This is a chance to go in.
And by go in,
I mean transition into a different way of being,
However briefly.
And by go in,
I also mean turn your attention away from the external world with its worries and noisiness,
With its toils and troubles,
And instead turn in.
Inhale.
Exhale.
Welcome to a hit of hope.
A mind can be a tricksy thing.
And one of the tricksy things that the mind can do is to corrupt other things.
Guilt means to spoil,
To go bad,
To make rotten.
Nice day?
It won't last.
Look at the news.
The world is going to hell.
The bad is all there is.
You are born.
You suffer.
You die.
Some of those things are true.
But what I'm asking you to consider is how easy it can be to believe that the bad is all there is.
And as a result,
To give up believing in the good.
The tricksy mind wants you to trust the bad,
To believe the bad,
Because it never fails to disappoint.
It's there,
Ready and waiting to rear its ugly head.
You can count on it.
And thus,
You can discount the good.
Quit looking for the good.
Quit believing that the good is pursuing you relentlessly.
One of my favorite books is The Count of Monte Cristo.
It's massive.
But for this,
All you need to know is in it,
There is a character,
A priest who is a prisoner.
And he says he possesses a great fortune.
No one believes him,
Not even his dear friend and fellow prisoner,
Edmund Dantès,
The main character.
The priest has a seizure,
And Dantès says he will stay with the priest rather than try and escape from their dungeons,
Which is what the two of them have been trying for months to do.
The priest says,
Because of your trustworthiness,
I will now share half of my fortune with you.
But instead of believing the priest,
A man who has become like a father to him,
Dantès lets the world corrupt his vision.
Dantès runs back to his cell,
Away from the priest.
But the priest,
Who has had a stroke,
Mind you,
Whose right side has quit working entirely,
Drags himself along the tunnel that connects their two cells.
Because he refuses to let Dantès miss out on the treasure.
The priest says,
And I quote,
As you see,
I am absolutely pitiless in my pursuit of you,
He said,
With a radiant smile full of benevolence.
You thought you could escape my lavish generosity,
But you will not.
So listen.
And then the priest goes on to convince Dantès of the treasure that awaits him if he can escape.
Like Dantès,
The tricksy part of our minds often corrupts things and has us believing the bad,
The corrupt,
The rotten.
Why hope it will only be dashed?
Why love it will only end?
Why believe you will only be disappointed?
Why try?
We are born.
We suffer.
We die.
We are born.
We grow.
We skin our knees.
We love.
We cry.
We hope.
We struggle.
We help.
We love.
We hurt.
We love.
We try.
We try.
We try.
We love.
You can trust in the tricksy voice that promises life is bad.
It might be safer.
At least it might feel safer because then you might never feel disappointed.
Or you can take a risk and trust in the voice that won't shut up about the good.
It's there,
I promise you.
And just so you know,
The good might not be the treasure that Dantès is seeking,
But the good might be a butterfly or the light in a window,
A black night with star sprinkles.
Can you hear that voice?
The one with the radiant smile full of benevolence.
The voice that is begging you to believe.
That love is absolutely pitiless in its pursuit of you.
It will drag itself through a dark tunnel.
It will make you listen.
Listen so you can hear about the treasure that awaits.
Namaste.
