The Joy of What is
by Nancy Bowers, RScP
“It’s not impermanence that makes us suffer. What makes us suffer is wanting things to be permanent when they are not.” ~Thich Nhat Hanh
“You move totally away from reality when you believe that there is a legitimate reason to suffer.”~Byron, Katie, Loving What is.
God is. God is and the underbelly of that beingness is Love. What is is Love. Without judgment, free of condemnation, free of comparison, what is just is. It is a constant flow of change. Life is forever morphing from this to that to the next thing.
I step back lovingly and just watch it. I empty my mind of any idea that it should be different. I embrace it all from a place of ignorance. I accept that I have no idea what anything is for. I have opinions. I have ideas, but all of them are born from partial assessment. Even when I think I know, I don’t. Not really.
The only thing I am certain of is that All That Is is Love. So I filter through that lens. I don’t fight what is, I look for the love. If I cannot find it, then I remind myself that what is not love is a call for love. I am witnessing fear. My mind returns to the Holy Spirit. I repeat a prayer from A Course in Miracles:
I am here only to be truly helpful.
I am here to represent Him Who sent me.
I do not have to worry about what to say or what to do, because He Who sent me will direct me.
I am content to be wherever He wishes, knowing He goes there with me.
I will be healed as I let Him teach me to heal.
This prayer returns me to peace. This prayer reminds me that I do not know what anything is for. This prayer returns my mind to acceptance of what is. I allow. I let the Holy Spirit return me to love and peace and joy. This is where I find joy! Happy!!!! I am free of condemnation. I am free of judgment. I love everything because God is the underbelly – the place where healing happens. That place of profound peace.
How grateful I am to live in impermanence! How thankful I am to let go of suffering in the belly of resisting what is. What is is. It’s good because it is all God. If I don’t see that, it is because of am condemning and have forgotten to choose the Holy Spirit. Life is impermanence, so I choose again. Gratefully. Peacefully. Willingly.
In gratitude I clear my mind of ideas that I know better than God and breathe into the peace that follows. God is the only permanence I know. Thank you, God!
And so, it is. Amen.