A Bahai Prayer.

Said from memory, outloud, by an 85 year old man, in his kitchen, both of us bare feet.

O God, refresh and gladden my spirit. Purify my heart. Illumine my powers. I lay all of my affairs in Thy hand. Thou are my Guide and my Refuge. I will no longer be sorrowful and grieved, I will be a happy and joyful being. O God, I will no longer be full of anxiety. Nor will I let trouble harass me. I will not dwell on the unpleasant things of life. O God, Thou are more friend to me than I am to myself. I dedicate myself to Thee, O Lord. Abdul-Baha.

A Purpose-Driven Life X 3

Three times this topic has come up. It started with Ess Gee at the kitchen table yesterday. He asked if I thought we had a purpose in this life. I said, "For me to have 'a purpose' in this life feels too small, too narrow, too much weight. " It's kinda like those people who believe there is a "soulmate". To believe there is a soulmate is to have too much pressure on one person. It's like, well, if they're not the one in this whole entire universe, then who is? I believe I am to love what I do and explore that richly on a regular basis. I'm to love others in the way that makes them most know it. I'm to help out folks. And I'm here to say an eager, yeh-yeh, this is God and, a knodding-of-my-head-yep-yep, he is great! And go from there, figuring it all out, processing it all through, in all the ways that fuel the adventure, the love, the growth. Ess Gee agreed with me. To have "a purpose" just seems like it comes up short. But it's not to say that God is not intentional--because he is. I met my best friend from college over 15 years ago. I do think God did say, they are gonna love each other, and be great with one another, and go through things with one another, I like how they match up. But I don't think my bff is gonna say at the end of her life/my life, SHE was in my life for THIS such and such a purpose. I think God matches people with ideas, and other people, and places, but I have a hard time believing it's for one thing, one purpose. Maybe that's man's way of coping with layers, dimensions, complexities.
Then again, if I read what I wrote above over again, maybe what I shy away from when it comes to "purpose" is the title...my purpose is to be a mom, or to be a nurse, or to teach, or to, you know what I mean? Because if I read what I believe, my general theme, or if you wanna call it purpose, is to love.

Um, yeh, strange.

Honestly, I was just there to buy some dried fruit, gum, and a non-alcoholic sparkling beverage, and the cashier asked if I had seen on television the prosthetic feet that they popped into the bones of a footless cat. She went on to say (as I shook my head, "no") that she was really interested in orthopedics because she was there when her now ex-husband lost a leg, and then was fitted for an orthopedic one. The woman who was in front of me, who should have left by now, started in on a summer camp she and her partner were going to attend on orthopedics. She said, all the human doctor's are getting into animal orthopedics, you know, taking on this cause for animals. I came home to tell my husband of this screwy conversation, and he proceeds to talk about his own grandfather who had a wooden leg. I was like WHAT? Who has a grandfather with a wooden leg anymore??? He then went on to say that his grandfather's knee fit into a perfectly carved out bowl created at the top of the wooden stump, to which his grandpa would place his knee and then strap it into with straps that were screwed into the stump. Oh, my gosh, I am so glad that times they are a' changin'. We got cats with better orthopedics than our grandfather's had. My, oh, my, oh, my, oh, my.

It's just where I'm at.

The question I threw out there to the universe today was this...how do you get back to being Husband and Wife, when you get tossed into the craziness of being Daddy and Mama? I want that for my friend's who have kids, or are thinking of having kids. I want wives to feel sexy, womanly, attractive, and I want their husbands to help in creating that for them even if they have seven kids, a dog and a two cats. Yes, yes, I know, I know, women do not need a man to help them feel appreciated, sexy, etc., BUT when you are in a marriage a husband cultivating those feelings is majorly appreciated, and majorly helpful. And it's not a one-sided deal, wives encouraging a husband in his husbandriness (a new word;-))/manliness, well, one can imagine that it makes him feel thankful, too. This all comes up because Ess Gee and I have decided to watch two munchkin's on Saturday night to help out a dear couple we know who may not get much couple time. I think that's what scares me about being a parent. Forgetting who we are as a wife, as a woman, and only becoming a one-dimensional mother. But I see too, how I cramp myself into, again, an either/or scenario. You are either a sexy wife, or a tired mother, and I see how I'm not able to mesh the two...like being a mother is sexy:-). I'm not there yet. Maybe one day:-).