dailydatewithgod

The profound nature through which God operates is based in love.  Love freely given and love freely received.  The choice is always ours.  We can choose the option of walking the path of life with love and in the direction of love and love’s growth or we can choose the option of the opposite of love and love’s growth.  It is not about always choosing the right option.  It is about always knowing there are options.  Love does not force itself.  It simply offers itself up as a path to freedom.  When we go with the love option and walk this path of freedom of our hearts we come upon all the obstacles we have placed past and present which stand in the way of the path.  When this occurs we think we have chosen the wrong option.  We believe the obstacles are the option we have chosen.  This is where our relationship with God enables us with courage to find the love in the obstacles.  In my own life this is exactly what happened when I chose the option of living soberly.  As I worked through the 12 steps I had to take a long hard look at the life I had been living all the while opting to live differently.  Making peace with my past could have stopped me in my path but I chose the option of asking God for help so I might see even my mistakes and pains with love. God is more than ready when we chose the option of love to supply the courage to see with the eyes of love. One day at a time, I am willing.

As a student of A Course In Miracles there are lessons for each day of the year.  A few days ago I was reading over the lesson of the day which explained that there is no cruelty in God and therefore no cruelty in me.  I was struck by the term cruelty.  It is not one I think of often.  It is much more stark than meanness or malice.  It hit me as I began to think of how I sometimes talk to myself.  I am much better than I was growing up.  Strangely, I would never talk to my friends or family the way I talk to myself.  I am not sure where I learned it but it does not matter.  Somewhere along the way it made sense to speak with cruelty to myself.  My daily dates with God have taught me about kind words.  The power of asking myself is this kind would stop me dead in my tracks before I run full speed ahead with an idea or react to what someone is doing or saying.  It is not a question I often ask.  My head is usually focused on whether or not to speak up and make my voice heard. In general when it comes to other people I speak with kindness, but I don’t usually stop and ask myself the same question when I talk to myself.  I am definitely hard on myself and given my past experience do not want to fall into avoiding being accountable and in reality about myself and my life as much as possible.  I don’t know that speaking with cruelty has ever really motivated me to move forward.  I have to reach out to God and ask, “What words of kindness do you suggest I use today towards myself and others?“

I am not sure if it is related to being a woman or just my own experiences growing up, but I find there to be a lot of confusion when it comes to requests.   It sounds like an easy thing, just ask for what it is you want.  Let the other person know what you need.  Perhaps because it is connected to our relationships with others, it can be a struggle.  One element of the process involves getting clarity on what it is that we need and want.  In my interactions with others I have found this to be the root of the difficulty around requests.  Some of us feel or have felt that we did not deserve to ask for what we wanted or needed.  Perhaps we were told no enough times that we figured there was no point in asking.  But that basis it upon the results of the requesting.   On my daily dates with God it is inherent upon me to know what is going on with me.  What do I need?  What do I want?  Where is it I want to go and what is required to get there?  All of these things require making requests.  They start with the requesting we do with ourselves.  In the grand scheme of things, it is less about the result of the requesting and more about the action of doing so.  We need to know for ourselves what we need, want, desire, and so on.  It may or may not be something we need others to approve of or provide but if it does and we lack clarity of where we are coming from, the requesting will not work.  I realize the power of my requesting resides in my awareness of myself.  If I know it is okay or safe to make a request then it will be heard.  If I understand that it is important to ask whether or not the request is meant, it goes much more smoothly.

Despite the way our minds are wired to search for danger and things to be afraid of we are actually wired for love. Our soul is in search of it and our hearts confirm its presence.  Even if it is present just a little our heart finds a reason to keep on hoping, keep on beating, keep on moving forward.  It is intrinsic in us and so despite some of our best efforts to not be affected by love we are.  The confirming of love’s presence happens without our permission.  It is part of the intrinsic design at the core of who we are. If we slow down long enough to tune in and pay attention to it we sense when our heart skips a beat or we feel delighted.  We find ourselves energized and able to see things with new eyes.  All of these are confirmations of the presence of love.  God did not create us out of love to be in its presence and not know what  it is.  Sometimes we mess it up when we try to orchestrate it ourselves, push it away, or label things that are not love as love.  Ultimately, we cannot undo God’s confirmation of what is true.  God will not be denied and our very being vibrates with that reality.

