The Rose Bowl of Life

When I was about 14, we had a metalworking class at school. Most of the boys, it was an all boys school, did one of a number of set projects. However being the awkward kid I was, none of the set projects appealed to me. In discussing other options with the metalwork teacher, it was agreed I would work on making a copper rose bowl, something no other boy had ever done in his class.

The process of making the rose bowl was not complex but it did take a lot of time to do and a reasonable amount of skill. I started with a flat sheet of copper. This was initially cut into a circle. The metal was then heated in the furnace until it was red hot. Placing the heated metal over a round anvil, I then took a small hammer and began to beat it. For the longest time, there was little shape or form to it. The other boys looked on occasionally with curiosity, not knowing what I was doing or having any idea how the finished product would look.

As the metal was drawn up, folds would begin to appear and each of these had to be slowly beaten out. As the metal cooled, it would be dipped in cold water and then the processes of heating and beating would begin all over again. Literally dozens of heatings and thousands of hammer beats went into the making of that bowl. Slowly over the hours of work that went into its creation, the bowl began to take shape. Each hammer beat seemed random to those that would stop to watch, but each was made with a purpose and with an end in sight. Sometimes the metal would easily comply and the hammer knocks were light. Other times it did not seem to go where I needed it to and extra force and extra pounding was made on the copper to make it comply with where I deemed it should go.

Finally when the desired shape was achieved, the edge was trimmed and straightened and the surface polished. When all was done I was extremely pleased with the piece and even my teacher, who had largely left me to myself, was very impressed. So much so, that for the rest of the year he tried persuading me to think about become a silversmith. The finished product was proudly presented to my mother who had it for many years until it eventually came back to me and is now among my most prized possessions.

If you pick the bowl up and examine it, you will see that its surface is covered in hundreds of tiny indentations, testament to the many hammer beatings that it took to work it into shape. But those minor imperfections to a smooth surface only add to its beauty.

As I have thought about that bowl over the years, and the process that went into its making, I have occasionally contemplated how much my life has been similar in the making. I came into this world, very much as raw material with little idea of what I would eventually become. As I have gone through life I have had to continually face trials, which at times seemed unbearable. I have been knocked this way and that way at every turn. Then just as things seemed to be sorting themselves out, the whole process begins over again.

Sometimes I think I am beginning to see the shape my life is taking, then at other times things seem to turn direction and I am not sure any more what the end product might be. But I do feel my life is being fashioned and shaped, bit by bit. I look forward to seeing the masterpiece it will eventually become.

Each of our lives is a work in progress. We may not know what the end result is meant to be. Sometimes the difficulties we face may seem to have no reason; we may feel we cannot take any more. We may feel embarrassed at what we might see as our flaws, or when things seem to have taken the wrong turn. But somewhere in the universe are the hands of a master, slowly working our lives into the beautiful shape he envisions for us.

So the next time you feel you are being knocked around in life, when adversity mounts, remember that each beautiful object has to be slowly worked into shape. Take comfort that you are in the Master's hands and that he desired something beautiful of you.

Creating Sacred Space

A few days ago I attended a celebration of the winter solstice. Being a Latter-day Saint, I am used to events being opened with a word of prayer but for some reason I had not expected to find that here. Only they did not call it prayer. Instead they referred to it as ‘opening sacred space.’ A woman, versed in the traditional rituals of several North American Indian tribes, invoked the spirits of mother earth and our ancestors to be present throughout the celebration. It was an interesting ceremony, but what has had me thinking most since that night was the term ‘opening sacred space.’

Shamans believe that opening sacred space entails us leaving our busy worlds behind and preparing to meet the divine. It is a time when we can enter our quiet inner-world where healing can take place, protected from the world around us. A time when our burdens become lighter and we can be touched by the spirit.

Whatever our religious beliefs might be, I think we can all benefit from this concept of opening sacred space in our lives. Even those who are active in their religious or spiritual observance often simple go through the motions. For many prayer is something that happens before you eat, or on your way out the door, or accompanies brushing your teeth before you jump into bed. It is just another thing to tick off our list of ‘to do’ items in our busy schedules, if indeed it even does get ticked off.

One of my favorite scriptures is Psalms 46:10 which reads: “Be still, and know that I am God.” Gaining spiritual perspective in our lives takes time. It takes stepping out from the hustle and bustle of our daily activities, and stopping. That is right, stopping. It does not really matter what time of day you do it, but you have to be prepared to put everything else aside for a period. In effect you have to ‘open sacred space.’ That space or time is sacred not just because it is dealing with the spiritual, but because it needs to be dedicated to the purpose at hand and to nothing else. It needs to be a time when we can connect with the spiritual around us, when can contemplate what matters most and when we can listen for the answers we need.

This concept of opening sacred space does not just relate to the spiritual. Having a business background I have read a number of books on what makes successful CEOs and senior managers. And each of them seems to have outlined having a time without interruption to concentrate on what matters most. It is the same with literature on creativity. Ideas seem to come best when we take time out and close everything else off, when we create our ‘sacred space.’

