What I Was Created For.....

  

A monk decided to meditate alone, away from his monastery. He took his boat out to the middle of the lake, moored it there, closed his eyes and began meditating. After a few hours of undisturbed silence, he suddenly felt the bump of another boat colliding with his own.

With his eyes still closed, he felt his anger rising, and by the time he opened his eyes, he was ready to scream at the boatman who had so carelessly disturbed his meditation. But when he opened his eyes, he was surprised to find that it was an empty boat that had struck his own. It had probably gotten untethered and floated to the middle of the lake.

At that moment, the monk had a great realization. He understood that the anger was within him; it merely needed the bump of an external object to provoke it out of him. From then on, whenever he came across someone who irritated him or provoked him to anger, he would remind himself, that the other person was merely an empty boat, the anger was within him.

     This story on my Facebook page today rang true to me.  Right after I read it, I walked into the living room and on the morning news the anchors were interviewing an author stating something to the affect that because more moms were working, there were more problems with children acting up.  This brought up anger in me.  Pretty funny, because the above quote is just about that.  I immediately went into attack mode, saying to myself, that is not true, there are plenty of moms who don’t work, and their children are not the stars of the show.  Then I chuckled to myself, “Where did that come from?”  How did I feel threatened by this statement?  My children came out pretty well, thank you very much.  I was lucky, my husband worked two jobs so I could stay home with the kids while they were young and when they started school I worked part-time so I could take them to school and pick them up and we did everything together, I was at dance practices, band practices, recitals, football games etc.  Maybe one the of differences was I was present while I was there.  I was not conducting business on my phone, or chit-chatting with friends, I was supporting my kids.  Chelsea used to get mad at me at dance recitals because I would yell out, “Go Chelsea!”, she finally asked her dance teacher to tell me not to do it.  I did it silently anyway.  And even though Robert never admitted it, I could see his big smile as he marched by when I yelled his name. 

     As I mulled over why I irritated about this new book, I realized I could not really make a conscience decision about the author or the book because I had not read it.  The news anchors had picked out what they thought was most important, or what would get the most ratings.  Again, I don’t know the process about what they decide to talk about.  It reminded me of a conversation I had yesterday with a customer.  I do not remember how the subject came up, but we started talking about Reiki.  I am a Reiki teacher, I love Reiki and it is a way of life for me, and I use it daily on myself.  She had questions, and I answered the best I could, but her biggest question was, “How do you reconcile doing Reiki with being a Christian?”  Now I guess she just assumed I was a Christian.  I was raised Catholic, and I don’t think that once you are raised in a faith, it ever leaves you, but I no longer belong to any “church”.  There are so many definitions of what being a Christian is, but my definition is I follow Jesus’ command of “Love One Another”.  It’s that simple.  At least for me.  I went on to explain that Reiki has no doctrine, it is not a religion, just a way for us to open up to our Creator’s love and be conduits of healing.  Some people are open enough to be able to heal immediately, laying on of hands, but I, like many others have life blocks that kept me from doing that, and so I took the classes and learned how to be a conduit for love.  That’s all it is.  Being open to the energy of love around us and focusing it; be it a person in need or a situation. She continued questioning and I picked my words carefully, trying to come from her frame of mind.  I told her Jesus healed, He did laying of hands, and He told us we could do everything that He could. 

     The conversation played out and then we went onto politics.  Funny, because I try never to talk about religion or politics.  She talked about the protests going on, and who she liked and such.  I put my two cents in and said, “If we would all just focus on the 99% of the good in the World, and not on 1% that is not good, we would all be much happier.  I pointed out the beautiful trees across the street, and talked about the beautiful town we live in, commenting on how the city takes such good care of keeping it clean, planting flowers and having artwork all over town for everyone to enjoy.  It did shift the conversation and it was a good ending. 

     What did all this teach me?  That I am still a work in progress.  I still have my prejudices, even with those who are seemingly in the same frame of mind.  But it also reminded me that I a work of beauty.  That I was created out love, am love.  And the more of that huge love I let through, the more I become what I was created for, Love.