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Jean A. Costa / Posts tagged "peaceful"
June 7, 2014 In Faith

Embracing Mystery

Affirmation:  My faith is
stronger when I allow mystery to have a place in my life.
In Rachel Remen’s book The Will to Live and Other Mysteries,
she offers up the opinion that most people are more concerned with mastery than
with mystery.  She goes onto give
examples of events she and others have experienced that cannot be explained
with science or with logic but if one is open to believing in the unbelievable,
the events not only take on meaning; they become powerful examples of spirit
alive and at work in the world and in our lives.
My Christian faith is grounded in
mystery.  At some point I had to decide
to believe the unbelievable.  Let’s admit
it the whole story of Jesus Christ’s birth, death and resurrection is pure mystery.  If I were to assume that my limited
intelligence or anyone’s, even that of the brilliant, is able to understand
God, I would not only be arrogant but stupid. 
For heaven’s sake we may one day completely understand our own bodies
but we will never be able to duplicate them. 
Only Divine power could have created a human being.  We may one day be able to travel the Universe
but will we ever reach its outer limits? Sir Arthur Eddington, British
astronomer, physicist, and mathematician of the early 20th century said,
“The universe is not only stranger than we imagined, but stranger than we
can imagine.” and David Finkelstein, a brilliant physicist said, “We
haven’t the capacity to imagine anything crazy enough to stand a chance of
being right.”  We are human and so
we are limited in our understanding but we are also spirit, made in God’s image
and likeness and therefore we can tap into, connect to the unknown and perhaps
even rest in it. 
I have discovered that in order for me to be at peace I need to
embrace the mystery of my faith and the mystery of life.  I choose to believe in a personal God, one
who can work miracles in my life, one who is listening to my dreams, concerns
and petitions and even the whispers of my heart if I stay close, open and present. 
I am not aware of any personal acquaintances that have experienced significant miracles. I wish I
were. Certainly, I have read about others who have and when my husband and I
visited St. Joseph’s Oratory of Mount Royal in Montreal, I was stunned by the
hundreds and hundreds of crutches hanging on the walls that were left by people
who had come there for a miracle and found one. 
I recently googled “miracle locations” and one site, ListVerse.com,
listed the top ten recorded miracles. 
You may recognize some of the more well known, Fatima, Lourdes, Our Lady
of Guadeloupe, and more recently Padre Pio. 
All of these places and events are known for the unexplainable.  Lourdes, the site of the appearance of the
Blessed Mother to St. Bernadette, has 68 “official” miracles but
thousands of unofficial healings.  
Are the healings simply the result of the power of positive
thinking?  People really believe it will
happen and so it does? Could be, so what? 
Something miraculous occurred. 
Maybe that’s the secret to miracles; if we are open to them, if we truly
believe, “even as a grain of mustard seed” our beings are transformed
into receptors for miracles. 
Notice I have a tendency to focus on the illogical positive experiences
that happen to people, this is after all a site for creating positive
affirmations.  I avoid focusing on the
occult or unsettling things one might hear about or see in the media.  Those don’t help me in any way to feel
hopeful, peaceful or grounded.  It’s my
choice on that which I focus. I know there is evil in the world. 
The news coming into my life these last few weeks has been very
unsettling.  There have been multiple
requests for prayers for the suffering and struggles of friends and friends of
friends.  In two cases acquaintances that
did not appear to be very ill were diagnosed with cancer and given less than
three weeks to live.  I, myself, had a
scare during my annual mammogram when a lump was found and I was sent for an
ultra sound.  It turned out to be normal
tissue but it shook me to the core. 
Besides deciding to eat French fries and a cookie, “Carpet Diem!”
I needed, I need a way to find peace with the whims of the world and so I did
what I have been practicing, I rested in my faith.  I not only don’t know what the future holds
other than death and I don’t understand most of what life is about but once
again, if I connect to the Divine, to my God, I find I can simply allow life to
be and allow myself to be at peace with all as it is, at lease for this very
moment. 
When I went through my yoga teacher training we were invited to
“rest in the inquiry.”  We were
encouraged during our practice not to try to figure everything out, but to
simply let our asanas unfold. I’ve taken that practice into my faith. I’m doing
my utmost to shed Divine light on life and into other lives, perhaps even into
the world. I’m offering us an opportunity to let go of our egos, especially
mine and to allow my Loving Father, my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, His Holy
Spirit, our Blessed Mother, my guardian angel and all those unseen entities who
want to guide me and you to a richer, peaceful, blessed life the opportunity to
do so.  For today, for now, I am allowing
Spirit to inhabit my heart, soul and body. 
I’ve invited it in and I am choosing to simply rest with it.  I know I don’t know and that’s ok with me in
this moment. 

