My course reading for yesterday included Benjamin Hoff's the Tao of Pooh. When I picked the book up after class, I was on the chapter, "Bisy Backson." Bisy Backson is a character named for the expression, "Busy--Back Soon." Bisy, it seems, frenetically dashes through life, first in one direction and then another. When Bisy exercises, the intent is to force fitness, as opposed to allowing it to develop naturally from the inside. Bisy reminded me a lot of myself.
Thirty years ago a friend described me as being like a mosquito on speed. He could have as easily described me a Bisy Backson. For 15 of those 30 years, I mellowed out, mindfully and joyfully going through life. What happened? Life is part of it. Part of it is having an employer instead of being self-employed, but those years have also occurred in a time when employers behave as if they own the people who work for them instead of renting them for 8-9 hours a day. In my world, you haven't done anything special until you've put in 12 hours a day, and even then, it must be persistent. (What have you done for me lately?)
Still another part is living in a larger city, which I love for many things it has to offer, but also fully recognize life in the city is much faster paced. There's so much to do, and I want to make up for all those years living in small cities and do it all. Finally, our devices keep us connected and multi-tasking 24x7. (Understand that I would not want to give up my devices either.)
My class yesterday really heightened my awareness of how the level of mindfulness that used to pervade me had evaporated. Through the late afternoon and evening, I was increasingly aware of my racing about. I even noticed the tension in my shoulders as I brushed my teeth, as if the two minutes on my brush timer would go any faster if I was tense than if I just relaxed and enjoyed it.
The three scripture readings in church this morning, one from the Old Testament book of 2 Samuel, one from the epistles of the New Testament, and the third from the Gospel of Mark, all had to do with God being at home in us. The Assistant Rector's comments addressed the need for us to provide an appropriate "home" for God within us.
Oy! OMG! Eek! I experienced physical pain in my heart when I thought about God being in me, and I really believe that God does dwell in each of us. I wouldn't think of having guests in my bricks and mortar home with such chaos. I go out of my way to have peace and order--to provide a warm and welcoming place of refuge for my guests from such freneticism. I prepare favorite foods or pick up special treats. I want my guests to feel how special they are to me.
Yet, I clearly am not making nearly so fostering environment for God as I make for my human friends. The visual that came to my mind was that God would be trying like crazy to escape my body. When I thought what it would be like to be trapped in my body, I imagined God being thrashed about in several directions as I chaotically went one way and then the other, constrained by the tension in my body and hardly taking time to breathe--literally.
Why would God want to be at home in my body? Could this be why, after feeling God's presence so intently for so long, that I've frequently felt so disconnected in the last dozen years? I want to put Bisy Backson to rest, but that allows me to get off without being accountable. Bisy needs nurturing of the kind that I've been unwilling to give myself. To put Bisy to rest allows me to continue mindlessly thrashing about with the consciousness of Bisy put out to pasture. Can I even find it in me anymore to mindfully love the person who lovingly builds a safe, sane and tranquil refuge for God in me?
Even though I am only a day into the class, it seems to me that the Seven Habits of Happiness are so inter-related that doing one really well will accomplish doing them all.
Showing posts with label God. Show all posts
Showing posts with label God. Show all posts
Sunday, July 19, 2015
Monday, June 23, 2014
Connection
Our world has been described as "connected." Certainly a wide range of devices allows us to communicate in real time all over the world. Yesterday I saw the movie "Chef," in which a tech savvy 10-year-old propels his father's food truck business into national prominence, using a wide variety of applications that I really wish I understood. Most surely, technology has redefined what it means to be connected.
Yet in the more conventional sense, I wonder if we aren't less connected. From the Latin, "connect" means to "bind together" or to "be united physically." However, on Google, seven out of ten definitions of connect come before "to form a relationship or feel an affinity" and "provide or have a link or relationship with (someone or something)." Earlier definitions have to do with electrons, connecting to utilities, and relating events.
On a bicycle outing near Georgetown last week, I was struck with the lack of connection that our devices have created. I saw two coeds walking together, each having conversations with others on their phones. They may each have had an electronic connection with someone else, but they had lost forever the opportunity to "bind together" with each other in that moment.
