This week’s Peace Nurturing Practice is welcoming everything.

Committed to welcoming everything that comes into our lives, we rejoice at the rising sun, bird serenades, chatting with kindly friends and neighbors, inhaling sweet fragrances from flowers and trees, having enough to eat, and the peaceful act of conscious breathing among our myriad blessings.  So far, so good and pretty easy and natural. Where we get to stretch, heal, and grow our Peace Power is through welcoming everything, not just the events which we find comfortable or deem desirable. We welcome familiar joys, the unexpected and even that which some, maybe including us, would deem yucky.

The roots of this practice for me began years back when week after week, Rev. Loren Flickinger would stand in front of us and quote these words from Kathleen Ponder: “Dear Lord, I can hardly wait to see the good that will come from this mess!”  In the abstract it’s funny and delightful.  Used as a mantra it is totally freeing.  No longer are we limited to welcoming the events and/or people of whom we approve into our lives. With this guidance, we are free to welcome everything with wonder, delight, and positivity! 

When things come into our lives, we truly don’t know what their implications or impacts will be.  Rather than assume the worst, let’s welcome them allowing space for them to thrive and offer us blessings.  If we assume the worst and fall into fear and despair, we create our own misery by expecting and looking for it. Rather descending into gloom, let us remember the wisdom of Julian of Norwich:  “All is well and all shall be well,” and choose to welcoming everything.

Our welcoming attitude offers us not only joys throughout each day, it also allows us to expand our capacity to wait and work for better times.  Welcoming embraces life with all its surprises and blessings, opening us to see and experience even more joy and hope as we literally grow optimism within ourselves. Expanding our capacity to welcome all and sustain hope creates space within our hearts and minds for peace. 

As I greet all that comes into my life

with welcome

I am Hope

I am Peace

My hope and peace spread to all I meet

May this practice of Welcoming everything bring you peace. Please remember baby steps are peaceful.  If it’s too much to embrace and welcome everything at once, begin with one or two things and build peacefully.

Reflections – This has been a perfect week for me to practice welcoming everything.  I drove home in the rain on Monday to discover several electrical items at my home either not working or working intermittently. The garage door would not close, car would not turn off, microwave was not working, the car charger was not working, and one of my solar panels was not working.  I soon discovered the microwave, fridge, lights, and toaster oven might or might not work at any given time. After my initial response of “Woe is me,” and plea for pity from my sweetheart Ernie and dear daughter Kirsten, I made a quick dinner.  Once nourished, I began choosing to look at all of it with a welcoming, peaceful heart.

Once I committed to the energy and perspective of the practice of Welcoming everything, things began to change within and without me. My outlook transformed to: “I wonder what blessings will come next?” And they came mostly through the kindness of others. Raj, you were most thorough in helping me get a replacement panel ordered and look for someone to install it. I felt your smile all the way from India. Lance and Cameron, your kindnesses and thoughtfulness of coming to my house after work and helping me figure out some of the mysteries touched my heart deeply.

In the midst of these unfoldings, my body reacted to my first Shingrix vaccine with a total lack of energy and general malaise.  I clearly did not welcome it properly.  I shall with the next one!  There is always more to learn and practice. 

Scheduling for what I hope will be solutions to the nonfunctioning items in my house has not been as prompt as I anticipated, however that led me to recognize a pattern I experienced as a teenager body surfing in CA.  Rather than riding the waves of water as I did then, I am now riding the waves of energy of what is. This has added an air of delight with each change, twist and turn of the situation.  Now with Tropical Storm Ian headed our way, the energy ride may get even more exciting! I shall remember: “All is well, and all shall be well,” as I ride the waves.

Some more of the blessings so far:  I have discovered how little I truly need. Also, that things happen when they are ready, so enjoying the ride is much more fun and productive than trying to make the world conform to my wants and finally, that my welcome everything blesses me by opening my heart to embrace whatever unfolds and to be the peace that I came to be.

Your turn – Have you ever observed yourself expecting a problem and tensing up about it?  Can you imagine the difference in how you felt in that situation to how you would feel if you welcomed everything?  How might you apply this practice to your life this week? 

Thank you for being a vital part of Peace on Earth by nurturing peace in your heart, in your life.  The more that you embody peace, the more peace there is.

Your comments and suggestions are welcomed.  (Click on the blue link below.)