In the 1970s Barry Stevens authored a book, entitled Don't Push the River. I read it 25 years ago, when it has a mind resurgence in popularity during the heydey of the 1990s human potential movement. Quite frankly, I struggled with the book, but the title has persisted as a concept. If things are supposed to happen, they will; and if they aren't, don't waste your energy trying to push something that doesn't want to happen. In the 90s, when everything seemed to happen easily, maybe the concept was just a sign of the times.
My life has been a challenge for much of this century, and at this New Year, I was shocked to realize how many years have passed since initiating the Millennium. Many have been the times that I've grappled with whether I was pushing the river, in everything from physical challenges to work situations.
I grew up in the heartland where perseverance and determination were not only virtues, but often survival tactics for our hard winters and summer storms and tornados. With that said, when I moved to Oregon, I noticed a lot of people who had moved from the Dakotas and Minnesota after a couple of exceptionally challenging weather years. I render no judgment: they had just decided they could no longer persevere. (My own move was inspired by wanderlust and the sense of adventure, offered to a flat-lander by the mountains and wild rivers.)
As far as I can tell, I started the process of putting The Game Called Life on Amazon in November of 2013, just days after a government shutdown had provided me with time to contemplate what was important. Apparently, getting that book to a wider market was part of the answer. Once we returned to work, the long hours started up again. Occasionally, I worked on formatting, cover design, etc., on a holiday or a weekend, but I am not a detail person, and taking on such tedious tasks when exhausted by my day job was off-putting. A year later--November 2014--I had a proof. I sat down one afternoon and hand-marked the edits, entered them into the online text, and then reviewed. The review revealed more typos which I marked again. (Long silence follows here until this week.)
I reported earlier this week that it had only taken me 20 minutes to make the changes that had been waiting for attention for 26 months. Today I jumped in for what I expected would be a few minutes, polishing the final steps in no time. There is an expression that if you want to make God laugh, tell God your plans. I felt God was laughing at me today. I struggled for hours. Shortly after 5 p.m., my head hung between my hands, and I wondered out loud if the Universe was attempting to tell me to give up. I thought the message was so important, and I had committed to carry it through. How could iI be asked to quit before it was finished?
Much to my surprise, when I called for help, I actually got a real person who spoke very good English fairly promptly. "No," she said, "you can't do either of the things you are trying to do to your cover." (Paraphrased.) Well, no wonder I hadn't been able to do them. I heaved a sigh that connoted both exasperation and relief. I could give up.
Within another 10 minutes, my submission was complete and has been submitted for review. Since there is nothing immoral or illegal in it, I am not too concerned. There is another hoop to get through to get it ready for kindle, but I can't start that until the paper version approval has arrived.
Perseverance has paid off. This time. Yet I do believe there are times when I am being sent a message to just "Give it up already." That Midwestern upbringing just won't let me let go. I am not sure how we know. Last week I wrote about how to tell if our guidance was real or not, and I think the perseverance-versus-the-pushing-the-river conundrum may be another form of guidance confusion.
How do we know? These efforts in our life don't come with superscripts that say, "Give it up!" or "Hang in there! Just persevere and this will be rewarded." There may a way to know when we are in the middle of it. If so, recognizing the message when I am consumed by the effort is something I have yet to master. I do know that this evening, I feel light, and my heart feels full. I am not sure, but I am guessing that I wouldn't be feeling that way if I had decided to give it up.
Showing posts with label following guidance. Show all posts
Showing posts with label following guidance. Show all posts
Friday, January 13, 2017
Sunday, January 8, 2017
How Do I Know?
A young man sits talking with his pastor before his marriage. "How do you know?" he inquires. Like many people about to marry, they want to make sure this is the right one because the decision will inevitably change their lives in some, probably many, ways. The pastor gives him some signs, but mostly says, "You just know."
Not unlike the young man about to marry, over the years many of my friends and clients have asked me about the guidance I receive. "How do you know?" some ask. "How do you get it?" others want to know.
Yesterday in a meandering conversation with a former Intentional Living Intensive client, now friend, we wandered into the topic. This time it was me attempting to establish parameters for myself. My most important guidance, or what I assume to be my most important, has usually been boldly clear to me, and many times it has been the response to a simple question. Often a booming voice spoke to me in a bold but loving way.
When I knew that it was time for me to leave Eugene, Oregon, 22 years ago, I stated simply, "I want a more friendly environment in which to live. I asked, "Where would you have me go?" Instantly, I received the names of three cities "you should explore." Over the next 18 hours, I received six "signs" about the Research Triangle Area of North Carolina. The last was a banner headline of my Oregon newspaper, which read: "Raleigh/Durham named best place to live."
Almost a decade after settling into my home in Durham, N.C., I found myself writing the words, "You are to move to Washington, D.C." while I was journaling. I tried to ignore them. I liked living in N.C. I had never considered living in Washington, what to me seemed like a "big city." I had usually lived in smaller cities and just didn't have a clue how to move into a city that I didn't know, without a job, and knowing almost no one. The prospect was overwhelming.
