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Today's
Meditation:
Yes,
the universe is full of magical things. And when we
think of "universe," we don't have to think of
the stars and the vast darkness of the galaxies that
surround ours in space. The universe is right here,
right now--that's simply all that matters to us.
Unfortunately, though, we seem to be bound and determined
to miss all of the beauty and magic that surrounds us all
the time. Our wits have become dull through our
years of passively receiving, of looking in the places
that others tell us we should look rather than in the
places that our hearts tell us we need to look.
I
read a passage once about a boy who found a quarter on the
sidewalk. He had almost walked right past it, but it
caught the sun just right and its gleam caught his
attention. All of a sudden he realized that there
might be treasures on the ground that he never would see
if he didn't look, so he determined right then and there
that he never would miss another potential treasure, and
he kept his eyes on the ground from that moment on.
Over
the next few decades, he found literally hundreds of
dollars that other people walked right by. One day,
though, he looked up, and saw the most beautiful sight he
ever had seen--a rainbow that filled the eastern
sky. It held him spellbound until it disappeared,
and he wondered why he never had seen such a thing
before. The answer, of course, was painful to
him--he had sacrificed the experience of such beauty for
the possibility of finding a few more cents here and
there. For years he had missed sunsets, smiles,
rainbows, clouds, trees, and so much more because he had
been focused on the ground.
His
senses had dulled because he put so much importance on
just one thing: money. Other people do the
same thing with their work, their hobbies, their
obsessions (with sports teams, for example), their
possessions, or any of many other possible
distractions. But if we can keep ourselves aware,
and if we can keep our focus outward on the things that
this world is offering us on a consistent basis, we can
allow our wits to grow sharper, and we can learn to see
and to recognize all of the things that can make life so
meaningful.
The
possibility of a few coins on the ground cannot match the
glory of a sunset or the special moment of a shared smile.
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