Keeping Our Center ~ Day 59

Yesterday I was getting ready to cook some Italian chicken sausage on the grill for lunch. I set the plate of sausage down for a minute to go in search of the lighter, I wasn’t gone for more than a minute and when I returned two of the four sausages were gone and one was on the ground. That darn dog! 

Well, the moral of the story is: one, don’t turn your back on a dog when food is around. And, two, everything can change in the blink of an eye. We all know this, even if we don’t always like it. It strikes me today that many of my negative, contractive feelings are the result of a change I didn’t like. Regret, anger, shame, guilt, fear, jealousy, sadness, and others, often occur when I’m not handling change well (if at all).

But, I wonder, if life could be such that things didn’t change, what one time would you choose to stay in without change? Forever? Put that way, life without change doesn’t sound appealing at all. How could I pick one part of life, with only certain people, with no opportunity to learn, grow, mature or gain wisdom? And, I’d be insisting that everyone else around me stop changing as well.

I also recognize that with each “negative” change in my life, there have always been positive pieces to it (eventually), like new friends, new opportunities, or new important things I’ve learned about life or myself. Could I really choose to forgo some of those things? I’m tempted to say yes about some things, but we are who we are because of what we’ve been through.

The spiritual journey recognizes that change is the path, dogs steal our sausages, life happens. And there is no way around that. The only option becomes how well we accept and handle change, small and large.

In case you were curious, the dog still lives. We thawed another sausage and went on.

Love & Light,

Kaye