Hostess Gift: A Bottle of....

We went over to a friend's home for Easter dinner. Although my sweetie and our host couple drink wine, i do not, and i don't feel quite right about bringing a bottle of wine to dinner. I finally solved my little problem: I now take a bottle of olive oil. The bottle sometimes looks like a bottle of wine, and yesterday's olive oil came from a company that also sells wine.

I can't tell you how happy i am to have put this niggling not-quite-rightness to rest.

As we go through our day, we have all sorts of trifling little ruffles of our conscience. We may breeze over most of them. No one else may even notice, but in our hearts, we know something is not quite right.

Living a skillful life calls on us to be true to ourselves, whether or not anyone else notices.

My Easter LIly is Blooming

Every Easter, my sweetie brings home a lily from his church. Every May, i plant the dead brown plant in my white garden. And now, 2 Easter lilies have resurrected themselves near my front door. Joy!

In our meditation practice, we keep planting ourselves on the cushion (or chair). Sometimes our practice feels old and dry. We have to be creative to infuse our practice with a new fragrance.

And then, it blooms.

Aging Easter Lily

My sweetie is a church organist. Last Sunday, he forgot to pick up his Easter lily, so by the time he got it, it was the runt of the litter--bent over like an old woman, with two brown buds and a couple of hopeful-looking ones. He propped it up, using chopsticks as a crutch, and set Lily in a sunny window, hoping that would straighten her up a bit.

The message of Easter is suffering, death, and resurrection. My sweetie was dismayed to receive a rather ugly Easter lily with two dead buds. He is treating it compassionately, helping Lily in her old age.

Next week, i will bury her in the ground to wait for next summer's resurrection.