Why Not?

 After my blog post yesterday, a couple of people from All Souls reminded me that I had said my phrase for 2020 was going to be, “Why not?” Not just for me, but for anyone who might approach me and say, “I’ve got this crazy idea to…” I warned them my response would be, “why not? How can I help you make that happen?”

One friend commented she was glad the pandemic hadn’t gotten in the way of that phrase.

Ironically, I had forgotten about that theme for 2020 I so cheerily sent out into the universe in the way, way back, long, long ago, January 2020 service where I voiced that phrase for the first time publicly.

And yet, that is exactly what I have been living into as I began this car camping (SUV RVing sounds so much more glamorous, doesn’t it? But it is such a long phrase; maybe I can shorten it to SUVRV. Well, not much difference.)

I was pondering how often we set intentions out into the universe and then forget about them and one day find out they have been busy becoming reality. Sometimes these are good things—like my “why not?” intention, but often times they’re debilitating like, “I’ll never get the raise, the girl, the time and money freedom; I’ll never be good enough, skilled enough, happy enough.”

We set those intentions out sometimes and then begin to unconsciously live into them. We forget the power of our words to form reality. Our words are more than phonemes; when we become hooked on phonics, it really can be an addiction—conscious or not—to perceiving our world through our words.

Why not? I said in the bright, sunny, pandemic-free days of the New Year, 2020. And those words winged their way into the future, not worrying about a coronavirus or social distancing or masks, or even death. And here I am, nine months later, seeing those two simple words boomeranging back into my world.

They are not a magical incantation, creating spaciousness and ease; they are merely harbingers of a future I am still living my way into.

What were the words you spoke into the new year? If you participated in All Souls Fire Communion that we do on the first Sunday of the new year, what words did you write to leave behind in 2019? What words, what intentions did you release into 2020?

What my friends reminded me of in their comments about my “why not?” mantra, is that we really do get to determine how we live our lives. We may not be able to determine what happens to us, to our nation, to our world; we may not get to demand a fool proof vaccine so that we can all cavort about mask free in sweaty, intimate closeness of a concert, or bar, or the more genteel surroundings of a theatre or theater, but we do get to speak our word into this reality and make it so.