October 1-A, 2022

**Goodale 18 11/04/2018 Oil Paint Rendered — Adams Mill Pond, Goodale State Park, Camden, South Carolina**

Our life is a string of coincidences
and another string of luck
intertwined and playing out,
and what we make of it 
is our gift to the mix.

It helps to have little in the way of 
expectations,
agendas,
plans,
opinions,
judgment,
willfulness,
demands
and requirements.

Being true to our essential nature
and our innate virtues,
serving integrity,
sincerity
and spontaneity, 
maintaining balance and harmony
and living with spirit,
energy and vitality,
seeing what's what
and what is called for
in each situation as it arises,
and responding with the best we have to offer,
for the joy of doing it
and the satisfaction of having done it,
moves us through our life
aligned with the movement and flow
of time and circumstance--
and it is amazing how all of this
combines with coincidence and luck
to produce wonders and magic
we could never manage through contrivance
and calculation.

It is the way.

–0–

Published by jimwdollar

I'm retired, and still finding my way--but now, I don't have to pretend that I know what I'm doing. I retired after 40.5 years as a minister in the Presbyterian Church USA, serving churches in Louisiana, Mississippi and North Carolina. I graduated from Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary, in Austin, Texas, and Northwestern State University in Natchitoches, Louisiana. My wife, Judy, and I have three daughters and five granddaughters within about twenty minutes from where we live--and are enjoying our retirement as much as we have ever enjoyed anything. View more posts