Grow Time

View from Back Patio

We have survived a whirlwind few months of selling our home, buying and remodeling another, and transporting kith and kin to a new location about a mile from our previous home. I have been up to my eyeballs in moving and remodeling. Talk about dense 3^rd dimensional stuff! During this time I have spent more time on my knees than I can recall. Literally!

What I have discovered is there are many paths to enlightenment. Most of us prefer the more esoteric, heady stuff. This has been a time of ‘chop wood, carry water’. As I have been on my knees scrubbing floors, packing boxes, sweeping dust, and painting baseboard, I have come to the realization that there is no ‘great work’. It is all ‘great work’. The challenge has been to bring as much love and compassion to the most menial of tasks as to the greatest vision we have of service.

I have listened to my inner voice moan and complain and whine to myself about the amount of labor and physical pain of this transition. It has provided me with the wonderful opportunity of seeing how needful it is to bring unconditional love down into the very caverns of our most vulnerable, fragile selves.

This idea of unconditional love is one that we look at extending to others and yet it is so necessary to extend to ourselves. As I’ve cleaned and scrubbed, moved and packed, hauled and schlepped, I have had to remember so many times, to love this body and this soul going through this earth experience—to love what she is doing, to respect and care for her struggle, and to let go of judgment.

There are two important reasons why we are here on earth—to serve others, and to grow. In retrospect, I think I prefer serving others than to soul growth. We often look at the idea of spiritual gifts and growing awareness and think “Oh good, this is so much fun!” What we neglect to see, is that ‘grow time’ means painful times because it is through our stretching and pain that our soul grows.

So, we have been deep in the midst of ‘grow time’. I sense that the same may be true for you as well. The times we live in ask us to grow. They ask us to stretch beyond our usual ways of seeing and being. They ask us to get down on our knees and scrub the dark corners of our hearts—to let in the light and release our judgment and fear. They ask us to open to our Being and to release our need to own, posses, and do.

My prayer has been to hold onto hope and to relinquish fear, to honor all and love unconditionally, to see each person as a precious child of God, and to open to the beauty that is all around me. My prayer for you is the same. Blessings on your journey.