I've been thinking a lot about angels lately. I've especially been thinking about guardian angels, those who are presumed to hover invisibly around us, helping us in countless ways.
When I'd finished writing the 1/23 post on "Time," and I'd reread it for typos before posting, I was almost moved to tears. I wondered if the colleague, whom I'd described as helping me learn my huge spiritual lesson of "being present," could possibly be a guardian angel, who had taken human form, precisely to infuse me with new understanding of how to be present?
Then, I wondered more. What is an angel? Could any of us be an angel if we do something that helps those around us be better people?
If those about us can be our angels, even guardian angels, then, I lost one this week. On Tuesday, my colleague Sheila surrendered to her year-long battle with cancer. If there are angels about us, Sheila certainly was one. She was so kind, caring, quiet and unassuming, but the thing that stands out in my mind's eye about Sheila was her smile. Her smile seemed to well up from her soul and literally shed light to everyone in her path. No matter what was going on, Sheila had time; there was a deep and abiding presence about her. She always made time to give back.
When my crazy-busy days consumed me, I often wished I had more time to spend with Sheila. Now I am really sorry for not making it. I have learned an important lesson on living priorities and taking...making...time for the angels on our paths, while we still have them.
I've been graced by these two amazing angels, walking with me through the hubbub of daily life. I am so honored to have taken time with my current colleague, just as I regret not having done so with Sheila.
Pondering angels this week, the thought has crossed my mind that I live in a make-believe world. In this world, I think there are people, each of whom independent with our own paths to follow. What, I've wondered, if maybe they are all angels. How would I live differently if I thought that everyone who crosses my path is an angel? How indeed.
Jane Lynch has a new television program "Angels from Hell," and in her somewhat rude, crude, bowdy, and inimitable style plays a guardian angel who irritates the heck out of the woman she is guarding. As I've pondered that everyone might actually be a guardian angel, Lynch's character brings to mind some of the irritating people in my life. Maybe they are indeed guardian angels.
There is a Talmudic lesson saying that "Every blade of grass has an angel that bends over and whispers, 'Grow! Grow!'" The lesson implies that if every blade of grass has an angel, then each of us must have many angels encouraging our ever move or decision.
The Rabbi's Gift is a parable that I have often used to close a leadership retreat. It tells of a monastery, which has fallen on hard times and is down to just a small handful of monks. One of the monks visits the nearby hermitage of a rabbi to pray and talk about the problem. As the monk is leaving to return to the monastery, the rabbi shares an insight with the monk. He says, "The savior is among you."
Of course, the monk returns and shares this mysterious wisdom. When the monks believe the savior to be one of their number, they begin treating each other with extraordinary respect and caring, and soon their new internal energy begins attracting outsiders to the monastery, which is soon flourishing.
Like the monks, I wonder what the world would look like if each of us treated those around us as if each were a guardian angel, put on our paths precisely for the purpose of helping us. I think that is the real world.
Friday, January 29, 2016
Monday, January 25, 2016
Getting lost
Two weeks ago was the Epiphany on the Christian calendar. For those who don't know the significance of that day, it marks the day in which the wise men or kings arrived to honor the baby Jesus after following the star as their guide. In some cultures Christmas Eve/Christmas Day marks the beginning of the celebration of the holiday, which for them ends on January 6, when Twelfth Night celebrations occur. The giving of gifts at that time mirrors the gifts the magi brought to the infant.
Anyone who has lived through the drum of Christmas carols on elevator and department store music or even read William Shakespeare's "The Twelfth Night" probably at least vaguely knows about those events or traditions. "We Three Kings of Orient Are" "The Twelve Days of Christmas," "O Little Town of Bethlehem," etc. My interest in these events is more than what I've learned from piped-in music. I've actually studied these events at some length.
I love to learn. I particularly like to learn something that adds to or alters an understanding that was pretty well entrenched for me. (For instance, maybe this week the discovery of the likelihood of a new planet.) So it was two weeks ago on Epiphany, when our pastor shared that the kings didn't actually arrive in Bethlehem directly. They actually went to Jerusalem first, which was about 12 miles from Bethlehem. They got lost before correcting their course and making their objective.
