The Vending Machine

A lovely human named Gordon B. Hinkley once said something like: "The way that some people pray you would think they were ordering groceries..." He was a sweet heart. He was encouraging more gratitude and meditation and less demanding. We demand and demand, don't we? Because the mind is always seeing lack. God continues to bless us, but it's amazing how much more we can get by not asking. Buddha taught this to his monks. Taught them never to beg for food and they would never go hungry.

Think about it. When someone asks your for something, you may give, but you are already contracting. Thinking of how you might go a different route next time to avoid them. But if they don't ask, you want to give. I know this is true with my child. When we go to the store and she asks for everything. I may begrudgingly say yes once or twice. But if she doesn't ask for anything, and is just helpful, I want to give her what I know she likes and would make her happy.

The only difference with God and us is that he doesn't every totally write us off.  He gives and gives even though we demand and demand and continue to see lack in what we have. (I'd have stopped giving by now.) But when we don't ask, as Buddha taught, we get so much more. We always get more than we deserve. But for those who have planted the feeling of Wahe Guru in them, God can actually show up and Deliver instantly, like a vending machine. It can be quite funny sometimes. But it's not any kind of normal vending machine. No formal request was made, just a thought, or a plan or an unspoken wish that hadn't even finished forming.

Here is an example. I get a a text from my friend Alison a few weeks before Easter. It says something like this:

I was meditating today during the Sacrament and thinking about the eater dresses I was going to make for my daughters and designing the pattern in my head (I know silly earthly stuff but it was what was on my mind) and I was wondering if i should draft the pattern myself or buy it. I decided drafting it would take too long so I'd just buy one. Right after the meeting a woman came up to me and handed me a pattern that was exactly what I had been thinking about. She said "I thought you needed this." It was so crazy. Like God is a vending machine or something.

A few years ago I realized that that night was the night of a concert I had wanted to go to but had forgotten to buy tickets. Oh well, I thought. Must not be meant to go. An hour later a friend called and said the had 4 tickets to that concert and couldn't go and wanted to know if I could use them. Free. We used 3 and gave the 4th away to a family at the event looking for another ticket.

One day on a road trip I was thinking about a piece of art I hoped to someday buy from a gifted artist friend. She called me 5 minutes later and said she wanted to give me that very piece of art. Free. She was tired of looking at it and the hotel hadn't bought them and she knew I loved it.

I am betting that these types of things have happened to you at least once in your life. But what if they started to happen every day. Several times a day.

That's what has been happening to me... and some other people I know since beginning on my journey of Long Ek Ong Kaars and creative recovery. If I shared everything that has happened you wouldn't believe it. There are too many things. Big and small, and sadly I probably don't even know all of the miracles because so many have been behind the scenes. But I wake up chanting Wahe Guru. It's so much a part of me. Even for the aches or struggles or uncertainty, I chant Wahe Guru!

One of students said her husband thinks this meditation stuff is a little weird but he is supportive but non participative. One night at the dinner table their 6-year-old son was pushing boundaries. He was told not to do it again. Well he is six. So he did it again. Out of the blue her husband shouted: "Wahe Guru Ji!" The six-year-old and everyone at the table just stared. Then she said: "The was awesome!"

That's a good story. Wahe Guru for six-year-olds who show us our unhealed parts of ourselves and what we can work on as parents.

There is so much to be grateful for.  Especially for Jesus Christ and his INFINITE atonement. At-one-ment. So that we can also at-one with God and receive all the blessings they are wanting to give us. All that they have.