and zen...

Grumpy. That’s how I would describe me lately. And this is partly why I’m not sure I’d ever want children. I like my downtime. I like my alone and quiet time. I’m happiest when I get a lot of ME time. Having a puppy, much like children, complicates my ME time greatly and so- enter grumpy.

Maddog is great. I adore her. What I don’t adore is all the fuss around her. It seems that half of my brain has been chopped off. For instance, I’ve been trying to write this for about 30 minutes now. I’m on paragraph two and I started the first paragraph earlier today. Again, enter grumpy.

Meditative Inquiry seems to be the chosen path for me right now. I’m starting to think it’s because the meetings are held on Sundays at 7pm. This means I can sleep in. Maybe I didn’t fight to go to Jewish services this weekend because of the grump factor. Thanks Maddy. Thanks for keeping me away from G-d.

I’m kidding of course though the luster of organized religions or deities in general is waning. I know that for many of my friends and especially my family, it is difficult to look at religion, or even spirituality, subjectively. Jesus or G-d or Allah can be so ingrained in our fabric that to imagine a life without a higher power doesn’t seem like a life we can understand. I get this perspective. I also think it is greatly flawed. The best way to understand what you know as truth is to look at it and all the other choices from the outside.

Maddy is suppose to be my Zen teacher and I’ve been marinating on how exactly this little bundle of energy and mayhem is suppose to teach me stillness and compassion. What I’ve come up with so far is that my Maddy knows about nothing except for the NOW and this is the heart of Zen. If Maddy has to poop NOW then Maddy poops. If Maddy needs to sleep NOW then Maddy sleeps. If Maddy hears a noise NOW, she attends to it. She has yet to master how to teach me her future desires. I’m still trying to figure out when she needs to piddle and how much she will eat and especially how much chewing or walking it takes to tire her out. She’s is teaching me to live in the NOW and my life is showing it.

I messed up a Salsa Workshop with friends this weekend because the attention I usually pay to my life is now put on Maddy. I squeeze in washing dishes, folding laundry, or checking email when she naps. She is in constant need of attention, which I like except that my life was fairly busy before I decided to let her plop into it.

Maddy is a tiny girl. She weighed 5 pounds at her last check-up. If G-d is in the small things then he is certainly in this little pup and he is teaching me through her precious eyes to be attentive not to the ME in this world, but to the NOW.