Congratulations to Meet You

I love the book I'm reading right now. It's called "Eat, Pray, Love", about a woman's one-year journey of self-exploration. She journey's first to Italy, for pleasure, then to India, for spiritual-enlightenment, then Bali, to find a balance of both. I don't agree with the author, who is a firm believer in God (good) and that there is NOT just one way to him (not so good). However, the narrative voice in the book stirs something within me. Her incessant need to see the world, and more importantly, interact with all the people therein, is a calling I can relate to.

Her journey starts in Italy. As I read this part of the book, I am overcome with envy. The woman takes 4 months to do the following: eat and talk. Good Lord, that would be awesome! (Actually, I kind of do that now, I just don't do it with a purpose). She is learning Italian, which she calls the most beautiful language in the world. I concur. My favorite word she explains in her book is "atrevesiamo" which means "let us cross over" in Italian. It's a term that is used when crossing the street, but more poetically, it can mean that it is time for two people to move on from a certain situation, fight, or period of time. My second favorite word has to be "Apetsi" which means, loosely translated, "my little moron."

She then goes to India, happier and 35lbs more heavy. She lives in an Ashram, or a temple/dorm/thingy. (This is also where a sweet Hindu man greets her every morning with "congratulations to meet you." Here is where I plan on stealing some of the information that she shares and applying it in my life. First and foremost, meditation. When we say that word, we think Ohm, buddhist and hindu statues, and weird orange robes. Actually, meditation is a spiritual discipline in Christianity, and it is found in almost every religion in one form or another. So, here is my quest. This is my Spring Break, for the the next 5 days, I am going to start every day in 30 minute meditation. She describes meditation in detail, and I am going to be selective in which parts I will do. (I understand that this isn't how it's supposed to be done, but that's alright). First, I will remain utterly and completely still. I will fail at this, but I will try. Then, I will remain utterly and completely silent. At this, I will MOST certainly fail. For it's mental silence as much as it is verbal. I plan on praying to the Lord, then remaining silent, waiting on His voice. I like the way she put it. "Prayer is the act of talking to God, meditation is the practice of listening." Wanna take a wild guess on which one I'm better at?

I'll be blogging daily, so you can feel my failures and (hopefully) small triumphs with me.

And now, atrevesiamo.