Forgiveness lessons: Losing my Gold
Recently I’ve been playing with a solid gold coin. It’s a quarter ounce gold piece – round, shiny, and dripping with golden abundance. I’ve been holding it in my hand as a way to bring the gold into my life, both on the inner plane as a holy blessing and on the outer plane as prosperity in all I am and all I do.
A few days ago, I lost the coin. I couldn’t find it anywhere, though I did all the sensible things -checked my pants pockets, retraced my steps, etc. I began to feel sad that it had disappeared, and angry with myself for losing it. Damn! I liked that coin! I saw my attachment, my assumption about what it meant to me, my annoyance with my irresponsibility. And the little thing is worth about $200, on top of it all.
Anyway, the next day I taught my first Uncovering Your Inner Rumi devotional poetry workshop. A wonderful group gathered in Mount Shasta, CA, to explore writing devotional poetry together. Since I was thinking about the gold coin, I wrote about a poem about it during the workshop. Here it is:
O Beloved
give me back my gold!
I lost it…yet could I ever lose it?
Jesus, your golden grace
coalesced in my hand
Lakshmi, I prayed for your help
Gone now
poof! it flew into the Mystery
Here is the teaching
if I dare:
never lost,never taken
this golden glow of mine.
Well, I really prayed that the coin would reappear, since I’d now gotten the lesson. A friend helped me search once more, and lo and behold – I found it! Where, you might ask? On my altar, where I’d placed it for safe-keeping, beside an image of the Hindu Goddess Lakshmi, goddess of grace, beauty and abundance.I had to laugh. Lakshmi had me covered – the whole time! Another life lesson: Divine Love holds my golden grace, even when I’ve forgotten it, and forgotten where I’ve put it. So good to know.


