I’ve begun to think that everything can be a symbol from which I can learn if I am paying attention. Call me crazy but I’m convinced that there are lessons to be learned each day and life is more easily engaged in a positive manner if we pay attention. Let me explain.
Yesterday I finally accepted the fact that I needed to get a new phone. (Mine has been on a charger now for days with no sign of life.) Being one of the least technologically savvy persons I know, I resisted a trip to the Verizon store but finally gave in to the inevitability and went. Having been alerted to the fact that there is an alternative to the large store near the university where all the employees are like 15-year-old barracudas who meet you at the door and talk faster than anyone I have ever met, I was grateful for the information that led me to that small, quiet alternative where there were only two employees, one a middle-aged man and one a 22-year-old woman. She became my guardian angel within the first five minutes. The bad news was that my phone was irrevocably dead and because I had resisted adding “cloud space” for the last many months, she would not be able to transfer such things as contacts and photos. The good news was that I would be able to purchase a new phone for about 60% of the price that I was expecting.
I did not buy the phone. I needed time to consider the options. Grace got in my car with me for the trip home, however, because in that half-hour drive two things happened. First, in realizing that I would need to let go of much that was contained in the phone’s memory, I would be starting over. A new season would be born for me which suddenly seemed like a good thing – like when the first shoots of spring plants begin to appear. Of course it will demand some work to build a new set of contacts but those will be recent rather than long-ago entries that are no longer operative. And if my photos are gone, I still have the memories they contained. The recognition was swift and filled me with peace.
As I neared my exit from the highway the most vivid and spacious rainbow suddenly appeared, stretching from ground to sky in a blaze of seven colors that took my breath away. Because I had left the sun in the city and was driving into a dark gray backdrop of sky, conditions were perfect for such a show: no rain, just glorious color. It stayed with me for over five minutes of gratitude and glory.
Today I will buy and begin life with my new phone and call it Grace.
The Sophia Center for Spirituality 