Intentions

♫Two Spirits Soar♫

We recently returned from a week's vacation on Martha's Vineyard where we went to the beach....

The carriage house we rented had a darling private garden just outside the french doors of the living room/kitchen area....

I sat at this little table each morning, when the weather permitted, and wrote in my journal.  The first morning there this is what I wrote....

6:16 a.m.  I was thinking as I got out of bed this morning that my whole routine will be different these next 7 days.  And then I thought about how it would feel if one knew she only had 7 days left to live.  I only have 7 days here.  How would I live my life?  I would live more intentionally....

We went on with our day....going to the beach, explored one of the several little towns on the Island, etc.  The next morning I wrote....

6:52. a.m.  I see my intention to live in the moment is going to take awhile to fulfill.

You see, I had planned to write about our day whenever I had a free moment and I totally forgot about doing it.  

How often do we start out with the best intentions only to have them fall by the wayside?  I got better about writing in my journal throughout the day as the week went on, although one night when I couldn't fall asleep right away, I realized I'd forgotten again so I got up and wrote down what we did that day then.  

After a couple days I looked through the bookshelf at the house for something to read since we were spending the evening in.  I found Anne Morrow Lindbergh's "Gift From the Sea".  This was serendipitous because I had a copy at home but was saving it because I intended to read it the next time I went to the beach!  In her chapter entitled "The Beach" she wrote:  The sea does not reward those who are too anxious, too greedy or too impatient....what the sea teaches is....Patience and faith.  One should lie empty, open, choiceless as a beach--waiting for a gift from the sea."

7:08 a.m.  This (what Anne wrote) is how it was last evening as I walked along the beach.  The waves brought new stones and shells then would take some back while leaving the rest.  Then it would do it all again--and again....

As Anne learned lessons from different shells she found on the beach during her week on an island, I, too, was learning lessons as I went along.  Intentions are good because they start us down the pathway, but it's in living life that we begin to put our intentions to work.  It's through paying attention--being conscious of what we feel and think and what is going on outside around us--that we begin to carry out the plan our intentions set in motion.  

Walking along the beach, noticing the ebb and flow of the tide bringing in the stones and shells, connecting all that to what I was reading and the lessons Anne learned, made impressions on me that back home would have gone unnoticed. 

Sometimes we have to vacate our every day lives in order to see and feel things that we take for granted.  There are lessons all around us all the time.  This morning we had to be on the road at 6:30 a.m. for an appointment in another city at 8:00.  It was still dark when we left and as we drove down our little mountain we were rewarded with the beautiful colors of the sun-lit sky as the sun rose over the mountains in the distance.  I told Ken we should "take a vacation" right here at home every once in awhile--get up to watch the sun rise as we did last week in Martha's Vineyard. Who knows what we'll see if we do!

Father, thank you for the break in our routine.  You are the God of the universe and have so much to share with us if we'd just pay attention.  Thank you for opening my eyes and my heart to it.

Link to Scripture:  Psalm 145

Take action:  "Staycation" Ideas