Life's Lesson III

The saga of these lessons continues. I almost feel as though I'm pontificating now when I write these, but I am in no way trying to do that. Instead, I am expressing my feelings and what I have learned for myself, and to let my friends see it so they can help me grow. No man is an island, they say, even when you are alone.

Today's life's lesson is miracles and profundity (assuming that's a word, if not, it is now). I've always believed in miracles--profound miracles: the parting of the Red Sea, cancer patients who were miraculously cured, and the healings of Christ. But, I'm learning that miracles and profundity don't have to be massive events such as these. Reading a paper and experiencing an epiphany in one of the articles that awakens your mind, or, more importantly, your soul, is a profound miracle, too. I experienced that today. I got an email from Deb today after she had read yesterday's weblog, and I experienced an epiphany in it--a profound epiphany that has the potential to change my life; in fact it has already started. Deb told me that wherever I am, be there, and also that I am here in RI alone for a reason. The sooner I find that reason, the sooner I can start being happy and doing what I'm supposed to do. It was at that point I experienced a miracle, much like Cardinal Bernardin when he was given his gift of peace (dona paci). Mine was not a gift of peace, per se, although it will indeed lead to that. Instead it was a gift of wisdom, a gift that taught me a lesson in my life that probably won't apply to other people's lives, but it just might. That miracle led me to understand exactly why I am here in this place at this time in the circumstances that I am here. It is not to learn the stuff at department head school, that is just the cover story that got me here. No, there is a profound reason I am here, and I have to say Thank You, Deb, for your miracle of wisdom.

I am here, quite simply, to learn humility. I am here to put me in my place, to plant me into the ground and let me grow. This time I am here has taken me out of the comfortable environment I was in, has taken me away from all those people that I hold dear, and has stripped me of my purple robe. I am common, mortal, just like everyone else--just as I've always been, but now, leaving my comfort zone, has forced me to rethink people and life. People are life. Not politics, not television, but the beauty of the souls that share this magnificently beautiful planet with us. Humility leads to patience, patience leads to inner strength and calm, inner strength and calm lead to enlightenment, which leads to peace. So, in the end, I am getting the same dona paci that Cardinal Bernardin received. My suffering to attain it, though, will not be the same as his, but we all must suffer in our own way to reach the path.

There's my life's lesson for today. Thanks, Deb--I owe you a drink!