Lessons in Gratitude Day 701

Posted on June 14, 2013 by mtchamblee

It has been another long week. I am so sleepy I can hardly sit at the keyboard this evening. I am grateful that the weekend is here, though I will have to work this weekend to finish two work-related projects. Not my idea of a good time, but they need to be finished and so I’ll tackle them tomorrow. As much as I’d like to sleep in, I’ll likely get up early, though not at my usual 5:45 a.m. Tonight as my muse appears to have deserted me, I’ll share a few quick simple gratitudes before giving into my tiredness and hopefully going to sleep.

  • I am grateful for the good crew of people I work with. They are hardworking, passionate, creative and energetic. They are each in their own unique ways committed to the work we’re all doing. I’ve been given the responsibility for providing leadership for the overall direction for the office, but it’s the team that I work with who bring the vision to life. And even if at times things get crazy and there are issues and drama–both internal and external–that flare up from time to time, by and large it is a pleasure to work with each of them.
  • I am grateful for the work that I’m doing at this time in my life. It isn’t always easy doing work that some people may consider irrelevant or of lower priority than other things happening at the institution. At times I’ve grown weary of this opposition, and I long to find my way into doing something a little different–perhaps finish my novel. But one doesn’t simply shrug off a calling, which is partly what the work I do is. So it is not yet time for me to be released to do something different. I hope I’ll have clear signals from the Universe about when that is and what’s next. For now, I’ll continue to give my best and do the work that is set in front of me with dedication and excellence.
  • I am grateful as always for friends and family. Rumor has it that one of my two sisters-in-law is in town visiting her daughter, one of my nieces, who lives here in the metro area. Tomorrow a number of us will have lunch and hang out with her for a bit. I am blessed to have sisters-in-law and brothers-in-law who are as dear to me as my siblings by blood. Our family is a fairly tight-knit group: gaining entrance and acceptance into our clan might feel like running a gauntlet (though I always thought we were nice…) but my siblings-in-law have been up to the task. This particular sister-in-law has been part of my life for nearly 40 years–that’s well over half my  lifetime. I am grateful for who she’s been in my life over all these years and will definitely be glad to see her tomorrow.
  • Finally, I am grateful for all that I am learning. Sometimes I feel like I’ve been a student of life since before I arrived on the planet. I have learned as many lessons from the challenging experiences in my life as I have from the safe and easy things, and while I have to say that I prefer safe and easy,  I try to approach even unpleasant and difficult situations with a fervent hope that at least I’ll gain some valuable life experiences that will stand me in good stead at some other point in my life. “When life gives you lemons, make lemonade,” as the old saying goes. Well I’ve had times when I thought I was drowning in lemonade so frequently were the lemons raining down on me. But in the midst of the unpleasantness I’ve continued to hold the intention that I will learn and grow from whatever is going on in my life at a given moment. So far it seems to be working for me. Think I’ll stick with it.

So now it is time to take my rest for the evening. I look forward to getting some sleep and hopefully waking refreshed and ready to work in the morning. I’ll look expectantly to the new day and new possibilities, and of course recognize the blessings in my life and be grateful.

Posted in Family, Gratitude, Simple Blessings/Gratitude, Work/Employment | Leave a comment

Lessons in Gratitude Day 700

Posted on June 13, 2013 by mtchamblee

Seven Hundred Days of Gratitude

This has been an interesting journey the nearly two year trek through the landscape of gratitude. For 700 days, 473 without a break, I have explored the various textures, sounds, shapes, sights, smells, flavors, gentle breezes of gratitude. In some ways I’ve come a long way, in others I’ve only just gotten started in this process of chronicling this epic journey of discovery. Like a scientist observing various species as I explore this world, I have witnessed, recognized, noted, catalogued, and preserved images of all the myriad blessings for which I have expressed my gratitude, appreciation, and thanks.

