I did something stupid this week. I got caught up in an online scam. A national chain store is going out of business, and I saw a post offering the store’s remaining items at a 90% or greater discount. I could use some new garden tools, so I ordered $40 worth of items, not paying any attention to the fact that the URL for my order was not the name of the chain store. When I shot off a text to my family members so they too could take advantage of the sale, my nephew replied, “Isn’t this a scam?” When I read his text, my heart sank. I knew he was right. Within minutes, he sent a screen shot from a site that verifies scams, showing that, yep, I had been taken. I immediately called VISA and cancelled my credit card.
I felt like a fool. How could I have been so gullible? My sister and friends assured me that they too have fallen victim to similar scams. But shouldn’t I have known better?
Not So Smart
When I was a young woman, my father went into treatment for alcoholism and I joined an Adult Children of Alcoholics group. One of the members in the group said that she bounced back and forth from feeling like a 1, that is having no value, to a 10, feeling superior to everybody. Her words always stuck with me because she was talking about me. Being caught in a scam, when, really, with only a little investigation, I could have seen how the deals offered in no way be anything other than fake, was not the issue. The issue was that I truly thought I was above falling for such schemes, that somehow I was better than others who did, that I was “too smart” to be a victim.
(I can be very smug in my superiority.)
“No, no, no,” says the Universe. “You are no different than anyone else. And just to prove it, here’s a $40 set of pruning tools for $4.”
The problem is that I then crash from being 10 and fall all the way to a 1.
“No, no, no,” says the Universe again, this time in a voice I can barely hear. “You are not a 1 because you fell for a scam.”
But how can that be? Surely, if I am not a 10, then I must be a 1.
That there are eight other numbers eludes me.
All the Blessings
Some years ago, I began to develop the habit of silently thanking God – though sometimes I speak aloud when I am alone ––for every little gift that comes my way. The pricey over-the-counter eye drops are on sale: thank you, God. Remembering to grab the spray paint I want to return as I hop into the car to run errands: thank you, God. Waking after a good night’s sleep: thank you, God. And when I don’t sleep well: thank you, God, for the comfortable bed, for air conditioning that keeps my bedroom cool, for the safety of my home, even for curtains that black out the neighbor’s porch lights.
I have found that the more I give thanks, the more I seem to be blessed. Now if I charted this, I doubt that I would see more blessings being showered on me than before I began this practice. Instead, I think it would confirm that the practice of continually giving thanks is allowing me to see what I previously could not.
In the past, I have stumbled across good sales, often recalled something I needed to remember, have always had a safe place to live. But did I always appreciate this? Not during times when I was feeling heartbroken or depressed, and so I missed the blessings that were all around me despite the circumstances.
As David Whyte says: “Gratitude is not a passive response to something we have been given; gratitude arises from paying attention, from being awake in the presence of everything that lives within and without us.”1
What to Recognize
I have long struggled with the concept that I am special to God. It sounds great until I remember that everyone is special to God. How can that be? I know that some of the people in my own life are more special to me than others, so surely that must be true for God, right?
Wrong.
My problem is that is I am trying to comprehend the mind of God with my own limited brain. Just because I am not capable of loving all the people in my life with the same intensity does not mean that God can’t. God is far more capable of love than I can imagine.
Richard Rohr writes, “In the contemplative journey, unless we see this necessary humiliation of the ego and defeat of the false self, we don’t undergo basic transformation.”2
Letting myself be taken in by a scam was a blow to my ego that thinks it is better than others, that it is above making foolish mistakes. And therein lies a gift for which I can be grateful. I am not alone. There are others like me who make the same mistakes. And by making mistakes, I find my heart is open to more compassion for others when they mess up, because they are no different than I am.
I think this is how I learn to be a 5: recognize that I am special just like everyone else (even if that makes no sense); recognize that all of us make mistakes – I heard it is being human – and that my own errors allow me to be more compassionate when faced with the missteps of others; recognize that blessings are constantly flowing down on me, no less than the sun’s rays, if I pay attention.
FOR REFLECTION: Commit at least some time each day – a morning, an hour, ten minutes – to seeing the blessings of that moment. Do you see that blessings may be disguised as something else? Are you able to reserve judgement until the consequences of any event totally unfold? How does that change your perceptions from moment to moment?
1 David Whyte, substack.com, July 18, 2023, https://davidwhyte.com/collections/books/products/consolations-revised-edition?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
2 Richard Rohr, Daily Meditations, https://cac.org/daily-meditations/the-view-from-the-top-2023-07-20/
Top image: Pixabay/Tumisu.
Side image: Pixabay/Bruno.
