I passed through the front door of my agency tonight after staying a bit late to finish up some details. I pulled my rolling briefcase, loaded with computer and files, as well as things I'd cleaned out of the office refrigerator. Will I or won't I? That was the question. I work for the federal government and as our fearless congressional leaders play with our lives, those of us whose jobs may dissolve at the stroke of midnight mostly just want to serve our mission. Will I be able to do my job or won't I? Will I have a job tomorrow or won't I? Will I get paid or won't I?
By the time I reached the Metro station a block away, I was in another place. I am living with ambiguity today and, if truth be known, always. Most of the time our minds convince us that we know what we are doing and what is going on around us. Truth be known: we can't possibly know. Ever.
Ambiguity is mystery. God is mystery. The more uncertain we are, the closer we are to God. As my walking meditation continued, I asked myself what I thought was a rhetorical question: if I am being my most whole, how do I navigate ambiguity? But instead of lingering without answer, the answer was there in an instant. "Be present."
Oh, that again. There is a pattern here.
I knew in an instant that the answer was right. Just float in the now and then check in with the heart. The answer is always right. We don't need to know what is going on around us; we just need to know that answer inside of us will tell us what we need to know next.
My day has been long, and I am tired. As I prepare to go to bed, I don't know whether I will go to work tomorrow or if I will go to work for a week or even several weeks. I don't know whether I will have money to buy groceries or not. I do know one thing: I don't need to know. I just need to be present...and listen.
Monday, September 30, 2013
Sunday, September 29, 2013
Being
Yesterday I wrote about being present--being fully where we are when we are there. As I've continued to ponder "being present," I am brought back to one of my favorite topics: being. Leading from the Heart, my first book, was about our being: who each of us is, stripped away from the "having" and "doing."
Sometimes I have waves of "knowing" when something seems perfectly clear for the first time, and then I realize I had known that before. So it is with "being" today. I had this realization that "being" is looking inwardly to listen, feel, and hear who we are. Earlier I spoke (Beginning Again, 9/22/13) about the message, etched on the back of each of our hearts, that we brought into this life. When we are "being," we are attuned to that message. We may not be able to articulate what it is, but we "know" who we are and why we are here. It is the internal of "being present," except that this "being present" is being present to this moment on the inside.
Then, I realized that is what I wrote in Leading from the Heart. I've known it for at least 20 years. But I also knew it 15 years ago when I wrote Choice Point and 11 years ago when I was writing The Game Called Life. Why does it suddenly seem like such a spiritual breakthrough? Because I am writing again? When I am writing, what I know in my heart pours onto the page without passing through my brain. I think what is different this time is that I seemed to really "get it" without my keyboard. It was just there when I was making a salad for lunch, and it was there when I was watching something on TV, and it was still there when I awakened from my nap.
When I am present to what I know in my heart, I am perfectly attuned to the larger "I Am," a knowing of what we all know when we are in the ribbon of love that connects us, heart to heart, across time and space. I suspect that it is part of the universal message that we all know in our hearts, but maybe it is my message to bring to the world. Or maybe when I bring it to the world, others will awaken to that universal message.
There is a line in the Hindu sacred text The Upanishads about "the sleeping state that men call waking." I was struck speechless when I read it for the first time. We autopilot through life, moving about as if we are awake, but really we are in some kind of trance. It is only in the moments when we choose to "be present" to the world around us or "be" present to our hearts that we are really awake. We re-member our purpose, and we find the courage to be it. Now. Being...in the present.
Sometimes I have waves of "knowing" when something seems perfectly clear for the first time, and then I realize I had known that before. So it is with "being" today. I had this realization that "being" is looking inwardly to listen, feel, and hear who we are. Earlier I spoke (Beginning Again, 9/22/13) about the message, etched on the back of each of our hearts, that we brought into this life. When we are "being," we are attuned to that message. We may not be able to articulate what it is, but we "know" who we are and why we are here. It is the internal of "being present," except that this "being present" is being present to this moment on the inside.
Then, I realized that is what I wrote in Leading from the Heart. I've known it for at least 20 years. But I also knew it 15 years ago when I wrote Choice Point and 11 years ago when I was writing The Game Called Life. Why does it suddenly seem like such a spiritual breakthrough? Because I am writing again? When I am writing, what I know in my heart pours onto the page without passing through my brain. I think what is different this time is that I seemed to really "get it" without my keyboard. It was just there when I was making a salad for lunch, and it was there when I was watching something on TV, and it was still there when I awakened from my nap.