He went on to compare the journey of the kings with any spiritual journey. Sometimes we get lost. Yesterday I wrote of getting lost on my journey to be present and grateful. I think there have been times when I was very good at that. Then I got lost. I am sure the kings didn't know the first step that took them away from their intended destination, but as some point they became aware that they were 12 miles from where they wanted to be. I don't know when I began to stray either, but I clearly had.
What I do know is that it was easier when I had my own business. I worked very hard, but I could pick and choose my work, and I could delay work when it would keep me from being really focused on something I was already working on. For many years, clients booked several months in advance to do my intensives or to schedule a speech, usually around my schedule.
I've made it up that I can't do that when someone else is my boss. I say I've made that up because I mostly haven't tried saying to my boss that I am overbooked when being given a new task. I haven't been clear about when my boundaries were being crossed. I haven't said to someone that I want to talk with them later but right now I need to be present to what I am doing. I can't say that I could be more present because I haven't tried all the things my colleague has demonstrated to me so nicely.
I also wrote yesterday about circumstances being laboratories for personal growth. Yes, it was easier to really be present when I controlled most of the variables, so that may have been "Being Present 101." My real job that I will go back to next week will probably be the graduate school version of that lesson.
In one of her books, Carol Pearson wrote about the Hero's Journey like concentric circles. She says that we learn the same lessons (or live the same archetypes) over and again, but each time what we learn is supposed to be different--a more advanced lesson. I like to think that maybe I've just been in a more challenging lesson, but when the pastor spoke of being lost, it really resonated for me. I have felt lost, but am learning.
While there is something heavy about the inevitability of learning the same lessons over and over again like "Ground Hog Day," I find it uplifting that if I am awake enough to see the lessons and learn them, I keep growing...and I will keep growing for as long as I notice the lesson. For someone who likes to learn, that is a delicious prospect.
Anyone who has lived through the drum of Christmas carols on elevator and department store music or even read William Shakespeare's "The Twelfth Night" probably at least vaguely knows about those events or traditions. "We Three Kings of Orient Are" "The Twelve Days of Christmas," "O Little Town of Bethlehem," etc. My interest in these events is more than what I've learned from piped-in music. I've actually studied these events at some length.
I love to learn. I particularly like to learn something that adds to or alters an understanding that was pretty well entrenched for me. (For instance, maybe this week the discovery of the likelihood of a new planet.) So it was two weeks ago on Epiphany, when our pastor shared that the kings didn't actually arrive in Bethlehem directly. They actually went to Jerusalem first, which was about 12 miles from Bethlehem. They got lost before correcting their course and making their objective.
He went on to compare the journey of the kings with any spiritual journey. Sometimes we get lost. Yesterday I wrote of getting lost on my journey to be present and grateful. I think there have been times when I was very good at that. Then I got lost. I am sure the kings didn't know the first step that took them away from their intended destination, but as some point they became aware that they were 12 miles from where they wanted to be. I don't know when I began to stray either, but I clearly had.
What I do know is that it was easier when I had my own business. I worked very hard, but I could pick and choose my work, and I could delay work when it would keep me from being really focused on something I was already working on. For many years, clients booked several months in advance to do my intensives or to schedule a speech, usually around my schedule.
I've made it up that I can't do that when someone else is my boss. I say I've made that up because I mostly haven't tried saying to my boss that I am overbooked when being given a new task. I haven't been clear about when my boundaries were being crossed. I haven't said to someone that I want to talk with them later but right now I need to be present to what I am doing. I can't say that I could be more present because I haven't tried all the things my colleague has demonstrated to me so nicely.
I also wrote yesterday about circumstances being laboratories for personal growth. Yes, it was easier to really be present when I controlled most of the variables, so that may have been "Being Present 101." My real job that I will go back to next week will probably be the graduate school version of that lesson.
In one of her books, Carol Pearson wrote about the Hero's Journey like concentric circles. She says that we learn the same lessons (or live the same archetypes) over and again, but each time what we learn is supposed to be different--a more advanced lesson. I like to think that maybe I've just been in a more challenging lesson, but when the pastor spoke of being lost, it really resonated for me. I have felt lost, but am learning.
