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| photo by Oleg Oprisco via google images |
1. If one afternoon a chimpanzee knocks on your door, do you:
F. call the zoo?
F. shoot him?
H. invite him in for tea?
2. If the sun falls down one morning, do you:
E. run to the edge of the world with the rest of the screaming population?
E. post on facebook that this is only the beginning?
O. tie a star around your neck and go home to take a nap?
3. If one evening you wake up famished with nothing to eat, do you:
A. starve your sorry self until morning?
A. rush to the grocery store to buy as much as you can so it never happens again?
P. eat clouds for a late-night snack?
4. If you’re walking outside and suddenly hear a whisper in the breeze, do you:
R. run like hell?
R. think you’ve finally lost it?
E. sit down to have an unexpected conversation?
Score yourself
Add the letters of your answers to the spaces below.
_________ _________ _________ _________
Question 1 Question 2 Question 3 Question 4
You may shake your head or scrunch your face. You may roll your eyes and think I’m not making any useful sense at all, that I’m even wasting your time.
But what if perspective affects more than you think?
What if where you decide to look, what you decide to see, becomes the world you live in?
What if looking at things from a different perspective does, in fact . . .
. . . shift everything?
What if the difference between Fear and Hope is as simple as engaging the imagination? As simple as loosening the rigid mind in order to give space to the gentle heart? As easy as letting go of what you think you know, in favor of what you’d like to feel?
Before the fear, before the pain, before the suffering --way before all that. When you used to dream of silly things, when you could still hear your tiniest urgings, when your silent festerings used to make you turn the car around or pick up the phone. Back when responsibility wasn’t so loud and life was a yellow brick road unfolding before your eyes, inviting you, begging you, pleading with you to take it, to tap its hard surface with your dance-happy feet.
When we remember that door, when we open and walk through that door, imagination starts to paint our world with fresh new colors, with a hue we forgot we once knew.
We notice, for the very first time, again, what has always been:
4. We begin to feel the world hold us up when we start to fall, the universe’s hammock cradling us with her soft, even welcoming, arms – a whisper on a breeze.
3. & 2. We begin to float in the mystery, not trying to understand, but believing all is just as it is, and it is as it is meant to be, that somehow we will make it through – maybe even faster, and with greater wisdom when it's all over, if we eat clouds for a snack or tie a star around our neck and just go home to take a nap.
1. We begin to hear the hearts of those around us and to respond effortlessly as if they too, are us. We ooze love, are love, see love in every set of eyes, even if it’s very tucked away – in the eyes of a chimpanzee.
Grace permeates.
Beloved emotion radiates.
The sun nudges the body to sing.
And our souls smile.
* * *
My love nudges you today. Nudges you to open your heart to whatever it dreams up, to whatever makes you smile, no matter how small.
The shape of a face in a bare-branched tree; the fluff in the corner of the room that reminds you of something magical; the bug that looks like it’s trying to tell you something; the words in a book that seem to want to sing… so let them…sing!
When we listen to our imagination’s silent not-so-silent call, we're accepting an invitation to a perspective that will take the reins from fear, and put them into the lap of hope, a hope that will guide us through.
So here, take my hand . . . let’s invite more of that hope into our lives.
Together.