Like any journey, it has not always been easy; indeed my expedition into exploring gratitude began in the midst of loss, grief, and chaos, a storm of misfortune that blew through my life two and a half years ago. My blog writing, the decision to write each day about the things for which I am grateful, emerged almost as an instinctive reaction to all the pain I was in. I needed to write in some ways to make sense of what was happening to me, but also in recognition that if I were to retain my ability to function I would need to focus my energy and attention not on what I had lost, but on what I still had, what remained. You see, I wasn’t stripped naked. I didn’t lose my life or the lives of anyone close to me. I suffered from what I later lightheartedly referred to as my “series of unfortunate events,” but I was by no means  completely devastated. Focusing my attention on all that was right and good and beautiful in my life  kept me from descending into a long, deep (if understandable) depression.

I took on two other assignments to stabilize and empower myself during this time, each of which complemented my gratitude practice and in their unique ways also had a profound impact on my life over a period of 18 months. The first of these I actually began a few weeks before I started this gratitude blog: I decided to volunteer at the local food pantry, each distributing groceries to between 60 to 80 families each week. It was often hectic, sometimes frustrating (like those times when we ran out of various food items while we still have clients to serve), and a lot of lifting and bending and hauling bags of groceries to and fro. And it was one of the most wonderful experiences I’ve had. You can read many of my reflections about my time at the Berkeley Food Pantry by simply searching the word “pantry” in this blog. (Check out Day 77).

The second thing I began was to begin a meditation practice, visiting the East Bay Meditation Center in Oakland, CA. It was another one of those things when I was absolutely in the right place just when I needed to be there. I was not a faithful meditator at home–I was much more of a community meditator, preferring to gather each Thursday night with members of the sangha to meditate and hear teachings on various Buddhist principles and philosophies. On various weekends I participated in daylong retreats and took weekly classes covering many basic concepts of meditation practice, Buddhism, and related matters. Much of what I have learned and experienced since those days are woven into the fabric of the way I live my life. While I am by no means a disciple of the dharma and my meditation practice has been on hiatus for the past nine months since I left the Bay area, so much of the way I view my life experiences and interpret the world around me is informed by what I did manage to take in during that year I spent with the teachers and community of the meditation center.

To that trio of life-altering initiatives I added two other consistent practice: First, I started walking. During my period of unemployment I had a lot of time on my hands. Even when I spent hours researching job prospects, tweaking my resume, applying for various positions, managing my unemployment details, I still had a lot of time on my hands. I had gotten into a routine of driving my son 12 miles from our home to his job several days a week. His workplace happened to be a few blocks away from  one of the most beautiful sights in the country: the San Francisco Bay, the Golden Gate and Oakland Bay bridges, Mount Tamalpais, all visible from the Cesar Chavez park at the Berkeley Marina. I walked about a mile and a half–three quarters of the way around–to the .75 mile marker, then I turned around and went back the way I came–the view of the bay was much better so I almost always doubled back so I could go past the water twice. Before I found contract work that severely cut into my walking time, I walked three of four times per week. It exercised my body and it fed and refreshed my soul.

Unusually Tranquil Bay Waters

Tranquil Bay

The other important addition to my life was my morning journal writing practice. I started “writing my way to clarity,” which is what I wrote in the front of my first journal, back at in mid-January 2012. After skipping some days here and there, I began writing daily on February 3 and have not looked back since. My latest journal book is Writing My Way to Clarity Book 10, which I began writing in on the 29th of March, 2013. The bookend practice of writing my morning journal–two pages each morning except on weekends when I write three or four–when I wake in the morning and closing out each day with this gratitude blog have indeed helped me find a lot of clarity about a lot of things. I have no idea what I will do with all these journals–I suspect one of my kids will have to deal with them after I’m gone. They are not a history of my life by any means, but they offer a glimpse into what the state of my heart has been over the year and a half that I’ve been writing it. This too has been a deeply meaningful and important daily practice.

As I examine things now from the wisdom of hindsight, I can see how much I have learned and grown in these 700 days. I have learned so much and continue to make new observations in my log book of gratitude. The most important thing that I hope comes from this little blog that is read so faithfully by a small handful of people, is inspiration for people to experience and express their gratitude for what they’re grateful for in their lives. Even if it is only a handful of people who even know this blog exists, if you express your gratitude a little more frequently or differently because you’ve read something thought-stimulating in this blog, then its purpose has been accomplished. I called these “lessons in gratitude” because that’s what this practice has provided for me–lessons about life, love, generosity, grief and loss, suffering and peace, contentment and joy, and so many other things. It simply doesn’t get any better than this.

