dailydatewithgod

We all have things we would rather not have out in the open.  We construct our lives carefully to keep others from knowing certain things about us until we feel we can trust them.  This is not a bad thing unless we determine that no one is ever safe.  As relational beings it makes sense that we want to feel apart of and connect with each other.  The difficult nature of relationships is they often reveal the things we keep in the recesses of our minds about ourselves.  We cannot see our penetralia, we need others to bear witness to it.  One of the great gifts of 12 step rooms is the opportunity to be transparent with acceptance.  In the area I live in, people clap after you share.  The funny part is it doesn’t matter what you say, people clap.  They accept what you share, no matter what, and acknowledge  you for speaking it out loud.  It is a room full of people who know all to well we are only as sick as our secrets.  The opportunity to lay bear the penetrailia of our lives whether in a therapists office or a recovery room opens our hearts to witness the parts of ourselves we have been hiding from ourselves God is not dismayed by our penetralia. She is ready and waiting to take a closer look when we are willing.  He will not open that door without first knocking.  The penetrailia is a knock at our hearts to wake up and see it as smoke and mirrors over the truth of who we are.  There is nothing in God’s mind that can rip from us the innocence and pure love from which we were created.  Believing the publicity of our own penetralia is our way of protecting ourselves from what we think God sees.  God is happy to be the constant reminder of a power penetrating through penetralia to the core of love we all are.

Author J.R.R. Tolkien once wrote, “Not all those who wander are lost.”  In a super efficient world where time is money and we do not seem to have enough of either, any perception of waste is not permitted.  Those of us inclined to measure ourselves by our doing love this.  Guilty as charged.  A day when I completed a lot feels like a day well spent.  I can prove my worth because I am not wandering around aimlessly with no sense of direction.  It is like I have the internal White Rabbit from Alice in Wonderland running through my head, yelling about how I am late for a very important date. Alas, that is not true (on more than one level. 😉)  We are not human doings.  We are human beings.  Wandering allows us to take in the wonderland that is life.  Wandering makes space to just be in the moment we are in. There will always be another task to be completed or a goal to accomplish.  But if we do not pause to say hello to people on the way or wander in and out of unknown experiences, what kind of life will we have lived?  I am pretty sure I do not want my obituary to read , “Colleen was a lovely woman who completed all her to-do lists.”  God invites us to notice what can happen when we allow ourselves to go wandering in our hearts.  What might we find?  How much love can be unearthed?  My daily prayer and meditation dates are wandering times with my heart.  By wandering into my heart without an agenda of fear or need to protect myself from what I might find, I discovered what God was seeing all along.  Wandering woke me up to the truth of who I am and who all of us are.

Without putting much thought into it we have an awareness of our physical orientation. Our feet touch the ground, our butts touch the seat we are in.  Orientation speaks to our being in relation to other things or people around us.  When we enter a new space we spend the first few moments getting our bearings as to where we are in relation to the physical space around us.  Our orientation is not just physical.  Orientation speaks to an understanding of our beingness in the world.  This encompasses our physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual nature.  When we hear a description of someone given to us,  it helps us orient ourselves to them.  If we find we lean towards reacting versus responding it is picked up by others as our orientation.  If we tend to walk around with a smile or a frown on our face people orient themselves to expect that kind of behavior from us.  We can choose to shift our orientation physically and otherwise if we want to create a different experience and atmosphere around us.  If we change our inner orientation, the way others orient around us will change.  God invites us to look carefully at what kind of orientation we have designed for ourselves and how we might be able to bring more love into it.  It doesn’t mean plastering a smile when it is not genuine but looking at how our overall orientation creates or does not create an atmosphere of the love we are at our core.  It is easy to blame others and circumstances for our experiences but our orientation provides the filter for everything we experience.  If we are not in touch with the truth of who we are at our core, we will continue to orient towards something other than that.

