"Why are you still carrying her?"

Two monks were walking along a dirt path when they came upon a rich woman. The path in front of the woman was wet and muddy. The woman was angry because her servants couldn’t carry her across the mud due to the many packages they were carrying for her.

After a moment, the older monk picked the woman up and carried her across the mud. When they got to the other side, the monk put the woman down. The woman continued on her journey still upset and without even a word of appreciation for the monk.

The two monks proceeded to follow the path in silence.

A few hours later, the younger monk finally couldn’t stand it any longer. He said to the older, “Can you believe that woman? She was so ungrateful.” The older monk looked at the younger and simply replied, “I put down that woman hours ago. Why are you still carrying her?”

Sometimes we choose to carry extra baggage. We choose to carry anger, impatience, disappointment, resentment, or hatred. Of course, we all feel these things at times and none of us has any control over how we feel when we feel it. However, some of us choose to feel those feelings and then let them go while others seem to find a need to hang on to them a little longer.

Certainly people wrong us all the time. Someone cuts us off on the highway, a co-worker takes credit for something that we accomplished, our spouse is unappreciative of the meal we cooked or house we cleaned. And, certainly there are times when those wrongs can and need to be righted.. when we need to have a discussion with our co-worker or our spouse.

But, what about those times when we don’t want to discuss or don’t have the option.. when we don’t want to make things better or simply can’t? I wonder if sometimes we would rather carry those emotions with us just so that we can be justified in being upset… so that we can have cause for our own dissatisfaction.

Or, perhaps, we have a hard time letting things go merely on principal. Someone did something rude or unkind and they should know that their actions have affects. The person in this particular situation being affected just happens to be us and so we have no choice but to be resentful or irritated. And yet, being angry all day at the person who cut us off this morning isn’t teaching that person a lesson. Our emotions aren’t affecting that person at all. They are, instead, crippling us.. keeping us stuck in the past, preventing us from moving forward.

On the other hand, sometimes our emotions propel us forward. Sometimes staying with our outrage strengthens our motivation to make change. We get so angry about the education system in our county that we call our mayor; we get so outraged at the uneven distribution of wealth that we start paying more attention to purchases of need rather than want. Indeed, sometimes staying in our emotions is fruitful and important.

So, then, how do we decipher when to hold on and when to let go? When to carry and when to lay aside?

I suppose we ask ourselves a simple question: is this emotion useful right now? Is my irritation at my boss helping me? Is my anger at my son working for me? Or, am I just wasting time? Am I wasting a couple hours on my journey being angry at the rich, ungrateful woman when I could be focused on where I am at now or what’s coming next?

And then, I suppose, we have a choice. We can choose to listen to the answer to the questions we have asked ourselves or simply to ignore them. But, ultimately, the choice is ours and ours alone.

Also, I suppose, the answer is in the perspective. Is our perspective that we are owed certain things, that we are entitled to them? Or, is our perspective one of gratitude for each and everything that goes our way? What is it to think of each and every good thing in our life as a gift? A blessing?

Perhaps if we expressed more gratitude when things went right with our lives, we would feel less resentment when things went wrong. And maybe then our point of view might even shift from being irritated with the ungrateful woman, to being saddened and concerned that she is so full of anger in the first place.

One of my favorite quotes is: “It is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.” In some way, that is the same to me as, “Why are you still carrying her?,” because it’s almost saying: “What’s the point? How does cursing the darkness improve this situation? Why not just let go, or, even better, light a candle?” Sometimes I wonder what would happen if the whole world could stop carrying unnecessary baggage and instead offer up more blessing, more light.

"Whose to Say?"

There's a classic Zen story about a Farmer's luck. This is how the story goes, as I remember it:

There once was a farmer with a beautiful horse. One day, the horse escaped and ran away. Upon hearing this, the farmer's neighbor came over and lamented, "Oh, how awful, your beautiful horse ran away." The farmer simply responded, "Whose to say whether it is good or bad."

The next day, the horse returned to the farmer bringing a herd of wild horses along with it. Once again the farmer's neighbor responded. This time, the neighbor exclaimed, "Oh, how wonderful! Now you have a whole herd of beautiful horses!" Again the farmer simply replied, "Whose to say whether it is good or bad."

The next day, the farmer's son was trying to train one of the new horses. In the process, he was bucked off and broke his leg. The farmer's neighbor came over and sympathized, "Oh, how horrible, your son has been injured." "Whose to say whether it is good or bad," answered the farmer.

The very next day, military officials came to the village to draft the young men for a war. The farmer's son was not drafted because of his broken leg. "How wonderful," the neighbor rejoiced again. "Whose to say," responded the farmer.

Most of us live our lives much like that of the farmer's neighbor. Our lives are a rollercoaster of emotion: both good and bad. We are quick to judge all that happens to us as well as those around us. We are quick to label things, events, people, as "fortunate" and "unfortunate".

And yet, I wonder how much more peaceful we might be if we were to live like the farmer instead.

