Rebirth

Spring officially began last weekend.  I delight in seeing my spring bulbs stick their bright green sprouts through the soil in search of the sun promised by longer days. The trees in the national park behind my apartment are generously showing their own bright green with a few almost leafed out. Here in Washington blooming trees, including the famous Japanese cherry blossoms which are in peak bloom this very day, abound.  How fortunate I feel to be able to work from work to the Metro every day by this display that others travel from all over the world to experience.

While there are things that I love about each of the four seasons, spring holds promise.  Whatever magical process that has been occurring in the ground during the dark months now moves boldly into the next stage of life's cycle.

We should not be surprised at this time of natural inspiration that many religions mark holidays, such as Easter and Passover, when we gather with friends and family to eat and drink and be joyous after having gone through a period of darkness, threat, and even death or imminent death. Even the Easter Bunny grew out of a pagan celebration of fertility, and Easter eggs are associated with what will be born, indicating that such spring celebrations have long been with us.

I have been called a heretic, so this is a spoiler alert that if you don't want anyone messing with your literal reading of the Easter story, this is a good time to hit the little "X" in the corner and come back another day.

My spiritual roots developed in the Christian tradition, so I observe Easter this weekend.  Although Christianity formed my basic spiritual concepts, I have found learning and guidance in many religious traditions, and now I look at my own stories with a more universal lens of myth and metaphor than with a literal one.

Looking at it in that way, the story of Jesus' death, three days' burial, and his resurrection from the dead mean that it is time for me to sort through my life, find what needs to die, and then commit to how I want to be reborn for the year ahead. The season of Lent, the 40 days before Easter, intends to be a time of coming close to God in contemplation, fasting, deprivation of things that separate us from God, and prayer and meditation.  At this time, we take a hard look at what we have been and what we want to be, and then we determine what new behaviors we want for the future to carry us toward the life we intentionally create.

I believe (more heresy coming) that God is not an anthropomorphic old man with a beard but is instead a force of Love and Good...of caring...that connects all of us. Jesus has been called the great teacher about Love.  Even as he was being tortured in death, he did not anger. I believe his role in the evolution of the world was not to give birth to a religion but instead was to demonstrate what miracles all of us can make happen if we act totally in Love.  Being Love as a noun, something that we are, rather than "love" as a verb, something that we do...or don't do.

The Easter lesson forces me say to myself, "What behaviors, habits, attitudes, or values stand in the way of me being Love?" Those are the things this holiday tells me to put to death, so that I can be reborn in this season of newness as a force for what is good in the world. My work is to be that day in and day out.

Years ago I recall hearing someone reflect on the shadow nature of all of us.  The source is forgotten, but I remember hearing that in all of us, even the worst of us, there is a Mother Teresa who is kind, loving and compassionate. And in all of us, even the best of us, there is an ax murderer, who is driven by hate, fear, and anger and is capable of unmentionable evil.  Our job is to choose who we will be.

That is the work of rebirth: taking a hard look at any speck within us that is driven by anything other than Love and plucking it out.  Then consciously choosing how we become Love in the world.

A Day of Love

Today is Valentine's Day.  Although the holiday, dating back to the 14th Century, originated as a Christian Feast day, it has always been associated with love.  Apparently, Saint Valentine was known to perform marriages for soldiers, who were forbidden from marrying.  In the 18th Century, people gave keys to invite their intended to unlock their hearts.

Why is it that we lock our hearts? I believe that we are hardwired to love so that we need to lock our hearts seems counter-intuitive.  The heart and love and giving of ourselves to another is turf that I've worked a lot.  I wish I could say I had the answers; I don't.  But that doesn't mean that I have stopped trying to find them.

In my heart of hearts I know that being in that state of Oneness that is love transcends all other human conditions.  I believe it is the closest that we come to heaven on earth. So why do we so fear it?

A 93-year-old World War II veteran was reunited with his now 88-year-old wartime sweetheart this week.  She is in Australia.  He lives in the Washington, D.C. area. When asked about the danger of taking such a long flight at his age, he responded that he would rather risk death than live the rest of his life without her.

My adopted parents who met in the same era at a USO Dance, married after just a few days, and they were like sweethearts for over 60 years.  I remember observing them looking at each other on their 50th anniversary like lovestruck teenagers.  A friend told me a couple days ago about his parents who met similarly, married soon, and spent 54 years together.  These are the stories of Valentine's Day myths, but they aren't myths: they are true stories.

For many of us, I believe that staying in the flow of love with another person may be our most important spiritual journey. It is hard work, and many of us just don't like hard work.  Hearts that have been hurt or broken become increasingly skittish, afraid that they will ever have to endure that horrible ache again.  Yet to not risk the heartache means to risk ever experiencing that blissful "heaven-on-earth" feeling again. Maybe that is why we need keys to unlock our hearts.

In my meditation about the nature of love and opening our hearts today, it came to me that many of us treat our hearts that have been broken like precious crystal that once shattered can never be mended. But, our hearts are muscles.  Even when physically broken open, they do heal.

Many years ago when I was first lifting weights, the trainer told me that we actually build muscle by tearing it.  We lift, the muscle tears, and the muscle heals.  Yet when it heals, the muscle is stronger. He told me that it was important not to work the same muscle groups two days in a row so that the muscle would have time to heal. Allowing ourselves to heal is essential to the process, but we do heal, and the very act of tearing is what makes the muscle strong.

So perhaps it is the act of allowing our hearts to be broken that makes them grow stronger. They are not the undeveloped hearts of untested youth, but instead they are stronger.  Maybe our mission should not be to avoid love because our hearts have been broken, but to actually move toward love because our hearts are stronger, strong enough to fully take in a more enduring love.