I have often found in the past that when things trouble me, or I am under stress and life seems overwhelming, that taking a little time out and heading into the mountains, or somewhere alone and quiet, dramatically changes my perspective, brings new insights and renews my vigor.

Creating sacred space in our lives may not necessitate some elaborate ceremony as happened at the Winter Solstice, but if we will truly take the opportunity to lay the world aside for a time and stop to listen, then as the shamans say we can find healing, our burdens can be lifted and we can find enlightenment in our spiritual, emotional, mental and physical realms.

As we move into the new year, I would encourage each of you to set a goal to regularly create sacred space in your life. I know I will be and I look forward to it.

Is Father Christmas Real?

How do you tell a child there is no Father Christmas? Every parent worries about how they will deal with this eventuality. Most of us avoid the topic, hoping it will gradually dawn on them without us saying anything. As a child I cannot remember when it was I realized the truth, or how I found out about it. There are memories of the magical Christmas mornings rushing down to see what Santa has brought, fully believing he was real. Then it seems to be a blur, until the memories are of looking forward to our presents, but knowing full well they came from our parents not some mythical guy in a red suit.

In the Christian world it seems to be one of the most widespread ethical dilemmas existing. On the one hand we are telling our children not to lie and that God does not like it. Then on the other hand we are lying to our children over one of the most sacred times in the Christian calendar. We spend years as a parent building the belief in this mysterious figure only for some day to face the prospect of admitting to our children we have been lying all these years.

These days Christmas for many seems to have become one big commercial enterprise. Stores stock up on Christmas goods earlier and earlier each year. Advertising hits us, especially our kids, on what is the latest 'must have' toy or gadget. And given we have taught our kids to believe in Santa, they expect Santa to deliver, whether we can afford it or not. And yet we all want our children to feel the magic we did as kids.

So what should we do? Should we debunk Santa, possibly breaking our children's hearts in the process? Do we lose the magic of the occasion? Or do we continue in the time honored lying, our own parents taught us?

I remember when my oldest, who had just turned 9 years old at the time, faced the question of the reality of Santa. We had gentle broken the news to her that there was no Santa but she refused to believe us. So, with the faith of a 9 year old, she wrote to Santa asking if he was true, what his real name was and if she could see him. She sealed the letter up and asked her mother to send it. When my wife shared the letter with me that evening, I was at a loss as to what I should do. After some time pondering, I decided that she would get a letter back from "Father Christmas" that would try to provide a transition between him as a real person, and Christmas as a magical time. This is the letter I wrote:

Dear Moyra

Thank you for your wonderful letter and that you believe in me. It is one of the wonders of childhood that children are able to believe in the magic of Christmas. We all lose something when we can no longer believe in the magic of life.

My real name is not important and people call me by different names all over the world. Besides being called Father Christmas, many call me Santa Claus, or Saint Nicholas, in English. The original St Nicholas lived many hundreds of years ago and the story is told of a poor man who had three daughters. In those days when a young woman got married the family had to provide something of value, called a dowry. The better the dowry the better the chances of a young woman finding a good husband. If the family were unable to pay a dowry then the young woman was likely to be sold to become a slave. It is said that on three occasions St Nicholas left bags of gold to use as dowries for these poor man’s daughters. Some say it was gold balls that were left and often oranges are left for children representing the gold balls.

This began a custom of giving gifts to children, which has continued until today. As Father Christmas I help carry on that tradition at Christmas time. All over the world children look forward to receiving something special at this time of year. Of course not all children get presents at Christmas because it is a time we especially remember the gift God gave in sending His son, Jesus Christ to us, and there are many families in different parts of the world who do not believe in Jesus being the Son of God.

As for seeing me, no one ever really sees me as a person. The only way to see me is to see the spirit of Christmas in giving something of yourself to others. That way when you look in the mirror at yourself you will see a little of me. The more you give the more of me you will see when you look at yourself.

I hope that you enjoy the things you receive this Christmas but most important that you remember the gift Jesus gave you a long time ago.

Be good until next Christmas.

Yours

Santa

I thought it was a great letter and one that would help her see he was not a real person but more the spirit of giving. I was quite proud of it at the time. Unfortunately it backfired and gave her a greater belief in Father Christmas than she had ever had before. Ironically though, that Christmas also brought a renewal in my own belief in Father Christmas, or at least in the spirit of Father Christmas.

That Christmas was the last I spent with my wife. Less than six weeks later cancer had taken her from us. But that Christmas, something magical happened. With little money having spent the previous couple of years not working while looking after my wife and children full-time, Christmas was looking to be very frugal. Then three days before Christmas there was a knock at the door and there was the principal from my children's school. Unbeknown to us the school staff and the parents association had taken up a collection for our family. It had started with just a handful of parents that knew us well, but everyone had wanted to be involved. The principal's car was loaded full of presents for our children. I stood there on the doorstep weeping. Even typing this now, eight years later, the memory of that day and that act brings moisture to my eyes. It made that Christmas special for us in so many ways.

