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Weaving Spirituality Where Women Gather

Monday, August 12, 2013

The Perfect Peach


This morning I ate a perfect peach, soft-skinned rose and gold, juicy, fragrant.  In the delight of the moment, I found myself giving thanks for the grower, picker, shipper, and purveyor of the peach and praying: may they be well, may they have plenty, may they feel satisfaction in their work, may they know peace.
            The prayer's Buddhist phrases rose in my heart unplanned, a sign I devoutly hope shows I'm growing in my understanding of Spirit.  In the past I might only have thought, "Thank you, God, for this beautiful fruit."  And such daily miracles do come from the All-Good, the All-Loving God.  But seldom directly.
            My spiritual search has shown that the Holy Mystery often blesses me through other people---those who produced the peach, who grew the tea I drank from a pottery mug made, shipped and sold by others.  We are connected in facile sound bites by Smart Phones, Twitter and Facebook.  But we are more deeply linked in a holy, mysterious, far-reaching web of interactions extending from the small place where we stand to the ever-expanding space beyond the stars.
            "Indra's Net" from the Rig Veda as described by Anne Adams says:

                        There is an endless net of threads throughout the universe...
                   At every crossing of the threads there is an individual.
                   And every individual is a crystal bead.
                   And every crystal bead reflects
                             not only the light from every
                             other crystal in the net
                             but also every other reflection
                             throughout the universe.*

May each and all be well.
            May each and all have plenty.
                        May each and all find meaning in work.
                                    May each and all know peace.

* Quoted in Turning to One Another by Margaret J. Wheatley, Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2002
Submitted by B. Griffin