Picture: Lake Mead bike ride–a micro=moment of joy!
As we make our way back to the Northwest we have found the journey to be smooth and delightful. After some busy days before leaving, then flying down here and preparing the motorhome for travel–retrieving it from its dusty storage–we made our way back to a place we enjoyed before near Wickenburg AZ. The quiet of the desert is much preferred to staying at an R.V. park where units are stacked like cordwood.
The next day we motored north to another familiar campground on the shores of Lake Mead, near Hoover Dam in Nevada. We have taken a day from travel to make a bike ride along a railroad line that has been converted into a trail, complete with tunnels under mountains and vistas of Lake Mead. We do have a schedule to keep in order to make it back in time for more doctor appointments. These appointments will point the way to another surgery and a probable course of treatment for the new tumor that was found on the liver.
In spite of a looming future and a schedule of travel to be mindful of, we have found joy in the journey. I have no real thoughts for these future events other than making calls and texting doctors and caregivers that need occasional promptings. Although I have been impressed with the speed and care of treatment, still it has required a sometimes steady stream of promptings to busy providers to keep things moving along properly.
So, while future events may provide plenty of reasons to be distracted, be in a mood, or spend time worried, I have found none of this to be my experience. Rather, there are innumerable sparks of joy, too many to count. Packed within each day discreet situations bring fulfillment, happiness, and connection with God. I have thought of these as micro-moments of joy.
These micro-moments of joy do not need to be extraordinary in any way. It can be simply driving down the road, feeling the warmth in the air, seeing a hummingbird tasting the nectar of a flower, or a vista of lovely desert mountains. If I were obsessed with the future or stressed by a schedule to keep, or any number of reasons to be distracted from the here and now I would surely miss these micro-moments of joy.
These micro-moments are available to all, but all too often our eyes do not see, our ears do not hear. Life is full of joyful moments, but how impoverished is the man who cannot enjoy them. It makes life dull and meaningless when there is no joy; or that joy is always deferred to a hoped for better future. God is joy, and unless we are actively participating in it then we are starving our souls of the very nourishment it absolutely needs.
No matter your situation you have available to you these micro-moments of joy. Do not let moods, concerns, fears or unbridled desires make you deaf and blind to everyday joy. Your meditation is designed to bring out that joy, God remembrance is joy itself, and such joy is not dependent upon wealth, health or situation–for God is transcendent to all such considerations. Jesus even proclaimed, blessed is he who mourns, for he shall be comforted. Comforted by who? Comforted by God who is to be found in the hearts of all, and God who comes to you in various forms He may choose to send.
Do not rob yourself of the present by banking all of your hopes upon an uncertain future or holding today under a microscope of what you think it should look like. You are a creature of joy, designed to live in bliss. Look for those moments today, now. Find micro-moments of joy all through the day, string these moments together and make a beautiful pearl necklace of God-joy. As the great Meher Baba exhorted us to do, “Don’t worry, be happy!”