230321 What I learned in my studies this morning 3

In a foreign land,

In an open field,

Standing on a beach,

On a moving train, I met

An old, old man who was insane.

Thoughts:

No matter where you go, there you are.

I've got a Big Vacation coming up next year. One of the things I'm trying hard to settle before we get there is to be happy enough in my life that I can enjoy the trip instead of worrying about every little thing. 

I don't want to bring along a harried self who cannot enjoy spending a long vacation with my wife in a wondrous locale.

I've made good progress in the last few years. Here's hoping another year or so will make me better at sorting what is up to me and what is not up to me, at following the path of Nature, at acting instead of reacting, at using wisdom, justice, courage, and temperance to guide my actions. 

Today's Meditation:

Today's Meditation II:

"It may be hard to imagine right now, when they are small and vulnerable, but there will be a last time for every moment you share in their childhood. There’s the stuff we love doing with our kids. Hide and seek. Going to concerts together. Watching them hit a home run. And there is the stuff you love less–the diapers, the arguments over curfew, the screaming tantrums. The good and the bad, the mundane and the wonderful alike, none of it lasts forever.

There’s the last time they wet their bed and you have to wash the sheets. There’s a last time you have to remind them to do their homework or put their shoes away. There’s a last time they run into your arms, there is a last time they try to sneak out of the house.

​The fact that there is a ticking clock to all of this should inform everything we do—though each situation is different. It should mean we sweat little things less…and also soak up the little things more. It means that we should enjoy those few chances we’ll ever get to be woken up by them in the middle of the night. To be their chauffeur. To be their homework sidekick. To be up waiting for them to come home. To be the one they call.

The days are long but the years are short, as they say. At some point, before you know it, you and your kids are going to have your last day together. Before then, try to make the most of every mundane and wonderful moment you get you with them." ~ The Daily Dad 23030

Today's Meditation III:

“Actually,” [Anne Morrow] Lindbergh writes [in her book Gift from the Sea], “these are among the most important times in one’s life–when one is alone. Certain springs are tapped only when we are alone. The artists knows he must be alone to create; the writer to work out his thoughts; the musician, to compose; the saint, to pray.”