When I am present to what I know in my heart, I am perfectly attuned to the larger "I Am," a knowing of what we all know when we are in the ribbon of love that connects us, heart to heart, across time and space. I suspect that it is part of the universal message that we all know in our hearts, but maybe it is my message to bring to the world. Or maybe when I bring it to the world, others will awaken to that universal message.
There is a line in the Hindu sacred text The Upanishads about "the sleeping state that men call waking." I was struck speechless when I read it for the first time. We autopilot through life, moving about as if we are awake, but really we are in some kind of trance. It is only in the moments when we choose to "be present" to the world around us or "be" present to our hearts that we are really awake. We re-member our purpose, and we find the courage to be it. Now. Being...in the present.
Saturday, September 28, 2013
Being present
I raced into the Metro Station today and continued to race toward each tier of escalators, knowing that because of weekend track maintenance that, if I missed this train, there would be a significant wait before the next one. I got behind one slow person after another blocking the escalators. Of course, I could see the red tail lights of the train leaving the station just as I passed through the turn style.
Deep sigh!
Everything is a gift I told myself. Really I did. One of my proudest accomplishments on my journey is that even when I get caught up in life, most often I do catch myself very quickly and embrace the recognition as a gift.
I walked to my place on the platform, sat down, closed my eyes, and began to breathe each of my new spiritual learning statements in. By the time I got to the last one, I was actually present. I sat and felt my body, my breathing, and my heart.
When the next train pulled into the station, I was relaxed and smiling from ear to ear. The rest of my day just flowed. I don't really think anything changed about my day except me: I showed up to enjoy it.
Being present: what a concept! How much of my life have I missed just because I wasn't there. Today was a great day and that was a wonderful lesson....again. How many times have I learned it just to forget? The thing about the spiritual journey is that we can start fresh every day.
Oh, yeah...
Deep sigh!
Everything is a gift I told myself. Really I did. One of my proudest accomplishments on my journey is that even when I get caught up in life, most often I do catch myself very quickly and embrace the recognition as a gift.
I walked to my place on the platform, sat down, closed my eyes, and began to breathe each of my new spiritual learning statements in. By the time I got to the last one, I was actually present. I sat and felt my body, my breathing, and my heart.
When the next train pulled into the station, I was relaxed and smiling from ear to ear. The rest of my day just flowed. I don't really think anything changed about my day except me: I showed up to enjoy it.
Being present: what a concept! How much of my life have I missed just because I wasn't there. Today was a great day and that was a wonderful lesson....again. How many times have I learned it just to forget? The thing about the spiritual journey is that we can start fresh every day.
Oh, yeah...
Friday, September 27, 2013
The Truth Will Set Me Free
This post is longer than usual, but spiritual wrestling matches are rarely short and sweet. I hope you will ride this one with me.
Several religious traditions have some concept of God as mystery. I have written and spoken at length about "Not-Knowing" as a place where we know we don't know but we are consciously seeking the Truth. Ambiguity reigns. I've called "Not-Knowing" the most quintessentially spiritual state that we can hold. These ponderings--and they truly are ponderings--come from that place of "Not-Knowing," where I know two things that appear to contradict each other. AND, I have not yet reached a higher level of Truth where I can see how both are true.
Two or three times a year I adopt a few spiritual statements to guide my growth over the next few months. I recently adopted seven new ones. Four I can get my head around, but I am still learning to live them. Three are really stretching me:
I believe it was the I Ching that first said, "When the student is ready, the teacher will appear." Apparently, this student must be ready, because before the ink was dry on my affirmations, my Socratic teacher began presenting questions. Three big questions have presented me with the opportunity (translate that as hard spiritual work) to discover the Truth that will set me free. Lest you think I've gotten there, spirituality is a journey, and right now I have no idea where this one is going.
I've often had people ask me after an address or presentation, "How can you say that someone like Adolf Hitler is Love? How can you say that we should want to connect with him?" Twenty years ago I hadn't really "gotten" exactly how complex and ambiguous the Mystery could be. I would often reply that what Hitler did was horrible. However, because things were so horrible, we now had the United Nations where we could work things out and hold dictators accountable over a conference table instead of a battleground. (OK. I admit that was naïve even in the mid-90s when we thought that global transformation was right around the corner.)