Other times I've gotten repeated guidance that I wasn't excited about receiving, and it has persisted. Over a couple of years, I had frequently gotten guidance to take a month-long pilgrimage to a place where English wasn't the dominant language, make no plans, take very little cash and no credit cards. I would be guided I was told. I wasn't ready. Finally, on a flight between two islands in Greece at the end of a physically exhausting conference, the bold voice was there again, this time tinged with more than a little impatience.
The message was the same except for a couple details to take the wiggle room out for me. "You are to return to Greece within three months for a pilgrimage. You are to make no plans, take very little cash and no credit cards." The open-endedness of previous guidance was erased by very specific place and time frames. I did receive two very small details over the intervening three months, but mostly I went with little more than initially directed. It was a wonderful, growthful, and insightful exploration. I will never be the same.
Insights haven't always been of the life-changing kinds, like moving across the country or going to an expensive tourist country with no credit cards and very little cash. On one of my open-ended vacations a few years later, as the day was growing toward an end, I said to my travel partner, "I wonder where we should stop." Within 1/4 of a mile, a large billboard stated simply in foot-high letters, "This is your place." It was.
Although it has been a long time since I had one, I used to occasionally, I have what I call a "cosmic marquee." Like a theatre marquee, a message for me is highlighted by flashing lights around it. The "cosmic marquee" seems to be reserved for really big messages.
Whether big or small, much of my guidance has been very specific. However, other times, it has been subtler. When I find myself having the same conversation with several clients in the same day or two, I believe that to probably be a sign that I should give the topic some inner reflection. When I have done so, it has usually ended up being dead-on for me.
Other times, words just come out of my mouth as if I didn't know the source but was keenly aware it was my mouth that was moving. In the years just after my first two books came out, I did a lot of keynoting, and because I was being paid very well, I always dutifully wrote my speeches in advance. But once I started speaking, other words came out. At some point, I started a file called, "Speeches I never gave." I've also found myself asking coaching clients questions that meant nothing to me, but were spot-on for the recipient.
Yesterday's conversation went in a different way, though. We talked about the even subtler forms of guidance. A hunch. An explained desire to do something I've never done. My intuition? Maybe my insatiable quest for adventure?
Recently, I've had the urge to get on a Greyhound bus and travel across the northern part of the US...in January. Really?! Our wind-chill factor in Washington today is 2 degrees Fahrenheit, and I don't even want to go near a window much less travel across the breadth of the country in places that often get much colder than this. This isn't a lingering desire I've suppressed that is emerging from the depths of my psyche. Although I've often jumped on a bus for travel in Europe, I've never even considered going anywhere on a bus in this country.
Is that guidance, I wondered to my client/friend? I do know that timing is critically important when following guidance. Not unlike the Butterfly Effect, which describes the flapping of the wings of a butterfly in New Mexico causing a hurricane in China, there are a lot of moving parts in God's world. God knows the plan, but the rest of us don't get the site map.
Let's say I am supposed to bump into someone at a truck stop near Fargo, North Dakota, on January 25. I have to take the bus because if I was driving, it is a place I wouldn't stop. The encounter may be brief, maybe totally unmemorable. In the course of a casual conversation, say with a waitress while ordering lunch, I say something that makes her understand an aspect of her life differently. We don't talk about going back to college or moving to Arizona, but there is something that is said that makes her connect to doing those things. As a result of those bold moves, she makes a discovery in her research that alters the course of humankind.
If I didn't leave until weather is more pleasant in spring, I don't make that connection, which means that a conversation we may have had never happens. Following guidance isn't like using God as your personal travel agent. It is very precisely about allowing God to change the world through you.
Think about Moses saying to God that he doesn't want to go that way because there's no way to get around the sea. How could he have known? He just followed his guidance.
So, back to the question, "How do you know?" As I sit in my apartment contemplating whether I want to walk half a block in this weather to get to a car to go to a dance tonight, I ponder, "Do I really want to get on a bus and travel across the northern US?" It is a question heavy on my heart. My intention is to make the world a better place, and if this is guidance, I would do almost anything to do my part. Yet, what if this isn't guidance, and traveling on a bus in January is really a fool's errand I'd rather avoid? How do I know?
I will meditate on this more...and ask simple questions. In the end, I will trust that with my intentions clear, I will know in my heart what I am to do.
Not unlike the young man about to marry, over the years many of my friends and clients have asked me about the guidance I receive. "How do you know?" some ask. "How do you get it?" others want to know.
Yesterday in a meandering conversation with a former Intentional Living Intensive client, now friend, we wandered into the topic. This time it was me attempting to establish parameters for myself. My most important guidance, or what I assume to be my most important, has usually been boldly clear to me, and many times it has been the response to a simple question. Often a booming voice spoke to me in a bold but loving way.
