On the Look-Out for Paradise. Issue 21

"Paradise has never been about places. It exists in moments. In connection. In flashes across time".  Victoria Erickson

Have you ever traveled a long way and spent enormous sums, in a hopeful search for paradise, only to find a cold rain, marital squabbles and a stomach bug? This Winter will you both duty-bound and stubbornly, load up your black carry-on with flip-flops, sunscreen and pepto-bismal in yet one more attempt?

Or are you maintaining a ledger for Saint Peter? How many pages is yours? Like my passport, I have needed to add paper. Are you concerned that your many earthly dishonors and human failings will preclude an entry into a heavenly utopia?

As you might suspect from this image, recently I have felt the extraordinary wonderland called "paradise", closed.

And so Erickson's quote shouted out. She says, don't look for euphoria in an exotic or spiritual destination so far from 'home'. Paradise is waiting to be tapped all around and inside us. It in the relationships which nurture me and in my connection to them. It is within a mundane moment which can turn into laughter and suddenly spark joy. 

I am on the look-out for paradise. No flight required.