dailydatewithgod

From the black and white perspective on life there is a clear boundary between right and wrong.  This is helpful as a child when the groundwork is being laid to understand how to operate in the world.  The difficulty comes as we mature because we learn how much color and grey exist in the world.  It is harder to rely upon everything being simply good or bad for the very reason that it is a simplistic view of the universe.  The reality is there are so many variations of everything. As we grow up and learn to take full responsibility for our lives, the right versus wrong distinction is less helpful. We can all think of circumstances in which we did something that is technically bad but for what we believe to be a good reason.  In other words, it worked for us to do the wrong thing.  I know we don’t like admitting to such things but it doesn’t make it any less true.  How else can we explain “bad” behavior on the part of clearly rational and mature adults?  We are motivated by things we perceive as working for us.  By bringing God into the conversation about what we are doing that is working we have an opportunity to engage in clarity for ourselves.  Instead of keeping God out because we know we are being “bad” we can invite God in to help us take a look at how it is working for us.  Sometimes without a closer look we only see what it is doing for us without recognizing what it is doing to us.  God does not have the judgment we assign to him. She is interested in the clarity coming from an honest examination of the full spectrum of our experience.  With God’s help we can open up the conversation to determine if what is working for us is also working for the truth of who we are within ourselves.

It may sound strange but God does not just show up in our lives in one way.  Why would the creator of all things limit our experience of connecting to all that is in only one way? There is a variety of thoughts, feelings, experiences and opportunities in existence at any moment from God’s perspective. If we are willing to allow ourselves to be led by God and the way God sees things we can let go of the idea that it must happen in only the way we can imagine it. Why would we bother opening ourselves up to how God sees things if we already know what to do and how it will happen?  We would not. Besides, why would God with all the possibilities at his fingertips, limit herself to human ideas of what it means to show love? Sometimes the portal into a relationship with God is by being open to the variety present in nature.  There are many varieties of trees, flowers, cats, faces of people, and apples to name a few.  If we allow ourselves to observe the variety present all around us and begin to connect it to the creator of all those things we might just see how God would show up for us in a variety of ways.  This connection allows us to let go of our expectations of how God is supposed to show up (according to us) and allows for the beauty of the mystery of God in our lives.

Our bodies will mirror what is happening in our minds.  When I knew only that my body was my enemy and in my mind responsible for my  suffering I treated it horribly and it lived in pain.  When I started stretching my thinking and seeing things in a new way my body become more flexible and light. I engaged in stretching my mind because I had gotten into so much pain from the restriction of my own thinking, I was willing to do anything.  There are times when I stretch my thinking and I can literally feel an opening being created in my mind.  As a dancer stretching was a regular part of the deal but I hated it because it caused me to be present and feel my body.  As I got further along in my recovery my relationship to my body began to be restored.  Not just because I was walking around in a healthier body but because I had stretched past much of my default thinking about my body.  Slowly through stretching it became in my eyes a vessel for my soul and a vehicle through which to communicate beauty and grace to the world.  Now stretching my body physically feels good and I can be with it.

As children we have an insatiable level of curiosity about ourselves and the world around us.  As we learn and grow we seem to lose touch with that sense of wonder.  We exchange curiosity for a practical reality.  Who said one had to be substituted for the other?  God gives us the capacity to hold space for wonder and reality, for the reality of wonder and the wonder of reality. Just because there are things that make sense and those that do not, does not mean one ranks higher than another.  Ask any mother who watches their child on their bike with a sense of pride because it was the first time without the training wheels.  The child sees the wonder in themselves because of the ability to do something they have not yet done though we know it to be real because of all the adults riding on two-wheeled bikes already.  Wonder speaks the language of our hearts while reality speaks to our minds.  God invites us to bridge the lines of communication and allow them to influence each other.  It is completely real that one’s heart feels broken after a loved one dies and yet there wonder in not knowing how that will enfold.  We tend to think in black and white while God sees a multitude of colors and greys.  Giving ourselves permission to incorporate a little wonder into our reality opens the door to a multitude of possibilities we may not have considered because they lay outside the realm of reality as we know it.

You have probably heard the expression about giving credit where credit is due.  It is an expression used by many people over the years.  It speaks to the importance of acknowledging that we are not alone.  We do not get to where we are going without being impacted by others.  The longer you live and the more people with whom you interact it is harder to separate out an original idea or thought.  We are constantly growing and being shaped by others and our experiences.  When we attribute our growth to certain person or event we are acknowledging the role they or it played in forming our current ideas and beliefs. Attribution is a way of honoring the moments in which God showed up in the flesh and encouraged us to grow.  Even if they are the hard experiences and people by whom we have been impacted.  Growth does not often come from successes we achieve but from the adversity we work through successfully.  It is hard for our ego to attribute part  of our success to the people who resisted us or the experiences we thought would break us.  If we are honest with ourselves, we know in our hearts they played a role.  The attribution goes both ways.  If we want to attribute our success to what we have overcome, the fullness of love would invite us to attribute part of it to what showed up we could overcome it and be successful.  The humble beauty of living in God’s world from God’s view is the courage to acknowledge that everything along our path is part of the journey. Nothing happens by mistake.  Whatever aids our growth in love has attributed to our deeper and more loving heart.