While most of this post has inferred romantic love, I believe it is true of all love, and it is especially true of love that connects us as human beings. Because someone from the Middle East did something bad, we shut our hearts so we will not be hurt again.  Yet there are many out there, like millions of refugees, not unlike many of our own ancestors, who would love us and want to be with us. They would make our lives richer.

I have coached a number of people who distrust their bosses, not because that person ever did something to them, but because some other person at another job did. They were hurt and can't trust a new and very different boss.  Others push away a friend who sleighted them, and in these social media times they impale the person on the skewer of Twitter and Facebook.

Valentine's Day then seems like an appropriate time to remember that our hearts are muscles.  They mend. They grow stronger.  They can love again even after being hurt.  It is that ability to love again that makes us human and at the same time makes us divine.  God wants us to love. My Valentine's Day wish for each of you is to love and to love not just where it is easy but to love where it is hard.

Breaking My Heart

For a week I've been pondering the broken heart. Yesterday I wrote of reconciliation and how I have guarded my heart, as if having my heart broken might be the worst thing that could happen.  Experiencing a broken heart is one of the worst experiences most of us can remember. 



Causing a broken heart can be equally painful. For me, it was worse to watch someone I loved wriggle in anguish and to know that I caused the pain.  As I reflect, that may have hardened my heart as much as having my own heart broken.  I don't ever want to do that again...ever.  Maybe that is why I haven't found love in 20 years.  Maybe it is that I have been as frightened of breaking a heart as having my own be broken. 



So what has caused this recent pondering of the broken heart?  "The babies" that I spent time with last weekend reinitiated me in the feeling of true love in my heart.  Each time I would hug/be hugged love would just wash over me.  I literally felt like I was falling in love, just as with the romantic kind.  My heart would swell.  I'd have butterflies in my stomach and a tickle in my throat.  I woke up each day eager to hold them again. 

I remember hugging the little one on Sunday morning as she giggled with glee.  This, I thought, is what it feels like to be in love.  It had been such a long time that I'd forgotten. I was totally present and in the moment without another thought other than relishing the feeling.



Almost in its wake though was the thought: I really need a broken heart.  Not the guarded find that I have long feared.  What I need is for my heart to break open--to be so full of love that it just explodes with joy--I thought.   Perhaps that is what love is: love is the willingness to make ourselves vulnerable to breaking open for that is how love flows between us. 



I have written a lot about feeling that God is the flow of love from heart to heart to heart.  When my heart broke open with love last weekend was as close as I've felt to God in a very long time.  What a gift a heart broken open can be.  It literally allows us to be God for we cannot experience God from the recesses of a locked and guarded heart.

Squandering Love

On Thursday, I received an email from a friend who knew I was working on a memoir.  She shared a number of observations, concluding with the question, "You have had so many losses, transitions, upheavals, how did you (and how can we) work through the fear/anxiety?"  My immediate reaction was "I have no idea."  I just had to.

It was only after writing yesterday's post about being the best we can be that it hit me: my resilience comes from living with the intention to never cease to be the best I can be.  I don't always get there; in fact, I am not sure it is possible to get "there" because wherever we get, there is always the possibility to be better.  In all things.

There are some things that I've been better at persisting to be better than others.  All things considered, I've been good about how I eat and how I take care of my physical body.  There are also things at which I have not been so good.  I have not been so good at love.

Today I was having a conversation with a dear friend, and in the middle of it, I began to cry.  Something we had been talking about just made me think, I've really squandered love.  That is the word that came to me: "squandered."  It isn't a word I use a lot.  I have a sense of its meaning, but I felt like I wanted to look it up to see precisely what it meant.  "To spend or use something precious in a wasteful and extravagant way."  Hmm...I needed to look it up.  That was exactly the word.  When it comes to love, I've been like the prodigal who was given everything and wasted it.

A few days ago I wrote about the importance of telling people that I love that I do love them.  ("I Love You," 1/7/14.)  That is a communication and connection thing.  This is different.  To really be with love is to be truly present to it (that again!) and to consciously treat it as "precious."  Consciously.  To be in conscious awareness of love. 

I remember falling asleep, night after night for years, thinking what joy love was bringing me. But, somewhere along the way, I stopped appreciating what I had.  Appreciation is also an interesting word.  We use it to talk about financial investments that grow.  To really appreciate love requires investment--investment of self.

A few days a friend sent me an article written by a woman who had been single for many years before meeting her husband.  She appreciates him, and she understands how to let go of the petty stuff because it really isn't important.  She is treating the relationship as the precious thing it is.

Love is when we see the divine in ourselves and others.  We really recognize the wonder that is.  I regret having squandered such a precious thing as love.  I would like to think that just as the long-time single woman, I will not squander love in the future.  Yet, I am a work in progress.  All I can truly do is the never cease to be better at appreciating the love I have...when I have it.

The Black Pitcher

When I was a young bride, and the groom and I were merging possessions into our new home, he opened a box and slowly withdrew a beautifully shaped black metal pitcher.  He said, "I know it's ugly, but it was my grandmother's.  We don't have to use it, but I don't want to get rid of it." 

"OK," I said, not sure what to make of it.  One day when he was out of the house, I dug out the pitcher and took on a challenge.  Thirty minutes, a lot of elbow grease, and a container of silver polish later, I had a beautiful antique silver water pitcher. 

Later when my husband walked in and saw the shiny pitcher, he looked at me quizzically, "What?"

I smiled and said, "It is silver: it was just tarnished."

This morning I was walking through the Metro Center station, saying my affirmation to myself, "We are all love." Then, I started thinking about some people I know who aren't exactly the personification of love.  The silver pitcher came to mind.  Those unpleasant people are love, tarnished till they can't be can't be recognized for their true nature, just like the pitcher.  We are all tarnished.  Our challenge: find our way back to silver.