BEYOND THE WINDOW
BEYOND THE WINDOW
Life is embraced in two ways – dutiful, and then you die, or bountiful, and then you die. Every day, we get to choose. Yet many of us struggle with the feeling that we have no choice at all. As I have written before, feelings are unreliable and must be vetted thoroughly, because one of their essential ingredients is fear.
“Is it possible to live so defensively that you never get to live at all.” Rachel Naomi Remen
Could fear be a major contributor to defensive, dutiful living?
From my She Shed’s window, I can see my front yard and the walkway leading to my front door and driveway. My house sits on a hill, and my neighbors are walkers. Rarely do I look out without spotting someone struggling up the hill or striding swiftly down, often with a dog in tow. Neighbors drive back and forth, and deliveries (mostly Amazon) come and go. Across the street, two gigantic trees stand between my neighbors’ houses. I have spent countless hours watching squirrels frolic in them by day and, as dusk puts the finishing touch on the day, watching the neighborhood cats begin to prowl. My upstairs window is an excellent observation tower. But observation is not living.
So, each day, I choose to stop gazing at life from behind the windowpane and walk out my back door to practice it. I choose to take the risk: to be curious about others and nature, to passionately develop my gifts and graces in the presence of others, and to practice loving myself and humankind. After all, loving from behind a window is more theory than practice.
A window has its purpose: to observe and to keep things out. But living bountifully is a successful marriage between being and doing. As in any good marriage, one partner sometimes gets more attention than the other, and accountability to each other is essential. Being and doing need each other.
My circle is a mixture. Some practice living dutifully; their color is drab gray. At the other end are those so consumed with doing, they forget to pause, to simply be, and examine their “WHY.” Their color is fiery red. But I am fortunate to have a handful of co-sojourners who live somewhere in the middle most of the time. Their color is forest green, and they help me understand the value of both being and doing. Where am I in this mixture? That is a good question.
Not to end on a down note – dutiful or bountiful, we all die. The difference is how we choose to live until then.
Consider this – life is a gift. Only you can choose how to use it. Step out from behind the window and choose bountiful.
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