MOM, WOW!

                                                                              My 3 ½ year-old granddaughter is learning to read and was showing me how her daddy taught her to recognized the word ‘the’.  I would read a story and she would pick out the ‘the’s’ and ‘read’ them out loud.  Being a writer, I love words and find them fun to play with, so when we came to the word ‘mom’, I pointed out how, if you turned the book upside down, it became the word ‘wow’.   Every time we read the book, and we read it a lot that weekend, we would read the word mom and turn the book around and read the word wow.  Mom, Wow!  And she would laugh. And I would laugh.  Mom-Wow!  Ha ha ha.  All weekend it was mom-wow and laughter!

How simple and fascinating life can be.

“Be like children,” the sages say. Find wonder around you and in you, and you’ll never grow old.

I wonder.

These days, actually, there’s lots to wonder about.  Being curious about innocence can seem a ridiculous waste of time when the other reality that’s happening around the world right now - the violence and chaos and abuse - seem far more significant, far more important. Funny, if we choose to live only focused on the innocence, we are accused of living with our head in the sand, too soft, and outrageously out of touch.  Yet if we are fully focused on the terror, glued to the news and rhetoric, we are considered educated, even though we are denying the wonder that abounds and enlightens us as well.  Hmm, curious.

Lately, I’ve been trying to sit and be present with both.  They are both true, the innocence and the terror, so is it necessary to judge one to be better than the other?

Sitting with both ends of the spectrum is not the same as sitting in the middle. Sitting on the fence is withdrawing, not participating. This is an honourable place as it can give a new perspective and a time to reflect.   (Nothing is all good or all bad.)

Opening to all possibilities and having room to respect all, however, is such a strange concept we can barely wrap our heads around it.  How do we live with paradox in a ‘you’re with us or against us’ world?  But as the cultures blend and science and the internet introduce us to expanding visions, our curiosity is being piqued.  Hot and cold doesn’t have to equal warm anymore, hot and cold can equal hot with cold – or Sweet Heat, as Kawartha Dairy named their newest ice cream flavour.  The more we write about paradoxes, sing and joke about them, the more comfortable we become around them.  And the more we can harmonize with all possibilities, the healthier, happier, more abundant and free we will be.

So how do we acclimatize to this evolving way?  Are there books?  Are there organizations?  Are there apps?  Probably yes to all since we humans are always wanting something new to buy to make us ‘better’.  Are they necessary?  No, not really.

The most courageous and boldest act we can partake in is simply to smile.  Smiling at someone is a sign of recognition.  It is an act of harmonizing. It’s telling the other ‘I see you. I see the pain you’re in or fun you’re having and I’m with you.  You are beautiful and I’m with you.’  How does it get better than that?  Feeling safe and connected is what we all want and smiling does that.  Mother Teresa said: “We shall never know all the good that a simple smile can do.”

No wonder I love being around my grandchildren.  Kids smile, on average, around four-hundred times a day whereas adults only smiles about twenty times. Too bad for adults because science has proven those who smile more are less stressed and sleep better.  Hmm, curious. No wonder the sages tell us to be more like children. 

Yes, there is horror around us.  There is no denying it.  But there is also so much wonder too. Let’s not deny that either.

Smile: miles – limes - slime!