Several others had conversations on their digital devices and missed the beauty of the day, spring flowers blooming, the rush of the creek below, or probably even the cool air wafting up from the creek to refresh and slightly chill the hot summer day. Lost forever were those opportunities to connect with nature, some would even say God, in that moment.
For someone who hasn't had a significant other in her life for over 20 years, tears came to my eyes at the young bride who ignored her new husband while chattering about meaningless trivia during a phone conversation with someone else while he forlornly looked on. What a lost moment that will never occur again.
I have been spent time with people who kept texting others. That sure tells me how important our time together is to them.
During the eight years that I have lived in Washington and used the Metro daily, I have noticed a change in connection between strangers. When I first came, strangers actually talked and shared the ups and downs of their days with each other. I learned about things going on in the city and even got a lead for a potential job from someone I didn't know moments before. Synchronicities could actually happen. While I do still occasionally see people who get on the train together and continue to talk, more often I see people on their devices and in their own worlds. Even walking down the street, people have their ear buds in listening to music or podcasts or are talking or texting, oblivious to what is going on around them.
I've said before that I believe God is in that space that connects us one to another--what "binds us together," as it were. I cannot help but wonder if we aren't cutting ourselves off from God and each other when we choose electronics over true connection with a loved one, friend, or even a stranger, who is actually present with us.
A few months ago, I posed the possibility of living each day as if it were our last in a blog post. (11/28/13 and 3/15/14) I think that question might well be extended to our "connections." While I am certain that if this were my last day, there are some people that I'd want to "reach out and touch" digitally, I also know that if I'd been that young bride mindlessly talking about the weather and where she'd been shopping, instead of looking into the eyes of my her husband, I would have chosen differently.
One definition of an addiction is when we use an activity--drinking alcohol, taking drugs, overeating., sex, work...or using electronics--to keep us from connecting with those around us. While I love my devices as much as the next person, I think the use of our devices all boils down to the intention we bring to our connections. Is my intention to bind me together with God and people around me? Is my intention to use my device to connect or am I using it to keep me from connecting?
Last winter I introduced the Grocery Store Game (12/1/13) as a way to connect with people around us, and it does work. However, making connection is much harder when the people around us have their ears blocked off or their eyes and brains engaged in other activity. I am not quite sure how to start the connections again, but I am pretty certain that if I take out my ear buds and put my device in my pocket, I will be closer to having an answer. So I did that today. I can't say that I made any great connections, but I know that I am closer than when I am plugged in and tuned out to my immediate world.
Yet in the more conventional sense, I wonder if we aren't less connected. From the Latin, "connect" means to "bind together" or to "be united physically." However, on Google, seven out of ten definitions of connect come before "to form a relationship or feel an affinity" and "provide or have a link or relationship with (someone or something)." Earlier definitions have to do with electrons, connecting to utilities, and relating events.
On a bicycle outing near Georgetown last week, I was struck with the lack of connection that our devices have created. I saw two coeds walking together, each having conversations with others on their phones. They may each have had an electronic connection with someone else, but they had lost forever the opportunity to "bind together" with each other in that moment.
Several others had conversations on their digital devices and missed the beauty of the day, spring flowers blooming, the rush of the creek below, or probably even the cool air wafting up from the creek to refresh and slightly chill the hot summer day. Lost forever were those opportunities to connect with nature, some would even say God, in that moment.
For someone who hasn't had a significant other in her life for over 20 years, tears came to my eyes at the young bride who ignored her new husband while chattering about meaningless trivia during a phone conversation with someone else while he forlornly looked on. What a lost moment that will never occur again.
I have been spent time with people who kept texting others. That sure tells me how important our time together is to them.
During the eight years that I have lived in Washington and used the Metro daily, I have noticed a change in connection between strangers. When I first came, strangers actually talked and shared the ups and downs of their days with each other. I learned about things going on in the city and even got a lead for a potential job from someone I didn't know moments before. Synchronicities could actually happen. While I do still occasionally see people who get on the train together and continue to talk, more often I see people on their devices and in their own worlds. Even walking down the street, people have their ear buds in listening to music or podcasts or are talking or texting, oblivious to what is going on around them.
