dailydatewithgod

One of the thing that makes me giggle is watching a scene where a child is causing a commotion and the adult will tell them to stop fussing.  What exactly is the child supposed to do?  They have limited words to communicate.  Children are not yet trained to squelch their emotions.  Maybe there is a legitimate reason they are fussing.  They are not doing it to make the adults around them uncomfortable.  Why is it when it is the adults fussing over a new baby, it is okay?  It is funny how we interpret disruptions.  We all have set ideas in our minds about how things are supposed to go or what is to be expected.  Our brains are wired this way.  It makes sense for our survival to feel like we are walking into something we can handle.  But life is not just like instructions on a shampoo bottle: lather, rinse, repeat.  The moment it begins to feel like that we get bored and start looking for something new.  We are equally wired to be drawn to novelty.  The discord comes when we expect the novelty to come from only certain interactions or experiences.  Children making noises or put-sing about with no understandable purpose is not the kind of novelty we imagine.  God encourages to see with our hearts which are ready to learn ways to bring love into any situation..  If we are open to God showing up in random and perhaps unintended ways then we can approach fussing with curiosity.  What is the person (adult or child) fussing about?  What might be the reason behind it?  An even deeper question is what are the things I am fussing about in my mind that I am not sharing?  We can choose to open our hearts and find curiosity present to whatever situation we are in.  We can kindle the fire of love within us as we approach a seemingly annoying experience of fussing and find something novel.

I used to think growing was about success.  Look how far I have come.  Look at the growth I have obtained.  Now I realize growth is about failure.  It is a process.  It is the experience of changing and moving and most importantly being on the field.  If I am sitting in the stands to watch the others play it is a great spectacle. If I am willing to get out on the field and play, the game of life begins to mean something to me.  I am no longer just watching but I am in the experience and I am growing along with the rest of the players.  Growth means bumps and bruises.  It means trial and error and trial and error again.  With God I have a coach who is encouraging and keeps sending me back into the game.  She shows me how to get up, dust myself off, and use what I learned to run another play.  After a game I can look back at all I have learned, see my growth, and know what courage and power I have going into the next one.

We all know there are standards and protocols we are expected to follow. Every culture has a set of them.  Some of them cross over from culture to culture and are seen as basic human courtesies.  How we carry ourselves and treat others says a lot about what we value and what is important to us.  If it of value to see others’ dignity we will look for it.  If we want to be treated with respect we will treat others with respect.  What happens when your culture’s definition of respect is another culture’s definition of disrespect?  In most European, Japanese, and U.S. cultures it is seen as uncouth if you burp at the end of the meal.  In parts of India and China it is considered a compliment. What is the expected norm in your culture for God?  What are your individual expectations of God? Is it one to be feared?  It is one to be honored above all else?  Is God a being you can be close to or sense only from afar?  Does God show up only in big miracles or in small coincidences?  What would happen if you deviated from the norm of your cultural or individual experience of God?  Would you be considered eccentric or rude? Would you be viewed as strange and perverse?  Often times we do not consider the cultural norms of rules around God even if we do not follow a particular faith but they do exist.  Maybe deepening our relationship with God is about deviating from the cultural expectations of what a relationship with God looks like and trying out our own.

When we hear someone tell another person to hush it is not usually in a kind tone unless it is to a baby.  Something about how the word sounds coming out of our mouths alone conveys the end result we are looking for.  It is like a warm stroke on the arm guiding us to calm down. We picture a mother holding her child and rocking her.  It it is spoken harshly it feels like a slap, which is probably why it is not received well.  If someone were to say be still we would most likely take it as a direction.  Perhaps this is why we have so many words to convey the same idea in the English language.  While I know it is confusing for those who come to English through translation and different cultures, it is beautiful the way it can shape our experience depending how we use it. Language is powerful. Language conjures up images and allows us to craft stories.  Our words and word choices are what shape our perception and thus our reality.  If I think about my daily date with God, I like the idea of it being hush time as much as still time.  They are essentially the same in meaning and principal but I am much more likely to picture a nurturing experience of God’s presence if it is hush time.  And yet sometimes our dates are more like still time where I am in God’s presence but not leaning in to him.  When we reach our breaking point we need a God with whom we can have hush time.  A God who will hold us like a beloved child, sing to us and whisper reminders of how much we are loved.  Yet even in those most needed times I may be reluctant to allow such an intimate experience in.  I may be willing to open to still time where I sense the strength of God’s presence holding me up.  I ask God for the courage to embrace the hush of his love and the still power of her presence however I am in need of it in the moment I am in.

