Keep Walking

We’re into that season variously known as the holidays, the Big Three and the Trifecta. Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year. Those three days bring great happiness to some people. They joyfully celebrate these holidays with their friends and family. Renewed purpose and serenity enter their lives.

Other people dislike the holidays because of the work and expectations involved. Running around visiting when what they’d really like is to stay home and relax. We inherit false notions of familial indebtedness. We can be burdened by ideas that we must show up for one or all of the days to make others happy. If we fail to appear, their lives and ours will come crashing down around our heads.

Then there are some of us who just don’t fit either of those groups or almost any others.

I’m married to a Native American. He could care less about those holidays. What he does out of the kindness of his heart is to tolerate my behaviors and beliefs around these days. He knows he’ll get a big meal on a day when I otherwise might not be inclined to cook. There will be tasty leftovers for a few days to come. The Thanksgiving chicken leftovers might even end up in burritos or a plate of enchiladas. There, my friends, is happiness.

Whatever our view of the year end holidays, it’s critical that we continue to move forward with our spiritual lives. Keeping up our spiritual practices advances our souls.

We have the opportunity to flow forward with the changes in life’s seasons. We know that there are seasons in the year. There are seasons in our souls as we progress from infancy through childhood to adulthood to old age. Except that the seasons of life aren’t always what we’re told they will be.

As a senior citizen I feel younger than ever. In childhood and all the work years I was continually striving to meet various worldly goals. Even when I was performing spiritual work. While I had my forty hour a week job there was always work to be done. Spiritual work was often on the side. With the job gone I now get to work on my spirituality in better ways than ever.

The creativity of spirituality keeps me walking on in life. Onward to whatever will be the next event I get to live. A few days ago it was while walking through the woods with my dogs. We ran into a large band of Original American ghosts (pre-Native American) who were upset to see us. They pulled out their bows and arrows. One after another ghost arrow went through or dropped around me. I got tired of their antics — it was not the first time — and I put them through the Tunnel of Light.

Lesson one, never leave home without being aware you always have your guardian angel.

Lesson two, if ghosts and spirits are annoying you, send them through the Tunnel of Light. Angels are with you to help you. If you don’t feel able to do it, pray. Ask God to send someone to help you. You might be surprised at the miracle you will receive.

Lesson three, if you don’t feel two is working, ask God to protect you by surrounding you with grace. You deserve to have a band of golden light protecting you from evil.

So ask.

And keep walking.

I sent the ghosts through the Tunnel of Light and called for angels to light our way. It worked. Further along the walk we passed a buck and a doe grazing. Clearly, Somebody had a pretty good plan for our walk.

That is the underlying idea of life. Regardless of what holidays we celebrate, we can keep walking ahead. We decide how we feel about holidays or any other days.

Walk forward into normal days. I try to think what it was when I was a child that led me to the knowledge that special days aren’t necessarily that great. The most special days are the most normal days. Having to live in the middle of excitement exhausts me.

Isn’t it wonderful feeling our souls expand when the most special thing we do all day is exhale?

Years ago, I knew a woman who said that every morning she sat down at her kitchen table with two cups of coffee. She fixed her cup with sweetener. Her buddy Jesus, she said, liked his coffee black. So, she set a cup of black coffee in front of a picture of the Sacred Heart. The two of them sat in silence. Together they watched the sun come up and the day unfold.

It was enough. She was a busy working woman with a job, family and full life. The way she walked into any day was with a cup of coffee for herself and one for her buddy.

Walking forward into our daily lives is enough.