Foothills Folly

So, last week I chose “Faith”. I’m a bit in Sharon Salzburg’s camp, “Faith does not require a belief system, and is not necessarily connected to a deity or God,  though it doesn’t deny one,” (from Faith, p.xiv).  The Buddha said “Faith is the beginning of all good things.”  I am a believer in the wonders and complexities of this universe and our small part of it here on earth. And I marvel in how really small the part each of us plays here, but it is what we have, what we are given, in being alive. It is what we have to work with. We each need to find what good we  can do with what we have been given.  And that is all I have to say about that.

And this week I chose “gratitude”.  I wonder if it is something more than being thankful, something other than counting our blessings. I think it should be something we send outward. Like Sam’s ‘light in your heart’, (instead of a sticker on one’s lapel). Or similar to a meditation blessing:

I am a day late getting into the next trait I have chosen, and I am going for order—-perhaps the one I need the most. I can’t even find the book to read about it. It’s here somewhere…….

I had to get the car worked on this morning, and after a scone to go with the coffee I had brought along, I sat for an hour on a shady bench watching the downtown of the little village of Salisbury. An English Sparrow immediately hopped up on the bench right along side me to see if I was eating anything I could share. Alas, my scone was gone, and he hopped away. (Why do little birds hop, and not walk one foot in front of the other? I may have to google…) Later a father and son AT hiking pair stopped to take off their packs and rest awhile on a nearby bench, and the son went in a store to get sodas and a muffin. The little begging sparrow hopped about beside him, and realizing he was not being noticed, he moved to the front, and chirped at the hiker’s feet and was rewarded by several crumbs from the blueberry muffin.

A crow flew and landed at the peak of the church steeple, and soon another came by and crow #1 flew off to let crow #2 have the spot. Playing King of the Steeple, I think. A horse whinnied as a trailer went by. A pleasant, almost meditative way to pass an hour. I read on my kindle when I got back to the garage: “Individuals that do not have a form of organization in their lives are bound to clutter.” From a book called Just One Thing by Rick Hanson. I need this week. First I must find the soul trait book.

Webster’s defines it here:

Definition of Humility

Definition of Humble

1: not proud or haughty : not arrogant or assertive

But in my readings from Alan Morinis’s Everyday Holiness, it is also a matter of the space you occupy. Taking up just enough space, not too much, and not so little you disappear. This could be physically, like not hogging the sidewalk, or in a conversation where one talks and doesn’t listen. Being within your own space allows you to learn from others. Or it could apply to a role you play where you don’t delegate and feel you have to have control of all aspects  of a project.

I have found, in my whole almost-a-day trying to be aware of my level of “humility”, it also leads to more mindfulness. I’m paying attention to others around me, paying more attention to the flow of a conversation, and noticing the physical space I am occupying at any one moment. I am more “There”, in that moment. Something I did not expect. I do more than just say “okay” when the clerk at the grocery store asks how I am. I notice her in her space and reply more thoughtfully, getting a sense of what “clerk-ness” is for her. The words are humble, insignificant, but there is more of a connection. We are not strangers, although I don’t know her name.

One should go forward on one’s path, being the best one can at whatever it is, but never should one feel superior, never should one  brag.  That is the humble part of humility. Perhaps as the week goes on I’ll find examples of this in others and/or myself.

I haven’t been active here in more than a year. Other things in life came up. I am making plans for the months to come and they include lots of Getting Things Done. I won’t be using David Allen’s method exactly, but I will have a notebook at the ready, and will be using my timer for The Most Important Things:

• Clear the walkway and backyard meditation-garden-to-be of weeds so as to reduce how many deer ticks I find on me.
• Practice the weekly soul-traits for our spirituality discussion group; first up is “humility”. (It was going to be “order” but that is way too difficult for me to start with.)
• Get the vegetable garden looking good.
• Tackle the most obvious clutter (note: this is not “ordering”, it is just things going out the door to someplace else.)
• Keep up with the debt pay-down; this means more hours in the shop.
• Participate in the summer memoir workshop, dedicated to putting a longer written piece in some kind of order — there is that word again!
• Make lots of Gazpacho
• Get over the d___d shingles.

That is enough for now: time to get busy. Here are a few of the Spring’s joys:

The above is Cool Spring, an award winning Siberian Iris my Dad hybridized so long ago. And below is a simple yellow daylily whose claim to fame is that it was grown by me from a seed sent from China.