Growing up in the desert, one becomes acquainted with the rate at which a number of items can melt, especially when sitting in a hot car.  It is amazing how something so seemingly firm like plastic and turn to liquid.  The softening that occurs is symbolic of the way in which our hearts operate.  They are strong and with a definite shape but when we warm to something in our hearts we just melt.  Love is the great light.  Love is the power of the universe and unlike anything else it melts our hearts.  If we learn to look inward and pay attention to what is melting our hearts we will come to know how the creation of love occurs.  When all resistance is melted away we can create something new.  This is the process of generation of love in our hearts.  We are melting at our core so we can shift and change the presence of love in our lives.  First we must be touched by the light of life.  We resist it because the heat feels to intense or the melting is scary.  However, it is the melting away of the previous shapes and confines to which we assigned love that opens us up to shaping love in a new way. Only the melting can bring us to a state of openness to what is possible.

How long would it take you to list the gifts in your life?   How long would it take you to list the burdens in your life? I keep coming back to this idea that perhaps they are the same thing.  Two sides of the same coin.  The events in our lives which bring us pain and anguish are the same ones that cause us to redefine who we are and what we are capable of.  If this is the case then maybe the things we see ourselves as saddled with and simply gifts in disguise. The difficulties we find burdening end up being our unburdening.  I am reminded of a scene in one of my favorite movies, “Crash.”  The scene where the policeman who violated the wife of the man he pulled over by unnecessarily groping her when patting her down to check for weapons is the same one who is there to rescue her from a burning car.  In that moment the man who was had betrayed her is her hero.  I think of this often when it comes to my father.  I do not know just one experience of him.  It is part of what makes being an incest survivor so difficult.  He was a loving father who took care of me and taught me many things.  He was instrumental in initiating my perspective of seeing Jesus as a friend instead of some distant God in the clouds.  Yet, he is also the man who betrayed me by sexually violating me at a very young age.  It was the dark side of who he is.  I do not know what he was saddled with as a child, I can only imagine as one does not do these things out of the blue.  For whatever reason am the first to speak up and say something.  He is not able to speak of it or claim responsibility.  It saddens me as I always thought he was my hero.  We are saddled with the same burden but I have found a way to make use of it.  In my relationship with God I have found a way to be freed of it so I need not check out, forget, or most importantly not continue the cycle.  In trying to outrun my saddles, I dove into a food addiction and body obsession.  When I was in enough pain from that and searching for a way to break through it, I found myself at the path of the 12 steps which opened up my understanding of God.  The process of embracing the saddles of my life has granted me the freedom to open up to the truth of who I am and what love is.  It is on the saddle I would have picked but it was the one placed on  me. My daily dates with God which are the breadth and depth of my life force would not be happening on a daily basis to the depths they do had it not been for the burdens saddling me.

God longs to stick close to us.  To abide in our presence.  He has no time agenda, not even a spacial one. She simply wants us know as soon as we turn towards her we will be aware of love’s presence.  Why else would the core of who we are hold within it the capacity to create more love? On my daily dates God draws my attention to my heart and encourages me to cultivate abiding in it.  By allowing us to sit with the truth of who we are, we can become willing to let go of the built up outside exterior and come closer to understanding the profound nature of love.  It is from this love we were formed.  It is in this love with live and have our being.  It is a powerful presence that abides in us and we do not need to seek it outside of ourselves.  We will look outside ourselves and it is okay.  God understands. God simply abides in our presence.  He is there for the moments we are broken apart and feel we cannot go on being disappointed by the world’s expression of love. She is the constant reminder that we have not lost the core of who we are we just got disconnected. It is hard living in a physical universe and believe who we truly are is not our bodies, our thoughts, or our feelings.  So we engage in the dance of life and find ourselves by abiding in the hope that God is who God says God is because of love not because we understand the true nature of love.

