Day 15

Happy Tax Day?!

However you're feeling about filing, I wish you as stress free a day as possible. (And the hope that that little extra grace of this weekend will help you if you're not quite finished yet.)

Tax Day is a pivot point, fittingly in the springtime. A chance to close last year's books and to finish last year's business. Returns filed, rebates (maybe) on the way, once we're past 4/15, winter is truly over, a new season is here. Time to turn the page.

Beyond squaring financial matters, there are other ways to head consciously into this green season. Taking stock of your life, taking a personal inventory. What feels unfinished from the season past that may keep you from the season present?

Imagine that today you had to file a Moral and Spiritual Return. What outstanding bills or debts are there? What still needs to be paid off or forgiven? And count the positive stuff as well, the credits and gifts in your life ledger. The debts of gratitude, too. An old hymn sings, "O to Grace, how great a debtor, daily I'm constrained to be." I don't hear guilt in that, I hear a conscious recounting of the gifts that help us to be alive.

Take a few, or many, minutes today to write out your Moral and Spiritual Return. Maybe share it with someone else, or keep it to yourself. And if it calls you to pay out, or pay in, or pay it back, or pay it forward, try to do so.

And if you're just really stressed that it's 4/15 and you're reading this damn blog instead of finishing your damn taxes, well, here's a little cute overload for you. Enjoy. And smile. It won't count against you.