A friend of mine was having a bad day yesterday … not sleeping, some people being mean to her, laptop woes.  I said I’d pray for her.

I was heading to the gym, and a brand new thought entered my mind:  “I can pray for her while I’m on the cross-trainer machine.” (Also called an elliptical)

Huh?!

In words I have come to love … “Why not?”  I usually ride the elliptical for thirty minutes.  It’s good for my heart and my knees.  And so I began.

The machine has all sorts of stats I can refer to during the ride, such as speed and calories burned.  For the very first time in my athletic life I didn’t look at them.  So strange. 

For the first ten minutes or so my mind was a jumble, flitting between an image of my friend’s face and the unseen numbers.

Then my whole body started to loosen.  My mind too.  And who knows what else.  My prayers began seeping out.  The urge to look down at tiny screens melted away, ever so slowly.  The arms still pumped back and forth.  The legs rotated as my feet sat on their pads.  But my energy output was … softening.

After twenty minutes, with my heart rate climbing (I could feel it.  I didn’t look!), the prayer for my friend was as wide as the sky.  I saw us hugging for a long time.  I could feel her heart beating against mine.

I was physically very tired at the end.  And … my heart was both thumping and soaring.

***

Hours later I was meditating at home.  I figured my friend could use some more praying.  It was a long and sweet session in my dear meditation chair.  I heard her name and blessed her. 

There came the moment when the slowly undulating stillness moved into unwavering stillness.  I could feel love flowing unimpeded from me to her.

So far pretty normal in my meditative life

And then …

!

My friend disappeared.

I disappeared.

The stillness was of a nature that I’ve never experienced before.  It was shining.  It was stretched out beyond the beginning and ending edges of life.  All had stopped.

And then the words:

Love loving Love

No longer two human beings.  Nor longer on the surface of this planet.  No longer with language and purpose and quick thinking.

Love loving Love

***

I’m asking myself if I should be saying this stuff.  I imagine that many of you have never meditated.  Maybe some folks are saying “What is this guy talking about?”

Well, so be it.  But who would I be if I didn’t talk about what is real and true?  If I let the shoulds of life guide me?

I know …

Just a shell of Bruce

I prefer the bigger fellow