To get right to the point, the thing which helps provide me with inner peace is my mortality. If I am only here for a limited amount of time, then why spend any of it being miserable? I know how difficult and painful life can be, but I am still in charge and control of only one thing; my thoughts. So whether I have been abused, robbed, thrown into a concentration camp or prison, I still choose what I think and, therefore, how I feel every day.
Of course, when you find peace and are capable of understanding, forgiving and loving your enemies, you also give yourself an enormous gift. Love is blind because it does not see a world full of defects and faults but chooses to see ways of providing compassion and assistance to others. But if you do not love yourself, you will never be capable of loving others. What resides within you is seen in others.
One day while walking our dogs, I was very impressed by water and what a great role model it is. You never hear water complain about the rocks, dams and seashores which get in its way. Instead, we sit and listen to the relaxing sounds it creates with these obstacles. So I went home and wrote this poem. The title comes from Jesus’ answer to Nicodemus when he asks him how an adult can be born again when he can’t fit back in his mother’s womb.
We Are Water and Spirit
You can look into a mirror and see your image
Water reflects your image too
But unlike a mirror you must get close to the water and yourself to see the reflection
And you and the water must be still and untroubled by outside forces
And just as water may exist as a liquid, solid or vapor
You can undergo continual transformation too
Depending on your state of consciousness
You can choose to close your heart
And become hard and cold as ice
Or become sparkling diamonds on the branches of the tree of life
Or protect and guard the life which exists beneath the surface
For it is only when we are willing to go beneath the surface
Into the stillness and depth of our being that we truly find ourselves
And create the authentic path our stream should follow
As a stream of water flows over and around stones making beautiful sounds
Your blood stream can flow over obstacles, become as destructive as a tsunami
Or choose to vaporize and rise above life’s difficulties
Ready to fall back, when needed,
As gentle rain softening the soil of life
One day every blood stream will find its way to the endless sea of life
Where you will be reborn as white crystals
Which descend slowly and gently onto the frozen ground
When the world experiences a drought of love
Forming a blank canvas upon which the world can now create a work of art
