Jedi in a Car Seat with Josh Reeves

[00:00:00] How to wake up in the morning

[00:00:04] I had one of those mornings again.

[00:00:07] And maybe you've had one of these mornings too.

[00:00:10] It's one of those mornings where I wake up

[00:00:13] and I fail to remember God.

[00:00:17] Or, to say at the least, that I fail to think about God first.

[00:00:23] And that's usually my inclination when I wake up in the morning,

[00:00:27] is to get to God as soon as possible.

[00:00:30] To get that cup of coffee, that meditation book,

[00:00:33] that sacred space.

[00:00:35] But this was one of those mornings maybe where I stayed in bed

[00:00:38] a little longer than I should have.

[00:00:40] And I started thinking about the bank account

[00:00:43] or the disagreement I had with my spouse

[00:00:46] or the troubling meeting that I had coming up

[00:00:49] or whatever it was.

[00:00:51] All these things that distract me from God.

[00:00:54] And it causes me in that moment to forget the presence of God in my life.

[00:00:59] The source of love, source of perspective,

[00:01:02] the source of understanding,

[00:01:04] the source of strength that helps me deal with all of that other stuff

[00:01:08] that I got to thinking about too quickly.

[00:01:12] You know, there's probably a time for all of us

[00:01:15] when we were in our teens and we had our first crush

[00:01:18] where we wrote a poem that said something to the effect of

[00:01:23] you're the first thing I think about when I wake up in the morning

[00:01:27] and the last thing that I think about when I go to bed at night.

[00:01:31] And I think it might be good to remember at the spiritual level

[00:01:35] that even though we may have forgotten God,

[00:01:38] that God has not forgotten us.

[00:01:41] That like the young poet,

[00:01:44] we are on God's mind late into the evening

[00:01:49] and immediately upon waking.

[00:01:52] So even though God isn't always on my mind,

[00:01:56] I am always on the mind of God.

[00:02:00] And I think when we can open up to that truth

[00:02:03] that even though when I forget that there's something in me,

[00:02:07] something divinely around me that remembers,

[00:02:11] it can uplift me and put me back on course

[00:02:14] no matter how big of an asshole

[00:02:17] or melancholy or distracted

[00:02:21] or just missing out on the big picture of life that I may be.

[00:02:26] I had an experience of my daughter

[00:02:30] that was really powerful a few months back.

[00:02:33] We were getting ready for school.

[00:02:36] It was my day to take Nancy June to school

[00:02:39] and we were possibly going to be a little bit late.

[00:02:44] And you know, people talk about their biggest fears,

[00:02:47] public speaking, death, mind being late.

[00:02:51] I totally freak out when I'm going to be late to anything.

[00:02:55] And on this particular morning I was concerned

[00:02:58] and that stress was showing up

[00:03:00] in how I was communicating with Nancy June.

[00:03:04] Nancy, I told you to put your shoes in socks on.

[00:03:08] Nancy, please remember your backpack.

[00:03:11] Nancy, we're going to be late.

[00:03:13] Please listen.

[00:03:15] And so Nancy gets in the car and we're driving

[00:03:18] and we're on our way to school.

[00:03:20] And in the quiet I hear my daughter's voice

[00:03:23] from the car seat in the back.

[00:03:26] Daddy, yes, sweetheart,

[00:03:29] I want you to know that even when you're mean,

[00:03:32] I forgive you.

[00:03:34] Even when you're mean, I forgive you.

[00:03:37] And it really touched my heart

[00:03:40] and it was a reminder of that truth

[00:03:42] that God may not always be on my mind,

[00:03:45] but I'm always on the mind of God.

[00:03:48] And the divine can show up to us through all sorts of ways.

[00:03:53] In that moment it was as my daughter,

[00:03:56] an angel, a muse, a Jedi in a car seat.

[00:04:02] May we all open up to that idea

[00:04:05] that even when we've forgotten the divine,

[00:04:08] the divine has never forgotten us.

[00:04:11] And if we just open our hearts, open our minds

[00:04:14] and just calm down, just let go a little bit.

[00:04:18] It's amazing the ways that the divine can reveal itself

[00:04:21] to you and to me.