The longer I’m on the spiritual path, the deeper connection I have with my intuition. This connection gives me access to wisdom beyond my logical mind. I receive inspired ideas. Out-of-the-box suggestions. Seemingly strange hunches that lead me to amazing new experiences.
With all the inspiration and grooviness, you’d think I’d be getting smarter and smarter, right?
Welllllllll.
The older I get, the more I realize how not smart I am. Time and time again, I think I know allllll about a person/place/thing, only to find out I was totally wrong. Indeed, I’m starting to realize how little I really know about anything.
The latest example of my cluelessness is my living situation.
I’ve been living in the same house for over twenty years. Melissa and I have been living in it together for fourteen of those years.
Ever since one-of-us-in-the-house became two-of-us-in-the-house, we’ve been thinking that eventually we’ll move to a bigger place. We have a lot of stuff between the two of us. Melissa loves to sew and there’s not really a place to do that in our current house. We also thought we’d like to be out in the country a little more, where it’s chill and quiet.
At the same time, figuring out where we’d move has been something of a challenge. We’ve been all over the country, and we’ve never been anywhere that we like as much as Sonoma County. So that’s fine, we stay in Sonoma County. But where in Sonoma County would we go?
We love our daily walk at Annadel State Park. Annadel is a 5092-acre space of trails and woods, and every other place in Sonoma County we’ve considered moving doesn’t have nearly as nice a walk nearby.
Another snag is the whole Country Living thing. As it turns out, living out in the country means being off the grid as far as power and water. That’s all well and good for some folks, but do we really want to take that on as we get older? No. No we do not.
In spite of these considerations, our “We’re Going To Move Eventually” mindset has been with us for years. We knew we were going to move, we just didn’t know exactly where or when.
Until we got back from our latest tour.
That’s when Melissa realized that the travel keyboard we got for our van PJ also works perfectly in her office/music studio. This allowed her to release two other keyboards that had been living in the studio. The release of these keyboards then allowed Melissa to see that her sewing table, which had been doubling as an altar in the living room, could move into her office.
And Voila!
Melissa now has an office/studio/sewing room.
This one “small” change helped us to see that we’ve been living in the perfect house for us all along.
It’s in a quiet part of town – literally right on the edge of the city limits – so we’re actually already living in a super chill place. (But we don’t have to deal with a well and off-the-grid power of a house in the country.) We’re close to our beloved Annadel State Park. We’re in a townhouse, with minimal yard upkeep. And even though we’re on the edge of town, we’re still centrally located to services and friends.
But perhaps most important, having a smaller house means less upkeep. Less stuff. And with less stuff comes more energy for other things – including and especially spiritual practice and our ministry.
Because of the size of our house, we’ve gradually released a lot of stuff over the years. We don’t even have a garage, so there’s not much wiggle room as far as storage. But we’ve made it work. And now we’re seeing that it was exactly what we were supposed to be doing. We were part of the whole simplify and downsize movement, we just didn’t realize it!
Waking up to my cluelessness has happened many times in my life. With Melissa. With my writing. With ministry. I think I know what’s best. I think I know the direction I’m heading. But then – Surprise! Spirit has a vision for my life that’s more amazing than what I had in mind.
The older I get, the less surprised I am by the surprises. The more I embrace my cluelessness.
I wonder how Spirit will surprise me next?!?!
How has Spirit surprised you? Share your comments below!
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