While there is something heavy about the inevitability of learning the same lessons over and over again like "Ground Hog Day," I find it uplifting that if I am awake enough to see the lessons and learn them, I keep growing...and I will keep growing for as long as I notice the lesson. For someone who likes to learn, that is a delicious prospect.
Saturday, January 23, 2016
Time
Assuming that the snowstorm, which has pretty much laid low the nation's capital and much of the East Coast and South doesn't prevent it, next week will be my last week at my temporary job assignment. I've enjoyed my time there enormously. I've delighted in being part of a team that really pulls together toward one whopping big, positive goal--raising $50 million for charity in three months. I've loved knowing that I am making such a difference for thousands in need, not just for the year ahead but perhaps for the rest of their lives. I fully admit to feeling good when two of my agency campaign managers told me on the same day that I'd been the best person in my role that they'd ever worked with and, because of that, their teams had exceeded their goals.
My nature is to reflect on transitions, and this one is no different. The things that I've just mentioned are the standard fare, and it is also my nature to reflect beneath the standard fare options. What has been the spiritual consequence of these four months?
Almost since the beginning of my assignment, one individual has impacted me in a deeply personal way. Almost every encounter with her has been a learning experience. Let's take, for instance, what happens when she is walking in during the morning, racing toward her desk as most of us do, and I ask the common question, "How are you?" She will almost stop in her tracks, take a deep breath, get a huge smile on her face as she exhales, and say something like, "Thank God I am fine," or "I am really blessed with health." The responses are rarely the same so as not to have become rote. She assessed where she is and answers gratefully.
When I stop by her cube to talk with her, she stops everything, looks me in the eye, and stays totally present to our conversation. We occasionally share a table over our brown-bag lunches, and she has some minusculely small containers. When I once remarked about them, she says she is usually full when she finishes. After that, I notice that she really eats very slowly and gives each bite of food the same attention that she give the "How-are-you?" question in the morning. I've noticed something similar during Lent when I give more studied attention to eating; I am almost always full half-way through my meal.
This colleague seems to get the "being present" and "being grateful" qualities of personal spirituality to which I aspire, and I've been privileged to have spent these months in her "classroom." There is another quality of "being present" that I've learned from her as well. I am not quite sure how to describe it except to say that it has to do with recognizing how important boundary control is to "being present." Maybe it could be described as being present to the consequences of not being present.
Almost all of us on the campaign are extremely busy and often simultaneously working on several deadline projects for different agencies, each one of which thinks its need should be Priority One. If a colleague walks up to me at a time like that, I am embarrassed to admit that I forget my "being present" goal. At times, I try to continue working while talking to the person, which means that I give neither the project or the person the attention each deserves. Sometimes I will say, "I'm on a deadline, and I really don't have time to talk right now." Even as the words come out of my mouth they feel rude and piercing. In my heart I hate that I felt like I cut the person off. The times when I do stop and talk, I know I am not present; I am totally distracted by what I think I "should" be working on.
My colleague, who I am certain was sent to this assignment to be my spiritual teacher, has taught me a lot about that, as well. In a similar circumstance, she stops, connects with me visually and spiritually, and looks me in my eye as she says something like, "I would really like to talk with you, but I want to give my full attention to the task I need to complete for Agency A by noon. May we talk later?" To be sent away by this woman feels like a privilege. I have never felt slighted in the least. Just the reverse, I feel like she is saying that our connection is so important that she doesn't want to give it short-shrift while she multi-tasks or is distracted.
Since the first of the year, I've sometimes been physically ill when I thought about going back into the pressure cooker that is my "real" job. I've feverishly looked for other opportunities, without success. I even bought a lottery ticket toward the $1.2 billion jackpot, something that was so foreign to me that I had to ask someone how to do it. Now that my return seems inevitable, and I am in my reflective space, I am being completely grateful for the opportunity to have worked with such a fine spiritual teacher.
I am also keenly aware that there is no finer place in the world to practice the spiritual lessons that my colleague has taught me than to go back into the pressure cooker and practice them, where I will really be tested. I have already written reminders on the white board in my usual office, which I think will keep me on track. They are at the top and marked as priority items.