Since that Christmas, with school, visa issues and unemployment, there has only been one Christmas that I have actually been working. Each Christmas promised to be a difficult one, but each year since that first Christmas, Santa has come to our aid. Each year help has come from different sources. Some years I have not known where it came from, but came it did. And every year I am taken aback at the thoughtful generosity of others. Unsought and unexpected, it has surprised me each year.

Some may tell you Father Christmas is not real, a lie that we should not tell our children. But for our family, he is very real.

If you find yourself in need at Christmas, I hope that there will also be a Santa that comes to your aid. If you are one who has the blessing of abundance, I hope that you will reach out and make Santa a reality for another. Whether you help someone in a small or large way, know that it is through people like you that the magic of Christmas and the reality of Father Christmas can live on in the lives of those struggling.

I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas this year, especially all the Father Christmases out there. Thank you for all you do.

Law of Attraction

Yesterday I came across a Web site on meditation methods. One of the topics covered, which perked my interest, was the Law of Attraction. The Law of Attraction is, it explained, that our lives depend on our thoughts and emotions. It is based on the premise that everything is a form of energy and you are influencing everything around you. As such you are able to attract what you want and thus create a life of abundance. That, sounds like a wonderful concept, using your thoughts and emotions to attract into your life abundance of whatever you want.

Here's the rub though, our thoughts and emotions can attract both desirable and undesirable things. As soon as we start sending out negative emotions we undermine the positive things we are hoping to attract. If you think about it we all recognize that principle to some extent. No one likes to be around an angry person, nor a depressed person but we love being around happy, positive people. The negative vibrations we send out though, can sometimes be much more subtle.

These negative vibrations have often built up over a lifetime. They can be difficult to recognize and even harder to change because they are being maintained by our subconsciousness. Our subconsciousness serves a very important role, it maintains our bodily function at status quo. If we get too hot or cold our subconscious kicks in to regulate our body and brings us back to a normal temperature. If we are lacking salt, our subconscious sends out a signal giving us the urge to eat something salty.

Unfortunately the same "return to normal" function works with our thoughts and emotions too. If we have spent a life time feeling negative, then as soon as we start feeling positive, the subconscious kicks in and wants to bring us back to that negative state that we are used to.

Here's a personal example from a couple of days ago. I was chatting with a friend, and we got talking about a mutual friend who I have an interest in. I had been feeling quite positive about this interest for a while, but as the conversation continued about how great this person was, I found I began to devalue myself, a habit built up over a lifetime. The process is probably one many of you recognize. It went something like this. She is a great person, lots of guys are interested in her, she could have her pick of guys, I've not got much to offer, how can I compete with them, she's really out of my league, why am I even bothering.

All of a sudden, a potential relationship that I had been feeling very positive about had been ruled out. Ruled out, not because she doesn't like me (though that has still to be determined), or she said no, but because I was talking myself out of it before I had even started. And why? Because I have spent a lifetime down playing my own value and here was my subconscious sensing normal operations had stopped and hitting the reset button.

So am I doomed to forever sending out those negative vibrations? Not at all. But what is needed is some reprogramming, and that takes effort. In the LDS Church we have a concept termed "Worthy music, worthy thoughts." It is based on the idea that our minds are stages for our thoughts, and there is only room for one act. So when we get unworthy thought we need to drive them out by replacing them with something positive. In this case an uplifting hymn or other positive music.

The same principle applies when it comes to trying to rid ourselves of those negative vibrations. Every time we catch ourselves thinking or feeling something negative, we need to find something positive to replace it. We all have positive things in our lives, even if everything seems to be going wrong. About 4 years back I had a friend suffering from depression. All her thoughts and comments were negative. I gave her a challenge to start an online thread and post just one positive thing each day to it. She wasn't allowed to make any negative comment on it.

For the first month she struggled each day and I often had to help her find something she could accept as positive. Often she would state something positive but then negate it by follwing with a negative comment, or couching it in negative language. It took time and lots of encouragement from me, but eventually she started to look forward to her daily postings. The one positive thing turned in to lists of positive things. Her general conversation became more positive and she complained a lot less about the difficulties she faced in life.

Likewise, each of us can slowly learn to reprogram our subconscious and to drive out those negative vibrations. Avoid expressions like "I don't want" or " I can't have." Any time you find yourself think or talking about what you don't want, stop right there and ask yourself what you DO want. And then focus all your efforts and willpower on what you want. It may not be easy, and like my friend it may take time to reprogram, but keep at it, reinforce those positive thoughts and emotions each day. In doing so you will be able to use the Law of Attraction to draw into your life an abundance of what you want.

As for me, I'm once more thinking positive things about that potential relationship. It may not happen, after all that's dependent on someone else, but if it doesn't, it won't be because I'm ruling it out before I get started.