Darlington

How do you begin your day? Coffee? Exercise? Meditation? Maybe, all three. But then, what? How do you set up for the day’s unfolding? If you are like me, sometimes we are at the mercy of our planners and calendars. But, as I grow and, yes, as I age, those days are less frequent. And, for that, I am grateful. For that planner is filled with activities and things to do. It looks like an outline of a gloriously full life. But that plan is missing one thing — the intention behind the todos. And, within those intentions lie our connection to Spirit, to the world, to, well, everything.

As I spend more time on this planet, I am coming to know in my bones that spirituality is not about achieving things — as noble as those things might be. But it is, rather, about our relationships with those things — with everything — that fills our lives with the depth and breadth of creation. The bigness of it. The spaciousness of it. The grace of it. The wholeness of this life is contained in everything. Everything fits. If I think about this long enough, I am overwhelmed. How about you?

It is easy to see our todo lists as separate from ourselves and from the world. They exist simply as a list of activities to be accomplished so that...yes! That’s the sentence we need to finish. So that... For only within the context of the whole are our actions connected, through Spirit, to everything. Only then can we see that everything fits. Everything belongs. And we belong to everything. That is not an easy thought to wrap your head around. That is not an easy thought to embrace. We like being separate. It’s easier.

And yet, if I am not a part of the laughter of a child, the tears of the dying, the pain of the suffering, the joy of the victorious, the confusion of the poor, then I can’t be connected to All That Is. And that separation keeps me disconnected from my Creator.

The love and grace of the Divine is always there, always available and always given freely but can we be open to it and receive it if we are sepa-

rated from the rest of life? I don’t think so. I think we miss it. I think we miss it because we are blocked by the boundaries we create; by the boundaries that keep us busy, that fill our days with activities without deep intention and connection. Boundaries that are built to protect and preserve, to keep us safe and secure and, in

fact, end up doing the opposite.

And so, for now, I invite you to begin your days renewed. Yes, we will still drink coffee, we will still exercise and we will still meditate and, I am sure, we will open our days in

many other ways. But let us also open our planners and our hearts with intentions for the highest good of all, with a willingness to know — in our bones — that we are all connected to everything. For, regardless of our faith traditions

and differences, the Spirituality of Everything Fits can live within each of us.