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Today's
Meditation:
"Spiritual"
has unfortunately become one of those buzz words that seem
to be used by people of various religious faiths to
describe their own personal religious beliefs. Many
of those people try to get others to believe that if the
others don't believe as they do, then their spirituality
is false and useless. This is simply untrue,
though: our spirits are not tied to any religion or
set of theological doctrines or dogmas. We all are
spiritual beings and we all have spiritual lives, no
matter what we believe or not when it comes to religion.
The
spiritual path, then, is up to us. Do we walk it or
do we not? Do we develop our spirits with love and
giving, or do we continue to neglect our spirits by
focusing on material goods and other things of this
world? Personally, I find it somewhat difficult to
stay on the spiritual path when so few people around me
are following their own spiritual paths, but I also find
it worth the effort of facing the difficulty. This
path teaches me to listen to others so that I'm able to
respond to them with love and compassion, and it makes
decision-making easier when it comes to figuring out what
to do in many circumstances.
Recently
I was coming out of a store with a full bag of groceries,
and I was saying a little prayer of thanks in my mind that
we're able to afford to buy whatever food we need when we
need it. As I put my bags in my car, a man came up
to me with some beautiful hand-made necklaces, trying to
sell them to me. He said that he and his wife needed
gas money to get back home. I knew I had a
twenty-dollar bill in my pocket, and my mind was still on
my prayer of thanks-- and I knew somehow that the
twenty-dollar bill was supposed to go to this man and his
wife. So I bought two of the necklaces for my
step-daughters. It was a no-lose situation, for I
helped the man and his wife and ended up with two gifts
for people I love.
In
the years before I've consciously tried to develop my
spiritual side, though, I probably would have said no to
the man out of fear that if I spent the money, I might run
out of money soon. But my spirit knows better-- we
won't be let down in this world if we share unselfishly--
and unconditionally-- that with which we've
been gifted. I try to walk the spiritual path, and
the further along it I go, the more I see clearly that
this path will not let me down.
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