Tuesday 3 April 2012

The Things Which Really Matter To Me.

Hello
Today I have woken up thinking about the first verse of The Serenity Prayer written by Reinhold Neibuhr (1892-1971):


"God, give us grace to accept with serenity
the things that cannot be changed, 
Courage to change the things
which should be changed, 
and the Wisdom to distinguish
the one from the other.


Living one day at a time, 
Enjoying one moment at a time, 
Accepting hardship as a pathway to peace, 
Taking, as Jesus did,
The sinful world as it is, 
Not as I would have it, 
Trusting that You will make all things right, 
If I surrender to Your Will, 
So that I may be reasonably happy in this life, 
And supremely happy with You forever in the next. "


I first came across this prayer on the wall of a friends house as a teenager and have remembered the first verse ever since. I was raised with no religion or spiritual teachings appart from those I received and subsequently dismissed as nonsense from school, but when I read the first verse it made perfect sense to me with or without the references to God, whom I only associated with Christianity at the time. My spirituality is awake within me now in a way which I understand that it always has been; life is a spiritual experience, I am a soul having a physical experience, there is no separation, so I am told. 


I love the first verse, serenity, courage and wisdom, I would gladly cultivate those characteristics! I feel successful, I am changing the parts of me that I can change; my attitude to life! I feel so happy to be truly opening my eyes to the Glory of the World, I feel as if the whole world, and the whole of my reality is Blossoming as if in Springtime. Appreciating every small thing that I possibly can is changing my world view entirely.  
The feeling within my body of Gratitude is such a delicious one, sometimes when I want to feel that thankful feeling I start to notice the things around me and I imagine that a loving friend has just given them all to me and I say out loud 'Thank You' 


When I view all the things around me as gifts I begin to feel extremely fortunate and my heart fills with gladness. 


Today when I looked up the Serenity Prayer and re-read the second verse I was struck by how much of it resonates with my current philosophy, "living one day at a time" I have been thinking a lot lately about if this was my last day, how would l like to live it? Each day is one whole Universe to me, I used to think that if I only had so long left to live that I would go and do something exciting if I could, have an entirely new experience, perhaps I would go off the Niagra Falls in a barrel! But now I know that the things I really love about life are much more simple than that. 


"Enjoying one moment at a time" this is the key for me, really if I only had a small amount of time left to live I would be the most happy simply to be with my family suffusing myself in each moment, I would look upon my children's beautiful faces, listen to their chatter, submerge myself in their laughter, I would hold them and smell them and touch their hair, and tell them what wonderful people they are. 
It seems to me that this is what I should be doing anyway! I love my family the most in the whole world, I am so blessed to have had my children and such a lovely family.
Being in the moment seems like the single most important thing that I can do with my life! I can be happy anywhere then, when I am entirely in each moment, experiencing my life, I am living life to the fullest, it matters not what I am doing! 


"Trusting that you will make things right, if I surrender to your will" To me this stanza simply says life is beautiful and easy if we step into the flow of well being. When I move along with life the way it wants to go instead of resisting changes and alterations to my plans, things run much more smoothly. In my mind it is like when water is allowed to flow it takes it's own path, water likes to spiral, it does not flow in a straight controlled path and if we try to control it it often ends in disaster (like the Mississippi breaking the levees). 
For me life seems a bit like that, let it flow and it is beautiful, plan too much and resist the changes that life makes and it becomes a chore. 


I do think that we can expect to be more than reasonably happy in this life though! Reasonable seems a bit conservative to me! When I live in Gratitude, when I go with the Flow, when I savour each moment and live one day at a time life is wonderful, sublime, exciting, fun, joyful and full of love and laughter! 


I am grateful for the Serenity Prayer, it is a wonderful reminder of fantastic ways of feeling good in this life, I'm not too worried about the next one, and for the first time I feel like if there is a next one I shall be very pleased and somewhere near the front of the queue! 




Today I have Loving Gratitude for the works of others
I have Loving Gratitude for my precious human life
I have Loving Gratitude for all the birds everywhere
I have Loving Gratitude for seeing life as a gift
I have Loving Gratitude for my own smile and how it makes me feel
I have Loving Gratitude for my strong body
I have Loving Gratitude for my feet
I have Loving Gratitude for my laugh
I have Loving Gratitude for my children
I have Loving Gratitude for the song of the skies


love Klara.

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