I was never much good at any of the sciences - I found in middle high and senior high school that biology was the easiest to take a stab at, and since I had to take one of the sciences in order to get my OP score I enrolled in that. I sat up the back of class and generally fooled around, I reckon between me and my group of friends we took MAYBE half a dozen pages of notes between us for the whole year, yet every single one of us passed. I think I got a B, maybe a B+ which for an unscientific mind like myself is testament to the power of an educated guess and a rudimentary understanding of the derivatives of scientific terms.
Chemistry was perhaps my least favourite of the sciences - we had to try them all in grade 8 and 9, I presume in order to make our choice from Year 10 onwards. While doing experiments is fun, ours rarely ever actually worked and our longsuffering chemistry teacher (who was also our maths teacher) was a young, vulnerable man who while meaning well couldn't spell to save himself and NEVER had a demonstration actually do what it was supposed to do. Needless to say we were called upon to use our imaginations A LOT. One of the few things I remember from this very brief encounter with chemistry is something called "Le Chatelier's Principle" - I quote from the Libretexts Chemistry Website which states, "Le Chatelier's principle states that if a dynamic equilibrium is disturbed by changing the conditions, the position of equilibrium shifts to counter the change to reestablish an equilibrium" (chem.libretexts.org, 2020). Basically this is a fancy way of saying that if something is at rest and it gets disturbed, that something will inevitably move towards rebalancing that equilibrium. We, like the natural world, seek and often crave equilibrium. We've all experienced what I like to call a 'shift in the force' - events in our lives that fundamentally shift what we see as our balance in life. How we react to that shift is always in service of either releasing the discomfort of the change or in service of finding balance again.
I believe that there are times in life when the universe itself rushes into the gaps in our lives. I spent all of my 20's and a third of my 30's feeling only what was missing in my world - keenly aware of all of the gaps and deficits. Every relationship I didn't have haunted me, including the dysfunctional and sometimes toxic relationship I had with myself. I've spent a long time thinking about what I DONT have and scrambling to regain some equilibrium. As I have moved closer to being my true authentic self, I feel like others have stepped in to fill the gaps. Mothers, Fathers, Brothers, Sisters, Aunts and Uncles who have taken it upon themselves to pick up the reins and to move me forward. Last night I turned 40 years old, and a lot of those people (not all, but a lot of them) gathered all together in one room to once again fill gaps in my world. Watching the different spheres of my world collide was perhaps the most precious gift I could have received - my husband chatting with work colleagues, my father in law regaling my sister with stories (whether she wanted them or not!), my mother in law being tickled pink at one of my Tamworth colleagues referring to her as "Ma" - These collisions sparkled like fireworks around me, brighter than the sun and I couldn't help but marvel at the new equilibrium I had discovered.
One of the most quoted passages in the New Testament belongs to the Gospel of Matthew, commonly referred to as The Beatitudes (The supreme blessings) - Matthew 5:1-12 "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn for they will be comforted. Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness for they will be filled. Blessed are the merciful, for they shall be shown mercy. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you".
While most interpret these words as referring to blessings bestowed on people in the after life, last night gave me pause to wonder whether that is always the case. I'm not saying I possess any of those qualities listed above - far far from it - and yet there I was surrounded with nothing but love. And if that isn't a glimpse of heaven on earth, I don't know what is!
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