I truly believe that life is a series of big spiritual lessons. We get stuck in them until we learn them, and then almost magically, we are able to move on. I don't want to get stuck in this one any longer. I've been to spiritual school for four months. I know what to do. That means to remember the job isn't about customer service or earning a paycheck, although both are important. This job is about proving I can do what I used to do and what I know to be the right thing to do. Now, all I must do is have the spiritual will to do what I know to be right for me.
My nature is to reflect on transitions, and this one is no different. The things that I've just mentioned are the standard fare, and it is also my nature to reflect beneath the standard fare options. What has been the spiritual consequence of these four months?
Almost since the beginning of my assignment, one individual has impacted me in a deeply personal way. Almost every encounter with her has been a learning experience. Let's take, for instance, what happens when she is walking in during the morning, racing toward her desk as most of us do, and I ask the common question, "How are you?" She will almost stop in her tracks, take a deep breath, get a huge smile on her face as she exhales, and say something like, "Thank God I am fine," or "I am really blessed with health." The responses are rarely the same so as not to have become rote. She assessed where she is and answers gratefully.
When I stop by her cube to talk with her, she stops everything, looks me in the eye, and stays totally present to our conversation. We occasionally share a table over our brown-bag lunches, and she has some minusculely small containers. When I once remarked about them, she says she is usually full when she finishes. After that, I notice that she really eats very slowly and gives each bite of food the same attention that she give the "How-are-you?" question in the morning. I've noticed something similar during Lent when I give more studied attention to eating; I am almost always full half-way through my meal.
This colleague seems to get the "being present" and "being grateful" qualities of personal spirituality to which I aspire, and I've been privileged to have spent these months in her "classroom." There is another quality of "being present" that I've learned from her as well. I am not quite sure how to describe it except to say that it has to do with recognizing how important boundary control is to "being present." Maybe it could be described as being present to the consequences of not being present.
Almost all of us on the campaign are extremely busy and often simultaneously working on several deadline projects for different agencies, each one of which thinks its need should be Priority One. If a colleague walks up to me at a time like that, I am embarrassed to admit that I forget my "being present" goal. At times, I try to continue working while talking to the person, which means that I give neither the project or the person the attention each deserves. Sometimes I will say, "I'm on a deadline, and I really don't have time to talk right now." Even as the words come out of my mouth they feel rude and piercing. In my heart I hate that I felt like I cut the person off. The times when I do stop and talk, I know I am not present; I am totally distracted by what I think I "should" be working on.
My colleague, who I am certain was sent to this assignment to be my spiritual teacher, has taught me a lot about that, as well. In a similar circumstance, she stops, connects with me visually and spiritually, and looks me in my eye as she says something like, "I would really like to talk with you, but I want to give my full attention to the task I need to complete for Agency A by noon. May we talk later?" To be sent away by this woman feels like a privilege. I have never felt slighted in the least. Just the reverse, I feel like she is saying that our connection is so important that she doesn't want to give it short-shrift while she multi-tasks or is distracted.
Since the first of the year, I've sometimes been physically ill when I thought about going back into the pressure cooker that is my "real" job. I've feverishly looked for other opportunities, without success. I even bought a lottery ticket toward the $1.2 billion jackpot, something that was so foreign to me that I had to ask someone how to do it. Now that my return seems inevitable, and I am in my reflective space, I am being completely grateful for the opportunity to have worked with such a fine spiritual teacher.
I am also keenly aware that there is no finer place in the world to practice the spiritual lessons that my colleague has taught me than to go back into the pressure cooker and practice them, where I will really be tested. I have already written reminders on the white board in my usual office, which I think will keep me on track. They are at the top and marked as priority items.
I truly believe that life is a series of big spiritual lessons. We get stuck in them until we learn them, and then almost magically, we are able to move on. I don't want to get stuck in this one any longer. I've been to spiritual school for four months. I know what to do. That means to remember the job isn't about customer service or earning a paycheck, although both are important. This job is about proving I can do what I used to do and what I know to be the right thing to do. Now, all I must do is have the spiritual will to do what I know to be right for me.
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