I am grateful for 700 days of gratitude, of persistence, of laughter, tears, anger and frustration, wonder and awe. From silly things like squirrels and wild turkeys to deeply important things like the love of family and friends and deep connections to the things of the earth and to Spirit, I have expressed gratitude for so very many things. One of the few certainties I have in life is the awareness that no matter what is happening in and around my life, there is always something for me to be grateful about. So it is and so it shall continue to be. And when I finally stop writing this blog it wil not be about my not having anything to be grateful for (can you even imagine that?) It will simply be because I have lost the ability and drive to express the gratitude. It has always been there and my guess is that it always will be. And so it is.

Posted in Gratitude, Meditation, Perseverance | Leave a comment

Lessons in Gratitude Day 699

Posted on June 12, 2013 by mtchamblee

Sometimes I have no idea how to gather the threads of these disparate thoughts and somehow weave them together into coherent speech. It has been another long day and while I would love to express gratitude for all that I accomplished today (and god knows I have a lot on my plate that I need to get done), I cannot celebrate my achievements because there weren’t very many, at least not on any of the projects I’ve undertaken. This takes me back to the nighttime prayer when it says, “What has been done has been done; what has not been done has not been done. Let it be.” And so I will let it be. It is a useless expenditure of energy to lament what I did not get done, and so I won’t. Tomorrow, as Scarlett O’Hara wisely stated, is another day. I will have another shot at accomplishing the things at the top of my to-do list.

I am grateful tonight for having an already established body of work from which I can draw inspiration and excerpts from. In my ongoing exhaustion I have had to spin the wheel and select from past blogs. This evening I am drawing from Day 261 from March 31, 2012. I was grateful that evening for simple things, as I often am these days. So I want to share a few of those things because they resonate still with where I am at the moment.

  • I am grateful for some financial help I received in the mail today. I have an angel who has helped me over the past several months. Without her assistance,things would be incredibly tight and I would be unable to meet some of my obligations. I look forward to the time that’s coming soon when I will be earning income from meaningful work and can begin to return her generosity back in some way to her as well as paying it forward by helping someone else. I look forward to being able to stand on my own two financial feet. Until that manifests,I am grateful for her willingness to help me.
  • I am grateful for the wealth that I do possess. True wealth is much more than possessing financial means. I might have some financial struggles that keep me awake at night sometimes,but the truth is I am incredibly blessed simply to be able to do that things I’ve been able to do with relatively limited means. I am fortunate to have spiritual wealth even if I don’t currently have much in the way of financial wealth. I have family and friends whom I love and who love me. These are riches as much as anything else.
  • I am grateful for the strength and perseverance that runs through my blood from my family and ancestors before me. I come from strong roots. We know how to stand strong in the face of challenges,but also to reach out for support when we can’t do it alone.

Today I heard myself counseling a young friend not to make a decision about her future employment on money alone. She works full time but is struggling to make ends meet. She interviewed for a job a few days ago and she was telling me how it went. The job wasn’t really a good fit but it would likely pay her more and she’d be living in an area where the cost of living was much more reasonable than it was where she currently lived. So even though one problem would be improved (financial struggles) another set of problems would be created: she’d be miserable in her work life. I’ve seen many people make a similar decision strictly based on financial considerations and even though they’ve made reasonably good livings the toll the stress has taken on them has cost them a lot more in the long run.

