January 4--What IS Waiting for Us?

We must be willing to get rid of the life we've planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us.  --Joseph Campbell

    Flexibility is the name of this game. "The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry." (Robert Burns) This is not necessarily a bad thing. I have found that when I relax and give up on how I would demand life be, life often hands me something even better. The big example from my life is my plan in my 20s to get a handle on my eating, lose weight and be thin for life. When I gave up that plan in exchange for a 12-Step program, I found the life waiting for me to be one of extraordinary richness, personal growth and health on every level.

    The events of 2020 really did a number on "the life we've planned." And now we wait with anticipation for "the life that is waiting for us." We're still not "out of the woods" yet, but I feel the general sense of new, better, kinder, more creative and more compassionate life ahead. Mercifully, we can't go backwards. 

    This writing by Rev. Christian Sorensen describes my practice for implementing the Campbell quote in my life:

Prayer too often ends up being directed at something outside of the self with a request for a change in conditions. Imagine the difference if your prayer was a communion with the Infinite. You would no longer be petitioning for anything to shift. Your only desire would be to know God better. When practiced in this manner, you are no longer looking for an answer that fulfills a limiting question that fits nicely into one of your preconceived rooms of thought. When you are in tune with the Infinite, you experience the unfoldment of an expanding consciousness that blows the walls out from your box. There are answers to prayer that your requests can’t even begin to articulate, Divine Connections ready to deliver the goods beyond expectations and a love that brings a peace and security only the soul could know.

    Que sera, sera,
        Leta