Risking Greatness

In my book The Game Called Life, spiritual guide/guardian angel Helen explains to Lizzie, the person she is helping, the steps to "living a prayer in the real world."  The "real" world is the spiritual world, as opposed to the "fictional" world, which is the one in which most of us think we exist.  Step Six is "risk greatness." 

She says: "I am not speaking of greatness in fictional world terms where people reach a high level in their worldly work or make a lot of money. Greatness in the real world means speeding the evolution of humankind." Later she explains why "greatness" is a risk.

"Greatness itself isn't the risk.  The risk lies in the willingness to consistently answer a call that usually cannot be understood.  The path to greatness requires players to do things that they may never have been done before or at least to do them in unconventional ways."

In recent days there seems to be a magic that as soon as I publish one blogpost, a related idea pops into my head which builds on that post.  After yesterday's post on vulnerability, I realized that what I'd really been writing about was risking greatness.  Am I willing to be personally vulnerable in order to evolve humankind? 

I've crossed that bridge before.  Leading from the Heart and The Alchemy of Fear were not exactly conventional business books. I knew at the time I wrote them that I was exposing myself to criticism from traditional management audiences, as well as more conventionally religious readers. I couldn't prove what I was about to write.  I had no data (and still don't) that leading and working from our spiritual cores and making the increase of love be our motivation would help organizations, but I'd seen it. I knew what I knew.  I could evolve the way we work.  So, I wrote, and many people read.  Both books received some official recognition, but in serving the spirit world, I did marginalize myself for a long time in the management consulting world.  It was as if that community thought that my left brain evaporated, as I wrote what the right brain told me.

Then came The Game Called Life which explained "how the world worked" in a somewhat unconventional way. Life is a game, but most of us just don't know the rules. The Game and Choice Point, which hasn't seen the light of day beyond a small circle of friends who have been deeply moved by it, not only flew in the face of many conventional religious beliefs but also are contrary to many popular "New Age" teachings. I couldn't prove it, but I knew what I knew, so I wrote. 

I've stood in front of audiences and shared deeply personal parts of myself because I thought that doing so would help others sustain their own spiritual journeys. 

Although I am not sure that anyone would say that I achieved greatness in the normal world (what Helen would call the "fictional" world) context, I still hear from people who were empowered for their own journeys by the words that have moved through me.  While it was a risk to take on these major constituencies, my spiritual center told me that it was my work to do.

Have I been vulnerable? Of course.  Would I do one thing differently? Never.  If vulnerability is how we find God then each of those writing experiences have been other worldly.  I have surrendered to the words that wanted to move through me.  I have learned for the first time as I read what was on the screen in front of me. To surrender so completely is by definition risking and vulnerable.  And, only twice have I felt closer to God than when I am writing.

I stand at the precipice of vulnerability, ready to jump,...again.  I am ready to risk greatness in the hope that I can have the teensiest role in evolving human kind.

Choosing Vulnerability

Today was our last Sunday with  Michael Angell as Assistant Rector at our church.  (Cool name for a man of God, wouldn't you say?) Michael has been very special in my personal spiritual development, and I will miss him terribly.  Although he is just a man in his twenties, he has the wisdom of an old soul.  His sermons have often touched me profoundly, sending me home to meditate on a thought or phrase.  So, it seems appropriate that his last sermon as Assistant Rector should have sent me pondering deeply.

Although his overall message was something different, as he often does, Michael buried a provoking thought in his homily.  "We don't find God from being perfect," he said.  "We find God by being vulnerable."  Vulnerability.  Much of what our popular culture teaches us about life is how to keep ourselves from being vulnerable--how we can protect ourselves from every possible thing that might make us helpless physically, emotionally, spiritually, and financially. "How do we armor ourselves from being hurt?" is shouted to us almost from birth.

I wrote a book on transforming fear, yet I find myself imprisoned by fear of vulnerability.  Yesterday, I told me friend that until recent years I'd never made a decision, based on money.  Yet, I continued, facing retirement was few assets and a long life expectancy, I have been increasingly paralyzed from doing what I know is right in my heart for fear of financial vulnerability.

My heart has been seriously broken several times, and this month it will be 20 years that I have been grieving the end of my marriage.  I say I would really like to have someone else in my life.  But would I?  Would I be willing to be vulnerable to the potential pain, in exchange for the gifts that come with love? Even if I would allow myself to be so emotionally vulnerable, would I even know how?  I am not sure after so many years of guarding my heart that I would know how.

Over the last year, I've slowly been losing the short-range functionality of my right eye.  For all intents and purposes, it is now gone.  There is a surgery that could restore my vision. The success rate is 99%, but if the surgery is not successful, I will lose my vision in that eye.  I am skittish.  Really!? I've lost functionality. Could losing my sight in that eye be so much worse? And, of course, the surgeons are really frightened of being legally vulnerable if I lose my sight.  It is like we are pulling each other back in the face of all reason.

So, if we find God in vulnerability, I have more than enough opportunity to have a really first-rate encounter with the divine.  What is the problem here, Kay? 

Two days before I withdrew from the world to begin writing Leading from the Heart was my birthday.  I had a party with all my closest friends to wrap myself in their love as I went into a truly vulnerable spot--allowing God to use me to share a message with the world.  I didn't know if I'd be successful, or how it would work, but I had to try.  At that party, my niece gave me a birthday card that said, "If we are forced to leap off a cliff, either a bridge will appear or we will learn to fly." 

I think this may be how vulnerability works.  If I am willing to leap off the vulnerability cliff, either God will catch me or I will learn to fly.  Neither of those seems like such a bad option. As I stand at the precipice of vulnerability, I feel myself wrapped in the love of friends and angels cheering me and ready to meet God in the vulnerability. And, so I send Michael off on his own spiritual adventure, knowing that his parting gift to me has been my wings of vulnerability.