When I knew that it was time for me to leave Eugene, Oregon, 22 years ago, I stated simply, "I want a more friendly environment in which to live. I asked, "Where would you have me go?" Instantly, I received the names of three cities "you should explore." Over the next 18 hours, I received six "signs" about the Research Triangle Area of North Carolina. The last was a banner headline of my Oregon newspaper, which read: "Raleigh/Durham named best place to live."
Almost a decade after settling into my home in Durham, N.C., I found myself writing the words, "You are to move to Washington, D.C." while I was journaling. I tried to ignore them. I liked living in N.C. I had never considered living in Washington, what to me seemed like a "big city." I had usually lived in smaller cities and just didn't have a clue how to move into a city that I didn't know, without a job, and knowing almost no one. The prospect was overwhelming.
Other times I've gotten repeated guidance that I wasn't excited about receiving, and it has persisted. Over a couple of years, I had frequently gotten guidance to take a month-long pilgrimage to a place where English wasn't the dominant language, make no plans, take very little cash and no credit cards. I would be guided I was told. I wasn't ready. Finally, on a flight between two islands in Greece at the end of a physically exhausting conference, the bold voice was there again, this time tinged with more than a little impatience.
The message was the same except for a couple details to take the wiggle room out for me. "You are to return to Greece within three months for a pilgrimage. You are to make no plans, take very little cash and no credit cards." The open-endedness of previous guidance was erased by very specific place and time frames. I did receive two very small details over the intervening three months, but mostly I went with little more than initially directed. It was a wonderful, growthful, and insightful exploration. I will never be the same.
Insights haven't always been of the life-changing kinds, like moving across the country or going to an expensive tourist country with no credit cards and very little cash. On one of my open-ended vacations a few years later, as the day was growing toward an end, I said to my travel partner, "I wonder where we should stop." Within 1/4 of a mile, a large billboard stated simply in foot-high letters, "This is your place." It was.
Although it has been a long time since I had one, I used to occasionally, I have what I call a "cosmic marquee." Like a theatre marquee, a message for me is highlighted by flashing lights around it. The "cosmic marquee" seems to be reserved for really big messages.
Whether big or small, much of my guidance has been very specific. However, other times, it has been subtler. When I find myself having the same conversation with several clients in the same day or two, I believe that to probably be a sign that I should give the topic some inner reflection. When I have done so, it has usually ended up being dead-on for me.
Other times, words just come out of my mouth as if I didn't know the source but was keenly aware it was my mouth that was moving. In the years just after my first two books came out, I did a lot of keynoting, and because I was being paid very well, I always dutifully wrote my speeches in advance. But once I started speaking, other words came out. At some point, I started a file called, "Speeches I never gave." I've also found myself asking coaching clients questions that meant nothing to me, but were spot-on for the recipient.
Yesterday's conversation went in a different way, though. We talked about the even subtler forms of guidance. A hunch. An explained desire to do something I've never done. My intuition? Maybe my insatiable quest for adventure?
Recently, I've had the urge to get on a Greyhound bus and travel across the northern part of the US...in January. Really?! Our wind-chill factor in Washington today is 2 degrees Fahrenheit, and I don't even want to go near a window much less travel across the breadth of the country in places that often get much colder than this. This isn't a lingering desire I've suppressed that is emerging from the depths of my psyche. Although I've often jumped on a bus for travel in Europe, I've never even considered going anywhere on a bus in this country.
Is that guidance, I wondered to my client/friend? I do know that timing is critically important when following guidance. Not unlike the Butterfly Effect, which describes the flapping of the wings of a butterfly in New Mexico causing a hurricane in China, there are a lot of moving parts in God's world. God knows the plan, but the rest of us don't get the site map.
Let's say I am supposed to bump into someone at a truck stop near Fargo, North Dakota, on January 25. I have to take the bus because if I was driving, it is a place I wouldn't stop. The encounter may be brief, maybe totally unmemorable. In the course of a casual conversation, say with a waitress while ordering lunch, I say something that makes her understand an aspect of her life differently. We don't talk about going back to college or moving to Arizona, but there is something that is said that makes her connect to doing those things. As a result of those bold moves, she makes a discovery in her research that alters the course of humankind.
If I didn't leave until weather is more pleasant in spring, I don't make that connection, which means that a conversation we may have had never happens. Following guidance isn't like using God as your personal travel agent. It is very precisely about allowing God to change the world through you.
Think about Moses saying to God that he doesn't want to go that way because there's no way to get around the sea. How could he have known? He just followed his guidance.
So, back to the question, "How do you know?" As I sit in my apartment contemplating whether I want to walk half a block in this weather to get to a car to go to a dance tonight, I ponder, "Do I really want to get on a bus and travel across the northern US?" It is a question heavy on my heart. My intention is to make the world a better place, and if this is guidance, I would do almost anything to do my part. Yet, what if this isn't guidance, and traveling on a bus in January is really a fool's errand I'd rather avoid? How do I know?
I will meditate on this more...and ask simple questions. In the end, I will trust that with my intentions clear, I will know in my heart what I am to do.
