Second Thoughts

People sometimes ask me where I experience God, or a Spiritual Power.  I find the experience in my second thoughts.  When things don't go according to my plans and expectations each day, my first thought is that the person or situation that upset my plans/expectations is stupid, lazy, uncaring, spoiled, and just plain old all wrong.  The first impulse may then be anger, resentment, self-pity, and even some fear.  If I were to act on the energy of these first thoughts and impulses, my day would be chaos.  But then a second thought comes and with it some relief of negative energy.  This second thought is my experience of a spiritual power.  I am not sane enough to come up with second thoughts by myself.  The second thought might be, "Terry, if you go through the day being angry and negative about things, you will have a miserable day."  "My plans are just my plans."  "Let it go.  Live with gratitude."   And such like.  When my big sister, Maureen, was bossy or failed to spoil me, my first thought was that she was a witch.  It took a long time to get second thoughts.  Only much later in life did I come to realize it was me who had to change....even if she was a witch, but a nice witch.