Sunday Story...You Made Your Bed

Sunday Story...You Made Your Bed


So you got up this morning and made your bed, brushed your teeth, and washed your face. Prepared your morning beverage and breakfast. When you looked out the kitchen window you saw nothing. There was nothing there. A blank slate. No trees, no sidewalks, no back yard, nothing. Just a big empty world, almost as if a giant pencil had erased everything you once knew and expected. Fear arises in your throat, almost choking and gagging you, like blue green sputum meant to be expelled. What now??

Every day is like this. You get to decide what your life is going to look like from here on out. It looks the way it looks because you designed it that way. Think of your life like a picture you drew when you were a child...the grass may have been blue and the sky green. Maybe you colored in the lines and maybe there were no lines...your art looked the way you wanted it to look. Your life is the same way...you are creating art every day you wake up.

Every day you get to live your mission. Even if you think you don't have one, you are living one...maybe someone else's mission, or the mission someone else picked out for you...but you living it nonetheless. So this morning as I looked out at that blank slate, that new world waiting for me to color it in, I got to decide how it would look.

My life looks the way it looks because I have made the decisions over the years to create it that way. Many years ago I wrote an advance biography of my life for a school project in the 8th grade. It is scary to look at that report and see all the things that have come true. My life was designed by a 13 year old kid. What!!!! Are you kidding me? Who put him in charge? And who left him in charge? Who wrote the report on your life? A 10 year old? Maybe a 4 year old? And when are you going to wrest control back? Isn't it time?

Do you have a written mission statement? A written vision statement? A set of goals that you have written down. Or are you living out of a vague sense of where you want to be? Some long lost career path that you went to when you were 19 or 20? Or worse yet are you just trudging down the path, myopically moving toward the day when you can “retire” and do nothing? Nothing? Really? If you aren't on a path now what makes you think you will be on a path when you “retire”? Or maybe your path is just one long trip in a rut that will end up as a grave after your 78.8 is up?

If you don't know where you are going, you can pretty much bet you are going to end up there. And if you keep doing what you are doing you can bet you are going to keep getting what you have gotten. So what are you going to do about your blank canvas that is the rest of your life, or even the rest of your day?

My mission statement is pretty clear...To lead an authentically transparent life purposefully designed to teach focus and inspire transformation. This is not the life I envisioned when I was 13. or 33. I am not living in the place I thought I would live. But I am living the way I knew I always would..with purpose and intent. And I fail often. More often than I would like to admit...but every once in a while I hit it.

You see, I always said I wanted to change the world. And about a dozen years ago I decided I better start right where I was, so I did. And yesterday a mother, after watching her children test for their first belt, came to me with tears in her eyes.
Her gratitude was evident and she was so happy with the transformation her children made in just a few short weeks. More focus and more confidence, more joy, and more respect. This is changing the world. I don't have to be Gandhi, or Mother Theresa. I don't have to mobilize thousands to my cause. If I can shift one attitude just one degree the effect over a lifetime will be immense.

The canvas is not so blank. I am painting it with the attitudes and shifts in consciousness I want to see in the world. Is my mission fulfilled ? Not yet? It will never be done. You see it is a quest, like the one for the grail. Elusive and stubborn, the ultimate goal will may never be reached, it is the journey, the path that is the joy, the lesson. In the painting I am painting the people in the world are focused and transformed into the people they were designed to be. Not who I think they should be or who anyone else thinks they should be but the people they were designed by their creator to be.

What are you doing to your canvas?

Namaste

John
"Teaching Focus Inspiring Transformation"

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This Week's Recipe

Grilled Veggies

This is the time of year my outdoor grill gets overused.
And it is the time of year for fresh veggies!

These two things combine for a miraculous combination...

Grab your veggies...broccoli, carrots, beets, onions, cauliflower, asparagus, peppers whatever you can find...cut into pieces about 3 inches long so several will fit into the chard leaves (see below). Throw all these in a baking dish and drizzle with your favorite olive oil. Sprinkle crushed red pepper and maybe some powdered garlic. Chop some fresh rosemary and basil and mix. Toss it all together. Get some really big Swiss chard leaves and place the veggies in a leaf and wrap. Fasten with a skewer or toothpicks. Place in the tray above the grill if you have one. If not turn the heat down low and place the skewers on a pizza plate. Let the veggies roast/steam in the leaves for about 15 minutes. Unpin the leaves and squeeze lemon juice over the veggies. Serve with your favorite fish or chicken (also grilled!)