Welcome to the New Year of 2010. It certainly is already proving out to be an amazing one for many. May it be so for you as well, dear reader!
At the beginning of each new year I go through my notes from the year previous – reviewing the best of the best and putting sticky arrows on pages worthy of a relook in the coming weeks. It seems 2009 was a record breaker for me with the number of poems written in a single 12 month period. Plus there were several sections of my journals (filled 4 since this time last year) that have what appear to be quality ideas for descriptive phrases I may use in upcoming short stories or my next novel.
However, I don’t want to get too far ahead of myself as I have a current novel – my first – that is in its second draft and that I hope to have in print by June of this year. In addition to my time writing here at M&M’s Musings, my commitment to myself and my Self is this novel’s completion. What a joyous journey it has been and continues to be! I have such faith in the realization of this dream manifesting before 2010 is even half over.
Faith has to do with things not seen, and hope with things not in hand. ~ St. Thomas Aquinas
The topic for today’s meanderings is simple – Faith and Hope. (Notice I left out the Trust? That’s a topic on its own for another day.) I’ve already used both words in the writings above: I hope to have my book in print by June; I have such faith in the realization of this dream. To some it sounds like I’m referring to the same thing, merely phrasing it differently. Yet there is a remarkable difference in the two. The hope is to have the novel in book form in my hand so I and others can read it. The faith is in the unknown factor behind the scenes.
Do you have a dream? A big dream? Is this a desire built up over time? Does it stem from the very core of your being? Take a moment here. Express that dream. Give it a feeling. Luxuriate in it!
We all have dreams. Some are simple, others more complex. Once we have a dream, there’s a process that we go through from the start of its inception to the manifestation of its creation. Once we know what that dream feels like to us, and how we will feel when it is a part of our life, then we are ready for the various stages of its unfolding.
For me, faith comes first. I am a writer. I had to have and must continue to have the faith, the belief that the ideas will flow, that my muses will inspire me, that the god of my understanding is granting me the fulfillment of a dream – to become a published author, a novelist.
My role is the work which I find to be a pleasure and easy – well, relatively easy … it has its moments of challenge, frustration and emptiness. Fortunately those negatives are less and less frequent. The more I live my life as a co-creator, the more inspired I am, the more open I am to thoughts, ideas and inspirations. The wordsmithing skills I have developed over years of practice come naturally to me. It is less and less often that I need to search for that perfect phrase or descriptive word when I am living my life in the moment and sincerely appreciating this gift of writing with which I have been blessed. Laugh with me here when I say I’m getting better at being in that place. I didn’t say I was perfect at it!
My role is to sit down at the computer and type, to carry that journal book with me wherever I go and to make sure I have more than one pen on me at all times. Heck, I’ve even written on toilet paper when I’ve had nothing else on which to write! If I do the structural and follow the impulses to write when the words flow – and that can mean at three in the morning when I awake with a dream or concept that inspires – then I do it and the results build and build.
Hope is the desire to hold that ‘thing’ – for me it’s my book – to hold it, touch it, feel its weight and texture, smell it. What a gift to be able to use all of our senses in the recognition of our dream manifested in real time – in our reality. For some of us though, the desire to have this ‘thing’ is so strong that it can actually block the receiving of it.
Please reread that last sentence. Have you ever wanted anything so badly that thoughts of reaching the end of your life and never having experienced that want fills you with an ache beyond measure? If I was so focused on the having of my book that I did little of the writing of it – there’s a slim chance the holding of it would ever come to fruition. If I wanted to own a home, yet found myself focusing on the lack of finances in my life – I’d never find myself living in that home. And then, getting angry that the finances are not forthcoming and my home isn’t here yet … well it feeds the circle of negative energy and keeps the dream even further away from my grasp. Does this make sense to you?
So now we go back to faith once again. We started with faith. Faith led us further into that place of desire. Then we got into the work aspect – doing what we each can to live life to the fullest; using our gifts to the max; holding to faith through the challenges. When we have done all we can, we hope for the outcome to be as we’ve requested. In order to hold to that hope we need to let it go – a tough thing to do for many of us when we have such strong wants. Yet in letting go we return once again to faith. The faith that the god of our understanding, the Universe, Source, All That Is, will grant us our desire to match and likely even exceed our expectations. And until the dream manifests, continuing on with our role of doing the work as and when inspired is all that is required of us.
It can be that simple. Yet, speaking for myself, there are times when it seems more complicated. When my desires are so strong, my faith so weak and my wants so great that anger creeps in, the quality of my life and my work becomes affected in a negative fashion. Then it’s time for me to do one of two things. I can smile. Have you ever tried to feel miserable and smile? You can’t do both at the same time. If you want to stay in a place of misery, don’t ever try to smile.
The other thing I can do is recognize that I need to let go of my want. Letting go is so very freeing. For many of us, though, it’s such a tough thing to do. There’s a well known story of a little boy who took his yoyo to God to have Him take the knot out of the string. God said he couldn’t remove the knot till the child was willing to let go of both ends of the yoyo. It’s hard for us to let go of both ends. We, as humans, tend to want to control things. Having a grasp on even one of the ends is what we do well. Holding on. That’s where the topic of Trust comes in and I’m not going to go there today.
How do I let go? I wrap my desire up in a bubble – like a soap bubble – multi-coloured yet transparent enough that I can see inside as the bubble and my dream within it floats up, away and out to the Universe. I envision the bubble popping somewhere beyond my vision and my dream gently floating like a leaf back down to earth. One day, when I least expect it, and when I’m ready for it, I will find where it has landed – safe and waiting just for me. Maybe it will be downstream. Abraham often tells us to let go of the oars and to stop paddling like crazy upstream. Flowing in that canoe downstream is the easiest thing to do when we’re willing to let go of the oars. And that’s where all our dreams and desires are – downstream. So let’s stop fighting the current.
We dream. Faith sustains that dream. Hope inspires us to do our part. We see our dreams fulfilled. It can be that simple.
In Light & Laughter & Love,
Marcia