Friday, October 3, 2014
Finding Peace in the Chaos
I pondered what is "guidance," as I arrived on this meditational journey. Was it the inner whisperings I heard from within to go to the Peloponnese? Was it messages from four people immediately before my journey that I should go to Santorini and Crete? Was it something I'd found in a file from my last journey to Greece 16 years earlier, which particularly resonated with me now? The answer I believe is "yes."
I found important lessons in Peloponnese. I learned a lot from listening at other places. Perhaps the most surprising have been the lessons learned on Santorini. When each of the friends who advised I come here did so, I always said I liked to avoid tourist places. The answer was always that I must come here. So I did.
I admit that I was more than a little grouchy upon my arrival yesterday. I don't believe I've ever been to a more touristy spot. There was literally not a thing that spoke of integrity with the local region. Most infuriating was the perfect English all about me. Was I in Greece or a local Greek cafe in Washington?
I was immediately convinced that this most photographed place in Greece had only been accomplished by excellent cropping of photos. That would have been the only way not to include unabashed tourist-mongering.
Yet, I was sure I was sent here. How could any wise guide have brought me to such a place, I had asked in my prayer time this morning?
The answer was immediate and clear: find peace and stillness amidst the chaos. That would be a challenge. But I set about to find it.
My guidebook purported three nearby towns which required enough effort to find that only the most determined of guests attempted. Then over breakfast I found a boat trip to out-islands. I booked for tomorrow.
As I hiked to other towns, I was surprised at how quickly the noise of the maddening crowds quieted. In Imerovigli I found a small chapel where I sat for some time. I had truly found peace in the silence.
Just as I had that thought, I heard the Universe laughing at me with the challenge to find peace IN the chaos not withdrawn from it. I chuckled. There are still more ways to find peace in the chaos. The hardest lay ahead: surrounded by the tourists and the hockers.
What echoes in my mind is the parallel with traditional meditation when the mind spins, and the meditator is challenged to still the mind and find peace. It is the same lesson. I am not sure that one ever ends for most of us.
After a lunch break away from that maddening crowd, I am now ready to move to the next lesson: find peace IN the chaos.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
I found important lessons in Peloponnese. I learned a lot from listening at other places. Perhaps the most surprising have been the lessons learned on Santorini. When each of the friends who advised I come here did so, I always said I liked to avoid tourist places. The answer was always that I must come here. So I did.
I admit that I was more than a little grouchy upon my arrival yesterday. I don't believe I've ever been to a more touristy spot. There was literally not a thing that spoke of integrity with the local region. Most infuriating was the perfect English all about me. Was I in Greece or a local Greek cafe in Washington?
I was immediately convinced that this most photographed place in Greece had only been accomplished by excellent cropping of photos. That would have been the only way not to include unabashed tourist-mongering.
Yet, I was sure I was sent here. How could any wise guide have brought me to such a place, I had asked in my prayer time this morning?
The answer was immediate and clear: find peace and stillness amidst the chaos. That would be a challenge. But I set about to find it.
My guidebook purported three nearby towns which required enough effort to find that only the most determined of guests attempted. Then over breakfast I found a boat trip to out-islands. I booked for tomorrow.
As I hiked to other towns, I was surprised at how quickly the noise of the maddening crowds quieted. In Imerovigli I found a small chapel where I sat for some time. I had truly found peace in the silence.
Just as I had that thought, I heard the Universe laughing at me with the challenge to find peace IN the chaos not withdrawn from it. I chuckled. There are still more ways to find peace in the chaos. The hardest lay ahead: surrounded by the tourists and the hockers.
What echoes in my mind is the parallel with traditional meditation when the mind spins, and the meditator is challenged to still the mind and find peace. It is the same lesson. I am not sure that one ever ends for most of us.
After a lunch break away from that maddening crowd, I am now ready to move to the next lesson: find peace IN the chaos.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
Monday, September 29, 2014
Listening Deeply
Readers: please note that this post should have been posted early. My challenges with technology resulted in it laying in drafts. I hope it will provide continuity to this current pilgrimage that may have been missing.
From sometime in 1995 or 1996 until June 1998, I frequently heard messages in my meditations that I should go to a country in which English was not a dominant language. I was to take no credit cards and very little cash. I was to take one carry-on bag and to follow where I was led. Mostly, I ignored.
Those were days when I was writing and generating more outflow than income. Even though I was to take little cash and no credit cards, I thought I couldn't afford such a venture.
In June of 1998 I worked a conference in Greece--very, very long hours. After four days, the conference moved from Athens to the Greek island of Rhodes late at night. I was fatigued and almost immediately fell asleep. Suddenly, I was awakened by a booming voice. It repeated the messages I'd been getting, but this time with more specificity. "You are to come back to Greece before summer's end...with little cash and no credit cards." More details followed.
Awakened from a deep sleep, I sat bolt up in my plane seat. Looking around at a sea of sleeping passengers, I was shocked that I appeared to be the only one awakened by the commanding voice.