When we hold on to something with a tight grip we are not often aware that it has as much of a hold on us as we do on it.  Whether it is a physical object, idea, person, or expectation the things we are bound to are binding us.  Sometimes an opportunity to slacken is presented but we do not how to loosen our grip.  We cannot imagine seeing things differently.  We are sure the other person is wrong and we are right.  We are afraid if we let go we will lose control.  We forget to breathe when we are bound. Slackening begins with the breath. When I find myself in this situation I can sense God encouraging me to slacken.  It sounds counter intuitive from the perspective of the world that uses the term slacker as a crude way of labeling someone who does not accomplish anything.  Yet if we are not allowing God to move through us and in us because we have such a tight hold on something, what exactly are we doing. God invites us to take a breath, slacken our hold, and connect with our hearts.  Love does not bind.  Love makes room for slackening so mystery and the moment can be present.  God desires for us to know the mystery of love which lives in our hearts.  It provides the breath and life from which the truth of who we are draws our energy.  When we are slackening our hold on how things are supposed to be we can be present for the truth of life.  It can be scary and unsure which is why placing our trust in God as One who sees us in the beauty of life’s presence is essential.  I can easily correlate the areas of my life where slackening is not present as the areas in which I am bound by a previous or fixed idea of something. Those same areas if I pay close attention are also areas I am not breathing through.  Love has the power to change life.  If I trust the creator of life to be with me in the present moment I can begin slackening and trust whatever happens will not undo me as perhaps it once seemed to before.

It is amazing what a difference a letter can make.  If you exchange stroking for striking you get two different realities. One is inclined toward soothing and one is inclined toward harm.  Yet how often do we use our language to strike at others and ourselves instead of using them to stroke?  These days we are quick to strike out at each other instead of stroke each other with kindness.  We take pride in being able to shut someone down quickly.  We call it being quick-witted or clever.  Don’t get me wrong, as someone historically inclined to keep her mouth shut and not say anything I often admired people who could just strike out with what seemed to be the right thing to say. It came across as powerful. Yet I wondered if striking had the a lasting powerful impact I was looking for.  I sense that much of what we are witnessing when we see each other striking with words is evidence of what is happening inside our minds.  How often do we pause before striking at ourselves with what is going wrong, how things are not the way we would like, or a list of all the problems in a situation?  Why is it easier to join a group striking at the problems of life by complaining instead of stroking out the possible solutions?  Stroking requires a pause. It calls upon to consider what it is we are touching upon and utilize a tactic enabling it to come to life.  When we hold life with great value we are inclined to caress it with care not cut it off at the knees.  God invites us to pay attention to our language and notice if we are using it to strike or stroke the love and light of life.

In a hurried world with a long list of things to do, God stands clear and instructs us to be still.  In the book of psalms God through the words of David shares that he will be exalted when we slow down and recognize the truth of who God is.  God encourages us to do the same.  If we spend all our energy reacting to life around us we will not know who we are.  We will simply be someone based on what happens to us.  When we get still and listen the voice of our hearts we being to know the core of who we are.  This may not be easy and we may be afraid to find out what will speak to us in the stillness but if God can go there so can we.  In my experience of our daily dates when I garnered the courage to get to the core of who I am in stillness I found God already there.  It was if he said to me, “Good, glad you are here.  Now we can get to work.” God is not afraid to get down and dirty in the muck I have placed over my heart because she knows the truth lies underneath.  He is not afraid because he knows I am not what I have done to my heart, I am my heart.