The Space

The Space

A dear friend and I were talking a while back.

She told me I had to learn how to live in the space,

the space between resisting and attachment.

Isn't that how we operate?

If we're fearful, or scared of an outcome we resist.

We don't want to go there or have that happen.

If we expect a certain result we're attached to that outcome.

We expect it to turn out in a certain way.

We live to control: the moment, the process, or the outcome.

But how much control do we really have?

There are thousands of events that go into any one thing occurring.

How much energy do we expend on trying to control life.

What if we just lived it.

We do our part, do our thing.

You live in the space between.

Life unfolds.

Life happens.

We do our part in it but if you step back,

look and really evaluate how much has to fall in place for it to occur,

we're just a tiny piece of a very large puzzle called life.

Living in the space between resisting and attachment,

it takes acceptance to live there,

since not everything unfolds the way we think it should.

Acceptance that God’s higher plan for us is unfolding

and sometimes we just don’t know why we’re directed

or challenged in ways that we don’t understand.  

God blesses you and yours this day and every day, Keith Noyes

Proverbs 3:5,6  Trust in the Lord with all your heart,

and rely not on your own wisdom.

In all your ways acknowledge him,

and he shall direct your paths.

You are not a drop in the ocean.

You are the entire ocean in a drop.

- Rumi -

2010 Christmas Letter

A Christmas Letter to our Friends and Family be they Close or Far Away

Jane traditionally wrote this.  Sadly I’m writing it this year because the love of my life passed away very unexpectedly on September 16, 2010.  She had a bacterial infection in her blood.  The initial symptoms were very slight just a minor cough.  The night of the 15th she was complaining of a back ache and looking flush and we thought she had caught the flu in Milwaukee.  (We had just returned Monday the 13th from a trip to see our grand daughter for her first birthday).  The walk in clinics were closing at 8 pm so we decided to wait until morning to go to the doctor.  She stayed downstairs that night and I checked on her and gave her medication every 4 hours around 6 am I woke to her screaming out in pain and told her we were going to the emergency room.  We got there shortly after 6:30 am and by 9 am she was gone.  I watched as seven doctors and nurses worked frantically over her for an hour and a half to try and save her but they couldn’t.  The medical examiner explained to me at length how some bacterial infections have very minor symptoms even though you are extremely sick.  He also stated that the back pain she experienced through that night was her adrenal glands on her kidneys failing and by that point she was already dying.

Jason, Kelly and Karina stayed with us the week of the funeral, Alex and Erin continue to live at home with me.  I’m grateful I’m not home alone even though this continues to be so very difficult to just comprehend let alone to deal with it.  I tried grieving alone and just couldn’t deal with it effectively so I’m seeing a bereavement counsellor at Hospice of Chattanooga and also attending monthly group sessions.  The Hospice organization is wonderful and they have provided me with ongoing support as well as reading material to help me cope.  I’d recommend a Hospice organization to anyone dealing with a significant loss or impending loss.

Erin continues to work at Pet Smart and is the fish queen.  Anyone who comes in wanting fish wind up talking to Erin for the low down on how to care for their fish.  She bought a Conure Parrot named Coco and her boyfriend Seth bought one too Zorak.  The two birds are fast friends now and once they get older they’ll be talking to us!  A while back the pair of them came walking and talking up the hall looking for Erin it was hilarious.  Seth is finishing up his IT degree at Chatt State and hopes to land a real job soon, working at Best Buy wears on his nerves now and then.

Alex was attending Chatt State for accounting but hasn’t been able to continue with what’s happened.  He continues to be the best bowler in the family and routinely beats dear old dad on Thursday nights.  He’s usually right around a 230 average so I’m a good 30 pins behind him.  Alex and I spent a lot of effort in yard work these last couple of months, don’t know if Jane would have approved of what we’ve done, but we made a major overhaul to almost all the shrubs in the yard.  We’ll see what the results are come spring!  Just bowled again last night he went 712 and I managed 611!  I used to think averaging 200 was good until Alex came along.

