Dr. Massage - The Morning Moment Archive: Heaven Interrupted

Thank you for sharing this Morning Moment with me.

Aloha, Peace and Wellness,

Holman

Aloha and Good Morning,

Once, there was a strange little creature which lived in the flow of a great crystal river. Her name was Expedience and her heart was bursting with excitement.

“Tell us again, Expedience, what’s heaven like?”

“Well,” she began; looking around her at all the little creatures gathered near by, “It’s so pretty my heart cries out with joy every time I remember. I have seen things magnificent and indescribable. Though I thought I would die, I longed to stay there.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“Impossible! One second I was going along like normal and the next – bam! I’ve been hurtled from the river into that which is above. I saw sky! I saw sunrise reflected from the clouds and the first light of morning shinning upon trees and flowers. I saw mountains. Then some terrible force grabbed me and yanked me down, down, down until I smashed into the river again. I was tossed about like a tadpole until finally I ended up here, in this pool and found all of you.”

It occurred to Expedience that if heaven could be experienced by the river tossing her out, then why not Expedience tossing herself out? So, with a mighty swoosh of her tail, Expedience rushed toward the surface, broke free, and splashed down laughing joyously.

“It worked!” She cried out. “I’m going to do that again!” Again she rushed the surface and broke free – right into the waiting claws of a seagull, diving for its breakfast.

“Ouch!” she exclaimed. Looking up at the huge bird, Expedience asked “Why would you want to hurt me like this?”

“Want to hurt you? I don’t want to hurt you,” the seagull said in surprise. “I’m hungry, so I’m going to eat you. It’s what we seagulls do.”

“But why? What have I ever done to you?”

“Done? Nothing; unless you want to count popping so conveniently up out of the river. I’m hungry, you’re available, and it’s my nature to eat you. It’s nothing personal, you understand right?”

“But this is heaven, how can it be natural for you to hurt me? I can assure you, to eat me is to hurt me.”

“Heaven? My dear, little breakfast snack, this is not heaven. Heaven is up there, further than I can fly.”

“But I thought…”

“You thought wrong. I’m hungry and you talk too much.” The seagull’s terrible claws tightened, his eyes bright, his tongue darting out to lick his awful beak.

“Umm, if this isn’t Heaven, and heaven is just up there and you can fly, why don’t you go there and see what heaven is like?”

“Don’t be silly,” the seagull scoffed, “One can’t merely fly to heaven. It doesn’t work like that.”

“Why not? I just leaped into this place and felt such joy and wonder with everything I can see and experience that I’ve never seen or experienced before that my heart nearly bursts for joy. If that’s not like heaven, then I don’t know what is.” Expedience told the seagull everything that had transpired: letting go of the rock, being tossed in the current, raising above it all, the waterfall, the pool and learning that she could jump into a new realm of being all by herself.

“Really?” The seagull fell to wondering and gazed heavenward. He flew higher and higher pondering what he’d heard. Without thinking he relaxed his claw and Expedience slipped back into the river.

How often is our experience of the Divine seemingly stolen by the actions of another? How often do we find our sense of balance, our peace, our contentment seemingly snatched away by jarring chaos that comes to us? How do we process through the emotions of these moments without undue attachment to feelings that really don’t enhance our well being? The great teachers have taught us “not to take things personally.” Great ideas are often so simple to understand: it’s not about us. Yet ideas are seldom the events that unfold in our day to day life where “not taking things personally” becomes considerably more of a challenge. How often does life present us with events that feel not only personal but really personal?

In the moment of stress our inner emotional landscape changes: our perspective narrows, our body pumps a complex chemical soup into our bloodstream, our memory and our eyesight suddenly fails us. We forget all the good things and lose sight of all that is positive. None of these reactions solve the root cause of whatever precipitated our negative state, yet they are the “natural” reaction patterns we’ve practiced over and over again all these years.

Perhaps the first step in our crusade to do things differently is to separate cause and effect. Just because it’s not about us, doesn’t mean it doesn’t affect us. Yet recognizing that we are not the cause helps us refrain from internalizing an effect and allows us to deal with the event more objectively, more compassionately, more kindly. It allows us to step back and remember that we are trying to learn new reaction patterns, to learn new tools. In remembering, we can assume a stance in which we merely witness and therefore can maintain the perspective of self-sourcing that promotes another’s core needs rather than reacts to their outward behavior.

So just for today, I’ll determine to step back, breathe more deeply and look deeper into the hearts of those that surround me. Just for today I’ll decide to be a witness to my own emotions and reactions. Rather than attach to them, I’ll let them pass. Then I’ll give assurance and love rather than defensiveness and negativity. Who knows, perhaps I’ll have so much fun that I’ll decide to do the same tomorrow as well. Isn’t a space that leads to a deeper relationship with all that is, a space that leads to new insight and awareness just like leaping from the river and into the heavens?