Hey there.
Welcome to A Hit of Hope.
Sometimes it can be as simple as this.
A moment in the kitchen when two characters from my youth rose up unbidden in my mind.
The first was the Tasmanian Devil from Bug's Bunny fame.
Ferocious,
Wild,
Dim-witted,
And short-tempered,
Taz spoke mostly in grunts,
Growls,
And raspberries,
And he often left big swaths of destruction in his wake.
The other was about as different as could be.
Mr.
Rogers.
Kind,
Whimsical,
Intentional,
Leisurely.
The way he took off one shoe,
Then the other.
The way he zipped his sweater.
Every moment was a moment for him.
To settle in,
To savor.
Mr.
Rogers cared more about love and presence than he did about efficiency.
He wanted to show us that how we move from here to there matters.
He wanted us to know we didn't have to rush,
That we could live a life where we gentle the transitions.
It is perhaps no surprise that I thought of these two characters in my kitchen,
Where I'm often flying from one task to another,
And as a result,
Often spilling,
Dropping,
Or breaking things.
As Ferris Bueller said,
Life moves pretty fast,
And all kinds of voices in our lives praise efficiency.
We learn about hustle and just doing it and getting her done.
So we tornado through life,
Bouncing along with this almost unstoppable energy,
Impatient and wild in a way that leaves us feeling like we are continually being spun around and spit out.
Don't get me wrong,
Efficiency can be important.
Modern life demands it.
But we also need to recognize efficiency as the grunting devil that it is.
It is un-mysterious.
In its hurry to get on to the next,
It never rests in the now.
It never pauses,
Opens to see what is right here.
And knowing which energy I usually live into,
Tasmanian devil,
And which energy I long to live into,
Mr.
Rogers,
I took a deep breath as I stood in my kitchen.
I bent down to take off my shoes,
Like I was that kind man in the zippered sweater.
My fingers unknotted the knots on my shoes.
How easily they came undone when I moved with ease.
I slipped off one shoe,
One sock,
Then the other shoe,
The other sock.
I grounded my bare feet on the cool wooden floor and closed my eyes.
A quiet bigness.
A big quietness.
And all kinds of things had the space to arrive.
I heard claws click-clacking on the floor and Birdie,
My big dog,
Pressed into my leg.
My hand dropped to her silky head.
We stayed and breathed.
In the here.
In the now.
With love.
Live light and shine.