Now, I ponder. There are people who do evil things. Genocide does still exist. Dictators continue to kill their own people. One ethnic group kills another on a massive scale over and again. On a smaller scale, individuals walk in with guns and regularly shoot a dozen others (or more) before they are stopped. Individuals steal pensions or homes from hard-working individuals. Other individuals lie, cheat, and steal to intentionally harm others. Can they and I both be Love?
In my as-yet unpublished book Choice Point--Seven Keys to Living with Intention I quote columnist Tom Ehrich from his "On the Journey" newsletter:
I am a pacifist by nature, and I have opposed most military actions of this government in my life time. I think there can almost always be a better way to resolve a problem than war. Solving violence with more violence has never made sense to me on either a micro or macro level. Violence is self-destructive. From my ribbon of love perspective, violence injures what connects us. When we hurt others, we hurt ourselves. Yet I have been horrified as I have watched several genocides where the world saw fit to do nothing. What are we to do?
The more immediate questions that my teacher has presented are much more personal. The second troubling question was presented almost as quickly when one more mentally ill man who had acquired a gun shot a large number people and did so not very far from where I work and live. It is much easier for me to have compassion for someone with mental illness than it is for all the people that crossed his life (or those of several before him over the last few years) and chose not to show him the compassion to insist he get help. I have to go back to what Arent said. Have all of our consciences stopped working that it is easier to turn the other way than to insist than to get help for someone? And perhaps the bigger question is why it is so difficult to get help for someone before they commit massive acts of violence. If the Truth will set me free, what am I to do with this?
On a much more micro level, the third question my teacher has presented to me is how to relate to a person with whom I must interact almost daily who engages in behaviors which are destructive to others. I am keenly aware of the consequences in saying something: the history and career trajectory of whistleblowers is ugly. Yet the consequences of not saying something is even uglier: think of all the people who lost everything in scandals like Enron and the 2008 financial melt-down.
I am grateful that I have been blessed with extremely high integrity bosses and those business owners that patronized my business were almost always scrupulous about doing the right thing. I don't know if I had just been lucky in the past or if things have changed, but clearly some of the people around me in recent years have been aiming lower.
A few years ago I sat in a meeting and listened to my boss lie to a client. When we walked out of that meeting, she literally looked at my colleague and me and said, "It isn't ever going to happen." When I probed more, "Everyone does it," was the answer. I wrestled with what the right thing to do was, but about that time the client retired and I was offered a different assignment. I started to write that it was easy to just forget. That is not the Truth. I never forgot. That I did nothing and didn't know what to do still eats at my soul.
Just a few months later, the same boss was misrepresenting what we could and would do to my new client. I knew I couldn't continue to work in that environment. I was just beginning to recover from the havoc the dot.com bust had wreaked in my life: I needed the job. I began praying for a door to open, and at warp-speed one did. Within an hour, I had a job offer, and they wanted me as soon as possible. I was able to get out of the situation, but once again the fact that I didn't do anything has eaten at my soul--pinpricks in my integrity is what I called this in The Game Called Life. In both situations people and organizations were hurt. I am certain that I couldn't have stopped the behavior in either case. If I am Love, and my clients are Love, how could I do nothing? A few months later I contacted the second client, met him for lunch, and apologized. He said that he knew it wasn't me. That felt a little better. But I am back to Arent's proposition that multiple consciences have stopped working for us to get to the point that doing bad things is OK if everyone else is doing it.
Once again I am in a situation in which I am witness to bad behavior, don't know in advance to stop it, and observe deaf ears from those who could and should stop it. Ugly personal consequences to me resulted when I attempted to stop it. I could live with those consequences if something changed, but they didn't. Things got worse instead of better.
Thank you, teacher. I am really grateful for this lesson. ;-) How do I act from love and compassion, how do I avoid injury to others including the perpetrator, and how do I feed the ribbon of love in this situation? I am certain the Truth will set me free. Sooner would be nice.
What I know in my heart today is that knowing the right thing to do isn't always apparent or easy, but staying in the Mystery to allow a Higher Level of Truth to become clear will set me free.
Several religious traditions have some concept of God as mystery. I have written and spoken at length about "Not-Knowing" as a place where we know we don't know but we are consciously seeking the Truth. Ambiguity reigns. I've called "Not-Knowing" the most quintessentially spiritual state that we can hold. These ponderings--and they truly are ponderings--come from that place of "Not-Knowing," where I know two things that appear to contradict each other. AND, I have not yet reached a higher level of Truth where I can see how both are true.
Two or three times a year I adopt a few spiritual statements to guide my growth over the next few months. I recently adopted seven new ones. Four I can get my head around, but I am still learning to live them. Three are really stretching me:
- I am Love.
