A Universality
Of course we wanted good things and situations, and we often wanted people to do our biddings. Prayer and practices were the way to go, and we could shape up all kinds of circumstances. Nothing the matter with wanting to live better lives, except that there was so much more at our fingertips than we knew. Many times we actually did find good relationships and wonderful jobs, but if we hung in long enough, we discovered that we had much larger lives to live. Once we solved a few problems, we found a universality that underlaid everything. We began to discover what it meant to believe in something greater than ourselves, and maybe, best of all, we began to discover that we all really do belong together in a kind of shared Oneness. We found a god that was God, one we could really all live with, one that had our backs and allowed us to make the choices only we could make.

Continuous change
This takes genuine, life-long openness to Good. It often means giving up what we think we know about ourselves to become more of who we really are, and by extension, who others are as well. It means finding that we can’t control everything but that all of us are part of continuous change. It means growing into the “within the within-ness,” and knowing without always understanding why we know or how.

Mind stretchers
Don’t get me wrong. The princes, palaces and parking places were wonderful. Still are. To this day whenever I am driving, a little light goes on in my mind that says,” just the right spot.” These were the first mind stretchers, but they are just the tip of the iceberg.

From “More Essays on Everything,” now available on Amazon.