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Today's
quotation:
Sometimes
during the day, I consciously focus on some ordinary object and
allow myself a momentary "paying-attention." This
paying- attention gives meaning
to my life. I don't know who it was, but someone said that
careful attention
paid to anything is a window into the universe. Pausing to think
this way,
even for a brief moment, is very important. It gives quality to
my day.
Robert Fulghum
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Today's
Meditation:
I have
to do this myself sometimes, too. I have to force
myself to stop what I'm doing, to stop on the way to where
I'm going, to look around and find out where I am, what
there is to see, and who's there with me. It's so
incredibly easy to just be in motion, to have things to do
so that we don't even notice some of the marvelous things
around us, like that amazing tree or those flowers or the
beautiful building across the street.
Fulghum
calls it a "window into the universe," and I can
see what he means. When I pay close attention to
whatever is around me, I get a different feeling of who I
am and how I fit into life and this world. When I
pay close attention, I feel the interconnectedness between
me and the things that I see; I feel the vastness of
creation and the closeness of all that has been
created. If I don't pay close attention, of course,
that feeling of connection never comes and my life is just
a bit less rich.
The
world around us is marvelous, and we can make our lives
here a marvelous experience by paying attention to what we
have and what surrounds us-- the people, the trees and
plants, the animals, the inventions of people, the rain
and the snow and the heat and the oxygen that we
breathe. But instead of paying attention to these
things, we think about our jobs, the newest family drama,
the television shows that we watched last night. We
get caught up in the mundane and forget that we're
constant witnesses to the miraculous.
Do
you want to give quality to your day? The good news
is that it's already there-- you simply have to make the
choice to notice it and pay attention to it. Leave a
few minutes early for work so that you can stop for a few
minutes and pay attention to something really cool.
Put your phone away long enough to notice the roses or the
daffodils or the autumn leaves. There's plenty here
to keep us occupied our whole lives long, so let's not
complain of life not being special if it's simply we who
refuse to take the time to notice its specialness.
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