In the words of American baseball, life keeps throwing curve balls at us.  It seemed like we saw the path clearly … but then the ball changed direction.  Swing and a miss!

Or … it’s a fast ball, straight as a laser beam, right over the middle of the plate.  We swing.  The ball meets the sweet spot of the bat … and soars into the blue.  Way over the outfield fence.  Homerun!

All these words!

What if you don’t know baseball?

Oh well.  Life will work out

What I’m building up to is this: We win and we lose.  Triumphs and disasters.  But what if …

“The good stuff” and “the bad stuff” of our days are just flows of energy, not to be grabbed onto or pushed away?  That peace can live within the strikeout as well as the homerun.

Disclaimer:  I’m not talking about huge things, such as not having food and shelter, being physically and emotionally assaulted by someone, experiencing excruciating physical pain.  But I don’t know … is peace possible there too?

I subscribe to a Buddhist magazine called Tricycle.  So many marvelous writers asking me to consider anew.  Myozan Ian Kilroy recently wrote about contentment.  I liked it.  I hope you do too.

I have known many content people in my life.  To be clear, they were not people in dire poverty, whose wants of food, housing, security and other basic needs were not met … These people were not highly successful people either.  They were not the people who chased after high achievement and status.  They were not usually people in positions of power.  They were ordinary people, living ordinary and decent lives.  They were people with little ego and few cares in the world.  They were free within the boundaries of their own life. 

Often, they had a quiet faith in things, believing that the flow of life would take care of itself and work out.  In that sense, they were in harmony with their surroundings, whatever those surroundings were.

They were people who gardened in the neighborhood where I grew up, finding silent pleasure in planting and tending vegetables or flowers.  Or they were old fellows sitting quietly in country pubs, unconcerned with the busyness of the world, meditatively sitting near an open fire.  What was common among them was their centered presence.  Their full being was right there in the situation they were in. 

For me, these words ring true.  I’m the guy in the pub, drinking cappuccino rather than beer.  I’m also the one with the quiet faith that all will be well.  Or in the words of Patricia Albere … Basic Trust.  I too live an ordinary and decent life.

***

I feel the peace

May you do as well

The world needs what flows from our hearts