Be like a Western Cowboy

Heavenletter #793

God said:

See the passage of life as something visible to you and yet uninvolving of you. Observe life, or else you race. When you race, you hurry up. You urge life on. You rub your hands, and enter into the fray. You think there's a race and that you must win it. There is no race, and you don't have to win it. Draw back a little. You are not the runner of life. You are a passerby. Life races along, and it pulls you with it, but it goes fast enough without your help. Life has its own pace. You have yours.

You already have life so there is no need to win it. And life goes along fast enough without your huffing and puffing. Fast and slow are of time, and you are eternal. There is no race to win, and if there were, racing isn't the way to win it.

Stroll through life. Take a breather. Rest a while. Catch your breath. Go to bed earlier. Sleep later. Rest this carcass you carry around. Of course, you are not your physical body. You are far more. At the same time, you can treat your body kindly. Give it a break. You have been urging it on. Gentle it, as you would a dear horse.

Run alongside life. No need to outdistance it. Be a partner to it.

Life is not so serious as you have thought. You seem to feel there is some urgency. Where are you running, and what are you running to? If there is an emergency, it is to slow down.

What do you gain by hurrying? Mileage?

Consider life a meal. You can eat leisurely. You don't have to gulp it down. Faster is not better.

You may have thought that the Sabbath is a day away from life. It is a day to savor it. There is never a day off from life. Waking or sleeping, you are in the midst of it. But you can lean back. You ruffle through life fast enough. Whoa, now digest.

Be like a Western cowboy who ambles along. He sees what's going on. He doesn't miss a trick. He isn't slow to respond, but he doesn't waste motion. He isn't always an action hero. His strength is in his calmness. He is strong and has no need to show off. Whatever he does counts. His silence speaks. A Western hero is akin to a philosopher. He ponders his moves. He considers his place in the drama he finds himself in.

He is not a bull in a china-shop. If life is the china shop, the Western hero is graceful in it. Hurry and grace are not compatible. When you hurry, you drop things or trip. Not that it isn't all right to drop things or stumble. But that is not what you are after. Include life rather than chase it.

You rush to find out what your purpose is. Let it come to you. Let it dawn on you. You do not even have to know what it is in order to fulfill it.

Sit back now. It's okay. Today I give you the courage to slow down.

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