Mindful Living: Leap and the Net Will Appear

Once upon a time I survived a long stretch of unemployment. That’s when I started writing about faith, because when life is mucking about in the dark place just before dawn, faith is the only thing within reach. Friends can be a sympathetic ear and maybe lend you money for the heating bill, but they cannot make the ache go away.

On the practical side I tried all the usual affirmations and resumes and networking. I prayed for a job, begged even. But even in good times, petitionary prayers (“please give me this job”) are not how spirit works. It was only when I took the hand of God that things turned around.

I’ve read that the thing people most value at work is their place in the puddle. That is, they’d rather be a big fish in a small pond than a small fish in a big pond. It isn’t money that makes people tick, it’s being high in the pecking order. When I did contract work I was the lowest paid person at the office, little more than an clerk. I know I am not what I do, but it sure felt like it sometimes.

Sometimes I imagined that my legs would just stop and refuse to go one more step, but then I’d come home and my cat would run down the driveway to meet me. Sometimes when hope was nearly on empty, I escaped to my car to cry. At those times I wished I could live with less passion and more acceptance. Sometimes I have to count my blessings through gritted teeth.

It may be easy to see that I was in safe hands in the past, but so much harder to have faith for tomorrow. How do we know when the leaping would be crazy and when it would be the cat’s meow? Surely we can’t make a mess of things and expect to be rescued again and again? If that were so, we’d all hit the mall with credit cards crackling.

Wouldn’t it be nice if we could have as much faith in the future as we do looking back at the past? It’s easy to chop up the credit cards to make way for a safer financial future. Now I only have to chop up my fears, and create space for spirit to secure a safe hold.

Copyright January, 1999

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