- The Truth is: We are all Love.
- The Truth will set me free.
I believe it was the I Ching that first said, "When the student is ready, the teacher will appear." Apparently, this student must be ready, because before the ink was dry on my affirmations, my Socratic teacher began presenting questions. Three big questions have presented me with the opportunity (translate that as hard spiritual work) to discover the Truth that will set me free. Lest you think I've gotten there, spirituality is a journey, and right now I have no idea where this one is going.
I've often had people ask me after an address or presentation, "How can you say that someone like Adolf Hitler is Love? How can you say that we should want to connect with him?" Twenty years ago I hadn't really "gotten" exactly how complex and ambiguous the Mystery could be. I would often reply that what Hitler did was horrible. However, because things were so horrible, we now had the United Nations where we could work things out and hold dictators accountable over a conference table instead of a battleground. (OK. I admit that was naïve even in the mid-90s when we thought that global transformation was right around the corner.)
Now, I ponder. There are people who do evil things. Genocide does still exist. Dictators continue to kill their own people. One ethnic group kills another on a massive scale over and again. On a smaller scale, individuals walk in with guns and regularly shoot a dozen others (or more) before they are stopped. Individuals steal pensions or homes from hard-working individuals. Other individuals lie, cheat, and steal to intentionally harm others. Can they and I both be Love?
In my as-yet unpublished book Choice Point--Seven Keys to Living with Intention I quote columnist Tom Ehrich from his "On the Journey" newsletter:
"...As Hannah Arent wrote in her disturbing study of Nazi German, that evil empire could not proceed unless evil became banal, or common. For something obviously wrong to proceed, multiple consciences must stop working. Entire communities must grow numb and choose not to see any connection between abusive behavior and oneself."After the recent gassing of 1300 people in Syria, I was incredulous that polls showed that most Americans could see no reason for our involvement. We could only have grown numb and chosen not to see any connection between the chemical attacks and ourselves. (I am delighted that a diplomatic alternative to military action emerged. My issue is that a large percentage of people--70 to 80 percent-- were unable to connect the dots between what was happening in Syria and the harm we were allowing to ourselves as part of the larger human community.)
I am a pacifist by nature, and I have opposed most military actions of this government in my life time. I think there can almost always be a better way to resolve a problem than war. Solving violence with more violence has never made sense to me on either a micro or macro level. Violence is self-destructive. From my ribbon of love perspective, violence injures what connects us. When we hurt others, we hurt ourselves. Yet I have been horrified as I have watched several genocides where the world saw fit to do nothing. What are we to do?
The more immediate questions that my teacher has presented are much more personal. The second troubling question was presented almost as quickly when one more mentally ill man who had acquired a gun shot a large number people and did so not very far from where I work and live. It is much easier for me to have compassion for someone with mental illness than it is for all the people that crossed his life (or those of several before him over the last few years) and chose not to show him the compassion to insist he get help. I have to go back to what Arent said. Have all of our consciences stopped working that it is easier to turn the other way than to insist than to get help for someone? And perhaps the bigger question is why it is so difficult to get help for someone before they commit massive acts of violence. If the Truth will set me free, what am I to do with this?
On a much more micro level, the third question my teacher has presented to me is how to relate to a person with whom I must interact almost daily who engages in behaviors which are destructive to others. I am keenly aware of the consequences in saying something: the history and career trajectory of whistleblowers is ugly. Yet the consequences of not saying something is even uglier: think of all the people who lost everything in scandals like Enron and the 2008 financial melt-down.
I am grateful that I have been blessed with extremely high integrity bosses and those business owners that patronized my business were almost always scrupulous about doing the right thing. I don't know if I had just been lucky in the past or if things have changed, but clearly some of the people around me in recent years have been aiming lower.
A few years ago I sat in a meeting and listened to my boss lie to a client. When we walked out of that meeting, she literally looked at my colleague and me and said, "It isn't ever going to happen." When I probed more, "Everyone does it," was the answer. I wrestled with what the right thing to do was, but about that time the client retired and I was offered a different assignment. I started to write that it was easy to just forget. That is not the Truth. I never forgot. That I did nothing and didn't know what to do still eats at my soul.
