How do we get through the day, through life, with some sense that it's worth it? How can those everyday activities -- work, casual conversation, coping with traffic, worrying about the domestic situation or an international crisis, dealing with a sales clerk, helping the kids with whatever they need, watching TV, eating a meal -- be called living abundantly? Where is the zest, the spark, the meaning? What can I do to make it better?

This is a control issue. To what extent can I choose or change the events that happen in and to my life? Not much. There are some choices that I can make, and my actions based on those choices will have consequences. If I can find the courage, I can change the things that are within my power to change. But these are few; life is too complex for any one person to make a great difference. So what about the things I cannot change? I need to find a way to avoid being a victim of them?

Is the answer to "let go and let God?" Well, yes, if that means accepting the things that are going to happen anyway. But, no, not if by that we mean that God will step in and change the events that we cannot change -- perhaps to our benefit. For me, it seems better to simply say that there is serenity in letting go of that which we cannot control.

Another way to try to control events is to pray for that which we want to happen. Then if we don't get what we asked for, we don't blame God. Rather, we say that God knew better than we did what the answer to the prayer should be. Isn't this just another way of recognizing, though not really accepting, that life is as it is, that what is going to happen is going to happen? This seems to be a way of trying to tell ourselves that we have a degree of control, i.e., we may be able to influence God. It is a way of letting go, but not really.

A few years ago when our granddaughter was about five years old, she and I were driving down Indianola Avenue and she said, "Look Grandpa, there's my school." I said, "Yes, Katie, and it's also a church, isn't it?" (Her pre-school was housed in it.) She said, "No, Grandpa, it's my school! Grandpa, everything is just as it is!"

Can I make any difference then, beyond those few things that I can change? Yes, because even though I may not be able to change an event, I can affect its significance for my life. I can view an event as a disaster or as an opportunity to learn. I can see what happens as grace, a gift for me. I can even understand that earthquakes, though deadly for some humans, are necessary adjustments in the geological base upon which we depend for life.

When I can't change events, I can change my response to them. I can change me. I can determine, with my response, from my perspective, whether life, at that moment, is secular or sacred; I determine its degree of spirituality.

Sometimes we assume that there is a plan for our lives, that someone, somewhere, knows what that plan is and sends us signals. And we say, "You must have come into my life for a reason," or "God sent that adversity so that I would ...," or "I wonder why this book came to my attention just when I needed it most for my journey." Jung called that synchronicity. I don't believe that there is a plan for my life, but there are clearly some paths that lead to or permit expression of the real authentic me, and some that do not. If I pay attention to the clues that I can pick up about life as it is, then I can find ways to respond that will help me live in harmony with the way the universe works. I can apprehend those clues in dreams, in my intuitive response to life around me, in identifying synchronous happenings, and in searching the wisdom of the Great Ones of all cultures.

Living in harmony means going with the flow, but not, as I understand Eastern thought, by adopting a passive stance, by doing nothing. It is a form of discipline, exemplified, perhaps, by the well-trained athlete who is so skilled that he or she receives maximal results from what appears to be minimal effort. The good athlete enters a state of body-awareness in which the right movement happens by itself, without an effort of the will. The dancer becomes the dance; the poet becomes the poem.

If I "live as if loving is the only thing that matters," then I will have some effect on events that happen in my life and the lives of others. The larger effect may be on the quality of my own life. To live within an aura of love is to see all that exists as significant to me, and me as significant to all. My life can be lived in a state of inclusivity that rejects no one, that invites rather than rejects those who are not me. I will see that what happens to others is happening to me. And I will want to make what difference I can.

That, I think, is a better definition of prayer. Rather than asking God for what I perceive as response to a need, I would live a life of cosmic connectedness -- interrelated to God in all things -- participating in unconditional love to the greatest extent that I can, to the extent that love doesn't have to be an act of conscious will.

If I sense my connection, through creation and evolution, to all of life, from its very beginning and into its long future, then I will act toward the environment as though I were it and it were me, which it is when all reality is seen as a unity.

Is this just advice to look at the world through rose-colored glasses, an exercise in optimism? Is it a way of glossing over the flaws, of being blind to evil, of ignoring pain?

We answer those questions by testing the consequences, don't we. What difference does it make to live in accord with the paragraphs above? What happens in my growth toward health and wholeness? Are the lives of any others affected in a positive way? Is society better in any noticeable way?

(As I write, I am listening to Louis Armstrong singing "What A Wonderful World." Affirmations help to make it so.)

"This is a day that the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it." This is an important affirmation that I would amend to say, "This is a day that the Lord and I make..." (ascribing to the Lord credit or blame for all facets of the day that I cannot make or remake). I believe in co-creation; I accept that responsibility.

I grew up in the Methodist Youth Fellowship (MYF) and attended camps and conferences where we would go out at dusk (a mysterious time) and hold an outdoor worship service on a hilltop, and watch the fire, or candles, or stars as the day ended. It was a magic time, a time we identified as spiritual, and we referred to it as a mountaintop experience. Because that was my view of spirituality -- meeting God in a special place of worship and among others who shared the experience, or maybe privately in my own place set aside for prayer and meditation -- I have been slow to come to the realization that spirituality is in every experience of grace. It is in the quality of those everyday happenings which we find to be grace-full, where the God in us meets the God of grace. The life of the spirit is lived as we chop wood and carry water.

As I think about beliefs that have consequences, I find myself asking these questions:

Is my faith inclusive? Does it honor all people, however different their beliefs or practices? Or does it draw boundaries that include and exclude? Is it a "both/and" rather than an "either/or," "we/they" religion?

Is God found within us? Can we see all humans as having a divine spark, a Christ within? If we fail to see God in each human being, how much more likely are we to limit our actions to our own self-interest? And if we honor the God within, how much more likely are we to actualize who we are, to become our real selves?

Is God understood as integral with all reality? John Bradshaw suggests that we do such damage to the environment because we see God as separate, as other, rather than, with Native Americans, as a spirit within the natural world. The environment is not likely to be preserved by people who believe that they have been given dominion over the earth and its creatures. It is preserved by those who know that to desecrate the earth is to inflict violence on the Great Spirit.

Is discovering and being "me" -- the most authentic and complete ME that I can be -- a higher value than any right belief or right action?