God created the universe and all in with love.  God sees the glorious nature of each element of creation.  When we are willing to set aside our judgments and preconceived notions of how things should be or appear, we can get a glimpse of what God sees.  Identifying the splendors of life begins by cultivating and connecting to the energy in our hearts.  It sounds too simple, but God operates simply.  I have made more of a mess out of my life and circumstances by trying to complicate things.  It is the default operating mode of our minds to see the flaws.  It is a protection mechanism and we can beg grateful for it.  I know I am.  The next step is to recognize that God also equipped us with the opportunity to pause before simply going with the default network.  It is called our breath.  How many times do we breathe in and out each day?  I am not sure, but it is a lot. As far as how many of those I am conscious of and use as the pause they provide?  Let’s just say, less than a lot.  Have you ever noticed when you are worried, anxious, fearful, angry, pissed off, frustrated, or fixated on something you are not breathing? Or if you are it is very rapid?  Funny, huh? God is continually opening the window for us to open the eyes of our hearts and see the splendors of ourselves, others, and the world around us with each breath.  We get to choose to take a breath, bring it to our hearts and ask God to help us see the splendor of the person or situation right in front of us or the one we are complicating in our minds.

Maybe you have experienced a stadium music show or been to a small intimate jazz club.  Each has a specific set up and the musicians know how to work with the acoustics to make the music sound good and create an experience.  We have our acoustics by how we set up the environment of our lives.  How often do we think about what we say and do as whether or not it is in resonance with the environment we are in?  It is written in the Hebrew scriptures of Ecclesiastes that there is a time and a place for all things under heaven. We play a role in when and where we create all of those things. It is not about perfectly creating a life where we will never do the wrong thing in the wrong place or at the wrong time.  It is about tuning into our hearts and creating an awareness of how we impact the acoustics of our lives.  I think most of us intend to make a positive contribution in some way.  I think we are called to it within ourselves.  My experience has taught me that people do not typically set out to create madness or harm others.  People do what they know.  Plain and simple.  If the only way they know how to get their needs met is through anger and intimidation then it is what they will do. We are all blinded by our personal experiences and stories.  Often we are not aware of the acoustics we have created in our lives. God calls us to check in with our hearts as often as possible.  When we make time to do it, we are more likely to remember we are connected and have an impact on the acoustics of our lives and the lives of others.

Our beings are a series of systems working in cooperation.  If for no other reason than that, I believe in a power greater than me.  There is no way that I could have designed the way they work in harmony with one another.  Our brains alone are this mass circuitry that runs so many more programs simultaneously than the most advanced computer systems.  As I go into my day starting with my daily prayer and meditation date with God, I ask what role I can play in maintaining the harmony of my system. The miracle of being alive is I want to play an active role in the continued harmony of my system so it may be a contribution of symphonic proportions to the world.  Or, at the very least not sound like a mismatched orchestra or an out of tune piano. By getting quiet and listening in my heart, God has taught me to identify where there might be a cacophony of noise detracting from the harmony through which I was designed.  She is ready to guide me back to the rhythmic harmony which is my true nature.  He wants me to know and experience the beauty of the harmony inherent within myself so I many know which chords to share with the world.

When things get itchy or uncomfortable there is a natural resistance that arises. If not in our minds, then in our bodies.  The lengths we go to avoid growth are amazing.  They are even called growing pains when we are children.  What is the point of that?  Why would something so ultimately good for us be so uncomfortable?  I am not sure I have an answer but I find the staying power of God to stand in contrast to my desire to flee.  If there is one message that comes through repeatedly, it is “stay the course.”  As a child one way of coping with the pain was to escape in my mind. I learned by leaving my body it was easier to pretend nothing was wrong.   There was no sojourning going on.  That was then, this is now.  While the practice of abandoning myself was a brilliant child strategy, as a grown woman in relationship with God it doesn’t work so well. God has shown me through our daily dates and everywhere I choose to look that sojourning allows for growth of my heart.  As a child safety was the biggest concern.  As an adult I know I am safe within my own heart and that nothing outside of me can break me.  I can sojourn on because I am experiencing growth of love which is sometimes hard and uncomfortable. My heart and the hearts of those around me will benefit from my willingness to sojourn. Truth be told most of what we label uncomfortable is simply unfamiliar and our minds interpret unfamiliar as uncomfortable.  With God sojourning by my side, I am willing to sojourn by my side too.

