To the present moment. Allowing my concerns about the future and my anxiety about the past to fall away. I am currently in training for a long rowing event, which means I spend hours at a time rowing, and the distance goal for the day seems daunting and unreal, so I focus on each individual stroke. One at a time is more than enough. Time slows and broadens to an open expanse which allows for a sustained gaze and absorption, This in turn engages my mind so as to quiet it down and allow for me to truly see life in a particular way. I can do the same thing driving, reading, writing.

The writer’s perspective. Chronicler of events, descriptor of emotions and the generator of webs. It allows for creativity through allegory always with an eye to tack back towards core truths. Everything has potential, even the smallest detail: The feel of the mug in my calloused hands, it’s warmth from the coffee, the faint sounds of the birdsong as dawn hints on the tips of the palms and mahoganies, the sound of the car turning in the court below as the man arrives who brings the newspapers to my neighbors, his driver door left open as he sprints to their doors allowing the flow of Cuban music from his radio. The opening of the channels for inspiration, waiting for the words which always come.

I feel love most intensely through simple things that are direct experiences. Not intellectually. Certainly grounded in the natural world most of the time. And through my senses. Sounds (the sea), smells (the north woods in autumn), sight (a field in late summer glowing with sunlight and a backdrop of dark gray clouds from an impending storm), and taste (a ripened peach on a summer day). Internally, a warm fire after a long day of cross country skiing in the woods or in a hammock under a tree in the shade after a day of body surfing at the beach. My body revels in it’s exhaustion. The love comes into fruition in gratitude and deepened by my making room for it and savoring it, deeply appreciating it’s nuances. And all of this is heightened through sharing it with another.

There is just so much I don’t know. I am old enough to have grown up with the full Encyclopedia Britannica and as a child I used to randomly pick a volume and open it and just read in a kind of humbled stupor at how much there is to know and how little faith I had in my being able to ever learn and retain much of it. So the simple awareness of my lack of knowledge is the engine I suppose. I find myself fairly regularly in situations where I am utterly lost and so, bit by bit, out of necessity, have to figure it out. In my case ignorance is not bliss.

There are a few essentials. One is the capacity to be present. That sounds simple, and yet, it is not. At least for me. I am beset by a default of unconsciousness that seems to be the natural drift if I don’t pay attention. If I am lazy, and give in to the barrage of interference that surrounds me. For instance I stay clear of advertising when I can. I never watch commercial television whose entire reason for being is to influence me in disturbingly enigmatic ways which amongst other things cultivate hunger for things I do not need or want, and breed dissatisfaction in general. In short, there are forces at work to muddle my perception of what really matters.

So if I can stay clear of that, and stay awake, then I can practice presence in the moment and develop the ability to discern what really matters.

Quiet helps. A reverence for the truth helps. By that I mean to say a healthy dose of doubt. Test my motivations and inclinations against what I say I am about and who I want to be. Discipline helps.

I am having lunch today with a colleague that has been a tricky relationship. I find that I become obsessed with trying to figure out what went sideways (when they do) and analyze and re-analyze my actions to see how they could have contributed to the perturbation. The end result is I am not sure I bear any responsibility, at least there is not an outright complaint about me or my behavior. I cannot be sure, and I will try it out certainly starting today at lunch. I will start to overtly be grateful for her presence on my team and the contributions she brings. Articulated regularly and authentically I cannot help but assume it will lessen any friction. I appreciate the insight this question has brought to me!

Upon consideration there seems to be a slight distinction between what might be called spontaneous gratitude and cultivated gratitude. By this first distinction I refer to the sudden welling up triggered by some circumstance: The feeling when your feet touch the bottom on your way into shore after a tricky swim; Opening a gift and seeing something you immediately cherish; Hearing that a loved one has recovered from an illness. So the ‘how’ is a result of some outside influence.

In the other, the cultivated, it is powerful in a different way. For it is utterly willful. Harnessing my internal disposition in such a way that I express a grateful light out into the world, an energy, a vibration. Like ripples or a wake, it moves out from me throughout my day, and reverberates. Maybe like the sonar of a whale or radar of a bat, perhaps it’s physical, the important thing is that the returning tones point out and show me a deeper sense of the world.

As a tool, it is invaluable. And practiced (as we know from the voluminous evidence on this very site and body of work promoted by Br David) it can become habitual in the best sense of the word. And so, as beacons, we also attract the first, the spontaneous triggers that are sourced outside of us more readily.

Loss. Whether voluntary, making choices that meant giving up something(s) or a change in circumstance that removed them. Loved ones, homes, friends, careers, physical abilities, many things I cared for and valued. The losses were hard to bear, and sometimes devastating consequences followed. And yet, the point was to accept the loss. The core theme of it all has been the art of relinquishment. To the extent I have been able to develop the ability to turn it over has provided a return. A strengthening. What has been brought to bear is faith.

My curiosity about what it means to have a spiritual life led to a whole new level of consciousness. My wondering how I could live more in alignment with my values has brought me to a grounded sense of belonging in the world as opposed to imposing on it. I find the Spirit is often behind this prompting and wonder, and my willingness to follow the thread leads to wholeness. I always found the Bible story of the pool at the temple that people waited by the side for the surface to be ‘troubled’ very much about this dynamic. When it happens…leap in.

Well this is solidly in my wheelhouse! So. basically, I have come to realize that I can make every activity sacred. The act of doing so is bringing Spirit into that activity through engaging the soul. I do this by practicing presence. Being in the moment. In so doing I end up feeling vital, alert, and strangely calm. Spirit is a very big energy. Have you ever stood right beside a horse? They are big, and I am a big guy! Standing there next to all that power, that strength, I am suddenly very calm. It’s hard to explain, and yet by taking the action of spiritualizing my moment to moment life I get very small and auxiliary, and yet present and participating in life.