Really?!
I got it. When I returned from my business trip, I immediately made air reservations to return for 30 days, the minimum time for which I'd been directed. I'd been given a number of other details, to which I rendered complete attention. The rest amounted to nothing less than a mystical adventure, much more of which will be detailed in my memoir. Suffice it to say, I've never been the same since that journey.
In early spring of this year, I was exhausted and began shopping for a trip. I am a bargain/adventure traveler, since 1998 most often traveling to a foreign airport and going wherever spirit leads. For weeks I shopped travel sites, looking for bargain air fares. In at least two months, the best fares kept coming up to Athens.
I wasn't sure that I was ready for what another Greek adventure promised. Finally, I relented. As soon as I booked, a plethora of other destinations presented, so I was certain I was supposed to be in Greece again.
Three months ago I picked up two travel guides to Greece, but was totally uninterested in them until three weeks ago. Somehow I knew it would be clear to me where to go.
On more than one occasion, I've heard the big booming directive; those are easy for me to follow. Harder are the subtler signs. I've written at length about how guidance comes to us, but over the last several days, I've thought I was receiving contradictory messages. I talked with a friend about which was true. I prayed about it yet no clarity came.
I've written that when several people give similar advice, it is probably more than human advice. Four people have urged specifically that I go to Crete and Santorini. Those two islands from more than 300 Greek islands. Yet that just didn't seem right.
Then three weeks ago I found a note from a friend, written in 1998, urging me to go to Galaxidhi at that time. I swear that I don't remember ever seeing the note before. Was finding it now "a sign?" I went to the referenced website, but it didn't seem quite right either.
For several years, I've thought of going to the Peloponnese. Galaxidhi was close, but not quite right. When I read about the Peloponnese in my guide books, two little towns jumped off the pages. One of my friends, who had urged Crete and Santorini, told me I didn't want to go there. I have just let decisions go, being certain that "where" would be clear to me when I needed to know.
Friday I traveled to Athens. I don't sleep in planes so Saturday evening I fell into bed at 8, some 37 hours without sleep. I had no idea what was next, but as I fell asleep, I set the intention that I would know in the morning.
I awakened slightly at 6 this morning, long enough to "rest" myself and fall back asleep, but with no clarity yet as to where I was to go. At 10:15, after the long sleep for which my body yearned, I sat right up in bed, and in an instant I knew where I was to go: the two towns in the Peloponnese that I'd felt were right in the beginning.
I jumped up and looked in the guidebook for commuting details. I quickly gathered my things, got directions to the bus terminal, and sped off, arriving at my bus just 8 minutes before it departed.
After just a few hours here, I know this is right. I do not know what else awaits me on this peninsula-turned-island, but I know enough that I can feel in my bones that what I knew in my heart from the beginning is right. I literally "fell" into a little hotel with a lovely garden this afternoon shortly after arriving. I think I will extend for another day, but that won't be clear until morning. I'm OK with that.
As I surrender my need to know once again, I find an incredible freedom and relaxation. Without itinerary or schedules to meet, there is nothing to stress me. I need only be in the present. Earlier this evening, I truly enjoyed a marvelous meal, followed by a walk along the Argolic Gulf, as the sun slipped into the horizon. I chuckled at swimmers below me over the cliffs and wondered at the cacti, which were about to bloom so near the water. Absolutely nothing distracting me from the moment.
My intention as this new cycle begins is to open my heart and find intimacy and love. I guess those things begin being here, wherever I am. For now, that is where I am.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
From sometime in 1995 or 1996 until June 1998, I frequently heard messages in my meditations that I should go to a country in which English was not a dominant language. I was to take no credit cards and very little cash. I was to take one carry-on bag and to follow where I was led. Mostly, I ignored.
Those were days when I was writing and generating more outflow than income. Even though I was to take little cash and no credit cards, I thought I couldn't afford such a venture.
In June of 1998 I worked a conference in Greece--very, very long hours. After four days, the conference moved from Athens to the Greek island of Rhodes late at night. I was fatigued and almost immediately fell asleep. Suddenly, I was awakened by a booming voice. It repeated the messages I'd been getting, but this time with more specificity. "You are to come back to Greece before summer's end...with little cash and no credit cards." More details followed.
Awakened from a deep sleep, I sat bolt up in my plane seat. Looking around at a sea of sleeping passengers, I was shocked that I appeared to be the only one awakened by the commanding voice.
Really?!
I got it. When I returned from my business trip, I immediately made air reservations to return for 30 days, the minimum time for which I'd been directed. I'd been given a number of other details, to which I rendered complete attention. The rest amounted to nothing less than a mystical adventure, much more of which will be detailed in my memoir. Suffice it to say, I've never been the same since that journey.
In early spring of this year, I was exhausted and began shopping for a trip. I am a bargain/adventure traveler, since 1998 most often traveling to a foreign airport and going wherever spirit leads. For weeks I shopped travel sites, looking for bargain air fares. In at least two months, the best fares kept coming up to Athens.