When our hearts and minds are in alignment we feel a sense of being together.  Peace of mind is the expression used to indicate what this collaboration provides.  Strange that it is not peace of heart.  Perhaps because we assume that there is peace already present in our hearts but our minds have a more difficult time being at peace.  At least this is how it seems.  The way that thoughts race through our minds at all hours of the day and night.  There may however be a great lack of peace in our hearts but we are not as tuned in to what is happening.  The reality is the mind and heart are attempting to work in cooperation with each other despite evidence of the contrary.  When we take a mindful awareness approach to what is happening both in our minds and our hearts we develop a sensitivity to how our thoughts effect our bodily experience and vice versa.  On my daily dates with God when we have the time to slow down and experience stillness, I am more aware of the interplay that is happening.  God is showing me that true peace of mind comes from the recognition of how the heart and mind are working together.  This is what distinguishes true peace of mind from denial.  It is the choice to be non-reactive.  It is the discipline of observation that allows the shifting of working together of the heart and mind for the greater good.  It delays the reactivity to which we have become accustomed.  It is a choice to allow the mind and heart to work together to support my ability to be present and cultivate a peace of mind and heart.  I cannot do this alone it is done together with God. I take the action and make the effort but sometimes despite my best attempts I find I am not able to get to a place of peace.  As I humbly approach God with an openness and vulnerability, I can admit I am at a loss and need to do this together.  “God, help me to see and feel this differently.” She is more than happy to oblige because he knows it is part of the design to work together with her creation to bring about the peace of heart and mind that is the core of who we are.  God is ready to work together with us when we invite God in.

Have you ever noticed when you get a sense of something you have an inclination as to what you think about it?  Our original perception of things is not always correct. Sometimes we get a better idea with a fuller picture.  Sometimes it is hard to shake the original perception despite knowing we need more information. Because God speaks to us from the still small voice we tend to discount it.  We feel like we are gandering at what God is trying to tell us. We need a stronger sense of it or more information. We want God to speak to us in loud boisterous tones that will knock us off our feet.  We want neon signs or burning bushes.  We miss what comes when we gander because it seems too simple to be true.  The more time I spent on my dates with God the strangest thing happen.  The direction obtained when gandering becomes more reliable. Those glimpses become hunches and those hunches bring a sense of freedom.  But it is easy to get carried away in the feeling.  I often say to God, is this you or is this me putting this on you?  If it is what you wish for me to pay attention to then allow me another gander.   I trust that if I miss it the first time because I am not present in the moment it will come around again.  Ganders of things from God tend to be felt in our hearts but if we are closed off to our own heart because we are keeping ourselves safe we may miss out.  I know God invites and re-invites us over and over again into the life she wants for us.  He does so because he knows it is what will make our hearts beat and the light in us come alive.  It may seem too simple to lead to such a profound experience of life but complication is the human way, not the God way.

I often wondered why work and fun are placed on opposite ends of the spectrum in many people’s minds.  Work is the things we have to do and fun is the things we want to do. Yet we are drawn to things that do work. Didn’t someone have to work to figure out how things work or if they do?  Is it fun because the end result is something or idea people like?  What happens to things that work that nobody notices or takes for granted?  Is it less valuable?  God draws us to a quiet space to determine what is working in our lives, what we are working in our lives, and determining if those are in alignment.  Labor is involved but somehow I do not think we would do well if we had no experience of labor in our lives.  I have observed at least in the part of the world I live in there is an opening of perspectives in all areas of life: money, relationships, systems, and even words. One of the greatest forms of clarity in my life is knowing how I understand particular ideas and their meanings as they apply to my life.  I feel through my daily dates with God that I am invited over and over again to look closely at my thinking and perception of words, ideas, and actions.  Just because I have understood work to be one thing my whole life because it was what I was taught does not mean it still applies today.  The desire of our hearts is for our work to be something that works in our lives and if it doesn’t finding a way to reconcile it.  I need God’s help anytime I think where I am is not where I am supposed to be.