There is an immovable force of love existing within us.  It is the presence of God in our hearts.  Sometimes we feel connected to it but often we simply forget it is there.  Over time we don’t pause and attempt to connect so it gets buried under our efforts to stay safe.  After a while the world is bound to deliver something we are sure we cannot recovery from.  Why do we think we cannot recover?  Because it has taken the very things we created to establish a sense of safety and broken them down.  We take it to mean that we are broken and can never be put back together just like Humpty Dumpty.  While we are children of God, we are not a child’s story.  Our story, all of our stories, are the victorious kind.  What looks like a break in ourselves or feels like a brokenness of our hearts is neither.  It is a breaking of the layers on top of our heart.  We realize our efforts to keep our hearts safe while valiant have amounted to nothing sustainable.  What seems like devastation is the stride and power of the heart to get through to our minds.  Sometimes it appears that the stride comes from outside of us because we find a connection outside of us to restore us.  But we would not be able to make the connection and be restored if the stride of the heart was not in full effect.  God will always fight for the victory of our hearts.  It is where God wants to come alive again in our recognition of his presence within us.  The stride ignites the light where she can remind us of the truth of love in our lives this day and every day.  For some of us the breaking of our safety armor is small, for others it is big.  It does not matter the size, it only matters the recognition of the stride.

One of the most unexpected outcomes of my daily prayer and meditation dates with God is an eye for the subtle yet profound ways in which the beauty of life presents itself in daily life.  Things that years ago would have completely escaped my attention now touch my heart and leave their mark.  I see it in the raw expression of emotion, even anger, in the sparkle in someone’s eye when they smile, or the pause someone makes in allowing me to step through a door before them.  It is a cherishing of the moment allowing me to be present to and capture the feeling of aliveness in my heart.  The more I see these kinds of things, the more I am convinced how much cherishing exists in the world.  The moments when the reality of life and all its facets shows itself unabashedly.  Reminders from a realm of love that is present all the time but we often miss.  The wonderful thing is it does not require a special set of eyes to see it, a special heart to be open to it or a special mind to believe it is there.  The profound opportunity to be cherishing of the moment we are in comes in the decision to take a breath, look up from our phone, and witness the person or experience in our line of sight.  By cultivating a level of stillness in my own heart through my daily dates with God, there is room to take in the cherishing. I did not realize years ago when I began these dates out of desperation and pain that it would open up an understanding of the fundamental gift of life.  A life that I was no longer interested in just getting through but one with so much to cherish.  I consider myself very lucky to have experienced the things I have experienced and lived to tell about it.  Yes, even the incest survival and the obesity survival.  It is not always easy to stand tall and slough off the remaining vestiges of the impact of those experiences, but I believe the profound level at which I am able to cherish life is in direct correlation to the level of which I experienced the pain of life.  I do not think it is the only way to come to a place of cherishing life, but it the avenue I was given.  The more I take the simple principles and practices I learned on my daily dates of pausing, breathing, and connecting to my heart does it continue to change the view of my eyes to one of cherishing.

It is clear that the perspective of Spirit differs from our own.  For me, it is a clear way to remind myself that God is greater than me.  When I am agitated or doubtful, I can pause, place my hand on my heart and take a deep breath. This slows my mind down long enough to bring awareness to my heart.  Within the awareness of my heart I am a little more open to the possibilities of Spirit. God moves and breathes these possibilities in another way.  I am not privy to know how exactly God does it, it is often very subtle.  My experience of the awareness of another option typically comes through the heart.  Perhaps it is the power of the breath which Spirit uses (respiration) to awaken the core vibration of our being.   Our hearts send messages via vibrating beats which echo through the whole of our body. When we bring the alignment of the flow of our energy, our life force through the aid of our breath, we open ourselves to many another possibility. It is easy to stay in fixed thinking or just thinking about it more.  We are encouraged to bring Spirit in to inspire our hearts and open ourselves up to another vibration of what can be seen, felt, heard, or known.  Another reality sits just on another side of the coin, another breath, another pause, another beat of our hearts.

It is amazing how many people we cross paths with during the course of the day to whom we never acknowledge.  Especially if you live in a city.  Between the people on the sidewalk or in the car next to you when you are sitting in traffic, the opportunities are endless to practice acknowledging the presence of life.  I am one of those strange people who strike up random conversations in elevators or while waiting in line at the post office.  At a certain point I find it unnerving that two people are in this shared space and have not bothered to acknowledge each other’s presence.  I do get caught up sometimes and stand or walk past someone without so much as a hello because I am worried they will think I am weird for acknowledging them.  Yet, I cannot think of a time when I disliked being acknowledged by someone.  God wants us to become aware of the gift of life that is all around us.  By acknowledging each other’s presence with a look in the eye, an excuse me when we walk past them or maybe a hello, we are sharing that we see the presence of life.  Sometimes we need to start by acknowledging ourselves as well.  When was the last time you looked yourself in the eye in the mirror and said hello.  One of the most essential gifts I have received from my daily prayer and meditation dates with God is the power of being acknowledged by God and myself.  Making the date time a priority is my way of making the presence of life a priority.  If life is not a priority, why am I here?

I have learned that self-compassion is a quicker road to healing than self-condemnation.  This would most likely explain how the path of recovery has made many more strides in freeing my heart.  It lets me know no matter how much my inclination may still lean towards self-condemnation, it will never get me where I really want to go.  There is a soothing nature to self-compassion reminding me how God sees things differently than I do.  It did not seem to matter how much I made myself wrong and bad or how many names I called myself, none of it moved me in a sustainable direction of healing.  It is amazing how despite the lack of results, I continued to practice it.  It is evidence of how we all do what we know.  I did not know differently.  I had limited exposure to the soothing and healing nature of self-compassion.  How was I supposed to know it would work where self-condemnation did not? I needed it to be demonstrated by someone else towards me many times before it started to sink in.  I had to learn to humbly turn towards God and say,” I don’t know how to see this differently.  How would you approach creating a change in my heart?” Just asking the question created a soothing of my mind because I was no longer left to my own devices to figure it out.