“So what’s new today?” I ask the Lord. “What am I up to? What shall I look at?”

“That depends on you,” he replies. “What are you about? Still playing hide-and-seek? Looking for what you cannot find? Or content, enjoying what you are?”

“Ah, let’s go with the latter,” I say. “Content. Enjoying. Being. Experiencing the full range of me – who I now am.”

It’s startling to me to realize so much of my time is spent trying to get set up to be present. You know, . . . getting this little thing done, that thing moved, clearing my way so I can sit in my special chair where I can turn my attention inward, to me, to meditate. Busy, busy, busy . . . all so I can get still. What’s up with that?

“It’s your effort to control,” I hear the Lord say. “You find doing is easier than being. You can control what you do, but to just be – well, there’s nothing to control. It just is.”

It occurs to me that perhaps I would do well to practice meditation in smaller chunks of time rather than carve out a 20 – 30 minute space for it. Maybe 3 – 5 minutes here or there. Give those minutes to nothingness, to stillness, to opening the windows of my mind to let the spirit blow through and air out this sacred chamber. Just like the Autumn winds are now blowing the brown, dried leaves off the trees outside my window.

Just three minutes. I can do that. It’s a gift to the presence, to being present, to being me. A gift I am worthy to receive.