Lessons from Squirrels

We can learn so much from observing animals!

Learning from squirrels.

I am thinking about the little squirrels that live in my yard. Each autumn I watch them store up food for the coming winter. They store food for one year at a time, not ten years at a time. I once heard a minister say that to constantly try to “keep” everything was to have a poverty mentality, some fear that you might need it someday and therefore, it was to say that you don’t believe I Am is enough. But I Am is El Shaddai, more than enough.

Thoughts from the Tao Te Ching:

Putting a value on status will create contentiousness.

If you overvalue possessions, people begin to steal.

By not displaying what is desirable, you will

cause the people’s hearts to remain undisturbed. The sage governs by emptying minds and hearts,

by weakening ambitions and strengthening bones.

Practice not doing. . . .

When action is pure and selfless, everything settles into its own perfect place.

Dyer, Wayne W.. Living the Wisdom of the Tao (p. 9). Hay House. Kindle Edition.

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WHAT JESUS HAD TO SAY ABOUT IT:

19 Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal.

20 But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal:

21 For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.

Matthew 6:19-21

King James Version

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Placing too much value on status really does create contention. When you exalt someone because they are pretty or born wealthy or famous or smart, you immediately stir up strife, especially if you undervalue the people who are there for you every day, making life happen.

Virtue. Restraint. Integrity. 

Those words seem to have fallen out of favor in our mainstream culture, at least here in America. I love my country so don’t take this the wrong way, but we are an abundantly blessed nation, and we are an abundantly WASTEFUL nation. We have sheds, storage units, houses and garages filled with clothes we never wear, purses we never carry, shoes we never walk in, furniture we never sit on, dishes we never eat out of, toys our kids never play with and books we never read.

LIVE abundantly, not hoard abundantly.

I believe in abundance. I believe we are meant to have all that we need and want in this life, but abundance is not equivalent to waste. There’s a story in the New Testament where Jesus talks about a man who had immense wealth and instead of using his excess for good, he just decided to build more barns to house all his belongings, then he died and took nothing with him. The whole point in having belongings is LIVE abundantly, not hoard abundantly. Live is an action word.

The first shall be last.

I notice that the Tao Te Ching talks about not showing off one’s stuff and not pushing to get ahead. This goes so against the way our society has been set up through the years. We’re taught to work hard and push our way to the top, but what if the top is really the bottom? Jesus talked about how when a person comes in and seeks to have the seat of honor that he will be removed and the seat given to another. What if trying to be “first” became unimportant to us?

I teach and inevitably every time the kids line up to go anywhere there’s that one kid (sometimes more) that will run and push to be first. I always send that kid to the back of the line, pick some child who simply lined up and put that one at the head of the line and then I’ll say, “The first shall be last and the last shall be first.” The kid who pushed and tried to be first will always say, “What does that mean?” I simply smile and say, “You think about it and figure that out.” Maybe, the answer is found in the idea that he who exalts himself shall be humbled and he who humbles himself shall be exalted. So, whatever we do, if it comes from a place of pure selflessness, it is God’s way and that therefore, it will work out just as it should.

No More Good-byes

Photo by Viktor Lundberg on Pexels.com

People are always asking me, “How do you say good-bye in Cherokee?” or “How do you say good-bye in Tla Wilano?”

Here’s the thing.

In many/most Indigenous American cultures there is no concept of “good-bye,” not a temporary one and certainly not a long-term or permanent one.

Good-bye carries the notion that you will not be seeing that person again. In a culture where there is no concept of a permanent departure, there can be no good-byes. There is only, “until we meet again” and “and so,” which is an internally understood concept of continuation.

Imagine you are going on a trip. You make plans. You choose a vehicle, either you rent one, borrow one, or buy one. You choose the vehicle in which you will travel based on the kind of trip you’re taking. You certainly wouldn’t choose a mini-van to cross the ocean or a boat to travel over land!

Your journey begins the moment you get into your vehicle and it ends the moment you get out. However, when you exit the vehicle, YOU do not end. You do not cease to be. You continue to exist outside the vehicle. You’ve reached your destination. You are in some other place and your vehicle stays parked where you left it until some outside force moves it.

Now, think of our lives on earth as vehicles on a road. Think of our bodies as our vehicles. We are each driving our own custom-made vehicle that will only operate for its precise owner. You cannot drive another person’s vehicle and they cannot drive yours! Our vehicles come in all colors, shades, shapes, sizes, makes and models. These vehicles are not really us, but mere descriptors of us, just as our skin color, gender, size, etc., are NOT WHO WE ARE but merely descriptors of our vehicles.

We exist before we ever get in our vehicles and we exist after we get out of them!

It is only in this life that we have a beginning and an ending. Life within the confinements of time and physical space is a journey along the way in our never-ending existence and in order to travel through this life, we need a vehicle–a physical body through which we can interact with the physical world. So, we are spiritual beings traveling through a physical dimension. There’s an old gospel song that says, “This world is not my home, I’m only passing through….” How true that is! We stay here until our spirits are ready to leave, then we go home. Even when our minds compel us to stay, our spirits know when it’s time to go.

Here, there is a beginning and ending of the physical, because we are on a journey. We are spirit beings and even when we leave our earth-traveling vehicles or houses, we are not gone. We just get out of the car. We transcend. We are still very much here and very much alive.

Recently, I’ve seen several friends depart from this world and several more who almost departed and it just keeps coming to me that they are not gone, they have merely parked their cars and gotten out because they reached their destination–home, a place where only spirit travelers can go, a place where you have to park your car before you can enter.

It’s in the Rain.

Photo by Nur Andi Ravsanjani Gusma on Pexels.com

Rain sings

softly in the evening

pattering shingles

pinging gutters

making puddles.

On the porch

I close my eyes

feel cool breezes

here, now

no tomorrows

no yesterdays

just now, only now

a gift unfolding.

Who can imprison the wind

even the soft, whispering wind?

Who can possess her?

She carves mountains

makes deserts

carries the rain.

I think of Bruce

“Be water, my friend.”

Yes, be water

flowing

adaptable

uncageable

powerful

washing away cities

cutting canyons

reducing rock to sand.

I am of you

Wind and Rain.

I am of you.