Now Here It Is

Now Here It Is (1,255)

August 31st, 2011

Everybody is rich, if by rich you mean accumulating a bunch of stuff to deposit in one place. Yes, we all have favorite acquisitions, and certainly there is a storage building inside the human compartment for placing these similar items until they reach a point we dub “abundance.” And any abundance eventually is assumed to be our “treasure”—and that which we treasure most in our lives, whatever it is, gains the favor of our heart, and the heart, being the center of the emotions, and the human race being an emotionally-energized group of people, causes us to want to tout the essence of our treasure, which becomes the source of most of our dialogue and daily “speak.” It is at this point that other folks enter our realm, hear our words and decide whether we are justified in their eyes, or unfortunately, condemned. Now there’s the process.

This is what Jesus meant when he said, “Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks” and “where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” It’s why you can take someone to see a great movie filled with plot twists and tremendous emotion, and that person can walk out yammering on about their medications and how they hope their chiropractor will be able to adjust their fourth disc.

The predominance of our abundance creates our treasure. I have been in church services where the obvious presence of God was nearly staggering to my mind, spirit and heart—and strolled into a lobby where I found people grabbing their cell phones to text friends about something completely unrelated to what they just encountered. I don’t say this critically. It’s just an obvious fact that what we decide to become collectors of in our hearts becomes our treasure and spills into our daily conversation.

From that conversation, we are judged by the fellows around us for our intelligence, our passion, our depth, our caring and our general awareness of the world. From that judgment comes our placement and even our social and financial status. Isn’t that amazing?

So what can we do about the abundance of our heart? Can we change our interests without becoming phony or pretentious? Can we actually begin to absorb more enlightened truths and goals which will eventually lead to being more astute and erudite? Of course we can—as long as we avoid hypocrisy.

Spiritual transformation is taking an inventory of our abundance and deciding whether we should keep it or give it over to Good Will. What I have discovered is that most of my faults are stuck in my emotional closet behind a bunch of crap that keeps me from seeing, up close and personal, what is plaguing my progress. Yes, sometimes you have to clean out the closet to discover that you actually do have enough hangers.

So if we decide we want to rearrange our abundance—the wealth of our human emotions—and produce a different treasure, what should we do?

1. I ask people every once in a while what they think I talk about the most. I may not even know. I may be completely oblivious about what words permeate my verbiage. But believe me, those around me have a much better pulse on it.

2. Decide for yourself if what you are accumulating is really treasure or just over-valued junk. It’s simple—just as with clothing and possessions, ideas should be used within the first three months of their hatching. If you haven’t worn a shirt for three months, you can probably afford to get rid of it, and if you have goals you have not pursued for three months, they probably are not really your dreams, but merely your habits.

3. And by the way, I don’t believe there’s any such thing as a good habit. Once you begin to repeat something over and over again, it becomes less passionate, repetitious, or tainted. But what is powerful are fresh habits which we try out to see if they enhance our journey.

4. Since your abundance is your treasure, do you feel like you’re hauling gold around? Or just rocks? The Bible says “he who the Son (Jesus) has set free is free indeed.” If your thoughts and emotions are making you feel leaden and burdened, you are probably due for a transplant in your heart. Happiness always involves lightening your load.

5. And finally, everything is awkward until it becomes normal. If you start thinking, feeling, pursuing and learning something new—to make it your new abundance—be prepared to feel stupid, out of sorts and a little bit wacky. It takes time to accumulate anything. Give yourself a chance to transform.

The thing I like about the gospel of Jesus is that it is the perfect linking between the spiritual world and the physical world. The bridge between the two? The human emotions. And the emotions are triggered by what we decide to accumulate in our beings. This determines the next thing we will say. So a bigot will eventually spout prejudice, a poet will artistically devise a grocery list and a frustrated person will unveil a slew of angry words.

Check out your abundance. It’s right there inside you, marked Treasure—not far from your heart and ready to be turned into a soliloquy of ideas which you will inevitably spiel, identifying who you really are.