Death and Taxes? How about Prayer and Taxes?

If "April is the cruelest month" as the poet said, then April 15 can seem like the cruelest day. It's the day we pony up and pay our taxes.  I had a throwback moment myself--a moment of acknowledging some financial truths. Even a moment of scarcity thinking.

And then I reminded myself of the truth I wrote about in my book, Prayer to Ease Money Worries.

"True prosperity is not about money or things. It's a way of living and thinking, of noticing the wealth we already have that goes way beyond money." So as I send off my tax form, I  smile and say thanks: thanks for health and loved ones and friendships, and daffodils--and also...

...thanks for roads and bridges and schools and all the things my taxes pay for that I am blessed to have and sometimes take for granted.

Discovering "sermons on the mat"

My friend Tom Jacobs likes to end the yoga classes he teaches by having his students lay in a circle on their mats while he dims the lights. Then Tom, too, lies down, and as music plays softly behind him, he speaks quietly for several minutes about the connection between yoga and the rest of life.
One of his students, with tongue in cheek, dubbed these talks SERMONS ON THE MAT.
Tom laughed as he told me that, and his eyes crinkled in smile lines. Tom teaches yoga six nights a week, and to him, it is “prayer of the body.”

The word yoga means union, and for Tom, that ‘s what life is about: finding union with God, whatever way that union expresses itself to individuals. As the son of a Jewish father and Catholic mother, he early accepted the idea that God is larger than any doctrine.
I agree.

With a yoga instructor like Tom Jacobs, we do more than stretch our bodies: we stretch our souls. I salute Tom. He is in the Kansas City area. Go to this website.

Daring (gulp) to Disconnect?

Sign on the road to a Buddhist monastery in the Colorado mountains:
“Drive more slowly.
Road gets harder.”
I juxtapose those words with the PBS Frontline episode I watched last week titled “Digital Nation” where everyone is multi-tasking like crazy, always connected to someone somewhere via smart phone or computer.
I wonder: Is it possible to disconnect-- to occasionally travel more slowly in today’s increasingly rushed world? One of the MIT students interviewed for Digital Nation claimed that she can work efficiently while simultaneously juggling five tech connections. Yet a university study has shown that in fact, multi-tasking does not make us more efficient, we just THINK it does.
Life, like roads, can get harder as we go along; a little more challenging.
Taking time to sit quietly in prayerful meditation can give us the inner strength we need to face challenges.
I wonder: if you’re under 30, do you think you could handle 30 minutes of quiet without being connected? Maybe that same question applies to over 30, too.
Here’s a challenge: Try it!

What's Coming Next?

At the beginning of January, I had dinner with a half-dozen women friends. Afterwards, with some fanfare, our hostess handed out magic markers and small white tiles, each about an inch and a half square.

“What is your word for this new year?” she asked. We were to write the word on our tile and keep it with us for the next 12 months. Various words were selected--”trust” “focus” “patience” “faith” “success”--but the one I liked best is the word NEXT.

Depak Chopra once said, “What happens in life is neither good nor bad, it is simply next.” In years past, I was too quick to call an event “bad” if it didn’t match what I had hoped --or expected -- would happen. But I’ve learned that even painful experiences can take on transformational meaning over time. So this year, I'm willing to be surprised. I'm going to open my eyes and my heart to whatever comes next.

What about you?

Feeling stressed?

Does the following speak to you? I'm quoting from my book,
GRACE ON THE GO: Quick Prayers for Determined Dieters

Okay, God, here’s the way I feel right now.
Like the inside of a clothes dryer.
All hot and bothered.
With my ‘stuff.’
Worries and fears and stress, oh my
Are tumbling and tossing around
In my mind until
It makes me dizzy.
When I feel like this, I don’t want to pray.
Prayer is just one more stressor.
Who has time or energy
To hallow your name?
(I’m being honest now.)
When I’m stressed,
I wish someone would hallow me.
Help me open the door of this dryer, dear God,
So I can cool down, and then maybe
Pray my gratitude
For all the good in my life.

Having fun with little ones

Is there anything more rewarding than a visit with grandchildren?
How thrilling to see four-year-old Isabella run toward me, arms open, eyes alight, shouting, "Grammy!"
And to say to sixteen-month-old Brady in the time-honored, peek-a-boo singsong style, "Where's Grammy? Where's Grammy?" and have him point to me.

Visiting with grandkids in their home city did mean I got behind in writing my E-spirations.

But I gotta say it was worth it.

Pictures on the Piano

“Look! I’ve turned into my grandmother,” said my friend Glenda, gesturing toward the many framed photos on her walls and bookshelves. “I thought it was so tacky the way Grandma cluttered the top of the family piano with photos. Now I’m doing it.”

I smiled. “Me too.”

At some point in life, almost like a primal urge, we start surrounding ourselves with reminders of family.
Why do photographs matter so much? Why do people whose homes are destroyed by fire or flood weep the most for their lost scraps of Kodak paper?

Because memories fade. Your toddler’s impish grin, caught—just so—on a certain day may not stay in your memory bank. And have you ever blurted when coming across a 20-year-old photo, “Oh, I’d forgotten all about that!”

For many of us, our refrigerators become colorful art galleries. My friend Dots calls it her visual collection of begats. “It’s like the Bible says: “Frank begat John who begat Sarah who begat Kim who begat my adorable grandson Timmy.”

Have you ever walked into a house where family photos are missing? You become aware of a certain emptiness, subtle but real. Where are the framed reminders of the begats: the connections of one generation to another?

A divorced friend said sadly, “My angry ex-wife cut me out of every family photo. I felt as if she’d cut me out of my place as daddy to our children.”

Another couple didn’t take photos in the early years of their marriage. When the husband died unexpectedly, his widow grieved because she had no visual reminders of their happy early years.

Framed photos are never tacky. They’re loving reminders of all that binds us together. When I look at two framed photos of my now deceased parents, hanging next to photos of my grandchildren, I’m reminded of the blessed continuum of life.

Is now a good time to display some of your family photos?