As a kid, I hardly even thought about what I really wanted. I wanted a doll for Christmas. I was often lonely and wondered if people liked me but I didn’t frame it like “I really want good friends.”
When I was a teen, I realized that I wanted to belong. And I was clear I definitely wanted a boyfriend. I sure never considered how to live into “my best life,” though.
Today, I am clear — after many missteps, misunderstandings and meandering. My best life is a result. If it is to be, it is up to me. Think about it. How would you define your best life today? Would that change tomorrow?
Beneath all the changes in needs and wants, there seems to be a universal practice that opens the door. It happens, as the Sufi poet, Rumi, said, “where the two worlds touch” — the visible and the invisible. The key that opens the door may be called by many names and one of them is prayer.
One sparkling afternoon, while attending a conference in Austin, Texas, I stepped through a set of French doors out onto a patio bathed in sunshine and honeysuckle fragrance. I walked around the small, round tables to the edge of the patio to breathe in the fresh air and luxuriate in the views of green valley below. The awe of being in such beauty.
Suddenly, a set of French doors just behind me and to my right opened and a man whose face I recognized from magazine covers stepped out. Father Thomas Keating. renowned author on the subject of Centering Prayer, strode quietly to the edge of the patio and stood no more than six feet away from me. It turns out he was there leading a retreat on Centering Prayer.
I took a deep breath to find my courage and walked over to introduce myself and ask a question that had been haunting me — what are new frontiers of prayer, new ways to have both worlds touch. That was the title I submitted when invited to speak at a conference right here in Phoenix a few years ago.
I swear that Father Keating must be a saint. He smiled softly and answered my question so graciously. “Prayer is really about a relationship with God, isn’t It? So, every prayer is a new frontier in deepening your relationship with God.” Simple. Does our best life get better the more we reach out to power greater than ourselves? Could it be that noticing the exquisite beauty all around us takes us deeper into that connection?. Is it true that doing what brings you joy propels you into the timeless beauty of life where the two worlds touch?
The rich tapestry of your life is a masterpiece in the making. What will you weave today by loving what & who you love, doing what you love, being a loving presence and a contribution wherever you are. What are new frontiers in living your best life—now? Listen closely because the divine field of all possibility is always calling us into intimacy with it.
Editor’s Note: Sharon Connors is the reverend at the Unity Spiritual Center, 10101 W. Coggins Drive, Sun City.