So as I look back at my post from March of 2012 I am grateful to be working and able to meet most of my obligations most of the time and every once in a while I “splurge” and buy a little something for myself. As best I can I make decisions that align with how I try to live my life and how I hope to be. As tempting as it might be to make decisions based primarily on financial considerations, in the end I have to do what’s best for my overall wellbeing.  Tonight I will close with the night time prayer from the New Zealand Prayer Book:

God,it is night.
The night is for stillness.
Let us be still in the presence of God.
It is night after a long day.
What has been done has been done;
what has not been done has not been done;
let it be.
The night is quiet.
Let the quietness of your peace enfold us,
all dear to us,and all who have no peace.
The night heralds the dawn.
Let us look expectantly to a new day,
new joys,new possibilities.
In your name we pray. Amen.
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Lessons in Gratitude Day 698

Posted on June 11, 2013 by mtchamblee

This evening I almost made a big mistake. I left work a little early so I could take my dog out for her evening walk, grab a quick dinner and head out to the meditation center I’ve been thinking about going to. A friend of one of my meditation teachers from California is leading the meditation and dharma talk at the Center, so as tired as I was I was determined to go. I ate dinner, watching the news as usual, then prepared to plug the address of the center into my navigation app so I could head out. I read information about the weekly meditation, about meditation etiquette as defined by this particular center, and double checked the address and start time on my calendar app.  Then suddenly I realized that the meditation session is tomorrow.

I can tell you that I would have been one salty sister if I had jumped in my car, gotten back on the beltway for the 23 minute trip to the center only to find the parking lot empty and the place deserted. God was definitely kind to me this evening. The challenge will be making sure that I once again arrange my trip home so that I can repeat the process I undertook today. I’m grateful for the reprieve of not having to go out tonight, because as much as I want to “try out” the meditation center, I was pretty exhausted this evening, having gotten to sleep late last night. Tonight I’ll make an effort to get to sleep at a decent hour.

Tonight I am going to repost and excerpt from Day 333 from a year ago, June 11, 2012. June 11 is my mother’s birthday–she would have been 87 this year. I think it always sounds so odd to say that–yes, she would have been 87 if she hadn’t died 18 years ago. How we mark time, anniversaries of significant moments is so interesting. I always know that when springtime comes around I subconsciously begin marking the anniversaries of events that occurred around the time my mother got sick (on December 30, 1994 she got the diagnosis), when she died (May 29, 1995), when she was buried (June 3, 1995) and all the various dates and milestones in between. A week after she died (June 10) was my sister’s wedding that Mom had tried so hard to stick around for, and then the next day, June 11 would have been her 69th birthday. And so, as  I wrote about her one year ago:

I guess I won’t ever really stop missing my mother,though after 17 years I no longer feel the acute pain of her loss. It has diminished to a mostly gentle wistfulness, except for those times such as I’ve experienced recently when I feel like a lost little child who wants nothing more than to lay her face against her mother’s breast and be comforted. Then the pain is a bit sharper until it once again subsides to near stillness.

I do not take for granted the solid, strong and loving relationship I had with my mother. I know that for too many people their connections to their mothers were strictly biological and no warmth or affection existed between them. Far too many children are neglected or abused by their mothers and cannot fathom what it is like to feel anything but relief at their passing. No, I realize how fortunate I am to have liked my mother as well as loved her, to be pleased to see her face when I look at my reflection in the mirror, to know that I share some of the same interests and creative outlets that she did. I am grateful to have had her in my life for as long as I did, though to my thinking it was still way too short.

Now don’t get me wrong: my mother was by no means perfect and I didn’t always agree with her and think she was completely wonderful. We had our share of differences of opinion and personality, and in some cases major philosophical departures. I can look back on various decisions I made based of my mother’s advice and out of a desire to please her and realize the “negative”impacts those decisions had on my life. I’m still working my way through some of them. No, she was not perfect, but even in that she was teaching me that being a parent doesn’t mean being perfect; but in large part it involves loving each of your children for who they are and doing the very best you can to “bring them up right.” That formula has mostly worked alright for me (though my children might differ with that sentiment.)

A few weeks ago on Memorial Day weekend two of my sisters, one of my brothers, my daughter, one of my aunts and I and a bunch of friends and nieces and nephews gathered for a barbecue. I pulled out my guitar and sang “Mama’s Song” with my sister Ruth (with whom I sang it at our Mother’s funeral) and my daughter Michal. Such a lovely three-part harmony in places, I know Mama would have enjoyed it. The last lines of the song express my deep gratitude for the relationship I had with my mother:

Our memories may number many
 But to me they’re all too few
I’ll always thank God in his kind ness
For giving me someone like you.

