Our capacity for surprise is often an unused blessing. Brother David Steindl-Rast has described surprise as another name for God. With each appearance, it prods us to as, “Beneath our problem-solving, what is life asking of us? Beneath our ideas of happiness or suffering, what does it really mean to live?” So often, we seek to change things, only to find that our honest engagement with experience often changes us. In trying to make life fit our needs, our sense of need is often softened or broken until we fit life. Humbly, this inversion of intent is, in itself, a subtle wind of miracle. And surprise often announces that this miracle is near. Because of the very nature of surprise, our first challenge is to stay open to the unexpected, not to harden into the position of our initial reaction. For this sort of stubbornness makes change a monster and makes learning next to impossible. We can’t learn to see if we can’t keep our eyes open. In just this way, staying open to the unexpected expands the openness of our heart…..Mark Nepo

the power of our generosity of spirit lies in the heartfelt connectedness and freedom it invites……we have infinite realms of openness to explore……where we see each other……

The small man

builds cages for everyone he knows,

while the sage,

keeps dropping keys all night long

for the beautiful rowdy prisoners.

……Hafiz

the bridge we cross

A great deal of unease arises in the experience of a small and limited life, in believing ourselves to be unchangeably, inescapably, smaller and more limited than we are in essence, in truth. Mindfulness allows us to experience the contracted state in which we’ve held our awareness and experience of being. Applying mindfulness to an ordinary moment is a bit like sliding slowly into a bubbling, hot mineral pool and, upon relaxing, recognizing in what tension we’ve held ourselves.We can initiate this liberation from limitation and unease, liberation from self, the very source of unease, with a stable and committed spiritual practice, sustained by creating wise and skillful circumstances for ourselves…….Kathleen Dowling Singh