Just a few months later, the same boss was misrepresenting what we could and would do to my new client. I knew I couldn't continue to work in that environment. I was just beginning to recover from the havoc the dot.com bust had wreaked in my life: I needed the job. I began praying for a door to open, and at warp-speed one did. Within an hour, I had a job offer, and they wanted me as soon as possible. I was able to get out of the situation, but once again the fact that I didn't do anything has eaten at my soul--pinpricks in my integrity is what I called this in The Game Called Life. In both situations people and organizations were hurt. I am certain that I couldn't have stopped the behavior in either case. If I am Love, and my clients are Love, how could I do nothing? A few months later I contacted the second client, met him for lunch, and apologized. He said that he knew it wasn't me. That felt a little better. But I am back to Arent's proposition that multiple consciences have stopped working for us to get to the point that doing bad things is OK if everyone else is doing it.
Once again I am in a situation in which I am witness to bad behavior, don't know in advance to stop it, and observe deaf ears from those who could and should stop it. Ugly personal consequences to me resulted when I attempted to stop it. I could live with those consequences if something changed, but they didn't. Things got worse instead of better.
Thank you, teacher. I am really grateful for this lesson. ;-) How do I act from love and compassion, how do I avoid injury to others including the perpetrator, and how do I feed the ribbon of love in this situation? I am certain the Truth will set me free. Sooner would be nice.
What I know in my heart today is that knowing the right thing to do isn't always apparent or easy, but staying in the Mystery to allow a Higher Level of Truth to become clear will set me free.
Wednesday, September 25, 2013
Making a life
"We make a living by what we get, we make a life by what we give." Winston Churchill
Yesterday I wrote about gratitude, and although we usually think about being grateful for something we receive, I did introduce the concept of giving as an element of gratitude. Today, I want to focus on giving. We can give many things. Money and things are easy to give. Time, commitment, focus, consistency, and passion are harder. These require that we give of ourselves--our life energy.
I am guilty of saying, "I'd really like to do that, but I don't have time." What I am saying is that I don't make that thing a priority in my life. Yet when I look at the time that I fritter away every week in activities that are meaningless to me, it is clear that time is not the issue. What has been lacking are commitment, focus, and consistency.
For at least a half dozen years, I'd talked about starting a blog about heart-knowing. Only this week have I mustered the commitment, focus, consistency, and, yes, time to actually do so. When I pushed myself to my computer to write my blog last night, I was really tired, and it was late. Where would the energy come from to write? But, I was committed to writing daily. A funny thing happened: by the time I was done writing, I was energized, satisfied, and passionate about what I'd written. I thought I was giving to others, and my gift came back to me tenfold.
I am not sure why I was surprised. Each time I've written a book my time in the "flow" state with the words tumbling out of me like water from a waterfall has left me deeply satisfied and with a heart warmth that glows from inside of me.
Whatever our gifts may be, when we make using them a priority, we give to the world the very thing we came here to give...and we are making a life by doing so. That's what I know in my heart today.
Yesterday I wrote about gratitude, and although we usually think about being grateful for something we receive, I did introduce the concept of giving as an element of gratitude. Today, I want to focus on giving. We can give many things. Money and things are easy to give. Time, commitment, focus, consistency, and passion are harder. These require that we give of ourselves--our life energy.
I am guilty of saying, "I'd really like to do that, but I don't have time." What I am saying is that I don't make that thing a priority in my life. Yet when I look at the time that I fritter away every week in activities that are meaningless to me, it is clear that time is not the issue. What has been lacking are commitment, focus, and consistency.
For at least a half dozen years, I'd talked about starting a blog about heart-knowing. Only this week have I mustered the commitment, focus, consistency, and, yes, time to actually do so. When I pushed myself to my computer to write my blog last night, I was really tired, and it was late. Where would the energy come from to write? But, I was committed to writing daily. A funny thing happened: by the time I was done writing, I was energized, satisfied, and passionate about what I'd written. I thought I was giving to others, and my gift came back to me tenfold.
I am not sure why I was surprised. Each time I've written a book my time in the "flow" state with the words tumbling out of me like water from a waterfall has left me deeply satisfied and with a heart warmth that glows from inside of me.
Whatever our gifts may be, when we make using them a priority, we give to the world the very thing we came here to give...and we are making a life by doing so. That's what I know in my heart today.
Tuesday, September 24, 2013
Gratitude
Gratitude has been on my heart lately. A friend sent me an article today on gratitude. In the email exchange that followed, I was reminded for the 1000th or 10,000th time that, whenever my life is off kilter, one thing will instantly begin to right the ship: renewing my gratitude practice.