I wasn't sure that I was ready for what another Greek adventure promised. Finally, I relented. As soon as I booked, a plethora of other destinations presented, so I was certain I was supposed to be in Greece again.
Three months ago I picked up two travel guides to Greece, but was totally uninterested in them until three weeks ago. Somehow I knew it would be clear to me where to go.
On more than one occasion, I've heard the big booming directive; those are easy for me to follow. Harder are the subtler signs. I've written at length about how guidance comes to us, but over the last several days, I've thought I was receiving contradictory messages. I talked with a friend about which was true. I prayed about it yet no clarity came.
I've written that when several people give similar advice, it is probably more than human advice. Four people have urged specifically that I go to Crete and Santorini. Those two islands from more than 300 Greek islands. Yet that just didn't seem right.
Then three weeks ago I found a note from a friend, written in 1998, urging me to go to Galaxidhi at that time. I swear that I don't remember ever seeing the note before. Was finding it now "a sign?" I went to the referenced website, but it didn't seem quite right either.
For several years, I've thought of going to the Peloponnese. Galaxidhi was close, but not quite right. When I read about the Peloponnese in my guide books, two little towns jumped off the pages. One of my friends, who had urged Crete and Santorini, told me I didn't want to go there. I have just let decisions go, being certain that "where" would be clear to me when I needed to know.
Friday I traveled to Athens. I don't sleep in planes so Saturday evening I fell into bed at 8, some 37 hours without sleep. I had no idea what was next, but as I fell asleep, I set the intention that I would know in the morning.
I awakened slightly at 6 this morning, long enough to "rest" myself and fall back asleep, but with no clarity yet as to where I was to go. At 10:15, after the long sleep for which my body yearned, I sat right up in bed, and in an instant I knew where I was to go: the two towns in the Peloponnese that I'd felt were right in the beginning.
I jumped up and looked in the guidebook for commuting details. I quickly gathered my things, got directions to the bus terminal, and sped off, arriving at my bus just 8 minutes before it departed.
After just a few hours here, I know this is right. I do not know what else awaits me on this peninsula-turned-island, but I know enough that I can feel in my bones that what I knew in my heart from the beginning is right. I literally "fell" into a little hotel with a lovely garden this afternoon shortly after arriving. I think I will extend for another day, but that won't be clear until morning. I'm OK with that.
As I surrender my need to know once again, I find an incredible freedom and relaxation. Without itinerary or schedules to meet, there is nothing to stress me. I need only be in the present. Earlier this evening, I truly enjoyed a marvelous meal, followed by a walk along the Argolic Gulf, as the sun slipped into the horizon. I chuckled at swimmers below me over the cliffs and wondered at the cacti, which were about to bloom so near the water. Absolutely nothing distracting me from the moment.
My intention as this new cycle begins is to open my heart and find intimacy and love. I guess those things begin being here, wherever I am. For now, that is where I am.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
Monday, April 21, 2014
Dance as a Metaphor
I was having lunch recently with someone, who shares my love for dancing. We do different kinds of dance, but each of us enjoy our respective sports. Our conversation had covered many topics but most were spiritual in nature. As we talked about dance, I said to her, "I think that dance is a metaphor for our relationship with God." She was eager to hear more.
To start with, we need to be in agreement with God about what we are creating. When we share the intention to fulfill the purpose for us being in human form with God, it is like dancing with a great dance partner with whom we want to cocreate a wonderful dance experience.
Of course, knowing our respective parts is important. I am sure that God knows His part, just as I trust that most of the better leaders with whom I dance know their parts. But as a follower, I must know how to execute the figures in which I am led. If he leads something I don't know, then I am probably not going to do very well. I have put in lots of hours learning and practicing many figures so that I can respond appropriately to whatever is led.
The same is true with my relationship with God. I've been given certain gifts and talents, and it is my responsibility to develop and practice them so when I get a lead to use them, I have the skill to follow. I think that I have a gift for writing, which I've honed since grade school. I was a high school journalist and studied writing in college. Every job that I've had has required me to do some kind of writing, allowing me more practice. In a meditation in 1993, when I was asked to write a book, I had the developed the talent to execute "the figure that God led."
Similarly, I began speaking before large groups of people, up to 350 at a time, when I was in junior high school because young people at my church were expected to speak to the congregation from time to time. Over the years, I had many opportunities to speak and took them. When Leading from the Heart came out, and I was solicited for keynote addresses, I had developed my talents, so that I could follow the lead.
While it is important for me to know my part, I have periodically had the opportunity to dance with a leader who is so excellent, that he can lead me through a figure I've never done. If I maintain good technique, the leader's skill will carry me. I've had those kind of experiences in my dance with God as well, when I've encountered a situation new to me, but I've been able to flow through it, as long as I kept listening intently.
