Lux Aeterna

“Instructions for living a life:  Pay attention.  Be astonished.  Tell about it.”

									                               —Mary Oliver

You know those jobs most of us have had, the ones we dreaded going to for one reason or another? When I had one of those jobs, my alarm would go off at 5:20 every Sunday morning, thanks to my having to drive thirty miles to be at work at 7:00 a.m. I like waking up early, but not when it means that I am about to spend too many valuable hours of my life at a job that leaves me empty and unfulfilled.

In the not so distant past, these circumstances would put me in a foul mood that would last throughout the day. My thoughts and my energies would be consumed by negativity as I focused exclusively on all the things I didn’t like about this picture. The snowball would grow larger and larger as one negative thought gave birth to another and another and another. In a very short amount of time the snowball would pick up great momentum, and I would be dragged along with it until it finally, mercifully, came to a stop, which could take days, weeks, or even months. Then I started to learn something that has made a world of difference.

As I turned my attention to a variety of spiritual and self-help teachers, I heard almost all of them talk about the following concept in their own ways:

Energy flows where attention goes.

What you focus on grows.

What you choose to direct your attention toward is what you choose to give power to.

You mean to say that I have a choice over what I think about and focus on? Why had nobody mentioned this to me before? I had always thought that the way people and circumstances occurred to me was simply the way they were. How could the way I thought about those people and circumstances change any of that?

How did it go again?

Energy flows where attention goes.

What you focus on grows.

What you choose to direct your attention toward is what you choose to give power to.

“Let’s give it a shot,” I figured. What did I have to lose?

The more I practiced—and it took a lot of practice (and it still does)—the more things improved. Those people and circumstances that caused me so much agitation in the past began to do so less and less.

“Interesting,” I thought. “This stuff seems to be working.”

Then my new teachers added an important piece to the lessons I was learning: Human beings are wired to focus on and think about all the things that we don’t want in our lives, but in order to bring about meaningful changes we must do the exact opposite—we must focus on and think about all the things we do want in our lives, even though the tiniest speck of those things we want may not yet exist.

There it was again:

Energy flows where attention goes.

What you focus on grows.

What you choose to direct your attention toward is what you choose to give power to.

In other words, these concepts work in whatever direction our thoughts and energies direct them—positive or negative? Yes, that’s exactly right.

Now I really wanted to know why nobody told me this before! Shouldn’t this be on, like, page one of the human being owner’s manual?

So, back to my alarm going off at 5:20 Sunday morning. My very first thoughts upon being awakened were not filled with candy hearts and rainbows. But soon enough I became aware of my thoughts, and I began to direct them consciously. In the early morning, this usually means generating thoughts of gratitude for the many blessings in my life. But sometimes, like those Sundays, I simply reminded myself to stop entertaining negative thoughts and feelings. Even that made a big difference because it allowed me to be aware of and awake to the miracles that surround us every day.

Sundays were no exception.

On one of those Sundays, as I got into my car, I was suddenly quite aware of the joyous morning chirping of some nearby birds. I felt my heart fill with warmth at the joy I heard in their voices.

I got in my car and turned on one of my favorite Sunday morning radio programs, Soul Music (now called A Joyful Noise), on KUSC, a local classical music station. They were playing a luminous piece by Morten Lauridsen, one of my favorite composers of sacred choral music. That music made me feel like I could reach out and touch divinity.

As I drove along the park near my home, my car filled with that divine music, I noticed the most enchanting cotton ball-gossamer mist floating above the expansive green fields as the morning light glowed on top of it.

For the remainder of my journey, I could see the mountains in the distance as I drove south on the freeway. That early morning light silhouetted the mountains and filled the sky with a warm yellow-orange luminescence until, at last, the fiery sun itself peered over the mountain peaks to greet those of us lucky enough to be awake to welcome it.

Shortly thereafter, I arrived at work, and the task ahead of me no longer felt as daunting as it otherwise could have. All because I chose the things upon which I focused my attention, my thoughts, my energies.

While preparing to write this piece, I came across the following unattributed quote that I would like to leave with you:

“The secret of change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new.”

Thank you so much for taking the time to read A Slow and Sacred Walk. If you enjoyed this—or you know others who would—I invite you to subscribe for free and to share my work with your friends. With gratitude—Jim