© M. T. Chamblee,1978 (Words by Dorothy Jones Chamblee,1938)
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Lessons in Gratitude Day 697

Posted on June 10, 2013 by mtchamblee

Tonight I am grateful for something ridiculously simple: I love the tastes of summer. I am a cherry nut. As soon as the cherry season hits, I overdose on them. Where I lived in California they were abundant and cheap. So far I’ve purchased one bag and it wasn’t cheap. But I can’t help myself. I’ll keep buying them until they are priced out of my ability to purchase them (and even then I might still buy some.) Between cherries and blueberries and strawberries and watermelon I could go nuts from all the delectable fruit. I have yet to go to a farmer’s market out here in the greater DC metro area. One of the things I appreciated about living in the Bay area of Northern California was the easy access to a mind-blowing number and variety of fruits and vegetables. While I suspect I can get some of the same things here as I did there, I imagine there’ll be fewer varieties and higher prices. Nonetheless, I love the taste of summer.

A few weeks ago for the Memorial Day holiday weekend at my sister Sandy’s house we cooked up and ate barbecued ribs and chicken, baked beans, potato salad, deviled eggs, pies and cakes. Why do we eat those things only in summer? Part of me understands that we eat things like potato salad and deviled eggs in the summer because they are cold foods and summer is hot. Summer is not a time to eat chili (though I make chili with regularity, even in the summer.) And of course most of my favorite fruits–especially cherries–are not available at any other time of the year. So the next two months I’ll be savoring all that I can of these wonderful treats. William Shakespeare used the phrase, “and summer’s lease hath all too short a date...” And in this I must agree with him.  Before you know it, it’s all over and instead of cherries and watermelon cubes and potato salad under the warm summer sun, it’ll be hot apple cider and caramel apples and chili under the brilliant colors and cool, short autumn afternoons.

I am grateful for the simple things; the things that don’t require a lot of time and thought and preparation. Like driving along with my sister laughing and talking as we enjoyed a beautiful summer day. Like eating cherries by the handful and enjoying the various flavors of summer. Like connecting with people you love for a variety of reasons, even when you’re helping them pull weeds or listening to them as they pour their heart out over some challenge they’re facing. Everywhere I look, everywhere I go, everything I do I find myself surrounded by reasons to be grateful. And so I am. I choose to be grateful every day, expressing my thanks to God, the Universe for more blessings than I can measure. Sometimes I can express my gratitude in clear, articulate and comprehensible ways, and other times I am less so, but one thing you can count on: I’m going to keep trying. And for me, that is a very good thing.

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Lessons in Gratitude Day 696

Posted on June 9, 2013 by mtchamblee

Sometimes there are no words. How many times have I found myself in situations in which some kind of response was invited, called for, and I simply had no words? I have found myself in that space quite a bit lately. People are facing challenges, experiencing life drama, or simply have questions about what’s happening to/around them. They look to me, not necessarily for answers, or for me to fix it, but nonetheless look to me, perhaps hopeful that I’ll have something to say. I often do, but sometimes words simply fail me and all I can do is be with the person empathizing or sympathizing with whatever it is they’re going through. That’s not easy, especially long distance. Still, I try my best.

Tonight I have very few words. I am grateful, as I always am for the basic, foundational things in my life: my children, my siblings and friends; my basic physical and material blessings: safe home, abundance of food, a decent job. I am grateful for the beauty of the natural world I sense around me: the sights, sounds, textures, and smells of the world around me, and for the physical ability to take it all in. Yes, I remain grateful for the many blessings in my life. And yet, sometimes words fail me.

