I Think Another Way That You Can

Astonishingly, At Some Point, A Sputtering Torch Was Thrust Into Her Hands. Alma Did Not See Who Gave It To Her. She Had Never Before Been Entrusted With Fire. The Torch Spit Sparks And Sent Chunks Of Flaming Tar Spinning Into The Air Behind Her As She Bolted Across The Cosmos-the Only Body In The Heavens Who Was Not Held To A Strict Elliptical Path. Nobody Stopped Her. She Was A Comet. She Did Not Know That She Was Not Flying.

The Great Sufi Poet And Philosopher Rumi Once Advised His Students To Write Down The Three Things They Most Wanted In Life. If Any Item On The List Clashes With Any Other Item, Rumi Warned, You Are Destined For Unhappiness.

When I Tried This Morning, After An Hour Or So Of Unhappy Thinking, To Dip Back Into My Meditation, I Took A New Idea With Me: Compassion. I Asked My Heart If It Could Please Infuse My Soul With A More Generous Perspective On My Mind's Workings. Instead Of Thinking That I Was A Failure, Could I Perhaps Accept That I Am Only A Human Being--and A Normal One, At That?

Oh, I Just Want What We All Want: A Comfortable Couch, A Nice Beverage, A Weekend Of No Distractions And A Book That Will Stop Time, Lift Me Out Of My Quotidian Existence And Alter My Thinking Forever.

Sometimes Life Is Too Hard To Be Alone, And Sometimes Life Is Too Good To Be Alone.