Pray, Love & Eat

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Christopher Titmuss, Eat, Eat Pray and Love, Elizabeth Gilbert, Faith, hope, journey, Julia Roberts, millenial traditions, Mindfulness, path

Dear readers, the other night I sat in front of my television checking out Netflix’s new  additions.  I stumbled on Eat, Love and Pray.

And I watched it again.  The  first  time I watched this movie was on Thanksgiving Day eight years ago.

photo credit via Morguefile

I barely understood it on that occasion, I dragged  through what I thought  was a very boring movie.  I totally didn’t get the point of the story at all.  I obliged myself because I  had picked it up at the “video  store” to  do something  after our dinner.  I  had family and friends over, but only one of  my younger cousins and myself went through  the motions.  We were both Julia Robert’s fans and we pulled through  out  of our loyalty to her or at least for me, that’s how it worked.

To tell you the story in a nutshell, I’ve been on my own version of Eat, Pray and Love.

Your journey for discovery can only be began and finished with  one person and that my dear friends is you and me only.

I had no understanding of these millennial spiritual traditions, so that added up to my disconnect the first time around.  A fore night before I was  deeply invested in Elizabeth’s pain and joy trying to figure out my own.

This is my own version of this great story.

Now a days,  I try to  remain still and become aware of God’s presence in my life. I no longer feel the need to introduce myself to him. He knows who I am, he’s been with me always.  His calm and gentle voice has protected and guided me through out so much.  In 2011 my life was beginning to fall apart after my diagnosis and I felt vulnerable and lost.

Feeling the presence of a still higher power uplifted me through very difficult times.

Today I don’t pray in a structured or modeled way, but just with the words in my heart. I don’t care much if they sound right for others and make sure they are honest and right for me.  Praying for me is the very first step.

It’s probably the hardest because I need to  recognize that I am in trouble with myself.  Recognizing this is hard, almost unbearable.

Love is a locked gift in our souls waiting  to be set free. It entails plenty a work on our part to keep it  going.

Lately I like to go by this prayer for friendship written with so much love and insight by, Christopher Titmuss.

“May my mother and father live in peace and harmony.

May my brothers and sisters live in peace and harmony.

May my friends and neighbors live in peace and harmony.

May the friendly, strangers and unfriendly live in peace and harmony.

May I live in peace and harmony.

May my words and actions contribute to the happiness and welfare to others.

May the power of my friendship transform difficult situations.

May all living beings live in peace and harmony.”

And the eating part, I love my food! Nowadays I don’t let guilt ruin it for me.  I try to eat feeling gratitude for all that goes into it.  When I drink my fruit beverage I delight myself in thinking that my papayas grow in my mom’s trees with any other fruit I’m lucky enough to enjoy.  And I apply this principle to all that I eat.

I love my cake and when I get the blessing of eating a slice of one (like I’m about to) I savor the moment not worrying to much about calories or so and so.  I used to beat myself the morning after if I indulged the prior night, I do that no  more! Yesterday is gone and the only good about it is thinking about the happiness we  experienced during that brief moment yesterday brought.

You know I’m still a work in  progress.  Always trying to balance off my life! However just like Ketut told Elizabeth, “sometimes to be in balance we need to unbalance our lives”.

So my friends what better way to end this post then with a quote from the book,

“Devotion is diligence without assurance. Faith is a way of saying “Yes, I pre-accept the terms of the universe and I embrace in advance what I am presently incapable of understanding.”
― Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love

Be kind to your self and listen to your heart  with deep compassion.  Hasta pronto!

When You Don’t Dig Eternal Life

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Eternal Life, Eternity, Faith, Jesus' teaching, Life, Perspective, Thich Nhat Hanh, Zen Master

Dear readers,  Christians have this thing about eternal life.  The answer for all our tribulations lay in the after life, or better said in eternity.  Forget expanding our hearts, kindness, friendship to all, compassion and the most important of all acceptance and renunciation.

I just don’t  dig all the eternal life thing as a whole, specially if I have to rely on hope for happiness and joy in my eternal life.  Life can become a drag if I’m waiting to pass to be able to achieve happiness, missing on in so much in the here and now.

photo credit via morguefile

As Christians we shouldn’t be trying to achieve happiness or  joy in a posterior life when what we should be doing is aiming to be the happiest we can here and now, in this present moment.

One of my favorite authors Thich Nhat Hanh brings living in the present moment to it’s maximum expression.  This incredible Zen Master is by far a man from which I have learnt many lessons on life.  I think perspective can only be gained when you listen and understand other people’s point’s of view and if I don’t share their  faith that’s even better.   Perspective is a gift you can make to yourself and the best part is that it costs you nothing. 

As  a Christian when taking Jesus out of the frivolous theological constructs that try to explain everything through dogma.  I have come to understand that Jesus wasn’t foreign to living mindfully in his teachings.  He preached a simple and straight forward message,  over and over he would bring the importance of living today as if it was our last.  Jesus not only taught, but also practiced deep compassion and love to his neighbor.  I believe earnestly  that he listened with compassion.  Laying himself as a model for all of us who aimed to practice and live Christianity to our best.

