ELIZABETH GILBERT TOLD ME TO POST THIS

Well she didn’t exactly tell me to post this in person. Or even by email or text. And she didn’t appear to me in a vision telling me to post this. I did, however, read her book Big Magic. Actually I read it three times 😮.

The topic of this book is living a creative life. As I read it I thought that one could almost substitute “spiritual” for “creative”, or even “creative spirituality”. In the book Elizabeth Gilbert talks about ideas as disembodied entities who’s sole desire is to be made manifest and humans are the conduit through which this happens. She says, The idea will organize coincidences and portents to tumble across your path, to keep your interest keen. You will start to notice all sorts of signs pointing you toward the idea. Everything you see and touch and do will remind you of the idea. The idea will wake you up in the middle of the night and distract you from your everyday routine. The idea will not leave you alone until it has your fullest attention. And then, in a quiet moment, it will ask, “Do you want to work with me?”

Does this sound familiar? Don’t we talk about God’s prevenient Grace as pursuing us? Seeking us out? Yearning for us?

This is the camino related part of this post. The remainder is something I wrote a few weeks ago. Is not great writing and certainly not an inspiring topic but I had fun writing it and even though I wanted to delete it, it has been in the recesses of my mind. So I’m going to put it out there. As Liz says, “Perfectionism stops people from completing their work, yes—but even worse, it often stops people from beginning their work.” Here it is. You can read it or not. Just remember that you are a creative/spiritual person and God’s Grace is continually seeking you out. And if that Grace gifts you with some idea, who are you to say no?

P MAILS

People have routines and it seems that one routine a lot of folks have is to check their emails and respond when they first arrive at work. I kind of like to take my little dog Pico out for a walk after breakfast because it’s a little cooler and since he’s a little dog he gets hot and tired later on the day.

As we go out for our morning constitutional Pico behaves in that way that all other dogs do. Our walk is a series of stops and starts. He sniffs and the inevitable leg stretch happens and the sniffed upon area is thusly watered. It dawned on me that he’s not just marking his territory, he’s checking and answering his “P” mail.

He’s not just marking his territory because his spots are so specific. Same area on the shrub in front of our house. Yes, he’s checking his “P” mail and leaving a reply.

He has a lot of friends so it can take quite a while to complete our walk.

Now if only those dogs could work out a way to have a chat room where they could all leave messages on a common thread. But wait! They do…

Buen Camino