It’s human nature to react in horror, anger, and despair to traumatic events. It’s your divine nature to respond with peace, calm and love. Own them both, then choose which one you will empower. Julia Rogers Hamrick

NOTE: I sometime write articles and blog posts because I have the audacity to think I have something to share that others might find interesting and even of value.  Today, I write hoping to sort out some things for myself, and perhaps the other intention will be fulfilled as well.

Every day, every moment of every day life happens in a myriad of different ways. Babies are born, children start off for school, wars are declared, jobs are gained and lost. This article is really about the second part, the part that happens right after life happens — the then what?

Well, if you are a human being and I’m assuming if you’re reading these words you are, then almost immediately you ascribe some meaning to what just happened. In fact, this happens so quickly and so often that this second part often goes unnoticed.  The life happening and the meaning ascribed to what just happened gets mushed together…and that often leads to trouble.

Here’s why.

Very often the immediate meaning we ascribe to the occurrence we just observed isn’t well thought out…to say the least.  It’s automatic and very often arises from a place of fear and/or lack-based thinking, and it often leads to unnecessary suffering and struggle.  From the Life On Purpose Perspective, you could say it’s the default mechanism of the Inherited Purpose doing its thing. But unless we’re awake and aware of this default mechanism, it doesn’t take long before we find ourselves operating out of it, and we become trapped in a fearful, lacking way of life.

Okay, this all sounds nice and perhaps even a little bit interesting. But what about when life happens in the order of such matters as transpired yesterday in Connecticut? Am I saying we shouldn’t react, shouldn’t ascribe some meaning to children and adults being shot and many of them killed so brutally?

No, I’m not. In fact, what I’m saying is that in my experience it’s virtually impossible not to have an immediate, gut-wrenching reaction. Of course, these reactions may be different. Some might feel outraged or angry. Others may be thrown into depression or a sense of hopelessness.

I learned the news while having lunch with several of my senior softball buddies. Some of the immediate comments were, “See? This is what happens when only bad people have guns. What we need to do is to arm the teachers and train them how to shoot.”  My own reaction, one shared by my wife, Ann, later when I arrived home was more of a “what is this world coming to? We’re going to hell in a hand basket.”

All these different reaction are part of human nature, as Julia Rogers Hamrick’s quote points out. But it’s not the only way to deal with life happening.There is another aspect of each of us – the divine, or as I like to say Divinely Inspired part of us.  It’s from that place where we can respond, not from a place of fear, lack and struggle, but from a place of Universal Love, an experience of abundance and expansiveness, and with a willingness to flow with life.

Truthfully, I’m still processing what happened yesterday. I’m still trying to get to that place of Love, abundance and flow. That’s why I’m writing this blog post – to help me get there.  Here’s what I’ve discerned for myself so far.  When I step back from the horror and brutality of what happened yesterday in that elementary school in Connecticut, and I look at it from my true, Divinely Inspired Life Purpose, I see that there’s more work for us all to do.  That we’re not living in a world on purpose — at least not everywhere, with everyone nor all the time.

There’s still more work to do, more evolution to evolve, more being to be. Will we ever get to the Promise Land, to a time when such shootings and other acts of violence are only distant memories? I truly do not know.  I only know that for me it’s important that I hold that possibility of such a Promise Land firmly in my awareness…especially when life happens in ways like it did yesterday.

I cannot keep life from happening, nor the immediate, automatic reactions. I have much to say about what meaning I will hold onto and what I will choose to have shape my experience of life happening. I choose Universal Love. I choose to live in a world of abundance and possibility. I choose to flow with life.