Gratitude practice. Something I do, over and over again so that I get better at it. In those off-kilter periods, it is easy to be dragged into what isn't working in my life. Gratitude turns that all around. Gratitude implies that I focus on what is working. Soon I notice that more and more is working. This is the part I really don't understand: why do I stop? Or even, when do I stop? I don't usually realize that I've stopped until things are off-kilter. Then I have a palm-against-the head "Duh!" moment: I had stopped practicing gratitude.
Almost 20 years ago now, I received an act of pure grace--a gift that we receive (often attributed to God or Higher Power) that we didn't ask for. It just shows up. Writer Scott Peck used to say that grace was like grits in the south. Before the homogenization of food by chains across the country, travelers through the south would receive grits on their plates three meals a day--they were just added to every plate. I remember receiving my unordered grits as child from the north. First question: what in the world is that? Then: I didn't order that! To which the incredulous waitress in starched yellow and white gingham said, "Everyone gets grits, but we don't charge for them." That is grace. A gift that we didn't ask for, just shows up, and doesn't cost anything.
Anyway, about my act of grace. I'd bumped into a friend in a parking lot. She told me about a weekend seminar that she'd attended on gratitude. I was curious. She reached into her car and pulled out a packaged set of cassette tapes. (I did say this was 20 years ago.) She told me to listen to them. Knowing I was at a transition in my life, she wished for me a breakthrough similar to the one she'd had.
Less than a day later, I was awakened in the most excruciating pain I could imagine. It was the start of a six-week battle with a raging infection that would eventually cause my neck to break. I literally couldn't get out of bed. Throughout the whole six weeks, my small boom box sat on my bed. (Did I say it was 20 years ago?) I'd pop in a tape, push the start button, and almost as soon as the tape started, I'd doze off until the end of the tape would pop, signaling that is was finished and waking just long enough to start the cycle again.
I have no idea how many times I heard those tapes, but over and again, I'd turn the tape, push start, and fade away. On a subliminal level though, the messages were sinking in. There were three keys that the speaker described that, if done for 30 days, promised to transform the listener's life:
So there I lay, in excruciating pain and unable to move out of bed. But, I wanted to try it. I pulled out my journal. How could I get through this pain and communicate with my doctors without complaining? How could I give gifts when I could hardly move? I tried, though, and I started over several times. This is the practice that I embark on anew whenever my life is out of sorts. For years, and several times each year, I practice. An amazing phenomenon occurs every time: I have never been able to give more gifts than I've received in any day. Even on days when I set out to do nothing but give gifts, at the end of the day, I'd received more. Give 10: get 20. Give 20: get 50...and so on. Never fails!
One creation myth is that God created humans because she/he couldn't be happy without someone to give gifts to. We were created to receive gifts. Our reason for being is to receive gifts. Gratitude is the practice of focusing our attention on the gift of receiving. That's what I know in my heart today!
NOTE: I believe in giving credit where it is due, but I truly don't remember the speaker on the tapes, but if any of you do, please let me know. I'd love to publish it.
Gratitude practice. Something I do, over and over again so that I get better at it. In those off-kilter periods, it is easy to be dragged into what isn't working in my life. Gratitude turns that all around. Gratitude implies that I focus on what is working. Soon I notice that more and more is working. This is the part I really don't understand: why do I stop? Or even, when do I stop? I don't usually realize that I've stopped until things are off-kilter. Then I have a palm-against-the head "Duh!" moment: I had stopped practicing gratitude.
Almost 20 years ago now, I received an act of pure grace--a gift that we receive (often attributed to God or Higher Power) that we didn't ask for. It just shows up. Writer Scott Peck used to say that grace was like grits in the south. Before the homogenization of food by chains across the country, travelers through the south would receive grits on their plates three meals a day--they were just added to every plate. I remember receiving my unordered grits as child from the north. First question: what in the world is that? Then: I didn't order that! To which the incredulous waitress in starched yellow and white gingham said, "Everyone gets grits, but we don't charge for them." That is grace. A gift that we didn't ask for, just shows up, and doesn't cost anything.
Anyway, about my act of grace. I'd bumped into a friend in a parking lot. She told me about a weekend seminar that she'd attended on gratitude. I was curious. She reached into her car and pulled out a packaged set of cassette tapes. (I did say this was 20 years ago.) She told me to listen to them. Knowing I was at a transition in my life, she wished for me a breakthrough similar to the one she'd had.
