A Dangerous Business

Yesterday’s Google Quote-of-the-Day was, “It’s a dangerous business going out your front door.” These are the words of the venerable J.R.R. Tolkien.

It is, you know. A dangerous business, I mean. Waking, dressing, breaking one’s fast, going out the front door and facing God/dess only knows what. It’s the truth. We never really know what we’re going to face when we walk out that front door.

That’s why it’s important to know what you believe about the nature of the universe and its inhabitants. Albert Einstein said that the seminal question of his time was:

Is the universe a friendly place or not?

Is yours? Mine is. Why? Because I’m friendly. When I’m feeling unfriendly, then the universe is an unfriendly place. Diarist Anais Nin comes to mind,

“We don’t see things as they are, we see things as we are.”

This is not, dear one, a form of metaphysical malpractice. I’m not blaming you for whatever you experience. What I’m doing is telling you why I believe you experience whatever you experience. The blame thing we all do well enough on our own without anyone’s help.

There a small thing that helps me walk out that front door whenever I don’t really feel like it. It’s a spiritual practice. I breathe in the word Peace. Then I breathe out the same word. I do it three times.

What this does for me is that I remember what my purpose is.

I am here to be peaceful,
to bring peace to all others,
and to support the cause of peace in the world.

Remember that cartoon character from the 60’s, Cool McCool? One thing he used to say was, “Dangerrrrr . . . is my business.” That’s how I think about peace. Peace is dangerous—dangerous in the sense of unknown, full of possibility, tinglingly alive. I’m no Cool McCool, but a paraphrase of his famous quote sets up every day perfectly for me, “Peace . . . is my business.”

What’s yours?