I've said before that I believe God is in that space that connects us one to another--what "binds us together," as it were. I cannot help but wonder if we aren't cutting ourselves off from God and each other when we choose electronics over true connection with a loved one, friend, or even a stranger, who is actually present with us.
A few months ago, I posed the possibility of living each day as if it were our last in a blog post. (11/28/13 and 3/15/14) I think that question might well be extended to our "connections." While I am certain that if this were my last day, there are some people that I'd want to "reach out and touch" digitally, I also know that if I'd been that young bride mindlessly talking about the weather and where she'd been shopping, instead of looking into the eyes of my her husband, I would have chosen differently.
One definition of an addiction is when we use an activity--drinking alcohol, taking drugs, overeating., sex, work...or using electronics--to keep us from connecting with those around us. While I love my devices as much as the next person, I think the use of our devices all boils down to the intention we bring to our connections. Is my intention to bind me together with God and people around me? Is my intention to use my device to connect or am I using it to keep me from connecting?
Last winter I introduced the Grocery Store Game (12/1/13) as a way to connect with people around us, and it does work. However, making connection is much harder when the people around us have their ears blocked off or their eyes and brains engaged in other activity. I am not quite sure how to start the connections again, but I am pretty certain that if I take out my ear buds and put my device in my pocket, I will be closer to having an answer. So I did that today. I can't say that I made any great connections, but I know that I am closer than when I am plugged in and tuned out to my immediate world.
Sunday, November 24, 2013
Actually Being Still and Knowing
This morning I did what I said yesterday I was going to do: "be still!" and "know!" Well, actually, I spent a good bit of time attempting to "be still!" but actually very little time doing so. I've often quoted Yoda, "There is no try. There is do or no do." I guess the truth is that "being still!" was a "no do" for much of the two hours during which I dedicated myself to that activity.
As a bit of background, I went with a friend to the movies last night. The movie my friend picked was "About Time," a time travel film, which ended with the message to fully live each day as if it were your very last. As often as I've written variations on "being present," you might imagine that the movie's message resonated with me, and it did. Except...
For whatever reason, instead of following the film's message, I spun off into a totally different place. Instead of using the precious moments I had with my friend in the present, I went into quite a pity party about how I'd squandered my life (the past.) It's not as if I took my inheritance and went off in prodigal fashion for a life of partying and waste. Most of the time, the decisions I've made have been the best in the moment. I probably haven't been as prayerful about all decisions as I might have, but I am still "in lesson" on that.
As I bounced like a Ping-Pong ball from the past to the future and back, I painfully looked at my life from judgment of where I thought I should be. Everything that most of us have been told about life planning is that I should be at the pinnacle of my career with assets and relationships accumulated to carry me through the rest of my life. I really don't have much to show for what our society would describe as a life well lived.
I tell that story because history drove my "be still!" time this morning. As I struggled to be still, my pity party continued. I replayed decision points in my life which had led to this point in time. Then, I beat myself up about it. This wasn't "be still! and know! that I am God." And that is what I heard when I was finally still.
"Be love! Experience joy! If God accepts my life with love, why can I not find that a place in my heart for me to love my life?" Almost as an after-thought came a parting message: to remember what I've written about "forgiveness."
I booted up my computer and looked at what I'd written about forgiveness (10/3/13.) The gist of it was that how I "be Love" is through forgiveness, including forgiving myself. My job isn't judgment of my life: it is loving kindness and compassion. That is what I know when I "be still! and know! that I am God."
As a bit of background, I went with a friend to the movies last night. The movie my friend picked was "About Time," a time travel film, which ended with the message to fully live each day as if it were your very last. As often as I've written variations on "being present," you might imagine that the movie's message resonated with me, and it did. Except...