Less than a day later, I was awakened in the most excruciating pain I could imagine. It was the start of a six-week battle with a raging infection that would eventually cause my neck to break. I literally couldn't get out of bed. Throughout the whole six weeks, my small boom box sat on my bed. (Did I say it was 20 years ago?) I'd pop in a tape, push the start button, and almost as soon as the tape started, I'd doze off until the end of the tape would pop, signaling that is was finished and waking just long enough to start the cycle again.
I have no idea how many times I heard those tapes, but over and again, I'd turn the tape, push start, and fade away. On a subliminal level though, the messages were sinking in. There were three keys that the speaker described that, if done for 30 days, promised to transform the listener's life:
- Don't complain...about anything...for 30 days. (It's rainy today: a complaint. It's warm in here: a complaint. Couldn't that waiter give us better service: a complaint.) NONE for 30 days. Whew! That was a big one.
- Record and count the "gifts" you receive every day. (Someone lets me in front of them in traffic: a gift. Someone opens the door: a gift. The letter carrier hands me my mail before finishing putting other mail in mail slots: a gift.)
- Finally, record and count the "gifts" that you give every day. (Same as above except in reverse: letting someone in front in traffic, opening a door, leaving the barista a tip, etc.)
So there I lay, in excruciating pain and unable to move out of bed. But, I wanted to try it. I pulled out my journal. How could I get through this pain and communicate with my doctors without complaining? How could I give gifts when I could hardly move? I tried, though, and I started over several times. This is the practice that I embark on anew whenever my life is out of sorts. For years, and several times each year, I practice. An amazing phenomenon occurs every time: I have never been able to give more gifts than I've received in any day. Even on days when I set out to do nothing but give gifts, at the end of the day, I'd received more. Give 10: get 20. Give 20: get 50...and so on. Never fails!
One creation myth is that God created humans because she/he couldn't be happy without someone to give gifts to. We were created to receive gifts. Our reason for being is to receive gifts. Gratitude is the practice of focusing our attention on the gift of receiving. That's what I know in my heart today!
NOTE: I believe in giving credit where it is due, but I truly don't remember the speaker on the tapes, but if any of you do, please let me know. I'd love to publish it.
Monday, September 23, 2013
The cycle of nature begins again
The first full day of fall hit Washington with a very chilly morning and a late afternoon sun that bathed me with its warmth as I left the office at the end of the day. I just stood and drank in its wonder. As just a few leaves drifted gently to the ground, I was reminded that this is the beginning of the year. Seeds fall, nestled into the soft ground and germinate for the next season...just like me.
While some make resolutions in January, for me the cycle begins with the transition of season into the fall. As this transition began to dawn upon me this weekend, I was drawn to commit to who I am...who I have always been...a writer. And, I've sacrificed the writer inside me over the last few years on the altar of earning a living. I've been longing for the integrity of putting words to the page, so even if no one reads this, I become more whole by doing it.
As I was halfway through writing my first book Leading from the Heart, I can remember thinking that I didn't care if anyone ever read it, I was learning so much from writing it that was all that mattered. (Thank you for all who did read it. ) What I know in my heart is that if I do nothing else, I must find time for writing.
A few years ago I had an astounding meditation one day when just flowing from me were the words of why we are here in this world.
Writing is clearly a gift that it is time for me to develop again. Today, I write for the second day in a row. I am planting seeds which will sprout in the spring and yield fruit in the summer. Today, I begin the cycle of nature...again.
While some make resolutions in January, for me the cycle begins with the transition of season into the fall. As this transition began to dawn upon me this weekend, I was drawn to commit to who I am...who I have always been...a writer. And, I've sacrificed the writer inside me over the last few years on the altar of earning a living. I've been longing for the integrity of putting words to the page, so even if no one reads this, I become more whole by doing it.
As I was halfway through writing my first book Leading from the Heart, I can remember thinking that I didn't care if anyone ever read it, I was learning so much from writing it that was all that mattered. (Thank you for all who did read it. ) What I know in my heart is that if I do nothing else, I must find time for writing.
A few years ago I had an astounding meditation one day when just flowing from me were the words of why we are here in this world.
- We came to deliver a service that is needed at this point in time.
- We have certain lessons our soul needs to learn.
- We are here to develop our unique gifts and talents.
Writing is clearly a gift that it is time for me to develop again. Today, I write for the second day in a row. I am planting seeds which will sprout in the spring and yield fruit in the summer. Today, I begin the cycle of nature...again.
Sunday, September 22, 2013
Beginning again...every day
I find that it has been over two years since my first/only blog post. When I tune in with renewed post-retreat zeal to write frequently, I discover nothing has changed, and everything has changed.
