Special Blends

It’s been said that spiritual health is like coffee. We all have our own special blend.

There are days and even weeks when we feel like our life is a bland drip. One day after the next is a great big blah. Other times we could swear that life is the perfect espresso blend. We are full of zip and vigor. Our outlook is totally positive.

It is how we want to live our entire life.

In fact, we can.

When we remember to believe in ourselves, when we exercise our faith in ourselves and in the Spirit, life is good.

It’s all up to us. We must choose a positive outlook. We have to put in the work. We have spent our lives hearing and reading all about how prayer and meditation are supposed to help us live bigger, better, fuller lives.

So what?

The so what is that so you have to have the intestinal fortitude — the guts — to get out there and do the work to make your spiritual life happen. Just like with building up our stamina with physical exercise.

Spiritual muscles need to be exercised. Not once a week or once in a while. Daily. Several times a day.

Prayer is all very well and good, but so what? Prayer is us talking to Spirit. Frankly, using the formulas of our childhood doesn’t always work. They’re precisely that. Formulas. When life becomes a series of 1 + 1 = 2 one after the other, we have become dry and boring.

It’s not enough.

How many days in a row can you live on one small bowl of rice? No protein. No vegetables or fruits. Only rice.

That becomes pretty bland pretty fast. It’s scarcely a formula for success.

Prayer is the same. Be succinct when you pray. Say what you have to say in your own words instead of something out of a book. Give yourself two or three minutes to say everything. When you’re finished, shut up.

There’s a thought, isn’t it? We don’t get answers from other people when we constantly talk. We don’t get answers from our Creator if we are constantly babbling at It.

I know the conventional wisdom is to close our eyes, breathe deep and drift off into instant nirvana when we meditate. That doesn’t work for a lot of people, even after years of trying.

I knew one Boston woman who sat down at her kitchen table to meditate with a cup of coffee. At the place beside her was a picture of Jesus. He had a cup of coffee, too. She and Jesus would look out her window, quietly sipping coffee for a half hour or longer. That was her daily meditation.

If getting out of your head to have some quiet means going for a swim, a bike ride or a run, do it. Go every day that you can for at least half an hour. Do something that gets you out of your head. If you can’t meditate sitting still, stop sitting. Do what you can do and know how to do best to turn down the noise.

Stop the squirrels.

Spirituality is not a one size fits all deal.

Just like coffee.

I like my spirituality the same way I like my blend of coffee. Strong. Tough minded. Forward looking. Positive.

I drink a pot of Cuban espresso every morning. Black. No frills. No fancy cups.

I take my spirituality the same way. Plain. Simple. Straightforward.

Each morning I start out with a few quiet prayers. Then I meditate for as long or longer than I prayed. I give myself credit for knowing that I ask for a lot. It takes a lot of listening to get to “Maybe.”

Don’t give me the sun, the moon and the stars. Give me quiet. Give me peace. Give me a world where men and women have the sense to either get along or to shut up and mind their manners.

Is that too much to ask from God?

No. It’s too much to ask from most people, but God’s got it. That’s a lot simpler than asking to win the Olympics or the World Series of anything.

It all comes down to our own choice of how we want to live our lives. We can have fancy coffee blends that come in fancy containers.

Or we can take our coffee and our life simple, straightforward and straight up.