Let me cut to the chase and establish my point, eternal life seems amazing if I think that I will become one with God the Creator, but also it looses a little bit of its bling if I don’t pursue joy and happiness in this moment in my life waiting for it in eternity.

Let’s not do eternal life a  disfavor trying to aim for it when we are miserable in the here and now.  Let’s find joy in today and live our day as if was our last, loving ourselves and our neighbor deeply and fully to our best of  knowledge and eternity will take care of itself without us yearning for it.

Be compassionate with yourself and others and thanks for stopping by. Hasta pronto!

From My Little Corner of the World

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blogging, community, cyber world, empathy, Era of Technology, Puerto Rico, Social media, Technology

Dear readers, as the Sun rises in the horizon and skies are painted in shades of blue, orange and some yellow here and there I ponder about how noisy this world is.  I’m not talking about noisy in cars speeding  by or people talking out loud, but the noise we all  make to be heard in a world where everybody wants to state a viewpoint on someone or something, just about anything as a matter of fact.

I love the movie Ralph Breaks the Internet because it represents very accurately the parallel universe of our cyber world.  There is so much information attached to so many possibilities that it’s ridiculous.

Nowadays the crowds move from one thing to another in mass, switching interests so rapidly that it can scare the heck out of you.  Empathy grows by the millions and fades away in seconds and people move on to the next big thing.

Is this stoppable? I really don’t think so.

What can we do about it?  Not much collectively, but rather individually. We can switch off our cyber universe for a while each day if we choose to.

How can we teach our younger ones?  By example.

It’s funny people often repeat that our kids now a days have been born into technology, that they don’t play outside as we used to, this or that.  The truth of the matter is that we began changing earlier than they did because we set the example  for them to be drawn to the fast pace of our cyber worlds, where everything is given or done instantly and where patience has little or no place at all.

When we need to wait even just for a few seconds or minutes for our internet connections to work and “high speed” seems to be not so fast, it  aggravates the hell out of us.  Not a good way to cultivate patience for sure.

You know it’s not that important to be heard, it’s more important to listen.  Listen to  others and to our inner voices with a compassionate heart.  Which sounds terrific, but is very hard to practice by the way.  Just the other day, I was putting myself  through an excruciating conversation with a very negative and pessimistic person and I felt like snapping (and to be completely honest I did snap a bit), but then I reminded myself to listen with compassion and just let go of my way and viewpoints.

So as it goes, the Sun is already up, the sky is no longer shaded with those beautiful mixed colors, it took its time, the right amount, not too long or short.  It wasn’t done with a click, but in time enough. The day will go on until dusk comes around and the other side of our planet gets to see some of this amazing light.

I kind of think that I’ll rather follow nature’s lead and live today with just the right amount of time and patience.  It’s better that trying to keep up with the cyber world that never takes a break, that is controlled by no one yet by everyone. Sunrise and sun fall are strangers to this world.

From someone from this corner of the world to anyone who stops by to read my blog,  practice friendship to every  living thing in this world.  From a plant to a human being and everything in between.

Thanks for stopping by.  Hasta pronto.

 

 

 

Coming Home

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blogging, Budhism, cats, Christianity, community, Faith, Happiness, Home, Life, Mindfulness, Religion and Spirituality, Spirituality

Dear readers, time and time again I always come back to the same place.  Some think that life in its own funny way always makes you go round in circles.  However, its just probably us.  Our now and yesterday just intertwine pressing the play and replay many times.

Maybe that’s why many believe that we live over and over again in different time periods during the infinite life of our spirit.

For instance, I love cats.  What I like the most of them is their unbothered way of life.  They just go about doing their own thing.  However, my point is that during my life I’ve always had a cat, as a child I recall having a white Siamese cat, Mom told me recently that she wasn’t white, but black, probably she’s confused with my other cat, Miss Me-aw.  I had a hard time after she passed, so it took me a while to let another cat into my life.  My son convinced me of adopting a kitten and four years down the road, Jinx  lives happily (or I would think) with us in our home.

But hey this isn’t about cats!!! So let’s move on.

Isn’t it quite funny how things just happen to us so many times, the SAME things.

So, why wouldn’t it be different with my blog.  When I first started writing I was invested in it.  My blog was a way I would write myself through my difficulties, but than I just lost the thirst for writing.

It transitioned from reacting to Sunday’s sermon, to a place where I began growing as a person.  It was an eye opener to what was going on in a world that I had never bothered to look at closely.  Injustice rang loud and clear as I witnessed devastation created by those with power.  I began to question what I had thought was my faith.

I saw Christianity with new eyes.

I saw Buddhism with new eyes.

I began reading books about how to live a mindful life.

My spiritual exploration had been set in place and all these years down the road it’s still is.

Believing is a place where that exploration takes  place and I think I’m over with people who put you down spiritually.   It’s time to come back home and just write about the ups and down of life and faith.

My fingers are eager to type away my thoughts and experiences of a new path I’ve discovered.  A path where my spirit rests knowing that each and every day I try to not fall into practices that do  not contribute to my growth or those who I encounter with each day.

Because at the end of the day, we all want to feel the comfort of being in peace with ourselves  and the world, we all want to come home.

See you around and thanks for stopping by.  Hasta pronto!