Let me start again by capturing what feels like new perspective, but in truth is what I've always known. First is the personal. On the back side of each of our hearts is a code that is unique in the world. Before we came into human form, we collaborated with the wisdom of the Universe--God, Higher Power, Higher Self, or as I prefer Love-- to determine what the world would need during this short snip of time during which we will inhabit Planet Earth. It is etched in our hearts.
At any moment, we can "tune in" to hear what is needed at exactly this moment. Not an hour from now, not a day from now, not a year from now...right now! So, timing is essential. If I listen to my heart in 2004, as I did when I heard that I should move to Washington, D.C., but I don't get my posterior in gear to do so until mid-2006, the guidance isn't timely. (I love Washington, but I sense it has been more of a struggle than it might have been if I'd come in 2004.)
The second is about the community living from the heart. Certain spiritual principles that transcend time and religion help us flow together. Since I've written two books about choosing love over fear at any moment in time, that is one of my personal favorites. Being of service to human kind is another. Forgiveness as the direct path to Love is another. These principles lead us to Love.
I imagine how this works is that there is a ribbon of love that flows from heart to heart to heart, connecting all of human kind. When we follow these principles, we electrify the connection between us and others. Sometimes it is one person to another person. Other times, events conspire to connect millions of us in love and compassion.
The challenge that we face is to live, moment to moment, from that sweet spot in which we are aligned with the universal principles and our unique heart destiny at the same time. From that place, we cannot fail. I call it "living a prayer in the real world"--the communion of the moment in which we check in, listen, and act...then start it all over again. That is "integrity"--a word derived from the same source as "integer"-- when we are at one within ourselves and between others.
While there is nothing in my September 1, 2011, blog post that I disagree with, the intervening years have distilled my focus. Although the heart doesn't usually give us headlines about why we are here or what our purpose is, I think that is what I am here: at this point in time my work is to help people live the prayer.
I will be the first to say that living a prayer isn't easy, but it is ultimately the most satisfying life we can live--the one that is uniquely our own. If you would like to share my journey and those of others on a similar path, I invite you to join me and share my blog with kindred spirits. I am committing to sharing something almost every day--every day that I can connect, and I look forward to your support on this journey.
Let me start again by capturing what feels like new perspective, but in truth is what I've always known. First is the personal. On the back side of each of our hearts is a code that is unique in the world. Before we came into human form, we collaborated with the wisdom of the Universe--God, Higher Power, Higher Self, or as I prefer Love-- to determine what the world would need during this short snip of time during which we will inhabit Planet Earth. It is etched in our hearts.
At any moment, we can "tune in" to hear what is needed at exactly this moment. Not an hour from now, not a day from now, not a year from now...right now! So, timing is essential. If I listen to my heart in 2004, as I did when I heard that I should move to Washington, D.C., but I don't get my posterior in gear to do so until mid-2006, the guidance isn't timely. (I love Washington, but I sense it has been more of a struggle than it might have been if I'd come in 2004.)
The second is about the community living from the heart. Certain spiritual principles that transcend time and religion help us flow together. Since I've written two books about choosing love over fear at any moment in time, that is one of my personal favorites. Being of service to human kind is another. Forgiveness as the direct path to Love is another. These principles lead us to Love.
I imagine how this works is that there is a ribbon of love that flows from heart to heart to heart, connecting all of human kind. When we follow these principles, we electrify the connection between us and others. Sometimes it is one person to another person. Other times, events conspire to connect millions of us in love and compassion.
The challenge that we face is to live, moment to moment, from that sweet spot in which we are aligned with the universal principles and our unique heart destiny at the same time. From that place, we cannot fail. I call it "living a prayer in the real world"--the communion of the moment in which we check in, listen, and act...then start it all over again. That is "integrity"--a word derived from the same source as "integer"-- when we are at one within ourselves and between others.
While there is nothing in my September 1, 2011, blog post that I disagree with, the intervening years have distilled my focus. Although the heart doesn't usually give us headlines about why we are here or what our purpose is, I think that is what I am here: at this point in time my work is to help people live the prayer.
I will be the first to say that living a prayer isn't easy, but it is ultimately the most satisfying life we can live--the one that is uniquely our own. If you would like to share my journey and those of others on a similar path, I invite you to join me and share my blog with kindred spirits. I am committing to sharing something almost every day--every day that I can connect, and I look forward to your support on this journey.
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