Fireworks

 Last month, I went to a baseball game.  After the game, there were fireworks.  I enjoyed the fireworks.  We don’t have fireworks in the monastery county because of fear of forest fires.  The fireworks are a good memory still.  I had not seen fireworks in several years.  We clapped, ooh and aah for them.  But they did not change my life.  A good memory can be just that.  It need not change you.  So many people seek new, different experiences, hoping for some change.  If no change, the experience goes from “good” to “not much,” or “not worth it.”  I simply accept a good experience as just that, and part of my memory bag.  The monastery on the other hand is “a life.”  Fireworks are not a life.  Drinking, drugs, sex, food is an experience, but not a life.  The monastery is slowing changing my life, and often is unspectacular, unlike fireworks.  I try not to get trapped in the spectacular.  I have power to seek the spectacular but not the power to change my life.  For that, I need spiritual help.