“You are not a drop in the ocean. You are the entire ocean in a drop.” — Rumi

It’s my birthday. I could not have picked a more appropriate quote for the day I was born. Can you imagine what our lives would be like if we truly lived this message from Rumi? We would know that everything we could possibly require is right where we are.

Rumi likens God or Source Energy to the ocean. It contains everything it needs for its existence. It is self-sufficient. Nothing can be added or taken away.

As for us, sometimes we feel small and needy. We look to fulfill ourselves through outside circumstances. We think the outside world takes something from us. We believe we are missing something—whether it is love, health, money, or our right livelihood. But, as Rumi reminds us, all of God is right where we are. There is nothing to seek or want; we lack nothing.

I awoke this morning thinking about myself on my birthday. I was catapulted back to my childhood and how I used dramatic play to maneuver through some of the unsettling experiences I was having. I had my fantasy world, and I used it. I made up plays, directed my friends in my stories, built forts in the woods, and created magic shows.

My creativity was my savior, so to speak. It was God living and breathing through me and moving me through my childhood to become the creative person I am today. It made me feel blessed instead of hurt.

Martha Creek wrote this on another card I picked today:
“There are two roads. One hurts and one doesn’t.”

Which road will you take today?

I also thought about my own children this morning. I didn’t wonder about their lives or worry about them. Instead, I reflected on how I had done the best I could to mother them, and how they are, in a very real sense, their own life-makers.

They are the ocean in a drop—a Divine expression living out their lives from what they learned from their father and me, and from who they already were when they came to this earth. They took what they needed to become the people they are today.

I must accept that it is their life. Their journey. I marvel from a distance, watching it unfold and trusting their perfect fulfillment.

Ernest Holmes wrote,
“Let us seek the good and the true and believe in them with our whole heart.”

Yes, on my 73rd birthday, I believe I have done this.

I believe that if there were not more good in the world than what we call “bad,” we wouldn’t exist for even a moment. The good is here, and we experience it to the degree that we choose to see the world that way.

There is a lot happening right now that seems anything but good. And yet, I have hope for peace. I have faith in all of us that we will see the good we are seeking is within us—yearning to be expressed now more than ever.

“There are two roads. One hurts and one doesn’t.”

Today, on my birthday, I strive to take the road that doesn’t hurt. That doesn’t mean I won’t experience pain. It simply means I will give my pain a new perspective. I won’t try to control it. I will feel it, and it will not hurt as much as it would if I denied it.

I will take the creative road—the road that awakens the ocean within me, the God within me. I will let go of control and live fully in all that is.

My prayer for all of us is to know that peace comes from within. And for those who seek it from outside themselves through forces that are not peaceful, I pray they will work it out somewhere they can find their answers without hurting so many.

And if that doesn’t happen, I will still believe in the good—in them, in me, in all of us.

I will see it even when it is invisible.

I will remember, as Emma Curtis Hopkins said,
“Everyone is looking for their good,”
even though they sometimes do it in the most absurd ways.

I will stand for peace.
I will speak for peace.
I will live for peace.

I am an entire ocean in a drop—and so are you.

We are powerful beyond anything in the physical world.

And we are most definitely beginning to know it now.

Happy birthday to all of us,
Rev. Dr. Rita Andriello-Feren