PRACTICE

I found out that standing in line at the Post Office is a great place to practice my practice. A few weeks ago, I got into an old favorite practice of mine...as I shall now recount to you....

...the vastness of such incompetency blows my mind... these poor customers waiting for the two bored and uncaring postal employees who were taking their good old time and had not the slightest interest that the line of folks staring at them was about 15 people long. Their attitude of “we’re going to take our good old time” laid heavily in the air. This Indian woman and her two childish sons were hogging the desk for the entire 20 minutes that I was standing in this motionless line. Her children were playing “as if they were on a playground” and their achingly loud voices echoed in the swollen silence of the stiff space around me. Of course, the mother was chatting away with the postal guy and didn’t even hear them. Every now and then, she’d glance their way, like, “oh, I have these two boys who are behind me and they are still there...”. The gentleman behind me was practicing “patience is a virtue”, he claimed. No one else seemed to care that these postal employees, eyes facing down, were oblivious to the folks in the line and that the ”head honcho” was idling in the back somewhere, probably munching from that box of ‘stale by now’ broken-off pieces of donuts from morning, along with about 10 other employees that were drunk with the same lackadaisical attitude. This soup of details was swarming around in my head like a bunch of mad bees that just got evicted from their hive.

In the not so distant past, I would have taken up the martyr role as easily as scooping up a free sample of cookies at the grocery store. I would have maybe gone up to the desk and pleasantly (fake smile) asked if there was anyone who could work the empty windows since, glancing pointedly with my eyes, there was “quite a line here for the last 20 minutes”....I would have thought about it before I did it, and how there wasn’t anyone else for the job, and it would have to be me, or I’d be stuck there with these weird Indian or “something” kids all day. Of course, I’d been nursing this and this is just one example...of my personality in action.

That was then.

I sighed to myself. I thought, wait a minute! I could practice here! So, I took the whole scene in with all it’s idiosyncrasies. The sounds of the kid's screeching and echoing voices, the buzz of the florescent lights, the vacant desk windows, the stale donuts, the bees..and I extended and saw this scene before me just manifesting as time in space.. Everything was moving or not moving, people’s mouths were moving or not moving, everything s-l-o-w-e-d down so that I could really see what was right in front of me. The judgements went. The scene took on a hue of radiant reflections in time. It became the Post Office and people just mailing stuff! I saw the light glistening in the kid’s eyes...the love they had for each other in their shoving and chasing, their mother’s delight in being a mom, the post office people just doing their jobs, and smiling! To my surprise and relief, my mind became still. I SAW time in timelessness and as I extended into the space around me, my heart took it’s rightful place. I saw things as they really were...and it was just beautiful. So simple and simply divine. I felt an ethereal presence within and beyond myself, in an eternal and infinitely luminous and lovely sphere of purity and beingness. I was in bliss...and felt great. Yes, then the line moved, and I, along with it.

The important thing for me was that this wasn’t a “self-improvement” trip or exercise I was trying to “accomplish”. It was a practice with no goal and my intention, I guess, was to just change the direction my mind had taken me and end the “self-suffering”. First, I suspended my mind. Then I extended into the space around me. That was the simple practice. The transformation occurred within me through the generosity of grace. And, my understanding took the shape of this scene in time, colored and carried by the light of love.

Written by Karen Ferguson

ALONE

I had a dream as a 4 or 5 year old girl that I did not remember until I received an assignment for a college English class to write about an experience that shaped my character. I had no idea... but as I was thinking about this, I relived something that seemed like a dream. I called my mom and asked her if she remembered me telling her about this dream. She did!

One beautiful summer evening when the sweet smell of hot roses and and soft peonies filled the air, I was home alone. The reason I was alone isn't really relevant. But, alone I was. I was dressed in my Sunday best in black shoes, white socks with lace on the top and a pretty dress. I walked from the living room window after I watched my family drive away in an old studebaker station wagon (green and tan) and felt the silent space around my body. I walked into the dining room and noticed that the window had no glass. Just a window sill. Curious, I went over and knelt down on my knees and put my elbows on the window sill and looked up into the sky. In the blue, black sky, swarms of stars and moonbeams shined their reflections upon each other. A pregnant fullness was in this night, that made it different from any other. I was full of peace and light, and my eyes and heart were open wide.

Already enraptured, I watched as Jesus made his way to me from this pure sky space. He didn't speak out loud or move his lips. I only remember his beautiful and kind face and his eyes that were so soft and looking so deeply into mine. He said he had come to visit me and I asked him if he would like some tea. Yes, he said. So I ran and got my little tea set and put it on the window sill. We sat together in this sequined silence and drank our pretend tea. As we sipped from the tiny cups, I was washed by the love in his eyes. His heart melted into mine.

There was just this gazing of his eyes into mine. In this way, he fed me his own love. It seemed like our gaze was all that existed,as I drank it in for what seemed like an eternity.

Whenever "then " was, Jesus sat down his tea cup and told me that it was time for him to go. He said, "There's something I want to tell you...then he paused. He looked even deeper this time, directly and stongly into my little eyes.

"Never be afraid to be alone, because I will always be with you." With that, he left as magically as he came.

As a child, I gazed into photos of Jesus that were large on the walls of our church. They were alive for me. As the preachers words faded into the background, there was Christ knocking on a door to a cottage... such a beautiful, soft door with flowers surrounding it. I couldn't figure out who was on the other side of the door...but my heart came to know the answer...

Written by Karen Ferguson