Some Days Are Just Ordinary

By all accounts yesterday was a typical Monday. I quietly proceeded through my workday. Nothing went wrong. I wasn't thrilled it was Monday but I wasn't in a bad mood either. It was like a thousand Mondays I've had in my life. At the end of the day, however, I felt extremely weary and my mind seemed empty. Near the end of the workday when I had some quiet moments I wondered what kind of daily thoughts I could write. Absolutely no creative or imaginative ideas emerged from my darkened mind. I drove to my wife's office and sat in a daze in my car until she arrived. We then drove to a restaurant to meet my son for dinner. He heads back to the seminary in Indianapolis today. We won't see him again until Thanksgiving. In two week he is flying to Washington, D.C. to visit Catholic University and Baltimore, Maryland to visit St. Mary's Seminary. Next year he moves to the next level of seminary training. My wife will be very upset that he's so far away. When I finally got home last night I bathed, changed my clothes, read the morning paper, and then immediately fell into a deep sleep in my chair. When I woke up I felt better, if a little groggy. Some days are like this.

I read a short section in Eckhart Tolle's The Power of Now entitled "Nothing Exists Outside of the Now". The author wonders why so many of us have a difficult time grasping this idea. He asks, "Have you ever experienced, done, thought, or felt anything outside the Now"? It is possible for anything to happen or be outside the Now? Nothing ever happened in the past; it happened in the Now. Nothing will ever happen in the future; it will happen in the Now. When you think of the past, you are thinking of a former Now. When you think of the future, you are thinking of an imagined Now. When the future arrives, it will be a Now. In a few weeks I am going to see a musician named David Byrne, He was the leader of a band called Talking Heads. He has a new solo CD entitled "Everything that is going to happen is going to happen today". He must be reading the same Eckhart Tolle book as me.

Here's a few thoughts from a book entitled 365 Tao.

What is close at hand must first appear on the horizon. What is cast upon us always has a source". Those who follow the Tao position themselves on high vantage points. Life never surprises them. Whatever is in their lives today, they saw many days before. Whatever they see on the horizon, they take the time to prepare for. Such people are considered wise, not because they have special gifts, but because they take the time to view things from a high place. All phenomena have a source. We can understand such phenomena clearly if we stand at a place where we can see it coming. This is all another way of saying "Stay awake and be aware".
Let us rise up and be thankful, for if we didn’t learn a lot today, at least we learned a little, and if we didn’t learn a little, at least we didn’t get sick, and if we got sick, at least we didn’t die; so, let us be thankful.
-The Buddha