For whatever reason, instead of following the film's message, I spun off into a totally different place. Instead of using the precious moments I had with my friend in the present, I went into quite a pity party about how I'd squandered my life (the past.) It's not as if I took my inheritance and went off in prodigal fashion for a life of partying and waste. Most of the time, the decisions I've made have been the best in the moment. I probably haven't been as prayerful about all decisions as I might have, but I am still "in lesson" on that.
As I bounced like a Ping-Pong ball from the past to the future and back, I painfully looked at my life from judgment of where I thought I should be. Everything that most of us have been told about life planning is that I should be at the pinnacle of my career with assets and relationships accumulated to carry me through the rest of my life. I really don't have much to show for what our society would describe as a life well lived.
I tell that story because history drove my "be still!" time this morning. As I struggled to be still, my pity party continued. I replayed decision points in my life which had led to this point in time. Then, I beat myself up about it. This wasn't "be still! and know! that I am God." And that is what I heard when I was finally still.
"Be love! Experience joy! If God accepts my life with love, why can I not find that a place in my heart for me to love my life?" Almost as an after-thought came a parting message: to remember what I've written about "forgiveness."
I booted up my computer and looked at what I'd written about forgiveness (10/3/13.) The gist of it was that how I "be Love" is through forgiveness, including forgiving myself. My job isn't judgment of my life: it is loving kindness and compassion. That is what I know when I "be still! and know! that I am God."
Saturday, November 23, 2013
Be still! Know!
When I sat today and listened, I heard: "Be still and know that I am God" from Psalm 46. I smiled. How many times have I talked with my intentional living intensive clients about these words. Somewhere in the course of the three-day intensives, my spiritual coaching clients would hear these words, and we would talk. Usually, we would talk about stilling the noise of the world and taking time in prayer and meditation. I know I don't spend nearly enough time being still and knowing God in that way.
In Exodus 3:13 Moses asks God in the form of a burning bush who he should tell the Israelites has sent him, God replies in the next verse, "I am who I am." Depending on where my client went, sometimes we would talk about the reference of "I AM." I've often pondered God's humor, which I think is significant. How could it not be? Was God trying to tell us that each of us (who I am) is part of God? If so, was the Psalm reference God saying that we should spend more time knowing our godliness? I don't spend enough time there either.
In the Jewish mystical tradition of Kabbalah, God is a verb**. What if 'God' is a verb? Not an entity or state, but an action. What if "God" as "I am" is a verb that says who each of us chooses to be is how others experience God? If God is a verb, how have I been doing on "God-ding" today? I am afraid that often the answer isn't what I would like it to be.
This morning when I heard "Be still and know that I am God," I instantly plugged in to all of these old conversations and thoughts and pondered for a bit more before asking, "What more am I to know?" The answer: "Google it!" God does have a sense of humor. :-)
Obediently, I went to Google and found a description of the Hebrew meaning of the phrase. The verbs "be still" and "know" are imperative forms that might more appropriately translated "Be still!" and "Know!"* These words were not gentle suggestions: they were orders and strong ones at that. I was struck speechless. I am ordered to be still. I am ordered to know the nature of God. I don't think this order was intended to be an activity that I fit in after work, exercise, dinner, making lunch and coffee for the next day, and watching yesterday's episode of "The Daily Show."
Whether we may think of God as a field of Love that connects us all, which I do, or we think of God as an old white man with a white beard, or various other possibilities, we are ordered to be still and know God. Maybe it is just knowing the God in each of us. We are ordered to still our minds, let all the clutter from the world around us drop away, and "know! God." I wonder if our world would be as crazy and violent if everyone of us followed our orders to "be still!" and "know!" before we go into the world each day. "Being still!" and "knowing!" is a priority, not something that we fit in if we are not so tired from all the other stuff that we fall asleep, as happened to me yesterday.
For years, I've taken at least a few minutes almost every morning to meditate, but in truth, more often than not, those few minutes are exhausted by just calming my mind from the rush of starting my day. If I am to really "be still!" and "know!" then I will need to take more time. Really?! I already get up at 5:20 more mornings. I am not sure I can get up earlier. Or, it seems to me that maybe this is really about focusing my intention on paying attention in a different way. I expect that if I focused my attention on knowing the God in me, all that other mind chatter would just fall away. Ah! I suspect that is it.