I’m thankful for all the things Jane and I packed into her last few months.  We took Alex and Seth to an Atlanta Braves baseball game and got to see Stephen Strasburg the rookie Washington Nationals pitcher who routinely throws over 100 mph.  Jane always loved baseball.  Jane came home one July day and said turkeys were on sale so we had Thanksgiving in July.  She made the whole spread just like Thanksgiving pies and all, little did we know how appropriate that was at the time.  We finally got Alex to Savannah for his 21st birthday, in August though, not last December.  So he could experience all the frozen concoctions at Wet Willies.  He was drinking things like Call a Cab and Attitude Adjustment so you can imagine how potent they were.  I just stuck to my Chocolate Thunder kind a like a high test fudgesicle taste.  Jane was always partial to strawberry daiquiris and such.  We attended the Hall of Fame game at the Chattanooga Lookouts, our local baseball team, they inducted Tommy Lasorda and Cal Ermer a former Minnesota Twins coach who used to come in to work so we could copy his scouting sheets.  Alex was there one day and got to see his Minnesota Twins world series championship ring.  Man that thing was huge and full of diamonds, his stories were great too.  Finally we went to see Kelly and Jason and to be there for Karina’s first birthday party and spent some wonderful time with them.  Jane didn’t like being an absentee grandma much, being so
far away and all.  I was very glad when Erin told me she told her she finally felt like a grandma after that trip.

And Lastly I’m thankful for the 12,012 days I spent totally in love with Jane E.  I still love her bunches and bunches, as I always said to her, and miss her dearly and only wish I had a chance to really say goodbye.  I never expected not to leave the hospital with her that day.  So at this time of year take an extra minute to express how you feel to your loved ones and realize how precious it is to have them in your life.  To all those who are just finding out now, or have sent a lovely card, or sat quietly in a chair, perhaps you sent a funeral spray, perhaps you spoke the kindest words, or just kept us in your prayers, or just a thought of her or us that day or any day, whatever you did to console our hearts, we thank you from the bottom of our hearts whatever was your part.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year’s.          Keith Noyes and family.

In Loving Memory of Jane E. Noyes 10/29/1952 to 09/16/2010

How I came to Blog

Friends:

Many of you have read my posts as emails, quite a number of you were added at different times.  Over many months the list grew to over 100.  You know I lost my first wife suddenly in September of 2010 and I found grief very, very hard to confront and that it eventually led to a spiritual re-awakening in me that is still beyond my comprehension in many ways. 

I was in grief counseling at the time with Hospice of Chattanooga and seeing a psychologist.  I remember after the re-awakening telling my Hospice counselor how I had this overwhelming feeling and knowing pouring over me "To Share".  For weeks we discussed this but "To Share" what?  Yet within months of that I started writing.  Then it became clear what I was to share.  That's how the email list started.

As I post these on the blog you will often see the original date I sent them out as emails. (As well as new ones, and things I've written as MId-Week Messages for Unity of Chattanooga that are emailed to our congregation.)  My psychologist was on that original email list from very early on.  One day in a session he told me he thought I did not comprehend how very good my writings were and asked me if he could use them anonymously with other patients.  He went on to say: "because they can help people." In later sessions he told me that they were helpful when he used them and would continue to do so.  I have had a  number of people tell me; "What are you doing with these?  You are keeping them right?"

I often meditate and do Qigong in the morning.  Yesterday I received another clear message "to blog", this wasn't the first, there have been many.  I went about my day and in trying to research the anniversary of when I had first heard of my new wife.  I was rummaging through old emails and not getting anywhere.  Then I thought of trying to pin the time down by digging into my Reflections file of all the emails I had sent out. The first one I opened was The Stir from 10.24.11 and begins "To Blog was the question?"  To me that was spirit yet again confirming the clear messages I had been receiving, one that I had been very hesitant to do.  When I first brought it up I had been warned about negative responses and you better be ready for them to bash you.

    

So as I asked a dear spiritual friend who has her own blog about blogging yesterday. She replied “Build it and they will come.  Don’t worry about how many you reach, but how those you reached are helped.”  I again thought of my psychologists comments and this blog is my attempt to help and to take it to a wider audience. I know I am being guided to do this.

