The Never-ending 30 Day Challenge: "A Picture of Someone Who Inspires You"

Day 16 - A Picture of Someone Who Inspires You

 The Universe.  I don’t know what It is.  But I believe there is more to this world than meets the eye.  I believe in signs and signals.  I believe if you slow yourself down to a whisper, the Universe just might speak to you.  I believe it can guide you if you watch for It’s language.  True, It is not a person, but let me explain…

“Someone” that inspires me---first thought, I would have to say my paternal grandmother.  She was an amazing woman; mother of 9, hard working farm girl, devout follower of God.  She defined the word “Faith” for me.  She was also the most loving woman I have ever met in my entire life.  She was a constant source of light and love for me.  She’s up there with Mother Theresa, in my book.  Of course, I am biased, though; everyone loves their grandma.  ;)   But the woman was a Saint to me.  Either way, my grandmother, whom I named my baby girl after, passed in 2008; she never got to see her.  She was such a positive influence in my life that I wanted to pay her homage.  Even before she passed, I knew I wanted to name my first daughter after her.  She was so wise.  She had so much love to give.  I always said it was as if God’s love was freely flowing out of her; she tapped into it somehow and passed it along to everyone.  I think that she understood life pretty well for an unassuming little farm girl from a small mining town in Pennsylvania.  She was very inspiring to me---she was a wonderful mother, an amazing grandmother, gave birth 9 times (actually, 10, I think, maybe), worked the farm all her life, taught catechism classes for well over 20 years.  She loved to teach, and she loved to learn.  She loved her family.  She was phenomenally faithful.  Creator---creation----creature.  She loved God---the Universe.  The One.  The Maker.  The Force. It’s semantics.  They’re really all the same thing, aren’t they?  But again, I digress.

Long story short, my grandmother passed.  It was hard for me.  I grieved; trying to feel for her somewhere out there in the Universe.  I came to more of an understanding of where I stand with things.  Some things I have always thought I believed started crystallizing within me, I think.  Then I recently lost one of my closest friends two weeks after the birth of my first baby.  These past months have been some of the most trying of my life---with the constant and obvious theme of change.  Immense symbolism was laid before me.  Life and death.  The worst and the best.  The darkest and the lightest.  Again, I grieved.  Again, things crystallized.  In creating, I am a new creature.  Which leads me here…

I have come to believe that when people pass, they become everything, they maybe understand everything, and they possibly are everything.  I’m not entirely sure; I’m not a theologian---I just live here.   They may not be in what we accept as our reality anymore, but I think they are still very much in the Universe.  The Universe is all that ever was or ever will be.  The Universe is everything.  You are the Universe.  I am the Universe.  We are the Universe.  We came from the Universe.  “We are star stuff,” to quote Carl Sagan.   

Now, my grandmother believed in “God-incidences”, as she called them.  Coincidences---divine coincidences.  God speak.  Signs, signals, landmarks, cues.  I think they’re out there.  I’m not saying that I am a pro at finding them all of the time and riding the “current of moment” constantly in my life, but I really do believe they are out there.  We are all energy.  Spirit moves through all things (listen to Science by System of a Down).  I think that spirit is like a river, or an ocean, flowing constantly through everything.  You can “catch a wave” so to speak---and ride the current of moment once in awhile if you are paying attention.  (I think there is a comedic spirit, an artistic spirit, athletic spirit, etc., etc.)  If you catch that current, you are in the zone.  You are in God’s grace.  You’re riding the current.  But you’re not meant to ride it forever; like everything, it comes and goes.  Ebbs and flows.  Peaks and breaks.  You just try to jump back on.

The Universe is someone that influences me because I am influenced by everyone and all things.  I am inspired by the people of the world; darkness and light; the forests; the waters; the mountains.  “I am only a product of my inspirations…” Jimmy Page is quoted as saying.  I am inspired by You.  (Yes, you!) You are the Universe.  I am inspired by her and him.  They are the Universe.  Everyone you meet can have a message for you or something you need to learn.  Again, teaching and learning.  I think that’s what we’re here for.  I am inspired by my grandmother.  She went to be with her Lord.  She is the Universe to me.  I was inspired by Boyd.  Now he is the Universe to me.  I’m no guru, or sage, or monk or religious teacher…but I can tell when I’m being spoken to.  I’m just following my journey.  I know that I am given signs.  I know that there are coincidences laid out before me every day.  I am not above the influence, but within it.  

["A Picture of Someone Who Inspires You" originally posted to Facebook Mar. 05, 2011]