"My boat strikes something deep.
At first sounds of silence, waves.
Nothing has happened;
Or perhaps everything has happened,
And I am sitting in my new life."
                        Rumi
Waking up this morning feeling under the weather threw a wrench into the works of my day. I don’t have time for this, I say to myself. But then I remember the fourth intention of Christina Baldwin’s Seven Whispers:Listening to the Voice of Spirit: Surrender to Surprise.

Surrender to Surprise…..I usually love surprises. I am always the person who saves the present I want to open most till last so I can savor the surprise of the gift. But not all surprises bring happiness. Suprises happen to us all the time…..sometimes we call them by other names- interruptions, tragedies, illness, loss. Surprises are really those situations that show up in our lives that we didn’t plan, over which we had not control .Surprises introduce experiences  that we might not have had the courage to choose, but they chose us.

Surrendering to Surprise can be a spiritual practice. Baldwin gives three responses that we can make when life throws a surprise our way: 1. Notice what is really happening. 2.Work with what is really happening. 3.Accept what is really happening.

The gift of any surprise is that we have the opportunity to learn things we may never have in any other way. In surrendering to the surprise, we can ask "what can I learn from this?" "How might I be transformed or changed by this?"

Inherent in this intention is the belief that we are held by a loving, compassionate Spirit who will be with us in the surrender, in the learning,in the joy and pain of growing. Depending on the relationship we have with the Holy is something we do with each breath we take. Choosing to live into and surrender to life’s surprises allows us to walk humbly in that relationship.

May the surprises of this day bring gifts of growth and openness to your life……