And then the Dalai Lama appeared

Although I don't attend church regularly, I do think of myself as a very spiritual person. I know that there is some force in the universe that looks out for me, that sends me small blessings. I'm so grateful that I am aware enough to recognize them in the many forms in which they may appear.

This morning, for example. I had a physical last week, and this morning I finally got around to going for the bloodwork tests that my doctor recommended. I had to fast overnight, so I planned to go when the clinic up the road from my house opened at 7:30 am. I didn't have an appointment, but I thought that at 7:30 on a Tuesday morning, it shouldn't be too too busy, and hopefully the wait for walk-ins wouldn't be bad.

Ha! Although the clinic's doors opened at 7:30, the technicians didn't start showing up until 7:50. That meant they were behind before they even began! By the time the techs started calling names from the sign-in sheet, people with appointments started showing up. They, understandably, got seen first. But it was extremely frustrating to sit and wait for an hour when there was hardly anyone there when I first arrived.

On top of the wait time, of course, was the fact that I had fasted. So low blood sugar, and -- this cannot be overemphasized -- no coffee, was putting me in a pretty sour mood. The t.v. was blaring some health program with Dr. Sanjay Gupta (the one who reported falsely about Michael Moore's film "Sicko"), with some inane story about seeing a dermatologist to treat your split ends. Then the tech called my name and I went to the window, only to have her say "Oh. Sorry. Actually there's someone before you."

Too weak from lack of food and tired from lack of caffeine to argue, my shoulders simply dropped and I turned and went back to my seat.

But suddenly on the television there appeared the Dali Lama in all his serenity. The story was about dealing with stress, and his words were manna from heaven for my tired soul. He said, there is stress that is caused by physical problems with the body, but there is stress that is caused by a problem in the "thinking process." There is no cause for the stress other than me, which means that I can control the stress. And remembering that I have the power to do that was in itself a "stress reliever."

With some deep breaths, and a promise to buy myself a cup of coffee and an egg sandwich when this was all done, I made it through until my name was called -- for real this time. And man, was that the best cup of coffee I've had in a long, long, time. I really thought about that coffee, and it was good.