For My EnJOYment

Sometimes I'm my own slapstick comedy. It may start out a normal day. I'll give thanks before rising for this wonderful gift of life, and this brand new day. Then I jump out of bed ready to get moving, but somewhere right in here, there is a subtle (and sometimes not so subtle) turn in the path.

I used to love to watch the Three Stooges. Now, don't get me wrong, I never enjoyed the violence part, but the silly antics, and the "Wooo, wooo, wooo, woooo's", and the funny situations they got themselves into - those cracked me up. So did Spanky and My Gang, Laurel and Hardy, Red Skelton and Carol Burnett and skits on Saturday Night Live. Although, I stopped watching television years ago, I've always enjoyed a good laugh, so I am grateful for a gift from spirit which continues to deliver the humor.

Somehow, when my life gets serious I am gifted with my own real-life ongoing slapstick comedy: me. I crack me up. Life cracks me up. At any given time, all I have to do is step one step back and observe, and it's very entertaining. It's like a built-in relief valve.

Carrying too many things, juggling to get the key into the door, and aware of an urgency to get into the facilities is the perfect recipe for some wild antics. Sitting on the little student desk while trying to be impressive with my coolness, and instead landing hind end stuck in the trash can makes me laugh. It is a gift and I am grateful for it.

Independent Joy

After all of these years, I have discovered something remarkable. Joy is independent of worldly experiences. Certainly happiness seems to be tied to attitude, and circumstance more oft than not, however, joy in it's pure Spirit presence in the heart form, is not. Rather Joy is connected to grace and it bubbles up a spring in my heart, transforms even the mundane or the profane into the truth, into pure grace.

I am blessed in this life, I think. When I come to lean on Spirit, when I forget my own little thoughts, I am engulfed by grace, I become joy. Transparent, let me be transparent, a window to the soul, a window to the light, a candle in the night.