How to Dramatically Change Your Life-View With a Strategic Shift in Perception

“There are only two ways to live your life.  One is as though nothing is a miracle.  The other is as though everything is a miracle.”  Albert Einstein.

It is so stinking easy to take everything for granted.

As long as there’s food on the table, we don’t wonder about how it got there- about the farmers who labored in all weather, or the migrant workers who brought in the crop- we don’t consider the people who prepare the food for market, or the truckers who get the produce to market.       

We forget that it takes store clerks and cashiers for us to bring the foodstuff home, and the time and effort it takes to prepare the meal to which we sit down, all unaware of the lengthy process that goes into the meal which we chow down so quickly.

How easily we get used to our conveniences …hot water in the shower, a car in the driveway, clothes to choose from in our closets, quick communication via our ever-present cell phones.

It wasn’t all that long ago when letters took months to cross the country, when water was lugged inside from nearby streams or pumps, when a trip to the outhouse meant braving the weather, and the few clothes were hung on pegs on the wall.

We snuggle down in comfort and become jaded to the harsher realities of life.

I live in a beautiful area in south Jersey where there are diamond sparkles on the numerous lakes, and where log cabin homes nestle next to newer more modern houses.  To drive past one of these lakes in any season and gaze across the dancing waters is awesome!

But if you are in a hurry or in a lousy mood, you can zip past all the beauty right in front of you and miss the whole splendor!

I often think of this as the seasons change.  We are so aware of those first signs of change and they fill us with anticipation and joy.

But it isn’t long before we cease to appreciate the very things we longed for back in the preceding season.

If spring came but once a century instead of once a year, or burst forth with the sound of an earthquake and not in silence, what wonder and expectation there would be in all the hearts to behold the miraculous change.   Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Familiarity breeds contempt- or at least complacency.

Our lives move too fast to truly appreciate all that surrounds us. Only unusual or dramatic events seem to capture our attention.

And so…in this speedy world of too much to do, too many possessions, too little time for thought or leisure, people reject a God who moves and works quietly in the silence so many of us no longer hear.

“There is no proof of God”, they exclaim, at the very same time that the evidence is everywhere.  Jaded and faded we are to not SEE with our minds, hearts, and souls.

“I love to think of nature as an unlimited broadcasting station, through which God speaks to us every hour, if we will only tune in.”   George Washington Carver

Can you not appreciate what happens when we ignore the soul’s song?  Hate, anger, and bitterness flourish, and society as a whole becomes depressed and downright mean and even violent.  It’s a soul sickness that no one wants to recognize or do anything about it.

Bear with me here-

• When was the last time you truly tasted each morsel of a meal- as if it were the very first or last time you would ever taste again?
• When did something in nature so take your breath away that you immediately stopped whatever you were doing to just gaze in wonder and appreciation for as long as it took to drink it all in?
• When did you ever take a common thing- a flower, a rock, a child’s face, and looked into its very depths and marveled at the wonder of it?   

 

The world will never starve for wonder, but only for want of wonder.    G.K. Chesterson

 

 

All our frantic busyness allows us to live right on the surface of things, never going any deeper than as if life were a kiddy pool, when in fact it’s as wide and deep as the ocean. So we wade in just getting our feet wet, and that’s about it for any kind of perceptual depth.

There was a reason that some of the early Christians went out into the desert to live a life of worship.  Out there, with no worldly distractions, you had only your own mind, feelings and demons with which to deal, which left one open to offer one’s true nature and self to the Divine.

So too, the monasteries and nunneries which allowed the nuns and monks to dedicate themselves fully to God away from societal disturbances.

But today, most of us cannot just wander off into the wilderness to commune with God and nature.

We have jobs, and families and financial obligations.  We have houses and lawns and cars to maintain.  We have children who are involved with sports, or dance, or music lessons, or scouts, or some other activity.

Relationships become frazzled or broken, stress affects everyone, even children…and there is no quiet time- no silence- anywhere!

Do you know the story of Moses and the burning bush? (Exodus 3)

    So…Moses was out on the mountain of Horeb, tending his flocks.  When lo and behold! Over yonder, he spots a bush that appeared to be burning but was not being consumed.  Intrigued, Moses decides he must stop and go have a look at what is going on.  God, noticing that Moses has taken the time to deliberately turn aside, calls out to Moses, who replies, “Here I am”.  Then God tells him to take off his shoes because he is on holy ground.

Is there a deep lesson in this story?  Sure is!

God only speaks when Moses turns aside from his herding business.  It was in the turning aside that made the difference!

And why remove his shoes?  Because anywhere God is, that place is holy ground.

All of which is to say that since God is everywhere, then everything we see as ordinary and common is actually sacred and holy, but it’s only when we slow down and turn aside from our onward rush that we can hear the voice of God or perceive God in our midst, and so appreciate  the holy quality of all things.

Will you hear the actual voice of God?  Most likely not.  But in the set-aside time, you will finally manage to “see” God in so many ways you never did before.

Never lose an opportunity to see anything that is beautiful. 
It is God’s handwriting – a wayside sacrament.  Welcome it in every fair face, every fair sky, every fair flower.  – Ralph Waldo Emerson                                                                                

Beauty is everywhere…

• The old, weathered face
• the scraggly rescue dog
• the work-worn hands
• the homeless man’s broken tooth smile,
• veteran’s battered wounded body
• the hair-less cancer struggler
• the roadside chapel with mismatched metal chairs
• the living room strewn with children’s toys,
• the alcoholic passed out on a bench.

All…!

All are beautiful before God and all are holy and beloved.

Have we all but forgotten this?

Consequently, it is not just in the spectacular or extraordinary that God is apparent, but also in the everydayness of our daily lives.

Reframe the picture in your mind.

• Making dinner after a long weary day, is a gift of love and is a holy thing you do.
• Sitting for hours with a spouse who has Alzheimer’s is a sacred act.
• Befriending the unpopular fellow worker is a Godly deed.
• Commuting 4 hours a day to work in order to support your family has God’s love stamped all over it.
• Working from home so that you can be there for your children is holy- as is doing the wash, and helping with homework, and all the other mundane things you do each day.

“A fundamental aspect of our (lives) must be discerning the presence of God and His kingdom in our everyday lives.  If this is true, why do so many of us overlook this down-to-earth spirituality and only seek spiritual nourishment in the little free time we have each day?

One possible reason is our tendency to take everyday activities for granted because of their sameness and repetition. In general, the everyday is ignored until it becomes a problem. Since we find nothing remarkable in the ordinary, we conclude that it has no spiritual value…

Our challenge is to pay reverent attention to daily life with the full assurance that God will meet us in the ordinary and extraordinary. Our common, routine activities and situations can then become “sacraments” that reveal the mystery of God…  

Over time, as we gain in our ability to find God in the pleasures and problems of everyday life—and not simply in signs, wonders and spiritual experiences—we can gain a deep love and respect for God, creation and our own existence.”  Charles Metteer

Maybe you don’t have an hour of solitude or stillness in your day.  Maybe every moment is cluttered with things to do.  The solution is to find the sacred in what you do- in all the interactions and tasks of the day.  Finding God in daily life takes only one action on your part—paying attention.

All ground is holy for all things are of God.  Everything is a miracle!