As important to note, however, is what I shouldn't do in my dance with God. To put it simply, "Don't resist!" There are two ways that I can resist in dance, and I think both apply to my relationship with God as well. On occasion, for some reason I feel like doing a particular step. Often, doing so is the result of a habit: people that I have danced with a lot do a particular sequence of figures, and I don't pay attention to where my leader is going. Off I go in other direction. It isn't pretty.
When I am dancing, I have to remember who is leading and who is following. If I second guess or anticipate my partner, again I go off in another direction. Once again, it isn't pretty.
I think that we often get so caught up in habitual living that we forget to really listen to what God is saying right now. We just autopilot along and miss the lead. Similarly, if we try to figure out where God is going on, and we try to take over the controls, I can almost promise it is not going to be a good experience. The partnership has to be a 1:1 relationship. God leads; we follow. One step at a time. Then God leads again; we follow again.
Years before I moved to Washington, God had been telling me to move here. I thought I'd do it my way and find a job here first. That wasn't what I was supposed to do. I was not only not successful finding a job before I finally moved, but God seemed to need to strip me of most everything I had in North Carolina to get me to move. Finally, and fortunately, I got it.
Like my advice to the homeless man in yesterday's blog, we just have to listen and follow. When we do, we can do a beautiful dance with God.
To start with, we need to be in agreement with God about what we are creating. When we share the intention to fulfill the purpose for us being in human form with God, it is like dancing with a great dance partner with whom we want to cocreate a wonderful dance experience.
Of course, knowing our respective parts is important. I am sure that God knows His part, just as I trust that most of the better leaders with whom I dance know their parts. But as a follower, I must know how to execute the figures in which I am led. If he leads something I don't know, then I am probably not going to do very well. I have put in lots of hours learning and practicing many figures so that I can respond appropriately to whatever is led.
The same is true with my relationship with God. I've been given certain gifts and talents, and it is my responsibility to develop and practice them so when I get a lead to use them, I have the skill to follow. I think that I have a gift for writing, which I've honed since grade school. I was a high school journalist and studied writing in college. Every job that I've had has required me to do some kind of writing, allowing me more practice. In a meditation in 1993, when I was asked to write a book, I had the developed the talent to execute "the figure that God led."
Similarly, I began speaking before large groups of people, up to 350 at a time, when I was in junior high school because young people at my church were expected to speak to the congregation from time to time. Over the years, I had many opportunities to speak and took them. When Leading from the Heart came out, and I was solicited for keynote addresses, I had developed my talents, so that I could follow the lead.
While it is important for me to know my part, I have periodically had the opportunity to dance with a leader who is so excellent, that he can lead me through a figure I've never done. If I maintain good technique, the leader's skill will carry me. I've had those kind of experiences in my dance with God as well, when I've encountered a situation new to me, but I've been able to flow through it, as long as I kept listening intently.
As important to note, however, is what I shouldn't do in my dance with God. To put it simply, "Don't resist!" There are two ways that I can resist in dance, and I think both apply to my relationship with God as well. On occasion, for some reason I feel like doing a particular step. Often, doing so is the result of a habit: people that I have danced with a lot do a particular sequence of figures, and I don't pay attention to where my leader is going. Off I go in other direction. It isn't pretty.
When I am dancing, I have to remember who is leading and who is following. If I second guess or anticipate my partner, again I go off in another direction. Once again, it isn't pretty.
I think that we often get so caught up in habitual living that we forget to really listen to what God is saying right now. We just autopilot along and miss the lead. Similarly, if we try to figure out where God is going on, and we try to take over the controls, I can almost promise it is not going to be a good experience. The partnership has to be a 1:1 relationship. God leads; we follow. One step at a time. Then God leads again; we follow again.
Years before I moved to Washington, God had been telling me to move here. I thought I'd do it my way and find a job here first. That wasn't what I was supposed to do. I was not only not successful finding a job before I finally moved, but God seemed to need to strip me of most everything I had in North Carolina to get me to move. Finally, and fortunately, I got it.
Like my advice to the homeless man in yesterday's blog, we just have to listen and follow. When we do, we can do a beautiful dance with God.
Monday, March 10, 2014
Am I Nuts or What?
In Sacred texts, God often speaks to people. Sometimes those "words" are literal words, but often God speaks to people in other ways. He spoke to Joseph through dreams. Others had visions that shared a message. Sometimes God speaks to us in our meditations. Somehow most of us don't have any problem with God speaking to those people way back when, but somewhere along the way, many, if not most, of us lost our faith in the credulity of God speaking to our contemporaries.
Last night I watched the first episode of the revival of the Carl Sagan's 1980 program "Cosmos." The story of a 16th Century Dominican friar Giordano Bruno consumed one portion of the hour. Bruno had a dream that he was sure have come from his "infinite God," which showed him an infinite universe in which the Earth rotated around the sun, and in fact, our sun was really a star, like countless other suns which were also stars, going on forever. Now, this was at a time when telescopes didn't exist, and it was "well established fact" that the sun rotated around the Earth, and that the only planets were the ones that could be seen with the naked eye.
