Honoring God

Today, as I was cleaning the toilet.... lol, I was thinking again of God, and I was happy in my actions. If I could be filled with complete contentedness cleaning a toilet, then what could not make me happy? If I do everything with love, then everything I do will be honoring God. Then everything I do will make me happy and satisfy my soul.

I think back to the story I heard at a garage sale about a man who had been a contractor. He had been struck with some form of cancer and been put on disability, because he had days he could not even get out of bed. Yet on the days he felt good he... (maybe out of a desire to work, maybe out of a sense of clarity....no one really knew exactly why,) took it upon himself to maintain his neighbors houses. One day he was found repairing a fence, the next mowing a lawn, he was even found a block away chopping down a dead tree. He was performing these actions without the knowledge or consent of anyone. He simply took it upon himself to do what needed to be done. He didn't care for any recompense or gratitude. How divine is that?

Like the Buddhist story of the woman who goes to the temple for her daily prayer and sees a bucket of dirty water and mop sitting at the temple door. The first day she complains in a huff, the second she is incredulous and angered, the third she is amazed and bewildered, the fourth she takes the bucket and mop, cleans it and returns it to the shed. This was her lesson. This could be my lesson, everyone's lesson. I hope I don't have to wait to learn I'm dying to really, truly take it in and live it.

I learned today that I can do the work of God, with every breath. I am useful and needed. I can contribute to the beauty of life in a positive way with a word, a smile, a gesture, with absolutely any act, if done in love. I don't need to move mountains, end world hunger, create world peace. Not to say I couldn't....possibly. I'm simply saying that me cleaning the toilet in love, gratitude, peace and harmony with the world is the most grand yet utterly humble contribution I have done today and if I do nothing else, that alone is to me enough. I'd like to carry that sense into every action, every breath. Wouldn't that be magical.