We don’t often think of much when we enter into a room. We might pay attention because we have to open a door or go through a hallway to get where we want to go.  We take for granted that we need to enter into buildings or homes to reach our destination.  Our entering is a step into getting where we want to go.  If there is one thing we focus on in western culture is where we are going.  More attention seems to be paid to where we are going then where we are. It is the focus on the doing instead of the being.  But as we enter into our day or enter into a room it signifies a beginning.  Within these beginnings are the moments of pause to ready ourselves to where we are being.  The entrances are the space in between where we were and where we are going.  When we put ourselves into what we are entering into we can ready our hearts and minds to be in alignment with who we are being.  It is not always what lies on the other side of that door, it is more about who we are being as we are entering into the room.  Our experience of what happens in the room or the other side of the entrance is dependent on who we are entering in as.

I am not sure if it is because I was born and spent the first nine years of my life living in New York or it is the draw to authenticity but I very much appreciate honest and forthcoming communication. I do my best to be straightforward with people and hope they do the same with me.  Some may experience candor as brutal and abrasive and I have seen such misuse of candor before, but ultimately it provides us with a pathway from which to move forward.  If I am not able to be honest about where I am in the moment, I won’t get very far. How can change what I am not willing to name?  I used to think if I expressed myself candidly I would be chided and made wrong.  And perhaps I have been in the past.  More often than not, I find people simply don’t hear me.  It is actually kind of funny how it happens.  I can share openly about something with a coworker in conversation and they glide right past it and respond to something else. It is important to consider the relationship and the context with expressing candor.  It helps me to see this because it reminds me of what God has shown me on our daily dates.  What is most important is the level of candor in my relationship with myself and with God.  At the end of the day, it does not matter what others hear or do not hear, believe or not believe.  What matters is that I create a clear place from which to move forward.  In order to have peace of mind, my level of candor with myself has to be authentic.  At the end of my life, no one comes with me.  At the end of the day I am the one who is inside my head and breathing into my heart.  Living in candor gives me the freedom called for by my spirit.  This includes the level of candor about what I am willing to face and walk through in any given moment. It is not a fault if I am still in denial about something. I have yet to come across any human being who is not in denial about anything in their life.  It is having the candor to acknowledge there are things about me I do not yet know.  There are perceptions of others for which I have no basis of understanding.  Candor about our limitations without making ourselves wrong is priceless.  If God does not vilify me for what I am not yet aware of why do I?

Traps are funny things.  They seem to come out of nowhere and we find ourselves in them and wonder how we got there.  Usually we find a way out and then invariably end up there again. The universe of learning we are in is dedicated to the idea that we grow. Sometimes life catches our attention when we find ourselves trapped in similar places.  The circumstance may look different but we are having the same thoughts and feelings.  If we are willing we can begin to take a closer look. Perhaps there is something for me to learn.  Growing up I just thought it was a sign that I had messed up yet again.  Clearly I was not meant to be involved or go down that particular path.  But when I took a closer look and realized I was the common denominator each time, I began to wonder if I was the trap.  Historically I would berate myself for ending up in the trap and make myself wrong.  In recovery, I began to see it differently. Perhaps it was not about changing the circumstances by changing my thinking. Starting with my perspective on the whole thing.  I cannot do this on my own.  I must reach out for God’s hand to show me back to my heart.  Sometimes I need to come across the same trap one more time to learn something new.  Other times I can see it coming and engage in asking God for a different perspective.  None of this process is a sign that we are messed up.  It just means we are in the human story.  God is dedicated to the freedom of our hearts so we may experience the vast and great nature of the love from which we come.  Sometimes we need to walk into those traps so we can choose to find a way out of them.  There is a great story by Portia Nelson “There’s a Hole in My Sidewalk” which illustrates what happens when we find our traps. The only part I would change for me is involving God: