The photos this week were taken last Saturday on a foggy morning where visibility was really low. Still, in spite of the weather which turned out to be heavy rain, Lee and I both said that it was a wonderful day - different yes - but a wonderful day. Each day can always be "This is the day the Lord has made."
Stopping by the pier in Bar Harbor to cancel a boat trip out to Baker Island because of the weather, I noticed the expressions on the faces of what seemed to me to be an extraordinary number of people for such an early hour - 7:30 AM. An elderly couple were walking across the foot of the pier with shopping bags from the souvenir shop where all the boat trips were booked - some energetic young people who looked determined to have vacation no matter what - and some who were sad as the weather did not cooperate. Most of what I saw on the pier and especially in the souvenir shop were those who were working their week or two off from jobs. I identify with this as many of my vacations in the past were "work" done with the attitude that I will get as much as possible out of down time as I can even though I would hurry back home at the very last minute and return to life exhausted.
Learning how to be in the present moment has given a better perspective to life. (Moving here to Maine, "Vacation Land" as the signs say, does help my 'doing' nature relax to a great degree.) So, I walked the pier for a few minutes and with the perspective mindfulness has brought me to today I found myself in life-mode, present moment acceptance. It was a good day after all.
Look into the fog blocking inner vision,
the ship waiting to carry you back Home will be seen.
God is always waiting - always ....
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When we started out this
voyage together, I invited you to join me on the journey of a mystic, to set
foot in a boat unfamiliar to you, a vessel whose dimensions none of you knew,
and to let it drift out to sea without really knowing where you were going; to
face the unknown with an open heart, without any apparent support, with no
promise of anything. Just the way ahead, the way within, an internal voyager
who leaves the pleasures of the world, and dives down deep into the recesses of
his or her own heart-body-mind, alone.
Ayya Medhanandi
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When the fog lifts your boat will be waiting
and the Journey to God's Very Self can begin.
(The Ocean is metaphor for God.)
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Here is a remarkable video from someone who was not afraid to enter into the ocean and learn to somehow breathe the Water. Well worth a look at how God is ever calling us to enter into God's Very Self.
Click here: http://vimeo.com/channels/staffpicks/14074949
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On the journey inward if we take the path God presents as the way forward, there will always be a Gift waiting for us and no matter how steep
the Way may seem timidity is not an option here.
Pick any boat for the Journey.
If it has a motor run in into the Ocean Of God until out of gas -
if it has oars row until you find the place where vision is the Gift received.
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A little humor:
Peace, Bill Lagerstrom
