A friend of mine told me her very Irish mother always said if you forget something and need to go back home to get it, you must sit down and say a prayer before you go back out. I like it. It is a pause. On my way to work this week my route was blocked by a semi sitting across the intersection and the entire next stretch of road. Pause.  I had to take an alternate route and within yards of being on the road I chose; the cars were stopped for an entire brigade of geese. Pause. I had some work done on my house last week and came home to find I had no electricity. Dark pause. I’m beginning to sense a pattern:) 

If the truck hadn’t blocked my path, I wouldn’t have been witness to those oh so proud geese claiming their right for safe passage. Without the power outage I wouldn’t have met the lovely young man, Denzel, who came to my rescue and fixed my electricity. A reminder of angels on earth.  If I didn’t have the power outage that tripped a breaker Denzel missed (his halo is only slightly tarnished), I would not have learned about GFCI breakers and how to restore power to those outlets. (It was important because one of those outlets controls my washer and we all want me to be able to do laundry.) And, restoring my own power, yes!

How often do we elect to forge on when a momentary pause might have changed everything? Those hurtful, defensive words we did not need to say but seemed so important, until we had time to reflect and realize sometimes ‘unsaid’ is better. Those times when someone so wanted to talk to us or spend time and we just didn’t do it. Even backing out of my garage each morning, if I would only pause I would not spend the first miles of my commute wondering, ‘did I close the garage door’. Take a moment my friends, make sure the garage is closed, admire your beautiful home, wave to your neighbor, or a random stranger just to confuse them. For some of us waving to a neighbor might also be confusing. 

I started another 40 day mindfulness program with Tara Brach and Jack Kornfield. It is free and builds at least one intentional pause into my day. Well, I have a geese crossing to find so I can pause my travels. Reason for being late to work: geese.

Take care, Mary Lou Nugent