*http://www.hebrew4christians.com/Meditations/Be_Still/be_still.html
**God Is a Verb: Kabbalah and the Practice of Mystical Judaism by David A. Cooper
In Exodus 3:13 Moses asks God in the form of a burning bush who he should tell the Israelites has sent him, God replies in the next verse, "I am who I am." Depending on where my client went, sometimes we would talk about the reference of "I AM." I've often pondered God's humor, which I think is significant. How could it not be? Was God trying to tell us that each of us (who I am) is part of God? If so, was the Psalm reference God saying that we should spend more time knowing our godliness? I don't spend enough time there either.
In the Jewish mystical tradition of Kabbalah, God is a verb**. What if 'God' is a verb? Not an entity or state, but an action. What if "God" as "I am" is a verb that says who each of us chooses to be is how others experience God? If God is a verb, how have I been doing on "God-ding" today? I am afraid that often the answer isn't what I would like it to be.
This morning when I heard "Be still and know that I am God," I instantly plugged in to all of these old conversations and thoughts and pondered for a bit more before asking, "What more am I to know?" The answer: "Google it!" God does have a sense of humor. :-)
Obediently, I went to Google and found a description of the Hebrew meaning of the phrase. The verbs "be still" and "know" are imperative forms that might more appropriately translated "Be still!" and "Know!"* These words were not gentle suggestions: they were orders and strong ones at that. I was struck speechless. I am ordered to be still. I am ordered to know the nature of God. I don't think this order was intended to be an activity that I fit in after work, exercise, dinner, making lunch and coffee for the next day, and watching yesterday's episode of "The Daily Show."
Whether we may think of God as a field of Love that connects us all, which I do, or we think of God as an old white man with a white beard, or various other possibilities, we are ordered to be still and know God. Maybe it is just knowing the God in each of us. We are ordered to still our minds, let all the clutter from the world around us drop away, and "know! God." I wonder if our world would be as crazy and violent if everyone of us followed our orders to "be still!" and "know!" before we go into the world each day. "Being still!" and "knowing!" is a priority, not something that we fit in if we are not so tired from all the other stuff that we fall asleep, as happened to me yesterday.
For years, I've taken at least a few minutes almost every morning to meditate, but in truth, more often than not, those few minutes are exhausted by just calming my mind from the rush of starting my day. If I am to really "be still!" and "know!" then I will need to take more time. Really?! I already get up at 5:20 more mornings. I am not sure I can get up earlier. Or, it seems to me that maybe this is really about focusing my intention on paying attention in a different way. I expect that if I focused my attention on knowing the God in me, all that other mind chatter would just fall away. Ah! I suspect that is it.
*http://www.hebrew4christians.com/Meditations/Be_Still/be_still.html
**God Is a Verb: Kabbalah and the Practice of Mystical Judaism by David A. Cooper
Saturday, November 9, 2013
Letting God be God
My posts usually come at the end of often long days. Today I sat to write in the afternoon, but something unusual happened. There were no words. I've been writing since I was able to hold a pencil, and words have almost always been there. And, today, there were no words. I made several false starts, but I knew those words were from my head and not my heart. I washed the glass top tables, but when I came back to my computer, there were still no words. I did some ironing, and still no words. I watched episodes of two TV shows I missed this week...and no words. I watched a movie, and no words.
I had made a commitment to this spiritual discipline to write every day, and words would not come. But writing from my head and not my heart for a blog called "You Know In Your Heart" seemed like a serious breach in integrity. By that point, darkness was approaching. I'll do my grocery shopping, I thought; then I'll have that chore out of the way for the week. I can write later. You can probably guess that when I returned the words were still not there.
What should I do? I felt duty bound to my commitment to sit at my computer and contribute to this blog. Early this week I wrote about the angel who had showed up to help me with learning some features for this blog. One of them was the "Labels" feature, which allows me to make the blog more searchable. Well, I thought, if words won't come, I'll devote that amount of time to attaching labels to old posts. I set about reading through the last month's posts and labeling them. Then I "got it."
