The Great Turning

As I pushed down the lever to begin brewing my cup of coffee this morning, I watched for a moment to make sure that the coffee was indeed going into the mug. Yesterday, after returning from my toiletries, there was a river of coffee snaking under my valentines, neatly stacked next to the one-cup coffeepot.

Somehow, and I have yet to figure it out, some of the coffee was going around the mug and falling to the side. That was extremely curious as most of the coffee was indeed in the mug, and the drip hole for the coffee was still centered over the cup.

I pushed the mug back and quickly moved the stack of cards out of the coffee’s way. I rushed into the bathroom, thankfully across the hall, and grabbed paper towels to sop up the mess. While annoyed, I was aware that it was simply a small mess that was easily fixed. Only two cards were damaged, and I peeled the felt pieces off the front and will affix them to another piece of card stock.

I found it ironic in a way. I have been very deliberate this semester in straightening my sparsely furnished and decorated room every night. There is a certain sense of peace, and undoubtedly an illusion of control, that I get when I am able to enter my room, or open my eyes and see order, the absence of clutter. Perhaps I am trying to order my room and my habits in an attempt to tame some of the disorder that I carry within my being.

So when the coffee was unexplainably streaming under the neatness, I took it as a sign that life and messes happen and we have a choice to either find ourselves blessed or cursed.

At a workshop last Sunday at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley, spiritual environmentalist Johanna Macy said that our society is in the midst of a third great revolution that will involve turning away from the industrial growth model to a more peaceful and sustainable way of living. She says there are no guarantees that we will be successful and the smallest movement begins to alter the world’s consciousness. She calls it The Great Turning.

I believe we all can be a part of that revolution by turning beyond our anger and frustration when unexplained or explained things happen despite our best efforts.

Rumi writes:
“Today, like every other day, we wake up empty
and frightened. Don’t open the door to the study
and begin reading. Take down a musical instrument.

Let the beauty we love be what we do.
There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.”