Hustling for Worthiness

Do something completely strange. Odd. Weird.

Even worse, something new.

Turn off the noise that says you constantly have to hustle. I first heard it long before I ever played Little League or tried out for grade school basketball. I heard it before kindergarten ever came along.

It was screamed at black and white televisions during football and basketball games. When the guy up at bat for the Chicago Cubs got a hit, the rooms of adults huddled around the television went wild screaming for the player to hustle to first base. Then second and third.

Go for home!

My hustle was more of a mosey. Unless it began to look like I was going to be forced to watch the game or run a chore, I moseyed along upstairs to my bedroom. I escaped to someplace where I could quietly read and be ignored. Where I could talk with my angel friends. I loved to sit on my bed and listen to them teach me about the worlds that had been and the worlds yet to be. Best of all, I was forgotten by humans, if all went well.

In the unhappy event one of my parents caught me before my upstairs escape, I was sent outside. There I was bored beyond tears. I typically had no interest in running to the woods when I had plans to read. Or get stuck in a ball game where my lack of coordination made me an obvious object of derision. I really had no use for being outside unless I got lucky and the angels or some of the local ghosts had a choice bit of wonder to present me.

Among angels and spirits I have always been comfortable. So long as they weren’t Satan or another demon. Those guys are massively pushy and demanding. Always insisting we hustle and bustle to do whatever evil they want us to do for them.

At home and in school we are taught to hustle. We have to be good enough to get in the right schools. Play the right sports. Know the right people.

We spend our entire lives hustling for worthiness. What is so bizarre about it is how little it seems to matter to the people who matter.

People who grasp, who are greedy for things, who need societal approval, aren’t the people to have around. I have been friends with bums and rich people and every one of them has been wealthy in the ways that matter. Maybe they lived in homeless shelters or mansions. It didn’t matter.

When I saw them hustling, preferably when they were unaware of my presence, they were quietly trying to do good for some other person. They were being kind. Not because they were out for gold stars. They saw somebody who genuinely needed what they had. Maybe they saved a place in line for someone. Maybe they just smiled and nodded their head.

It’s enough.

When we’re hustling for material things, we might as well be looking for bread in a hardware store. What you’re going to get are nuts and bolts. Being humble, keeping our feet firmly planted on the earth, leads us to honest actions.

The beginning of my daily hustle for humility occurs when I wake up in the dark of night. I get out of bed, pray for a while and then meditate a while longer after that. I pray to hear God and other people rather than myself. I meditate to let whatever Words I am supposed to hear sink into my soul.

There is a form of spiritual goofiness going around. People talk about downloading messages from gods, angels and spirits.

Honestly. How ridiculous.

Any messages directly from God or brought to us by Its various messengers come to our souls. If we risk humility. We download nothing. All messages directly enter our souls. They enter our entire being. And they may not even be messages our heads ever need know have been given us.

There are no mathematical algorithms involved.

There is the mathematics of stopping the human hustle. It’s an individual act. This isn’t something done in a stadium or auditorium. Definitely not in a house of worship. There are countless infinitely small decisions appearing to add be one large decision. They are the decisions to give up hustling for other humans. There are the resolutions to be in love and be loved.

By Love.

By ourselves.

By others.

Hustle for that most impossible object to own.

Hustle for grace.