a new name.

You may have noticed, this blog has a new name.

Wide-eyed, and filled with wonder.

Calling this space "The Next Step" didn't really feel appropriate anymore. Its not that I've lost interest in the next step, its just that I've been challenged for quite some time to think of what is immediate, and not about what is next. Its been a long lesson for me to learn what it means to be fully present. I still have nearly no idea, but I am finally learning.

All I can tell you is that the moments when I've later realized that I was fully present are the most whole and fulfilling moments I have ever experienced. It isn't necessarily that something profound or important occurs during them, its just that momentarily everything is whole. I'm not fragmented.

All that to say, I'm not as interested in learning what the next step is as I am in being exactly where I am (well, in theory). And once I'm there, to be able to find that all things are laced with beauty and mystery. All things are laced with God.

I've been learning that the more I am aware of the Divine, the more I become aware of the Divine. Sounds silly and redundant, but its true.

God has been everywhere.

And you all have been teaching me. Whether or not you know it (and you probably don't), you have. In his book "Honey From the Rock", Lawrence Kushner describes what I'm trying to say:

"While those on errands of this world almost always know that they are sent and where and why, people chosen to be messengers of the Most High rarely even know that they are His messengers. Unsuspecting and unaware. Consumed by their own plans and itineraries. Busy at work on their own schemes. God is already sending them somewhere else.

There must have been a time when you entered a room and met someone and after a while you understood that unknown to either of you there was a reason you had met. You had changed the other or he had changed you. By some word or deed or just by your presence the errand had been completed. Then perhaps you were a little bewildered or humbled and grateful. And it was over.

And so we understand that ordinary people are messengers of the Most High. They go about their tasks in holy anonymity. Often, even unknown to themselves. Yet, if they had not been there, if they had not said what they said or did what they did, it would not be the way it is now. We would not be the way we are now. Never forget that you too yourself may be a messenger.

Remember only that you are not always going where you are going for the reasons you think you are."

And so, you may be malachey elyon (messengers of the Most High). Many of you are completely unaware that you have been this in my life. I'm not sure if its presumptuous to say, but I said it. And those of you who think its least likely that it has been you--its you.

Its as though the one thing that I'm in need of is the one thing that is given to me from the place I least expect it. And this is becoming routine. And I'm finding myself wide-eyed, and filled with wonder.