I am approaching 700 days of writing about gratitude. I have no big celebration planned or anything–I wouldn’t have predicted when I first started writing nearly two years ago that I would keep at it this long. There have been many times I thought I would stop. I’m not entirely sure what all keeps me going: stubbornness–that old Chamblee stick-to-it-ness that doesn’t allow us to quit anything, habit–like my daily morning journal writing, or just a desire to keep going, keep sharing. I don’t have it figured out yet, and in the scheme of things I have much bigger fish to fry. I’ll keep going until I stop and decide to do something else. I have a handful of faithful readers, some of whom have read every day since I started. I’m not sure what keeps you reading: stubbornness, habit, or a desire to keep reading? I’m glad you’re here with me, as I’ve said many times, I write for you and I write for me. So as long as we’re both still here, I reckon I’ll keep writing.

May we all be free from suffering and the root of suffering. May we all find happiness and the root of happiness.

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Lessons in Gratitude Day 695

Posted on June 8, 2013 by mtchamblee

Tonight is a good time for simple gratitude. I spun the wheel four times and didn’t land on a blog that felt right for this evening. That was a little disappointing as I am tired this evening and would have loved to use a previous post and then turn in early. But alas, it was not to be. Even so, there are still plenty of things I am grateful for this day.

I spent several hours today hanging out with my sister who needed to buy a formal dress for a black tie event she’s going to later in the week. We walked around several stores for a number hours before returning to the first store where we found reasonable alternatives. She selected a dress, bought it and we headed back to my house. It was a beautiful day, and though I’m not much of a shopper I found that I enjoyed myself and the time went by amazingly fast. When we got home it was nearly 8 p.m. and by the time I ate dinner and sat down to write it was bed time. I am grateful for the time spent out away from home. Sometimes I get a bit too sedentary on the weekends, and while I now have a lot I need to accomplish tomorrow, I’m still glad I invested the time in connecting and creating community with my sister. It was a very good day indeed.

  • I am grateful for the beautiful weather, driving along talking with my sister. Laughing and talking as she tried on gown after gown before finally settling on a selection. We laughed about the wide differences in our fashion preferences, as in the fact that the last time I wore a long gown and high heeled shoes was at her wedding 18 years ago.
  • I’m grateful for the simple entertainment of watching the various “nest cams,” video cameras trained on the nests of various birds around the country. Last year I watched an eagle’s nest for some months as the hatchlings grew to adolescence and flew away from the nest. This year I’ve been watching four different nests, though the one I now watch with the most interest is the osprey nest at the Dunrovin Guest Ranch in Montana. I like it because it’s close up and clear. I’d never really seen ospreys, but they are beautiful birds. Their hatchlings are young, so I anticipate being able to watch them for a a while. In the absence of my much loved wild turkeys whose antics I watched during my last year in California, I have to amuse myself by watching these birds virtually. I’ve really been enjoying it.
  • And simply put, I’m grateful for being alive and relatively able bodied wit no small access to various forms of privilege. While I don’t consider my life particularly easy, by comparison with so many people I live quite comfortable. I am grateful for the roof over my head, the clothes on my back, the safe and reliable transportation, and access to healthy foods to eat. These are “basic” things, but none that I take for granted. I have had moments in my past when I wasn’t sure if I could meet my obligations and could potentially lose my home, and there were definitely times when I didn’t have quite enough food to get me through a week.

I’m going to go to sleep now and promise to be back here tomorrow more clear-headed and articulate. Thanks for your continued interest in gratitude, generosity, and so many of the issued and ideas that I raise in this blog. May we all be free from suffering and the root of suffering. May we know happiness and the causes of happiness. So be it!

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Lessons in Gratitude Day 694

Posted on June 7, 2013 by mtchamblee

Ah Friday. Can I tell you how ecstatic I am that it is the end of my work week? I could, if I had the energy. There used to be an old beer commercial back in the 80s or sometime that said, “Now comes Miller time.” The implication of course was that at the end of a long, hard day at work “when it’s time to relax, Miller stands clear…if you’ve got the time, we’ve got the beer…” Now, I’m not a beer drinker–never developed a taste for it. But I can definitely relate to it being Miller time or at least a time to relax.

