Some Things to Think About.

My friend Shaunna loaned me this wonderful book called Traveling Mercies by Anne Lamott. A few anecdotes I would like to share with you:

1. " 'Traveling Mercies', the old people at our church said to the preacher when she went on vacation. This is what they always say when one of us goes off for a while. Traveling mercies: love the journey, God is with you, come home safe and sound."

2. "Besides the big brokennesses, I've noticed all sort of really dumb things breaking lately, too. I've had a dozen calls from friends reporting broken cars, water heaters, a window, even a finger so I've been on the lookout for something wonderful to happen, because of this story I heard recently: Carolyn Myss, the medical intuitive who writes and lectures about why people don't heal, flew to Russia a few years ago to give some lectures. Everything that could go wrong did - flights were canceled or overbooked, connections were missed, her reserved room at the hotel given to someone else. She kept trying to be a good sport, but finally, two mornings later, on the train to her conference on healing, she began to whine at the man sitting beside her about how infuriating her journey had been thus far

It turned out that this man worked for the Dalai Lama. And he said - gently - that they believe when a lot of things start going wrong all at once, it is to protect something big and lovely that is trying to get itself born - and that this something needs for you to be distracted so that it can be born as perfectly as possible."

3. Anne's friend Rick Fields is the editor in chief of Yoga Journal and also has stage-four metastatic lung cancer. His answering machine message says, "The road to enlightenment is long and difficult, and you should try not to forget snacks and magazines."

"In an interview in a Buddhist magazine, he'd said, 'I'm going to live until I die. And the doctor is going to live until he dies. He thinks he knows when I'm going to die, but he doesn't even know when he's going to die'."