So spread the word to your family, and friends if you think they may enjoy reading my blog.  Also send me energy to finish my book that I have put in so many hours on.  My ego side has been very persistent in shoving "why me, and what have you got to say that's worthwhile" at me.  Just like the blog spirit doesn't care about what my ego says it just keeps telling me to: "finish the book". Just like the blog I need a little push to keep working on it.

Send Them Love

This thought has been tumbling through my mind.

It just won’t go away.

A few weeks back well before Christmas

I was driving and noticed someone in a car at a stop light.

I looked at them and what struck me was how very sad they looked.

Then this thought arose in me, sent to me is a better description.

“Send Them Love!”

Such a simple thing I thought but how very wonderful and beautiful too!

I didn’t realize how much it had really affected me at the time.

I do now.

It’s popping up all the time like a mantra

whenever I see or feel the need to comfort anyone,

even some stranger I see in my travels.

The other day I was feeling so very spiritual during the whole day,

things just kept setting off waves of God bumps that were washing all over me.

As I turned off the highway onto a main cross street

I thought of it again: “Send Them Love!”

It was such an odd sensation this time.

I had become used to it, mentally sending that silent message.

Today was different.

I was sending it with my eyes!

Everywhere I looked I just felt like I was beaming “Send Them Love!”

like my eyes were headlights.

Wherever I looked it was illuminated with "Send them Love!"

It was such a wonderful experience.

Spirit sends us messages all the time

if we are aware enough to let them intrude on our hectic lives.

This one sure has my attention.

May you find that moment sometime today.

May you find a moment where you just notice someone:

in some sort of need or distress, or something or someone that upsets you.

May you make the choice to respond in a different manner

than perhaps you have before.

Open your heart wide and

mentally “Send Them Love!”

Then see how your day unfolds when you are reacting in a different way.

My guess is you’ll be smiling more,  I am.

So anytime you think of it “Send them Love!

Send them ALL Love!”  

“What’s the Point?”

“What’s the Point?”

So I did it, I started a blog.

My ego has fought me long and hard

trying to get it’s way.

Demanding I cease and desist in this craziness.

But Spirit will have none of this

“What’s the Point?” argument my ego has laid out for over 3 years.

Spirit just keeps reminding me in subtle ways to share:

popping up in mediation,

in things I’m drawn to read or do.

If you remain aware you realize the joke is on you.

For spirit has all the time in the world

it functions in a realm of no time.

So go ahead and ignore spirits gentle nudges if you will.

Realize though that one of the laws is:

What you resists persists!

I am living proof of this one.

I couldn’t believe how relieved I was today

after finally setting up the blog.

Now the writer’s block I thought I had is gone.

Immediately I am writing again.

Listen, look, be aware: spirit is talking to you ALWAYS.

I read this wonderful line once.

It  went something like this:

God’s love letters are littering the sidewalk you’re walking on

you’re just not taking the time to look for them.

So “What’s the point?” of having a spiritual practice

if you don’t allow yourself to be open to the messages your receive

and most importantly act on them.

Remember they were sent to you and no one else.

They are yours to heed.

So listen for them, look for them, act on them and

step into the spiritual being of love you were meant to be.

The Stir

THE STIR  10.24.11

To Blog was the question?

For I knew not what it was either

Heard of them I have

But never paid much attention.

But your attention I did get

For most of you said what?

Don’t know what a blog is!

Well, neither do I really.

Just one of the many ways

To express yourself on the Internet

I guess

But your voice was loud and clear.

E-mail has been my voice so far

And so it will remain

For your choice was obvious

Don’t go away many of you said.

That was never the intention

But my such a stir

My comment made.

Funny how my question

About a term

Of which I knew so little

Created such a stir

Another mystery of life

Pose what you think is a simple question

And off on its own tangent, it goes.

No simple answers there are

For even simple questions

Are open to varying interpretations

And complications.

So I’m not going anywhere

If you’re on the list you’ll get

Whatever I write

Be it good or bad

That’s for you to decide.

But in the end

I’d just like to say

I so enjoy you all

And your comments

Have a truly wonderful day.

Now put a smile on your face

Picture yourself at the end of the day

Realizing you’ve just had a truly wonderful one.

Anchor that thought

Carry it with you through the day

You're setting yourself up

For your vision of the end of this day.