The reality is that tragedy strikes us all. We have each had an experience of our "horse running away". It is easy to get caught up in these experiences, to get immobilized by the pain, to be overcome with worry. The truth is, however, that none of us knows where these experiences will lead us.. none of us knows what will happen next. Perhaps that tragedy is the only road to a future beauty .. or joy .. or love.

Jesus tells us, "Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is life not more important than food and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life" (Matthew 6:25-27).

Being able to let go of this worry, just as the farmer does, is possible only through a deep and profound trust. As Christians, for us that trust is in God. We trust that God has a plan for us, that His ways and reasons are greater than ours, that He knows what will happen next even when we are clueless. We trust that life is meaningful and that we have a purpose.

Thus, instead of wallowing in each moment of sadness, anger, disappointment, and betrayal, perhaps, we can merely experience them for what they are and then move on. Perhaps we can say to ourselves, "So, this is what pain feels like, or, this is what despair feels like, or, this is what loneliness feels like." After having allowed ourselves to experience these moments, then hopefully we can let them go. In doing so, maybe we can teach ourselves to simply remain open to whatever is to happen next.

I think the same can be true of times of great joy, hope, and peace. Of course we should experience these moments to their fullest. Nonetheless, we do not know where even these moments may lead. If we get too caught up in these moments, we lose our humility and perhaps our drive to continue to do more and be more. And, as the farmer says, we can't finally judge whether an opportunity or event is good or bad until we know what is to come of it.

To me, life should be about judging less and experiencing more. About accepting each moment with even just a grain of respect, peace, and curiosity. About letting go of worry and instead focusing our attention on just being who we are, where we are.

Finding God Within.. you and me and the world.

There is an old story about a dying monastery in a small village. The monastery which had once thrived on monks, visitors, faith and prosperity, had fallen on hard times. All that remained at the monastery were a handful of aging monks. The abbot at a loss for what to do, decided to seek console from the wise rabbi visiting his hermitage in the woods outside the monastery.

The rabbi agreed that it seemed as if the people at the monastery and in the village had lost the Spirit. Together, they read the Torah and wept for the people. The rabbi apologized for not having any advice for the abbot save to say, "the Messiah is one of you".

When the abbot returned to his monastery the other monks were saddened to hear that the rabbi had offered no advice. The abbot did share the rabbi's cryptic message that, "the Messiah is one of you".

In the days and weeks and months that followed, the monks continued to ponder this message. They started paying more attention to each other and wondering if it was truly possible that one of them was the Messiah. As they continued to wonder who the Messiah might be, they began to treat each other with the utmost respect in the off chance that one of them was He. And, on the off chance that each one himself might be, they began to treat themselves with extraordinary respect as well.

Since the forest in which it resided was beautiful, it just so happened that villagers continued to visit the monastery from time to time. As they did so, people began to feel and sense the deep aura of respect that was emanating from the monks and the monastery.

This gentle aura seemed to radiate from the monastery and without naming it or realizing it, people became compelled to return. They began to bring their friends who in turn brought their friends. Eventually some of the younger men began talking to the old monks until one day, one of them asked to join the monastery.. and then another, and another, until the monastery was once again thriving.

The monks began to treat one another with deep and profound respect once they learned that the Messiah was among them. And indeed the Messiah was among them. That is what it means to be made in the image and likeness of God. It means that the divine is within us all, from the least to the greatest.

This concept is at the core of our Judeo-Christian tradition... it's discussed in the very first chapter of the very first book of our shared Scripture. "So God created human beings in his own image. In the image of God he created them" (Gen. 1:27). And yet, how often do we live as if this is true? How often do we treat those we meet as if God is within them?

Each week we reaffirm this belief as we participate in the sacrament of Eucharist. We eat the Body and Blood of Christ thereby literally inviting Christ into our very being. We are made one with Christ again and again. And yet, how often do we live as if this is true? How often do we treat ourselves, mentally and physically, as if God is within us?

As we interact with other creatures.. with our land.. with our environment, how often do we consider that maybe, just maybe, there is an element of the divine within it all?

I think about this sometimes. I make a commitment to treat everyone with the respect that I would treat the Messiah. I forget. I fail. I recommit. Life is a cycle of thriving and dying. We can't get it right all of the time because just as much as we are made in the image of God, we are also only human.

Even so, I wonder what this world would be like if we all handled each other as if God was within us. Could we also radiate an aura of love, peace, and respect? I have heard it said that "like attracts like". If that's true, then good attracts good, respect attracts respect, beauty attracts beauty, joy attracts joy, and love attracts love... just as much as hatred attracts hatred, indifference attracts indifference, envy attracts envy, judgment attracts judgment, and evil attracts evil.

Perhaps it is just that simple. If we want good things, we need to be good things. We need to send good things out into the atmosphere and good things will return.

Maybe if we actively look for the God within ourselves and others, we might actually find it there. Maybe if we believe the Messiah is one of us, there the Messiah will be.