This has been a long week. I know I say that a lot and my intention is not to become  a broken record, but it’s been another week that’s felt like two. Last Saturday evening I got back from New Orleans and have only one weekend day to recover from my trip before hurtling into a hectic week full of meetings and deadlines. The week and weekend before that was also packed with activities and deadlines. So this weekend will be the first one in a few weeks in which life will slow down a bit for me to catch my breath. Mind you, I still have housecleaning, grocery shopping, and some of my regular weekend events as well as a few work files I brought home. Still, my intention is that it be relatively restful all things considered, beginning tonight.

I am grateful to have a job that I enjoy and that allows me to live relatively comfortably, particularly as measured in various places around the country and world. I am grateful that I work at a job that meets during “regular” business hours–banker’s hours from 8:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Monday through Friday, which is why I can be grateful for Saturdays and Sundays. My brother has worked two and three jobs to support his family. This has meant that weekends for him provided no respite from work. It all sort of blurs from one workplace to another. I have seen what hard work looks like. I have even done hard work, physically demanding work back when I worked on a farm in college. Doing my masters research on another farm, I worked long hours in the cattle pens and in the labs, collecting and analyzing various samples Sunday through Monday at all hours of the day and night. Now I have become settled and comfortable in my work routine. Hard mental labor for nine or ten hours per day, for five days a week for about 48 weeks of the year. I have it good and I know it. And I am grateful for it.

I can remember what it was like to be unemployed or underemployed, to be wishing for the continuity of a regular work day and the comfort and relief of a regular paycheck. I remember worrying about the impact of not using my mind in intense, engaged, and exciting ways. I worried that my skills would be come dull. I need not have worried. Besides the fact that I worked some contract gigs during that time, I kept my mind sharp largely working in areas with which I had no familiarity. I had to exercise mental different muscles, use different skills, and where I started out knowing little to nothing about the industry in which I was working, in a matter of a few short months I was producing good enough work that the agency I was contracting with wanted me to stay and keep working with them. I might have too if I hadn’t found a full-time job back in the field of work in which I’ve been employed for almost 30 years.

I am grateful to be working, to be using my mind, energy, heart and spirit in service to various groups of people. It’s interesting that my work has largely been with and on behalf of people given that growing up I preferred to spend time with four-legged animals. They were so much less complicated than my fellow humans. And yet here I am doing work I have no doubt I am called to do until I have leave to retire back to the farm. Who knows when that’s going to be. So for now, I work. And on the weekends I rest. And it is good.

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Lessons in Gratitude Day 693

Posted on June 6, 2013 by mtchamblee

Sometimes I don’t slow down long enough to do some things I really want (need) to get done. These are projects–creative and otherwise–that I’d like to make time for, but haven’t yet seemed to get there. I’ve decided that for the moment at least this is simply how things are–part of my new normal. I work relatively hard all day and by the time I get home (my average drive time is somewhere around 75 minutes or so) I am fairly exhausted. It is all I can do to walk the dog, heat up or cook something for myself and eat in front of the television, straighten up the kitchen, then head back to my bedroom to surf the web, write my blog, then go to sleep, not necessarily in that order, but with those main components in place. So I work hard all week and by the time Friday night and Saturday morning roll around I am tired and looking to rest, recuperate, and recover from the week. None of this is conducive to planting my garden, cleaning and organizing my office (there are still about a half dozen or so boxes cluttering up the room and my desktop is a disaster.) And for now, that is the way things are. It’s all good.

I am grateful for a long but good day at work. I am aware of how fortunate I am to be working and doubly fortunate to like and respect many of the people I work with–both on my job and those with whom I’ve worked around the country. That sure helps. So although this week has presented me with a variety of challenges to puzzle and work through on the job, I am taking it all in stride as best I can. These days I am approaching much of what I do with the attitude that I’m doing the best I can and in most cases things have turned out pretty well. I have had my moments of real doubt and angst about the things that were confronting me in my work, but the longer I keep at it, checking in with folks, doing my best, maintaining a positive attitude inasmuch as possible, the better things turn out. That and I pray a lot.