Reading my most recent 25 posts was homework for today's writing. If you have been reading regularly, you know there have been some demons that keep recurring on my journey. Being awake and present, consciousness, gratitude, forgiveness, the nature of God and Love, integrity. There was something missing though, and whatever was missing felt like "glue" for the others. "Surrender" was the word that kept coming to me. I've certainly wrestled with spiritual surrender before, but I had a hard time connecting the dots today.
By the time my labeling task reached today's post, I was ready to write. Floating up as gently as a feather floats down were the words, "Let God be God." A smile came to my face, and a knowing chuckle caught in my throat. In my day job, I'd describe the problem as role ambiguity--not being clear about what my role is and what God's role is. My job is to be awake, present, and listening so that I may be led, allowing the world to experience God's love through me. I am to ask for help, probably even when I don't think I need it, be grateful, offer forgiveness, and walk my talk. Other duties as assigned, of course, such as writing this blog and books that may bubble up from within me. That's it.
Everything else is God's job. Most importantly, God gets to be God. That is explicitly omitted from my job description. Enter "surrender." I believe that it is important for us to do the work we are given, to learn and grow spiritually, and to develop our "God given" talents. Holding to those intentions may be the only things in our lives that are real. God's job is to determine how these play out and on what time schedule they occur.
That's where surrender comes in. For me and many others, "surrender" seems counter rational in our modern driven society. We are taught to take charge of our lives: active on the world before it acts on us. That is playing God. Doing so requires resisting the forces of the Universe. It is exhausting and counter-productive. Sigh! Surrendering allows us to float through life on the River of Peace, like I did when I was in Greece and the waters parted at every turn to get me to the publishing house. ("Being Led", 11/4/13) Why on earth would I want to resist that? I cannot for the life of me figure out one good reason.
I surrender.
I will let God be God.
I had made a commitment to this spiritual discipline to write every day, and words would not come. But writing from my head and not my heart for a blog called "You Know In Your Heart" seemed like a serious breach in integrity. By that point, darkness was approaching. I'll do my grocery shopping, I thought; then I'll have that chore out of the way for the week. I can write later. You can probably guess that when I returned the words were still not there.
What should I do? I felt duty bound to my commitment to sit at my computer and contribute to this blog. Early this week I wrote about the angel who had showed up to help me with learning some features for this blog. One of them was the "Labels" feature, which allows me to make the blog more searchable. Well, I thought, if words won't come, I'll devote that amount of time to attaching labels to old posts. I set about reading through the last month's posts and labeling them. Then I "got it."
Reading my most recent 25 posts was homework for today's writing. If you have been reading regularly, you know there have been some demons that keep recurring on my journey. Being awake and present, consciousness, gratitude, forgiveness, the nature of God and Love, integrity. There was something missing though, and whatever was missing felt like "glue" for the others. "Surrender" was the word that kept coming to me. I've certainly wrestled with spiritual surrender before, but I had a hard time connecting the dots today.
By the time my labeling task reached today's post, I was ready to write. Floating up as gently as a feather floats down were the words, "Let God be God." A smile came to my face, and a knowing chuckle caught in my throat. In my day job, I'd describe the problem as role ambiguity--not being clear about what my role is and what God's role is. My job is to be awake, present, and listening so that I may be led, allowing the world to experience God's love through me. I am to ask for help, probably even when I don't think I need it, be grateful, offer forgiveness, and walk my talk. Other duties as assigned, of course, such as writing this blog and books that may bubble up from within me. That's it.
Everything else is God's job. Most importantly, God gets to be God. That is explicitly omitted from my job description. Enter "surrender." I believe that it is important for us to do the work we are given, to learn and grow spiritually, and to develop our "God given" talents. Holding to those intentions may be the only things in our lives that are real. God's job is to determine how these play out and on what time schedule they occur.
That's where surrender comes in. For me and many others, "surrender" seems counter rational in our modern driven society. We are taught to take charge of our lives: active on the world before it acts on us. That is playing God. Doing so requires resisting the forces of the Universe. It is exhausting and counter-productive. Sigh! Surrendering allows us to float through life on the River of Peace, like I did when I was in Greece and the waters parted at every turn to get me to the publishing house. ("Being Led", 11/4/13) Why on earth would I want to resist that? I cannot for the life of me figure out one good reason.