 

I know in today’s world this is a path less chosen but my
intention for this year is to “connect to the Divine.”  My intention for my life is to strengthen my
faith.  With those intentions in place I
have chosen to focus on mystery and to release myself from trying to understand
all things.  Once I adopted that approach
even the unexplainable became meaningful and God’s presence became more real.  Along with this gift I’ve given myself, even
the great unknown, the future and the greatest unknown, life after death has
become less fearful, less anxiety producing and I find I can still breathe and
live peacefully, at least for these few moments.
September 15, 2013 In Uncategorized

Just Pick Up the Phone

Affirmation:  When I quickly and directly resolve an issue,
I feel less stressed and more peaceful.

This is the age of electronic
communications.  On Longmire, one
of my favorite TV shows, Longmire’s deputy checked the victim’s phone for text
messages rather than for phone calls. 
And, that was the correct method for finding out about the victim’s
activity.  It’s so very easy to send a
text, an email or a tweet but it isn’t necessarily the quickest way to
communicate with someone.  One day my
grandson texted me from another room in our home to ask me a question.  I thought he’d left without telling me and I
panicked but he hadn’t.  He’s 13 at this
writing.  If he continues along this
path, he may not make it to 14.

Recently, I’ve had several
situations that were making me a little anxious.  In all cases I had emailed the person or the
company and had either not received an answer or I didn’t get the answer I
wanted.  The first issue was with amazon.com. I had bought a faucet for our
kitchen.  The kitchen was being remodeled
and by the time the plumbers were ready to install the faucet, my return date
had passed.  The faucet didn’t fit.  When I went online to return it, I got the
pop-up that it was too late to send it back. 
I was quite annoyed and then I thought, “Just pick up the
phone.”  I had a quick conversation
with a very nice person and he waved the return date so I could send it
back.  It was easy but if I hadn’t made
the phone call, I’d still own that faucet.

I was on a roll now.  I’ve become my Mom’s financial
caretaker.  She’s always done an amazing
job with her resources but it had become too much for her.  Her credit card bill came and I put it on the
shelf.  For the first time in her life,
her next credit card bill came with a service charge on it.  Oh my! 
I was in trouble!  It was quite a
penalty for a very small overdue balance. 
I picked up the phone and spoke with a very nice young woman.  I guessed she could immediately see the bill
had never been late before and she immediately took off the penalty fee.  Whew!

It seems this is the lesson I
needed to learn at this time.  Once I
began looking at different situations with an eye towards finding easier,
quicker resolutions, more and more opportunities kept presenting
themselves.  I found with each episode
that came up if I acted immediately and directly rather than just mulling over
what to do, I was less stressed and more peaceful.

The faucet wasn’t the only
remodeling snafu.  We had hired a very
nice young man to be our contractor and he seemed quite efficient.  At the beginning of the project he put
together some sort of computer notification system than showed us the exact
time of each part of the job and the exact cost of every single step.  Over the next few weeks that program would
pop up almost daily with some sort of time change or even worse, some sort of
price increase.  Needless to say I was
becoming more and more anxious every time I’d see an email with his company’s
name on it.  At first I found my stomach
would knot up and my head would begin to ache but then I changed my approach
and when something was changed, I’d call him and many times he’d relieve my
anxiety with a detailed explanation or he’d remove the extra fee because he’d
made a mistake.  (I chose to believe it
was an error.) With that phone call came the ability for me to take deeper
breaths and relax about whatever was being presented.

Even with my family I’ve noticed
how often we now text or email one another rather than calling, although not as
readily as my grandson.  All too often I
wasn’t getting an answer to my questions or they were wondering why I hadn’t
replied to their queries.  Usually it was
because the emails got lost in the ether somewhere.  But, with a simple phone call, whatever
question we had would be resolved, immediately.

 

Since this was my
lesson for now, I began to wonder if I shouldn’t apply it to my prayer life
too.  How often did I obsess over some
life issue that needed to be let go of and turned over to God?  What if I took my new lesson and rather than
letting the issue weigh me down, I immediately “picked up the phone”
and shared it with The Lord?  What would
that look like?  What number would I
dial?  I closed my eyes and sat quietly
and envisioned the phone.  It wasn’t a
cell phone.  Interestingly, it was an old
fashioned phone like the one in Dr.
Strangelove with Peter Sellers and it was red. 
Of course it was because in the movie the red phone was a direct line to
the President.  I didn’t need a phone
number at all.  I just needed to pick up
that old fashioned red phone and God would be on the other end.  God is always on the other end, waiting for
me to call.  Once I’ve taken the time and
made the effort to connect, I am connected. 
No, the situation may not be resolved as quickly as it was at amazon.com or LL Bean although it might be, but I
quickly realized I felt better about my concerns.  By taking the time to “call” God, I
felt less stressed and I felt more peaceful.