Today, I remembered...
I'm all that.
I've tended to label my mother as a pessimistic person who dwells on the
negative. Yet, she is a master at what I consider to be one of the
hardest spiritual practices there is -- loving what she has.
Outside her front door are some sedum and mint plants I gave her years
ago. Throw in a three foot tall elm tree, a wayward sunflower and some
sprawling organism we think is a pumpkin or squash (we're anxiously
waiting for it to reveal its' fruit).
Her neighbors often offer to come cut down "those weeds" or "that mess".
She smiles at them serenely and turns them down with an answer that
amuses her at the moment. Her current favorite is "I've got some plants
still coming up and I don't want to disturb them."
She didn't pick any of these plants. I foisted my extras on her, the
tree planted itself and the sunflower and mystery vegetable undoubtedly
came from the seed she feeds the birds. The way she loves her wild
garden patch so fiercely, you'd think she hand-picked and planted each
one. Amazing! What a powerful teacher. My mother, the Zen master and
fearful, worry-ridden old woman.
I got a taste of this during my morning exercise today. I'm 46 years old
and 40 pounds overweight -- not a poster girl for fitness. As I finished
my last Hindu push-up and sat back on my haunches, I felt from the
inside how strong and capable my legs are, my whole body in fact. I
am fit and fat! How cool is that!?
We are miraculous beings -- perfect and messed up, kind and mean,
beautiful and ugly. Part of being a complete human in my book is not
only accepting this but reveling in it.
What!? Rejoice in being mean? Not exactly. Delight in the knowledge
that we can recognize and accept when we're being mean. This helps
us drop our judgment of the next person we encounter being mean
because we are that! No better, no worse. Each and every one of us
is a whole universe, the whole universe.
And don't you forget it.