I’m surprised that this reminder does not bother me. I usually find references to god unendurable. But for some reason this works for me. It works like nothing else to remind me that everyone is my path.
Take for instance last week’s trip to the bank. I have several accounts at Bank of the West in my town. I opened the first account when I moved here 8 years ago, and I have a couple savings accounts, two business accounts, and my husband also has accounts there. For at least 5 of the last 8 years I have come in weekly to deposit checks from my business. At various times I have had over $100K deposited here.
It has never once happened that any employee of the bank has gone out of their way to smooth the way for a transfer or to help me have something happen faster. Last week I had a small check from a new client written to my new company. I didn’t yet have the paperwork from the state to open a business account. Any other bank would have let me deposit it in my personal account; I had asked several other people if their bank would do this and they said yes. In fact, I have had other banks do that exact thing.
But I knew that this bank wouldn’t. Yet, I seemed to want to get angry, I seemed spoiling for a fight. And Kathy, the account manager who most often shook her head and said in her high whispery voice, “No, we can’t do that,” was going to help me. I’d been hoping for Joan, who at least had a sense of humor about these things, but I was going to get Kathy. And as I sat and waited (25 minutes, 28 minutes…) I seethed. And then I thought, What does it mean to see the face of god in Kathy? And instantly a smile stretched my face. Kathy as the face of god was a lesson in patience, in expectations, in self-righteousness, in judgement. Ohmigod, she was the perfect lesson. It had to be the face of god, because it was so perfect.
So eventually Kathy came and got me (I didn’t notice how long I’d waited–I was so tickled by this “face of god” thing—looking around at the old gent, and at the young teller who had learned her lesson well and told me “no” at least 5 times—all the face of god!) and I asked her and she shook her head as if I was asking her to open her cash drawer and give me all the dough, and make it quick.
And the next day my paperwork came through, and I went back to my bank, and Kathy opened my new business account for me. It took at least an hour… but I smiled through the whole thing. Bank of the West is the face of god.
The holiday weekend comes and I am so excited. Looking forward in an unZen way. So I remind myself to be here now and I’m awaren of the slight fizziness in my abdomen as if there were champagne in there. I’m aware of expectations: that I will have time, large luxurious swathes of time. Of course there aren’t enough hours for the reading and movie watching and yoga and cooking and and writing and sleeping in and organizing that I keep adding to the list.
I’m surprised that this reminder does not bother me. I usually find references to god unendurable. But for some reason this works for me. It works like nothing else to remind me that everyone is my path.