Friday, November 29, 2013

Living The Glad Life





November 5, 2013
Living the Glad Life

Sometimes trying to live a glad life takes you places where you are not quite comfortable.  This morning I am riding The Crescent from Birmingham, Alabama to New Orleans, Louisiana. My train car is half full, so almost all of us have window seats.  Fall in the South is a wonder to behold and I’m excited about the next seven hours and the wash of color that awaits me.

This is not my usual mode of travel, but I decided to listen to that adventuresome spirit that I have tried so hard to ignore for half a century, to experience something new and different: a solo trip on a train. I’m headed to a conference on dyslexia, so it’s a useful trip, too.  I can’t change all of my stripes at the same time.

I recently read about a great experiment of awareness that asked me to place my hands in my lap in my usual way. For me that was right hand over left.  To feel that then to take my hands away from each other, experience that and then to place them in my lap again in the opposite position.   Which felt more natural? Which felt more alive? What was more alive, even a little uncomfortable?  For me, I felt a little off when my hands were not in their usual position.  It did make me feel more alive and aware.  I’m hoping the same from this trip.



“You came and sang a song over me.”
“Feels like I’m living now, for the very first time.  Feels like I’m breathing, Feels like I’m moving, for the very first time.”

Third Day “Born Again” from their Revelation album.