Effort

I was traveling down the Interstate yesterday taking my daughter to a Dr. appointment in another town about 50 miles away and I saw a very large bird in flight...hawk I think...beautiful...soaring...effortlessly...lifting and shifting on the long breath of the wind...and the word that came to my troubled mind in the moment was freedom. Freedom to be who he/she is....whether just out for an afternoon cruise or looking for a meal. Freedom to just be. Freedom to do with one's time what one will choose...instead of what is so often forced upon us.

Freedom.

Then it occured to me that the freedom I was imagining wasn't really real. It was after all...my imagination...all too real to me and me alone...but to the hawk...more than likely...they weren't feeling free...they were probably hungry and feeling the need to feed without the freedom of traveling to a local supermarket to achieve one's goal....Mr./Ms. hawk has to work for it...of course even in this freedom one isn't really free...because it takes some sort of way to pay for all these choices in the grocery store...and without the money to exchange...well...there ain't no free lunch....as they say...so where is all this freedom?...good question...

I love the word...freedom. I love the idea of freedom...although I am not sure which I love more...the word or the idea...I love it so much that I thought about tattooing it across my back...but the more I thought about it...the more I started to come to the conclusion...that it isn't really the idea of freedom that gets me so engaged...it was what freedom represents to me. In a word...my favorite word...of all words...serenity. The idea of being free to me is the opportunity to truly find serenity in my life...in every aspect of my life...without interference from governments, employers, advertisers, peddlers, wars, mind games, emotional disease, trauma, drama, or even my own voice...which is the loudest of them all. To truly find a place in me...that is serene...that I can find my serenity...this is my desire...this is my goal...this is my wish...

Right about now you might be wondering...why the heck did he title this effort? It is because of that hawk....it is because of the journey of my mind...my heart...my spirit...it is because of the countless ways that I try to find that serenity...that freedom...that freedom of my own time...and my own mind...that I must pursue...I must actively seek...putting out the effort...the DOING....of what is ultimately my journey...and the consistant feeling of becoming lost in the struggle...and then having to find me again...and find that still small voice of God in me again...that is what makes this a struggle...and what takes the effort...towards my own personal growth...finding a way...to BE...in the now...like Mr./Ms. hawk....just being in the now...not in the future or in the past...just right now...

The effort...the struggle...the journey...is the story...is my story...my own personal truth...as it is for each of us...and we find it where we will...wherever we will...wherever we are open to seeing what is already there...in the moment...in the now. So I would say...to other fellow weary travelors and seekers of their own personal truths...look....see what is already there...and be open to the message that comes to you from it...for it does speak to you...if you will just get yourself out of the way...if only...so that you can hear it. Just as the hawk soars...what does it speak to you?