MIDWEEK MESSAGE – February 14, 2024

This week, we had snow!  Not just a little bit, but quite a bit.  Seeing all the white covering the ground, the roofs, the trees, and the shrubs was beautiful.  I could have looked at it as a negative since I couldn’t get my car out to go to a meeting, but that was only temporary, and in the late afternoon, things were plowed, and I could go to another meeting.

It is interesting how we give so much power to letting the weather affect how we feel, considering we have no control over the weather.  Yet so often we do that.  When it is a good weather day, we feel happy, yet when the weather is not to our liking, we feel down and depressed.

Just the weather, there are many things in life we have no control over.  We can’t change the fact that people get sick and, at some time or another, die.  No matter how much we try to do the best we can, we can make someone do something that is not to our desire.

The more we base our happiness on the things we cannot change or control, the less peace and joy we have. We may know this, but sometimes it is not easy to practice.  In our humanness, we seek outside conditions to make us feel good, which only causes suffering and pain. It is that suffering that causes so much pain in life.

The Buddha taught that the suffering in life is caused by our desires or grasping for things or outcomes beyond our control. If we think about it, most of life’s pains are caused because things are not as we want them to be.  Jesus taught that we should wear life as a loose garment.  This means we do not let life choke out happiness and peace, and we stay centered on a good God who only wants the best for us, no matter how that may or may not be what we want for ourselves.

This week, practice living life loosely by not letting the weather determine how you view life.  Start with the weather because it is an easy thing to practice nonattachment.  Then, when that becomes easy for you, try it on something else – the weather, people around you, sports events, or even politics.

I believe we will discover a happier, more joyous life and the freedom to be all we were created to be.

 Quote of the Week

“The root of suffering is attachment.”

Buddha