As I got to thinking this evening about how I’ve been approaching my work I began to wonder about the Buddhist principle of “wise effort.” Now, I don’t pretend to have deep knowledge about and practice of Buddhism–I was fortunate to have taken a number of really good classes during my time in the East Bay of California–but a some of what I learned continues to stick with me. So tonight I as I’ve been thinking and writing about my work and the type of energy and attitude I want to bring to what I do, I began to think about “wise effort,” one of the principles found in the Eightfold Noble Path. It was good to review my class notes from the series on the Eightfold Noble Path and to refresh my mind on ideas of what wise or “right” effort looks like, what “right livelihood,” “wise speech,” and the other spokes of the wheel look like. It is helpful to review them and gratifying to see that without consciously focusing on striving to follow the Eightfold Noble Path and other vital Buddhist principles, I appear to be on the path nonetheless. I have a lot to learn on this journey, but it’s nice to know that as I travel along I am incorporating important teachings, life lessons, wisdom from my elders, etc. in the the way I am living out my life. Gratitude is of course part of this, as well as generosity and other related principles and precepts.

I am grateful indeed for right effort and to be applying that and other principles at work. I know I’ll have my days of crankiness and frustration at work; it’s simply a part of the process. I know that much of it is all about the attitude and energy that I bring to everything I do on the job and in the other areas of my life. I will continue to do my best to bring my best to all that I do. May it always be so.

Posted in Buddhist Teachings, Gratitude, Work/Employment | Leave a comment

Lessons in Gratitude Day 692

Posted on June 5, 2013 by mtchamblee

Tonight I find myself mentally exhausted and needing to get to sleep earlier than I have been. So, I decided to spin the RNG wheel–I have two that I spin. One is set to choose a random number between 1 and 300 and the other between 1 and 350. For the first time ever the RNG gave me the number 1. So I am going to share a portion of that very first lesson in gratitude, written on June 30, 2011, nearly two full years ago. So tonight as I repost that original piece I want to express my gratitude for having started this blog and developed a gratitude practice. It continues to transform my life by daily challenging me to see the good, the beauty, the hope in the midst of struggle, the joy in simple things, and a deep appreciation for the many, many blessings in my life.

And so here nearly two years and 700 blog posts later is an excerpt of my very first post of a lesson in gratitude:

Lately as I’ve pondered my rather uncertain fate I keep coming across the idea of gratitude and being encouraged to write lists,ranging from 10 to 100 of things for which I am grateful. At one point,this felt like a perfunctory exercise. One is encouraged to write down from the large,important things like gratitude for loved ones or material things to even the smallest things, like “I am grateful for a nice cold glass of water” or “I am grateful for my dog” or the sunshine or or or….I was frustrated by this advice, in part because I couldn’t really see the purpose in filling page after page of things that I am grateful for. I nevertheless dutifully wrote my list of ten things.

Then for some reason today it hit me: I really am grateful for so many things, including those mundane things I am privileged to think of as mundane–like clean water to drink and something that makes my clean water cold. I am facing some challenges in my life right now but those challenges are far outweighed by the number of things I am grateful for. So, I am challenging myself to write every day about at least one thing I am grateful for. Not a list of things, but one thing (or more) that I’m grateful for and why. I’m not sure how long I can sustain it, or if I’ll write a public blog every day or simply write it in my journal. But, I am challenging myself nonetheless. All those people who recommend doing this can’t be wrong. There’s simply nothing to lose by doing this.

And there really has been nothing to lose and everything in the world to gain by choosing to write about gratitude. I don’t have tons of readers, and periodically I think about how I need to “market” this blog so I get a larger readership. And, that would definitely be cool. But while this blog started out as a way for me to recognize and take note of the many things I had to be grateful about in the midst of a seriously challenging time in my life, it has become something more than that. It really became a chronicle of my journey, of the passage through the struggles and uncertainties, a testament to the power of perseverance through difficult times, all viewed through the lens of gratitude. It continues to provide a space for exploring various thoughts and themes, some serious and some humorous, written for you the readers and for me as participant/observer/chronicler.

I am grateful for where this journey has carried my thus far, and whether I write for 700 or 1000 or 10,000 days, it has been a blessing to offer the gift of gratitude to anyone who cares to read these posts. And for that blessing I am, of course, truly grateful.

Posted in Gratitude | Leave a comment