Monday, February 26, 2007

Lost and Found

I found my wedding ring.

I didn't lose it on a run, as I had thought. Instead it was in the house and turned up again after having gone missing for a few days. I was sorting through some laundry that I had just pulled out of the dryer when I heard the clink of metal on the marble counter top. My first thought was that Peleg or I had left a quarter in a pocket, but when I pushed aside the clothes there was the ring I was sure I had lost forever.

it wasn't an expensive ring. I'd already resigned to it being gone. And I'd already confessed to Peleg that I'd lost it and appreciated his que sera response. But I was extraordinarily delighted to have it back, and Peleg's pleasure was equally obvious when I told him of its recovery.

But if the spiritual lesson in losing it was impermanence, what should I make of it's sudden reappearance?

That the things we love will eventually leave us, or we will leave them, is not a argument that we must protect our emotions by never loving. The spiritually healthy conclusion from the fact of impermanence is that we must love in the moment. Our love of people and things should be deep and unreserved, but it should be love of what we actually have now, not love for a future relationship that we may or may not get to enjoy.

I loved my ring when Peleg gave it to me. Missed it appropriately but let it go when it was gone. And love it again this afternoon. Tomorrow who knows? I'm not thinking about it.

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