| Many of us have heard versions of the story that goes something like this: There was a huge flood in a small town. No one was untouched by the devastation. At first, people bemoaned the loss of personal property, then they feared for their homes, then all those concerns were washed away and their very lives and lives of their loved ones became the only preoccupation. There was a fellow (let's call him Ed) who lived by himself in a little house near the center of town. He sat on his front porch and watched the rain come down in sheets but he was not worried because he had seen many heavy rains before. Then the drain sewers started to overflow and the streets began to fill with swirling water. First an inch. Then a foot. And before Ed knew it, the water had crept up the four steep steps that led to the porch to his house. Ed sat on the fourth step in disbelief even after his feet, legs and the seat of his pants became wet. He looked up at the sky and it looked angry. Dark clouds changed direction quickly like a garden hose that had been let go of -- sprinkling water everywhere like liquid bullets. Ed walked through the front door of his house and closed it firmly behind him as if the gesture would hold back the water. It didn't. Dark liquid oozed under the door and began to swallow his old living room rug, then his favorite reclining chair, then his couch. Then he saw a rowboat float right by his living room window. It was a very strange sight. He couldn't believe it, but he knew he wasn';t dreaming. His neighbor, Harold Nelson, was rowing the boat and his wife and daughter sat in the back. The narrow front stuck way up in the air. Harold shouted, "Ed, you better climb on in. This rain don't look like it's about to let up." Ed shouted back, "I thank you kindly Harold, but the Lord made this here flood and the Lord is gonna save me." With those words Ed walked up the stairs to the second floor of his house. The rising water was right at his heels. On his way up the stairs he stopped to touch pictures of his, now deceased, wife that decorated the old walls. He talked to her as though she were alive. "Evelyn, I'm sorry for all the bad things I did while we were together. But we did have our good days. Maybe we were both little out of sorts a lot of the time because we didn't have any children and most people know that it's children that cement a marriage together. But the Lord saw fit to take you from me early and that ain't for me to question. And it looks like he has a mind to take me this day." Then Ed's attentions shifted back to the present. "Lord! How can you leave me to die in this watery grave?" Ed went into his bedroom on the second floor with the water closing in behind him. Sounds of thunder made the house tremble and groan and it rained even harder. A police pontoon boat, with two big motors on the back, bobbed past Ed's bedroom window. One of the officers held up a megaphone and shouted, but Ed couldn't hear what he was saying so he shoved open the window and heard the words, "If there's anyone in there crawl out the window now. Just do it!" Ed closed his eyes for a minute and made another appeal to God to spare him from the house that was soon to become his grave. Then he yelled at the officer on the pontoon boat, "I place my faith and trust in the Lord and I know that he does not intend for me to die in this flood." Then he closed the window and the pontoon boat went on to the next house. The water kept rising and Ed climbed into his attic and then through the hatch that led to the roof. Ed sat on his roof and watched the remnants of houses float by like Popsicle sticks in a huge bucket of water. A helicopter flew over and dropped down a ladder for Ed to grab hold of to pull himself to safety. The wind blew even more fiercely now and it was raining sideways. Ed managed to stand and shouted at the sky and the helicopter saying, "The Lord will save me. I know that he does not intend for me to die in this flood." And with those words, the helicopter flew away. A few minutes later, Ed was floating face down in the swirling water. He woke up in a different place. Heaven was pretty much as he had imagined it to be even though he had no awareness of his body or what he assumed to be other departed souls around him who didn't have bodies either. They were distinctly different and at the same time all the same. Then the inevitable audience with God came. Ed asked why God had abandoned him in his time of greatest need. The question was asked without the usual words because Ed had no body and therefore no mouth with which to speak. But the question was clear and the response from God was even clearer. God chuckled, in the indescribable way that only God can chuckle and be heard by those who have left their bodies behind, and answered, "What do you mean by abandoned? I sent you a rowboat, a pontoon boat with two motors and a helicopter." I confess. I have taken considerable liberties with the story, but the fact remains that many of us have defined ideas about how our prayers will be answered or, in the absence of prayer, how our needs will be met or dreams fulfilled. And often in the process of being fixated on a particular situation unfolding or problem being resolved in a specific way we miss the blessings that fall on our shoulders like a gentle and persistent rain. To put is simply it's a problem of selective perception or our tendency to see what we expect to see. For example, have you ever had the experience of looking for a particular document or other piece of paper among a pile of papers? You, for some reason, have it in your mind that the piece of paper you're looking for is yellow. You flip through one pile and then another and still the missing document doesn't materialize. You return to the first pile and decide to look at the documents one by one without regard for their color. And sure enough, the missing document shows up. You had probably passed right by it at least 10 times in the last hour. How did you overlook it? Because you were stuck on the color yellow and the document was actually pink. If there is anything useful lurking between these lines it is this: The challenge is to ask the right question, and then to be open to the answer. That's it. Articulate what you need or want as clearly as you can, then breathe consciously as you take in the world around you. Pay attention to the little things you may be inclined to write off as coincidence. Open your ears and heart to the little flickers of intuition. The voice that tells you to call a particular distant relative, or to balance your check book, or send a note to the person who interviewed you for a job two months ago who never got back to you as promised. I once read that the first thoughts of the day are often the most useful because they are the purest. They are not weighed down by the "logical" mind. They are not chained to probability. There is an old song with the lines, "Catch a falling star and put it in you pocket, never let it fade away." Maybe the first thoughts of the day are the falling stars. |
| Simple Things/Lang Kenneth Haynes Nearsighted |
 |