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I've been sick for almost 3 weeks now...It's interesting.  When I was in Scotland there were walls everywhere.  I swear this country spent a great deal of energy taking stones and building these beautiful walls.  What struck me is the way that things grow in these walls...moss, ferns, flowers, ivy...you name it.  I especially love this photo of this tiny delicate fern growing in a wall on the walk up to Wallace Monument. 

Now what does this have to do with my being sick for 3 weeks...well, I believe that what grows in me is largely of my own creation.  I am a match for a sickness or I am not.  I manage to walk through flu and various other illnesses all the time without being touched by them.  There isn't "soil", if you will, for them to grow in.  This time was different.  I have been in a place where not just one illness but a variety of particularly nasty illnesses have taken hold.  It isn't a moral evaluation of my character but an acknowledgment of where I have been in my mind and in my heart.  And as I come out of this sickness, what will I learn from it?  Hence, my question,  "What do you want to grow?"  My mind and my emotions are tremendously powerful and I can work with them and train them towards my betterment or towards my 'victimhood'.  Which do I prefer?

A great Buddhist monk said, "It is our mind, and that alone, that chains us or sets us free."  It is my responsibility to work with my thoughts everyday, deliberately and consciously so that I reach for freedom and joy and consciousness.  I'm not looking for perfection here but rather, for being awake. 
It's a lot like one of my favorite sayings,  "You can't stop the waves from coming but you can learn to surf"  What do you want to grow?
 


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