Tag: now

Blessings to All.

There’s a woman who stands at the corner of 11th and G, Northwest DC. She’s been there for years; her clothes tattered and worn through the many seasons of a system incapable of care.

She offers her smile, asking nothing in return. “Blessings for all,” she chimes to all those passerby. In spite of her ‘circumstance’ she’s become a continued source of joy.

She’s been there since she lost her only child, a son – off fighting a war over capital versus human gains.

I remember passing her one morning many years ago. “What’s wrong, love?” her face warmed with the light of an inner peace. I explained the ‘troubles’ of my life; the displacement of home, of family, of work.

“Sometimes I wish it could be just as it always was,” I said. Graciously, she permitted my rambling; my heart purging the details of ‘all that was wrong now.’

And, when I paused to take a breath – she asked, “Are you done?” Then pointed to a scene transpiring just beyond. A young woman and her toddler son, taking in the joy of a newly autumn day.

“You get one shot,” she smiled. “And then it’s gone.”

She didn’t have to say another word, because, it was then that I knew – these blessings of day, are a blessing to all.

A little something to consider, my friends…

“Blessings to all…”

Namaste ❤️

A Little Something About This Moment Now.

“Many people are alive but don’t touch the miracle of being alive,” writes the venerable Thích Nhất Hạnh.

My goodness, such beautiful insight – don’t you think? That we, so often, in the midst of unsettledness – relinquish our one true connection to the sacred.

Out of fear of the unknown, we cling to our pain. We lose touch with those much simpler things.

Like the muffled thump of mittened hands, and the creaking groan of snow covered limbs.

In our distraction, we sometimes fail to appreciate – that this moment holds so much more than any of our present worries.

As author Jack Kornfield once so eloquently shared, ““Let go of the battle. Breathe quietly and let it be.”

Indeed, that we might one day learn to make now our primary focus.