We must be willing to let go of the life we’ve planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us.

Joseph Campbell

I thought I’d make a confession today.  Confessions are good for the soul, right?  You can be my confessor.  Here goes:

Over the years, I have neglected my blog for months at a time (maybe even years) because I felt that whatever I might write would not be perfect enough, profound enough, astounding enough…to put a dent in the universe.  Yes, I am a serial perfectionist.  I seem to remember writing about this before, but that was years back, and I realized, recently, that I still hadn’t fixed this little problem, and it struck me how selfish it is to allow myself to wallow in my need to be perfect.  As the world apparently continues to fall apart, I ask myself–again–“how can I serve?”  I notice that just about everyone around me is fairly miserable, because while we had a certain amount of enthusiasm for living through this pandemic, and helping others to live through it, the whole thing is getting kind of…old.

In addition, I happen to be sick myself, as I have mentioned.  It has taken me three days to write this, in fact.  Please understand, I have this CV-19 very lightly, it would seem, so I am not dying, or in any event, do not plan to. I continue to ask myself how I can serve, and I continue to feel that all I can really do at this time is to reach out, imperfections and all.  Horrors!  But it will do my good, even if it bores you.

Here I am.  I am aware that it is increasingly hard for most of us to maintain hope, and so again, I try to remember that the divine, the overwhelming magnificence of the universe is still in operation.  The universe is till evolving, and a lot of that evolution looks imperfect.  But a most wonder person, Jeff Kober (remember Dodger in China Beach?) tells us:

The Veda tells us that change is constant, that the nature of the relative world is continual change, always. Like the weather in Montana: if you don’t like it, wait a few minutes, it will change.

But the Veda also tells us that the changing nature of the universe is always progressive. Evolution is the only thing that’s ever happening here. Always. Like rivers always flowing downstream: regardless of how many curves and meanderings they may take, they always reach the ocean. Downstream flow is the nature of water. And evolution is the nature of consciousness. Consciousness cannot help but evolve. It cannot help but expand, widen, deepen, grow. This is its very nature. Though we may resist it or ignore it, pretend it isn’t so, in fact it is so. It always has been, it always will be.  (www.jeff.kober.com)

As far as this universe we inhabit, it would seem that the it doesn’t worry too much about being perfect:  it just wobbles along.  And that is what all of us can do.  Let us be of good cheer.