvious. So, too, was my decision over which neighbor to trust.

Less apparent was choice after choice made without thinking. Where to step over a small stream? How to grasp a branch? Which way to turn my face when the wind blows?

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Unthinking, I did not choose and so let them choose themselves.

Let me act mindfully today, attentive to even the smallest choices.

Consider:

Can I be awake today?

Reading:

❖ “My experience is what I agree to attend to.” — William James, The Principles of Psychology, vol. 1, ch. 11

❖ “Being in the present is a very easy thing that comes about by simply noticing new things.” — Ellen Langer, interview with The Harvard Gazette, 2018

❖ “And that, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep.” — Romans 13:11 (KJV)

Thank you for reading. If this helped you today, please consider sharing it.

~B.R.

Intuition

Letter 4517

Dawn brings questions and uncertainties. So do communications from neighbor and family.

What is right? What will be? How do I proceed?

My choices always falter, my actions leave me wondering if I did enough or did right.

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In the moment, however, I do as you will me. Who am I to second guess what you cause to occur, whether it be conditions, actions of others — or even the words that come out of my own mouth, or the acts wrought by my own hands?

You always grant me intuition, Lord. Let me trust it.

Consider:

Can I trust myself today?

Reading:

❖ “Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance

❖ “And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition.” — Steve Jobs, Stanford Commencement Address, 2005

❖ “And thine ears shall hear a word behind thee, saying, This is the way, walk ye in it.” — Isaiah 30:21 (KJV)

Thank you for reading. If this helped you today, please consider sharing it.

~B.R.

Like a River

Letter 4516

Can I live as a river, flowing through the land?

A trickle, dripping down rock to rock.

A small stream, winding through a grassy meadow, long grass almost hiding my path.

A creek following a forest trail, growing wider yet shallow enough to step across where stones make a footpath.

A flowing river, with bridges and banks.

A channel, navigable, mighty, carrying commerce and defining cities.

In the end I spill into the sea, like all my brothers and sisters — all filled with drop after drop of the same water, all accepted whether clouded or clear.

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All these guises, all these settings through which I flow.

Let me bring what a river brings to each.

Consider:

Can I offer myself fully to the day?

Reading:

❖ “You cannot step twice into the same stream.” — Heraclitus, quoted in Plato, Cratylus 402a, trans. Harold N. Fowler

❖ “…this water flowed and flowed, it never ceased to flow but was nonetheless always there…” — Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha, trans. David Wyllie

❖ “All the rivers run into the sea; yet the sea is not full; unto the place from whence the rivers come, thither they return again.” — Ecclesiastes 1:7 (KJV)

Thank you for reading. If this helped you today, please consider sharing it.

~B.R.

Worry

Letter 4515

A great deed must be done today. It will take all my strength and skill.

So go my thoughts. In reality the effort may be five or ten minutes, and the lift light.

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How the future looms when I worry!

Let me view the day as through the eyes of a child, curious to see what comes next and open to surprise.

Consider:

Can I see like a child?

Reading:

❖ “Angels can fly because they can take themselves lightly.” — G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy

❖ “If a child is to keep alive his inborn sense of wonder … he needs the companionship of at least one adult who can share it.” — Rachel Carson, The Sense of Wonder

❖ “What time I am afraid, I will trust in thee.” — Psalm 56:3 (KJV)

Thank you for reading. If this helped you today, please consider sharing it.

~B.R.