Bruno believed so completely that God had spoken to him and shared this vision that after he was kicked out of his monastery, he went to several different countries to teach and write books. He was kicked out of each of them. Eventually, he was tried and burned at the stake...along with his books...for heresy...for claiming God had shown him something that was "well known" that it was false. He never recanted what he knew to be the truth.
The problem is that he was right. And he had been right in knowing that the vision of the Universe which had been revealed to him was precisely accurate. With the passing of each year, as space discovery vehicles probe more and more deeply into space, his accuracy continues to be affirmed. The more we know, the more we know Bruno was right.
Most of us have had an amazing, even revelatory dream, at some time. Countless stories have been shared of premonitory dreams that foretold a situation and allowed someone to "save the day." Yet, how many of us would go to the mat for what we learned in a dream?
I am certain that God speaks to us all the time, in dreams and other ways. I have absolutely no expectation that God would have stopped speaking the human beings when the ink was dry on the Bible. When I look around the world at the messes we've collectively gotten ourselves into, I can't keep but wonder isn't there a Joseph out there somewhere who is sitting on a dream that would reveal what should be done or a Moses who has been talking to a burning bush and knows how to lead people out of their misery?
But can you imagine it? Imagine a man coming into Damascus today, saying he'd been out in the mountains having a nice conversation with a burning bush, and that now he knows how to bring the conflict in Syria to an end. Or better yet, think about a woman bolting out of bed tomorrow in Kiev saying that she dreamed the solution to the problem in the Crimea.
Where are the people with the spiritual fortitude of Bruno who might really change the world with what they knew...if they'd just share it. Well, I have that thought right before I have the one about Bruno being burned at the stake. I have no more confidence that our generation would be more receptive of divine information than Bruno's fellow monks. (At least, I hope that we've stopped burning people at the stake.) Today they would probably be turned away because they don't have a Ph.D. from the right universities and the right experience with the right think tanks.
I've heard, and I've acted. Oh, never anything quite as remarkable as a vision of the cosmos as astrophysics has now proven to be correct in a time before the telescope had been invented. People have said I was brave; others have said I was crazy or foolish. But, like Bruno, once I've heard God speak to me, I just couldn't not do what I'd heard.
Last night I watched the first episode of the revival of the Carl Sagan's 1980 program "Cosmos." The story of a 16th Century Dominican friar Giordano Bruno consumed one portion of the hour. Bruno had a dream that he was sure have come from his "infinite God," which showed him an infinite universe in which the Earth rotated around the sun, and in fact, our sun was really a star, like countless other suns which were also stars, going on forever. Now, this was at a time when telescopes didn't exist, and it was "well established fact" that the sun rotated around the Earth, and that the only planets were the ones that could be seen with the naked eye.
Bruno believed so completely that God had spoken to him and shared this vision that after he was kicked out of his monastery, he went to several different countries to teach and write books. He was kicked out of each of them. Eventually, he was tried and burned at the stake...along with his books...for heresy...for claiming God had shown him something that was "well known" that it was false. He never recanted what he knew to be the truth.
The problem is that he was right. And he had been right in knowing that the vision of the Universe which had been revealed to him was precisely accurate. With the passing of each year, as space discovery vehicles probe more and more deeply into space, his accuracy continues to be affirmed. The more we know, the more we know Bruno was right.
Most of us have had an amazing, even revelatory dream, at some time. Countless stories have been shared of premonitory dreams that foretold a situation and allowed someone to "save the day." Yet, how many of us would go to the mat for what we learned in a dream?
I am certain that God speaks to us all the time, in dreams and other ways. I have absolutely no expectation that God would have stopped speaking the human beings when the ink was dry on the Bible. When I look around the world at the messes we've collectively gotten ourselves into, I can't keep but wonder isn't there a Joseph out there somewhere who is sitting on a dream that would reveal what should be done or a Moses who has been talking to a burning bush and knows how to lead people out of their misery?
But can you imagine it? Imagine a man coming into Damascus today, saying he'd been out in the mountains having a nice conversation with a burning bush, and that now he knows how to bring the conflict in Syria to an end. Or better yet, think about a woman bolting out of bed tomorrow in Kiev saying that she dreamed the solution to the problem in the Crimea.
Where are the people with the spiritual fortitude of Bruno who might really change the world with what they knew...if they'd just share it. Well, I have that thought right before I have the one about Bruno being burned at the stake. I have no more confidence that our generation would be more receptive of divine information than Bruno's fellow monks. (At least, I hope that we've stopped burning people at the stake.) Today they would probably be turned away because they don't have a Ph.D. from the right universities and the right experience with the right think tanks.
I've heard, and I've acted. Oh, never anything quite as remarkable as a vision of the cosmos as astrophysics has now proven to be correct in a time before the telescope had been invented. People have said I was brave; others have said I was crazy or foolish. But, like Bruno, once I've heard God speak to me, I just couldn't not do what I'd heard.
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