I woke up on the wrong side of the bed, this morning. I'm a night owl and, typically, take a bit to wake up, bumping into furniture and not fully functional for the first hour or so.
Today, was especially tricky, as I got up around a hour and a half before I usually do, at 6:30 am!, and slept later than I liked. The reason to wake up at this (un)Godly hour was to water the plants at the farm. I was told that if you water them after the sun comes out, the leaves burn.
So, there I was, semi-comatose, underslept, and cranky with a malfunctioning hose spraying me in the face and those ever-present pesky insects snacking on my feet. All this was pre-coffee, mind you, and I was not a happy camper for the hour or so that I was watering.
Until the last quarter hour or so, when I got into a bit of a rhythm, and become more aware of the plants receiving the water, and the beautiful white birds soaring overhead, like clean linen, folding and unfolding in the air above me.
I realized that I needed an ego check and was being petty and ungrateful. This became clearer to me when I sat down with my cup of coffee in hand and was reading my morning meditations:
The fruits of the Path, such as intuitions, blessings, virtues, and wisdom... come to the degree that the ego is extinguished by poverty of the Spirit.
Ibn_Ataillah, is an Egyptian mystic, a Sufi/Muslim saint (1250-1309) who has written a book of aphorisms which keeps me in check. Here's more:
Sometimes you will find more benefit in states of need
than you will find in fasting or ritual prayer.
States of need are gift-laden carpets.
If you want gifts to come your way,
then perfect the spiritual poverty you have.
Alms are only for the poor.
There, in simple language, was a timeless, spiritual truth. We're not meant to get all what we want -- as English poet Larkin put it: Deprivation is to me what daffodils were to Wordsworth
It is not deprivation per se that Larkin is enamored with. It is having fallen in love with a pain, not for how it impoverishes but how it enriches: fortitude, profundity, insight.
Things not working out the way we want teaches us patience, keeps us humble, and is a reminder of how reliant we are upon forces greater than us (God, if I'm permitted to spell it out).
And, because we are forgetful creatures, by nature, we need these reminders, daily, when small and large things do not work our way and we must do without the creature comforts that we think are our birthright.