One of the impacts of my daily prayer and meditation dates with God has been a softer and more open heart.  In turn, I have also found my mind to be more open.  There is so much continual research on our minds and how they function.  Every day there is some new understanding.  A subtle but profound shift for me has been in seeing myself lean more towards what is described as a growth mindset versus a  fixed mindset.  I suppose because of the power of an intimate and safe relationship with God, I am more willing to take chances and try things out.  I see myself as a creating things in my life where I did not know I could. I am able to see growth versus a final verdict.  Feedback is information with which to make the next decision.  It is not a final decision.  For someone who thought her fate was decided long ago it is almost hard to believe.  It is one of those slowly shifting mechanisms where you wake up one day and realize you are seeing things differently.  There was no big explosion, no massive mind shift, and no fireworks.  Now I notice a subtle tug on my heart when I find myself shifting into old patterned thinking.  When all I am seeing are limits and impossibilities I am not so ready to give up.  When it appears that only darkness is on the horizon I hold fast to the idea that the rain clouds developing will produce great rain and wash things away that need to be refreshed.  I am more readily able to embrace the possibility of creating something from what looks like nothing.  When we create space in our hearts and practice looking through the lens of the core of who we are, there is more to be created.  We no longer have to rely on something already being there and being solid.  There is room to breathe energy into a new creation, a new possibility, and a new experience.  Even if that creation leads to a mess or need for more work, it is not the final verdict on my life.  There was a time in my life when I thought things were just not going to get any better and I was resigned.  It was only my belief in the power of God’s creation that held the hope that things might just shift even a little.  By drawing closer to God, she has shown me how creating the possibility that I do not know how it is all going to work out brings me increased peace. God is always creating opportunities for us to grow in love no matter the circumstance.  As I grow to know my own heart better I can create those same opportunities.

Throughout the Hebrew and Christian scriptures the writers mention the idea of God’s favor.  Not God’s favorite, but the idea of being held in esteem by God.  Why wouldn’t we be?  Why would God create something he did not value?  What would she design something with such intricacy only to discard it or put it in a pile somewhere?  It seems as though most people walking around are disconnected from the idea of any kind of favor of God.  You could imagine it as a father who looks at their child with a twinkle in their eye and smiles.  God sees us as our best selves.  God sees us as the wholeness we are.  We focus on our brokenness and our mistakes.  We focus on each other’s bumps and bruises.  God is not blind.  She knows we are flawed, but he also knows that there is nothing we can do to undo the work she has done in us at our creation.  No matter how much we mess up or fall out of favor with ourselves or those around us, we can never be stripped of God’s favor.  To have the capacity to undo God’s favor would reverse the power of God.  We may be capable of forever tinting the perspective through which we see ourselves but we cannot destroy God’s view of us.  If we reconcile our hearts to the idea that no matter what we are in God’s favor, how might we conduct ourselves?  How would we speak to ourselves and each other?  How would we treat ourselves and others if we connected within to the favor of God existing in our hearts? Do we have the humility to concede that despite all our failings and misgivings, we cannot undo what God has created?  Pride is still pride even if it is in reverse.  Claiming the favor of God which is freely given calls us to step up our game and do our part to make sure our outer lives reflect the love within us.

I have come to believe that life is about growing and learning in love.  It is built within us by our Creator that we have all that we need but we make this life in our discovery and learning.  All the great stories tell of a common theme.  There is a return to home.  A return to the place the journey started from.  We hear when others say, “I knew it all along;” “Something inside of me had an inkling;” or “I found myself back to where I started.”  The embarking on the journey comes at the admission of our unknowing.  We have a knowing of both things we know we dont’ know and a the things we do not know we do not know.  We will not know them until we are given the chance to learn them.  When I embarked into the field of education, part of my choice came from my personal interest in learning.  I figured what better space to be in to learn than the field dedicated to the idea.  I looked forward naively to what I would learn from my students as well as what I might teach.  In the end, I always learned more from them.  The process of knowing there is so much to be learned comes from the humble heart inside of us all.  We have an awareness of the unknowns we know and the unknowns we don’t know. God has placed within us the curiosity and humbleness of spirit to embrace the knowing of the unknown.  One breath at a time we have what we need to learn what love has to teach us through them all.  Our minds tell us unfamiliarity is scary but our spirits remind us God is bigger than any fear real or imagined.  God is willing to gently guide us step by step through the unknown so we may grow in love.