I surrender.
I will let God be God.
Wednesday, November 6, 2013
Going to school
My life has seemed to go in cycles. For a few years life flows swimmingly. Money, relationships, health, and career all work well. Then, for no apparent reason, one day it shifts, and life can be very difficult for the next few. While I certainly think the easy times are much more fun, in truth, I am sure that the difficult ones are more important to the evolution of my soul.
I think of the difficult times as when we are in "spiritual school." It is easy to have faith when everything is easy. I have learned the most about faith when it is tested. Like in the life of the Biblical Job, if we are able to remember that we are on a spiritual journey, we come out the other side stronger and closer to whatever we consider the divine. When things really fall apart, we are going to spiritual graduate school.
When I was publishing a book each year, writing several newspaper columns, consulting globally, and delivering a reasonable number of keynote addresses, I had lots of people around me who loved me. Then the economy went bust...and my business with it. Suddenly, most of my "friends" evaporated. I found out who my true friends were. I would never have learned what makes a real friend without those times.
Similarly, I won't ever really learn about forgiveness and gratitude until I need to forgive someone for a particularly wicked deed and then take it one step further to expressing gratitude for the deed. Twenty years ago a friend and I would talk about "being in lesson" at moments like that. We would know that there was a spiritual purpose for our challenging times. The more challenging the times, the more we were sure we were "in lesson."
School goes in other cycles too. A different friend and I were talking over dinner Sunday about the same lessons that seem to keep showing up in our lives every few years. In my belief system those repeating lessons are ones that our souls signed up to master. But, with each cycle, we learn something different.
I am a bit reluctant to announce at this early stage, but I feel a difficult cycle is approaching an end. You may recall that a few days ago, I wrote about feeling as if I were pregnant (11/2/12.) I've been restless and keep feeling like I have been about to deliver something. Today, I think my "baby" is an easier stage of life. In several arenas in life, I feel little breakthroughs, harbingers of better times. I feel as if it might almost be safe to relax. Ah!
While I look forward to easier times, I am cognizant of being truly grateful for the years I've been "in spiritual school," maybe this time for a spiritual post-doc.
I think of the difficult times as when we are in "spiritual school." It is easy to have faith when everything is easy. I have learned the most about faith when it is tested. Like in the life of the Biblical Job, if we are able to remember that we are on a spiritual journey, we come out the other side stronger and closer to whatever we consider the divine. When things really fall apart, we are going to spiritual graduate school.
When I was publishing a book each year, writing several newspaper columns, consulting globally, and delivering a reasonable number of keynote addresses, I had lots of people around me who loved me. Then the economy went bust...and my business with it. Suddenly, most of my "friends" evaporated. I found out who my true friends were. I would never have learned what makes a real friend without those times.
Similarly, I won't ever really learn about forgiveness and gratitude until I need to forgive someone for a particularly wicked deed and then take it one step further to expressing gratitude for the deed. Twenty years ago a friend and I would talk about "being in lesson" at moments like that. We would know that there was a spiritual purpose for our challenging times. The more challenging the times, the more we were sure we were "in lesson."
School goes in other cycles too. A different friend and I were talking over dinner Sunday about the same lessons that seem to keep showing up in our lives every few years. In my belief system those repeating lessons are ones that our souls signed up to master. But, with each cycle, we learn something different.
I am a bit reluctant to announce at this early stage, but I feel a difficult cycle is approaching an end. You may recall that a few days ago, I wrote about feeling as if I were pregnant (11/2/12.) I've been restless and keep feeling like I have been about to deliver something. Today, I think my "baby" is an easier stage of life. In several arenas in life, I feel little breakthroughs, harbingers of better times. I feel as if it might almost be safe to relax. Ah!
While I look forward to easier times, I am cognizant of being truly grateful for the years I've been "in spiritual school," maybe this time for a spiritual post-doc.
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