The Best is Yet to Come

The Best is Yet to Come

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Friends, time is ridiculous!  When was it? I don’t know.  Two years ago?  When things in my life imploded, marriage, work, diagnosis—to name a few.

In the midst of all of that, my dear friend Barbara gave me a present.

It was wrapped well, as one can expect from Barbara; some people just have the wrapping gene, unlike me.  The strangely shaped package was long and narrow, wrapped in soft blue paper, with a splendid silver ribbon.  I tugged at the pretty pale paper.

It opened partially, revealing something thin and long and wooden.

I tugged and tore some more.

And there it was.

It was a sign.

I mean, literally, a sign.

You know, one of those cool signs, thin and long and simple yet inherently decorative and simultaneously profound, and it said:

THE BEST IS YET TO COME.

I instantly hated it and loved it.

It rested in my hands.  I paused and breathed, feeling its weight.

I knew the truth of this message historically.  Life had gotten better and better, evidence-based data showed me.  But recently, getting older, imagining life as an old woman in our culture seemed, well, a stretch of the imagination, a leap I was not able to make.

It was a gloomy time.

I believed in the sign’s bigger truth.

I just wasn’t feeling its promise in the moment.

I put the sign on the kitchen shelf.  There, amongst its cousin mugs, it has quietly beamed upon me ever since, through COVID and apparent cancer, through lockdown, through caregiving and reconciliation.  

Through Donald Trump and the blowing apart of every fault line in our culture.  

Through insurrection and through fires and floods.

There it sat, reminding me:

THE BEST IS YET TO COME.

I ignored it.  

I randomly and occasionally noticed it.  

I riled against it.

I cursed it.

I snubbed it.

And you know what?

I am beginning—ever so slowly—ever so hesitatingly—ever so cautiously—to feel its truth.

THE BEST IS YET TO COME.

Why not?

~~

Some back story—

I come from this Jewish headset—kina hora—

Do you know what that means?

Something like:

Don’t say it.  Don’t even think it.  It’s bad luck.  You’ll jinx yourself, you asshole.  (my addition).  It is a warding off, a pushing away of bad luck, of the evil eye.

My attitude does minimize my imagination.  
My fear does limit 
My capacity to hope.

And then, how might I manifest?

(Expect the worst?  Yes, that’s a mantra I have lived into.)

I thought—spiritually, one had to simply surrender, not imagine, not to hope, certainly not to want.

Just endure,
Cautiously
And
Carefully.

Yet, the other day, in my in-box, came the reframe of superstition.  Check it out—

Knock on Wood

From the Free Dictionary:

In order to avoid misfortune and/or hope for good luck. This magical formula put as touchwood in Great Britain is based on the superstition that touching or rapping on anything wooden will avoid a disaster, especially after one has boasted. 

There may have been an ancient religious significance to the gesture, perhaps from the time of the Druids, who regarded certain trees as sacred, but the precise meaning has been forgotten.  

Knocking on wood is calling the tree spirits forth for protection and for blessing

(Picture by Eva M. Crowley, thank you!)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

~~~

I always thought being spiritual meant never, NEVER ask for anything.

Never, ever imagine good stuff.

Suffer and wait and see.

Endure and receive.

Amazingly, the other day, I heard Ron Young, an amazing spiritual teacher, end his meditation class with these words.  

He said:

“EXPECT WONDERFUL THINGS.”

Ron Young said, “EXPECT WONDERFUL THINGS.”

Omg.  

If he said it……….
He would never, NEVER be frivolous.
He would never encourage entitlement.
He is the opposite of frivolous.
He is the opposite of entitled.

Can I really expect wonderful things?

Why not?

~~~

A wonderful thing would be people healing the infinite chasms that separate us.  Here is a musical inspiration to that end:

Playing for Change, the miraculous global music cooperative offers us this song, created by more than twenty musicians from seven countries.  Check out the power of each voice, each sound, separate and together making something so profoundly powerful and heart-opening.  Enjoy:

Watch Here

~~~
A wonderful thing would be our remembering we are all one.  Here is poetic inspiration: hopefully to that end, the profound Palestinian-American poet, Naomi Shihab Nye, reading her poem, Gate A-4