Vacation Envy

This week is Spring Break week for the schools near my home, and for the past several days I have been looking at pictures on Facebook of my neighbors and friends and their families in warm, sunny places like Florida, Costa Rica, Turks and Caicos, and Mexico.  Today, as I was taking my morning walk and thinking about how envious I am of those who are traveling this week, I realized that I actually had a gnawing, awful feeling in the pit of my stomach.  I was physically uncomfortable thinking about how much I longed to be resting on a beach or frolicking in the rain forest like the people in the photos.

I just finished facilitating a 6-week book discussion course on Even Mystics Have Bills to Pay by Rev. Jim Rosemergy, a longtime Unity minister who is currently pastoring a church in Fort Myers, Florida. Rev. Rosemergy is a mystic at heart, which means the underlying theme in all of his teachings is that rather than seek material things or particular circumstances in our lives, we should put aside our earthly needs and turn our attention to seeking God.  By trusting that an awareness of God's presence is enough and by cultivating such an awareness, he says, we will find that all of our earthly needs are met.  With these teachings fresh in my mind as I walked along the edge of the pond near my house, I asked myself if God could be enough to satisfy my longing.

It's funny to watch where my mind goes when I am attempting to alleviate my own discomfort.  My initial thought was that I wasn't willing to let go of my desire to be traveling.  I didn't think that a consciousness of God could be sufficient to quell my craving.  This, along with a nagging fear that I might never have the means to travel the way I'd like to, made me feel even worse than my initial feeling of petty jealousy over the Facebook photos.

Thankfully, my next thought was to ask myself, "What is it that this type of travel represents for me?  What am I really yearning for here?"  My answer to that question was simple: I am yearning for some time to rest; I am yearning for a change of scenery; I am yearning to experience something new; I am yearning to have fun with my family.  Once I had distilled my hunger down to these basic terms, I asked myself again - could God be enough to satisfy my longing? And this time my answer was "yes."  I decided I could trust that in seeking God and God alone, my longing for rest and adventure and fun might be satisfied.  It might not come to me in the form of a vacation to Costa Rica, but I am willing to let go of my earthly desire and seek God and see what happens.

~REBECCA