Questions?

Looking for Answers

“There are years that ask questions and years that answer.”        Zora Neale Hurston

Have you ever lived through a whole year when, from one day to the next, you had no idea what would come flying at you? A year in which change is so global and so unpredictable that you reel from week to week like you're riding the Great American Scream Machine and can't get off? That's how 2013 seemed to me—a runaway train that jumped the tracks and made for high-country. Or, low-country, as the case may be. As a year, it asked questions that couldn't be answered.

Even as I'm ready to get off that train, I know that these are the years that Spirit employs to shake things up. It's not spiritually or emotionally productive to rest on one's laurels for very long. We get smug when we do that; we think we've figured out the recipe for life and can now simply glide through the rest of it without giving much energy to growth. Don't even think that thought—I'm telling you, it's deadly. Spirit, like the Wicked Witch of the West, will say, “I'll get you, my pretty, and your little dog, too!” Oi!

I've decided that this year will be a one for answering all the questions 2013 asked. One of those being, how can I live my life without being swept up in chaos and trauma that doesn't belong to me? What coping mechanisms will help me to get through the day, week, and year creatively, and with a minimum of stress. How can I be useful to others without taking on their homework? I wonder whether you have such questions in your life, too.

If you, like me, need a year that is more Conestoga Wagon than runaway train, now is the time to begin. Fresh start, new day—let's do this thing. Let's seek the answers to living in tranquility and surrender.

                                                   In the Spirit,

                                                         Jane