LOVE WORKS DAILY 02/15/07 - Readers Respond 3

LOVE WORKS DAILY 02/15/07 - Readers Respond 3 - Jerry, Andrea & Deborah

Hello Friends! I hope today finds you happy and well
and filled with the infinity that is love and the
capacity to give and receive it freely today!

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INSPIRATIONAL MOMENT:
(Great Thoughts By History's Inspired Thinking Men and Women)

There is no such thing in anyone's life as an unimportant
 day.

-Alexander Woollcott

TIM's BLOG
(Random Thoughts and Tim's Daily World):

Hi all, and please join me in welcoming some new readers
to our group today.  Always nice and inspiring to have new people
join and contribute (or just read) with us.

Speaking of which,  I am continuing the series in which I
reprint letters sent into LOVE WORKS over the years.  Although
I don't receive alot of mail, what I do get is oh so valuable
to me, and I neither forget it nor through it away.

Some of you may read this and say.."hey, I remember reading
that,  or writing that"....but you may be quite surprised
reading it now...sometimes up to 6 years later and hearing
what was said just a little bit different.

If you were the author, you might look back and be reminded
of your state of mind when you wrote it...maybe a good time...
maybe a hard time....

But do the words still hold true?

Most of LOVE WORKS DAILY is about the present moment, the here
and now.  But every so often, I like to look back and see
where we've been.  Not just me...but all of us.

Our words remain long after we say them...our actions
can be remembered forever.

Maybe the fact that I bring them back later keeps some
of you from writing,  but I wish it wouldn't.  I love reading
and re-reading these...and there is NEVER a wrong answer or
a stupid question.  Especially in the magical mystical world
of LOVE WORKS!

BTW...did anyone do anything for the LOVE WORKS Project this year?
As always curious....

Here are some letters from 2003....
(and thanks so much to Deborah, in particular, for having
contributed your thoughts so well, and so often with this
group - You have a keen mind for this type of thing, and I
am glad you take the risk to put yourself out there, and share.)

 

FOOD FOR THOUGHT:
(Brand New and Classic Love Works Essays 2001-2007)

Dear Tim,

Thanks for sharing your upcoming journey and LOVE WORKS with me. I look
forward to hearing about your journey.

This winter, I am taking a sabbatical and outside of several retreats with
Thay I am planning to stop. Maybe we can do an article on stopping for LOVE
WORKS.

We love in the present moment. Enjoy the journey.....

With metta,

Jerry

That was just what I needed to hear today. Many thanks!

I'm working through (yet again...sigh) some old issues, and turning to some
old coping mechanisms (overscheduling, overworking, feeling "less than")
(and at least now I'm RECOGNIZING them sooner! and counteracting them
sooner....today I looked at my "to do" list and said out loud..."That's way
too much for one person for one day." Now...whether I still try to DO it
all, I dunno, but it's progress, baby!)

I really needed that list of all those things that I know, deep down in my
truth, that I *am*. Thanks.

Deborah

Tim, I love your idea of "nesting"! I do it myself, alone. We have no
offspring, but our two dogs are our kids, and making a "puppy pile" of two
humans and two dogs on the floor (playing, hugging, snuggling, scratching,
tickling) is a wonderful experience of joy. It takes very little to make a
dog happy, and they share it all with us so willingly. Their attention span
is pretty short, though, so I guess it doesn't quite count as nesting!

About the line from the Paul Simon song, I don't interpet "soft in the
middle" as being spineless, but rather as being emotionally vulnerable. I
think we've all encountered people who have reacted to life's hurts by
building up walls around their hearts, being tough and untouchable, refusing
to be vulnerable and love again so they can try to avoid being hurt again.
"The rest of my life is so hard" may be inevitable, but we can choose to
stay soft in the middle. My "middle" is my heart, and I try to keep it open
and soft.

Happy travelling,

Andrea Frankel

On the "simple living" topic, we now have "temporary goats"! Yes, the
neighbors were happy to loan us two (and possibly 4, soon) goats to clear
the chicken yard out. I am not sure it makes life simpler, unless we were
to give up something else along the way, as it makes for more chores. But
as a payoff, we get to do "goat zen". This is the process of standing in or
next to the goat yard, scritching goats and just...contemplating. Even the
dogs have to gotten there (well, they don't do the scritching part). At
first the dogs had heart failure...barking, growling and pitching fits. And
the goats were equally unhappy...snorting, twitching tails and so on. Now
they sniff noses and lick each other through the fence, and the dogs spend
a lot of time just laying in the yard near the goats and watching them.

I also found a certain amount of contemplation yesterday evening while
shelling peas. (I love summer. I will spare you all the long,
exclamation-point-filled paean to how much I love summer and fresh food...
but I do! Bought a bunch of fresh peas for dinner last night, plus fresh
green beans and fresh sweet corn...all to go with meatloaf (sorry, Henry
family...only parts of it were fowl, the rest definitely came from hooves).

Anyhoo, shelling peas is a long, repetitive, potentially boring process
when you have a lot of peas. How do you shell a bushel of peas? One pod at
a time....kinda like eating an elephant... And I noticed that
while MOST pea pods had peas that were all the same size and looked alike,
not ALL of them did. So "alike as two peas in a pod" is only statistically
valid and doesn't always apply to every pea pod. Shocking! So much like
life, that way...

Again, thanks for the trip reports. I know I'm enjoying them, and enjoying
(vicariously) the vistas and the experiences.

Hugs to all,
Deborah

I'm sure most of you already know this, and really, *I*
know it intellectually most of the time, but this time
I "got it" deep inside, which is what I think
enlightenment is really all about.

Driving to church along the Willamette River, seriously
enjoying the views, chatting with my wife, and simultaneously
having a "conversation in my head" with her about a topic
from the night before. In my head, she was saying "But
I *have* to do ALL those things! They feed my soul!!!"

And I suddenly realized that if I am in a mindful state
and present for my life, EVERYTHING FEEDS MY SOUL.

It doesn't have to be specific activities, or people,
or seasons, or places. It doesn't even have to be "happy"
or "joyful" or anything "good" by outside judgement.

I just haveta BE there, and it can feed my soul.

Now, just like physical food for my physical body, I can
feed my soul on junk food (like lots of TV, or trashy
novels, or drinking a lot of alcohol, or spending time
with people who hurt me or depress me)...or I can feed
my soul on nourishing food, or even gourmet food! But
it ALL feeds me.

Bingo.
Satori on the way to Salem.

Hugs to all,
Deborah

Nam Myoho Renge Kyo
Peace be with you.

(c)2007 T.Thomas Henry