Come together

For Christmas, we travel to Pittsburgh to be with my family. Every year, we attend Mass together on Christmas morning, and every year, the kids practically whine, “WHY do we have to go to Mass?”

Usually, I feel crunched for time and rattle off some quick response along the lines of, “Do you know why we celebrate Christmas at all?” or “You got all these great presents and you can’t give an hour to God?” Even if the kids stop asking and move toward the door, I’m sure that answer doesn’t satisfy them any more than it satisfied me at that age.

Outside of Christmas, I sometimes wonder about the difference between attending a service with others or praying (or whatever) individually to connect with God. I do believe that God is everywhere, and we each have our own way of making connections. But still, I feel moved in a different way after gathering in a group or even acknowledging as a group that something is special.

I recalled a rare Easter Sunday visit to Pittsburgh, years ago. As my husband and I drove from the airport to my parents’ home, I realized that it felt like Easter but didn’t know why. My husband, craving a bagel, realized that all the bagel shops were closed and in fact, there were very few stores open at all. He found it odd and a tad inconvenient, and I suddenly felt like the whole city was celebrating Easter together, setting it aside as special from any other Sunday.

This Christmas, I received a note from a friend that reminded me of “The Vibe.” The short version is this: I once managed a project team where, at every weekly meeting, we would come up with a vision of what needed to happened in order to move our work forward in the best way. Though the vision might feel outlandish to our logical minds, our only criteria was that it had to resonate emotionally in the gut of every person in the room. Surprisingly, we came to a quick consensus every week, and every week, our logically outlandish vision came about. (If you want more of a description, I wrote a post about it here: The Law of Attraction.)

Recounting these random memories to a friend, she pointed out that in each case, there was the power of a group joining together, directing our emotional and spiritual energies toward a single vision. And maybe that is a big part of our human experience on earth: To connect with each other and to that which is larger than ourselves.

Perhaps it is similar when you pray for me. Thank you for coming together as part of a larger group. Together, your prayers and good will have power beyond just one person. Your vision of a healthy life for me moves my life and make it all more real.

God bless you.
Marie

The law of attraction

A number of years ago, I consulted to the IRS as part of a team that measured the impact of the funding we got from Congress. We didn’t deal directly with Congress – we primarily collected data and generated reports.

As you might imagine, this task could be frustrating and we sometimes felt discouraged. At one team meeting, we tried to plan the week, but our work had hit a wall. There seemed to be nothing productive we could do toward our current goals.

We sat for a bit, wishing for things to be different, when someone said, “What we really need is for Paul to talk with someone from Congress.”

Now, Paul never worked directly with Congress, and as far as we knew, he didn’t even know anyone in Congress. To our logical minds, this was a pie-in-the-sky wish. But that statement hit a chord deep within each of us, in that part of our bodies that recognizes the truth, and we all came alive.

“Yes!”

“That’s exactly what we need!”

Each of us was buoyed as we internalized that statement, and we ended our meeting on that note.

A few days later, one of the team members burst into our team room. “A Congressional aide called Paul – his Congressman wants to meet with him on our project!”

It happened. What we envisioned, the seemingly unlikely if not impossible, happened. And in just a few days.

We all laughed about it and at our next team meeting, we decided to try it again. We each made random statements until one of those statements hit that same place inside of us. Once that happened, we all agreed on it, wrapped up the meeting and carried that statement inside of us.

Again, within a week, what we envisioned, happened.

For grins and giggles, we started doing this every week. When someone made the statement that rang true, we seemed to be one person as we recognized it in the same moment, almost simultaneously shouting out with enthusiasm. We never even discussed or debated each “goal”; we just felt a recognition and an uplift in energy.

We called it “The Vibe” and it helped us to achieve things that we could only imagine at a faster speed than we had ever worked before. We went from being surprised that these things happened to assuming they would happen, and generating these statements soon became a matter of course.

In each of these instances, we did no tangible work toward these goals. In fact, The Vibe statements were all things that felt big and outside our direct control. But they all happened.

I haven’t generated “The Vibe” in a regular way since that time, but these past weeks, a few things happened to remind me of the power that even our casual thoughts can have on events in our lives.

One example: Ordering sushi and getting the one I was thinking about, not the one I actually ordered.

Placing a take-out food order on the website of our local Japanese restaurant, I choose an avocado-asparagus-cucumber sushi roll (AAC).

I also noticed the avocado-banana-cream cheese roll (ABC). Though the ABC didn’t sound good to me at all, I kept wondering what it would look and taste like. In fact, I couldn’t stop thinking about it.

I placed my order for the AAC, along with a couple of other items, double-checked the list, then drove to the restaurant.

When I arrived, something told me to check the contents of the bag, but I didn’t. Arriving home, I found, not the avocado-asapargus-cucumber roll I wanted but the avocado-banana-cream cheese roll that I distinctly did not.

I checked the receipt. It said avocado-asapargus-cucumber. I checked my online order. Again, the same. What are the odds that they would make this exact error, giving me the item that I was so focused on NOT getting?

Another example: Writing a book review for a book I wanted to read but didn’t see how I could.

Each week at my acupuncturist’s office, I would notice the book Writing and Healing: A Mindful Guide for Cancer Survivors. Though I was intrigued and wanted to read it, my book list is long, and I didn’t read enough of it to push it to the front of my queue. Still, it stayed in my mind.

Soon after that, I was asked to write a review of that very same book! Suddenly, it jumped to the front of my queue. And, I no longer could find it at the acupuncturist.

These examples and others remind me to focus on the things I DO want, and to be conscious of where I focus my thoughts. It reminds me that something larger than myself is at work in my life, and that I am connected to it, as we all are, and that our thoughts bring elements into our life as if they were already tangible reality.

Lots of love,

Marie

P.S. After I wrote this, I parked at a meter. I almost never get a parking ticket, but I put money in the meter and I thought, I don’t know why I am doing this. I am going to get a parking ticket anyway. And sure enough, I got a parking ticket, and although I wasn’t excited about paying, I was oddly excited about the ticket. Gotta watch those thoughts!