dailydatewithgod

One of the most beautiful prayers that I have come to appreciate more and more over the years is the Prayer of St. Francis of Assisi.  It beings with a simple intention, “Lord, make me a channel of your peace . . .”  Another version I heard which I like a little better is “Lord, make me an instrument of your peace . . .”  The reason I like instrument is because an instrument cannot play itself.  It is simply the vehicle through which we experience the music.  The Musician is needed to play the instrument.  I also like instrument because there are so many different kinds of instruments to play and they each have their own unique sounds and look.  They each can convey an emotion, move others  and invite us to join in the symphony of life in a special way.  The prayer of St. Francis goes on to ask God that wherever there is discord, darkness, doubt, etc. that he may be the instrument to bring about the opposite–harmony, light, faith, etc.  It is clear that Francis is not asking to do things his way.  He is asking the Great Conductor to play him in the great symphony of life in a way that will enhance the orchestra, the audience, and everything it comes into contact with.  Music is so beautiful.  As a dancer I have a great appreciation for music and how it moves me.  In a way that other things cannot.  I think it has something to do with the fact that music is essentially heightened energetic vibrations.  It is as though it speaks to our minds, hearts and souls in a language that is at our core.  Even our bodies have their own music.  Have  you ever listened to a heart beat or the sound of your breath?  Our very bodies make music.  It is all around us.  What kind of tune do you want to play today?  I think I shall ask God as Francis did to be an instrument of peace.  In a world full of discord, I want to bring harmony.  I want to bring the harmony that resides within the instrument that is me because I am the only version of me that exists in this moment.  I know that if I am played by the Great Musician, the Grand Conductor, then my instrument will be used to the fullest extent.  The vibrations that I send out will reach people and touch them in a way that I never thought possible.  It is my job to show up, to clear out anything that stands in the way of me being a channel and be open to how I will sound to the world.  I imagine infinitely greater than I can do on my own.  What vibration do you wish to share with the world today?  What will you be an instrument of?  Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen

The simplicity of being in the moment is a gift–that is why it is called the “present”.  When I am in the world and in the throes of life, that simple concept often eludes me.  God is always simple.  I don’t mean simple in a small way. I mean clear, concise, true, to the point, and grounding.  I want to make things more complicated.  My mind is sure there is some grand explanation for all of what is occurring.  I have noticed when I hear messages from God they come in few words and phrases.  No grandiose explanations, no rationalizations, just straight forward and to the point.  God is present in this moment right now.  When I am present in this moment, I have all that I need, I am completely taken care of and there is nothing to worry about.  God wants me to be with Him. That is what my Creator desires for me.  Stop and just be with Him in this very moment.  Not worrying about the future or regretting the past, just experience the gift of right now. “This is the day the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it!” My prayer for you today is that you embrace the gift of this moment–be existent!  Receive the gift that your Creator has designed just for you this day.  Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen

If we believe that everything happens for a reason then we can believe that we are exactly where we are supposed to be at this very moment in our lives, at this very moment in time.  I believe in a God and a universe the conspires for the good of all, including me.  By that I mean that whatever happens to me, happens for me.  Each situation and experience is an opportunity to grow more fully into my true self, who I am in God.  Each challenge or problem is merely a gift in disguise.  It sounds like I float on water with an attitude like this–but my head is above water only because I jumped into the pond and sunk to the bottom and was smart enough to reach up for God who could pull me up.  To approach life this way requires me to give up being a victim. That is a cloak I wore for a long time.  It worked for me, or so I thought.  I had all kinds of stories that proved to you that I was powerless over my life and that so many things had happened to me, etc.  The reality of it is when I woke up, I realized that we all have things that happen to us.  It is what we do with them that makes the difference.  Life is 10% what happens to us and 90% what we do with what happens (or what we make it mean which directs our actions).  If I make everything mean that life is out to get me and I just can’t get mine, then that is exactly the reality I live into.  If I make it mean that whatever is happening is an opportunity to grow and to learn (whether I like it or not) then that is the reality I live into.  When I look around the world and all the challenges and tragedies, it is hard to imagine that there is any good in the world.  But if I stop and take a deep breath, ask God to help me see things through His eyes–then and only then do I begin to see the beauty of triumph that comes out of tragedy, people who stop and help each other out, successes that come after multiple failures.  Life is full of contradictions but thankfully I don’t have to understand it all.  I just have to show up, connect with God and do what is in front of me to do.  My prayer for you today is that you bring an area of your life where you feel a victim and trust it to God–ask Him how to see this situation.  Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen

The magnificent thing about being forthcoming and honest with God about everything is that the first reaction is one of acknowledgement.  An acknowledgment of the power of vulnerability.  The power of honesty.  The power of authenticity.  Since God is already aware of what we are thinking and feeling, it is not a surprise to Him.  So why is it important to tell him/her?  Because we need to hear ourselves admit it to ourselves.  I have found that the human capacity for denial is amazing.  It is an important survival technique.  I think it would be maddening to be aware of everything all the time.  We are given only what we can handle with God’s help in the moment and nothing more. I have noticed that sometimes I think that I should be aware of it all and not be in denial about anything if I am to live an authentic life.  But over time I have come to realize that it is part of the same notion of getting it all done so I can coast the rest of the way.  My mind is really interested in survival, so whatever can be done to get me back to the status quo and the programming will do. So I can even use spiritual concepts to tell myself I am not doing or being enough.  The first step is admitting it.  Allowing myself to be found out, looking at things for what they really are instead of what I am hoping you think they are or really what I fantasize they are.  The funny thing is that the fantasy is never as freeing as the reality of the truth.  It may be surrounded by a pink transparent cloud and look pretty, but the bubble will burst.  When the bubble bursts and the reality is staring me in the face, no matter how messy it is–it is palpable and real.  It has skin and can breathe and move.  Most importantly it can be transformed into a gift to be shared with others.  Some of the most difficult things in my life that I have been given to face, have led to the most freedom and an opportunity to use that experience to help someone else.  To be found out, seems scary at first, but walking through that boogeyman of fear to the other side allows me to see life as it is in this moment.  With God’s help, I can see the beauty and the freedom of being present in that moment.  My prayer for you today is that you find something out about yourself that you did not know.  Whether it is good or bad in your eyes, may you share it with your Creator so that you see what it is created for.  Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen

I used to think that being adventurous meant that I had to be willing to go white water rafting or jump from an airplane. Those things are very adventuresome, but sometimes the greatest adventures come from within our hearts.  Stepping up and doing things that we did not imagine that we could do.  Using our voices and our minds for something greater than ourselves.  I have often placed other people’s ideas and objective ahead of my own.  Thinking that because they are clear and direct that they must know better what is good for all.  Perhaps that is true, but just because someone else’s voice is strong doesn’t mean that mine cannot be just as strong.  I am not talking about fighting, I am talking about speaking up for oneself.  At some point in my life, I found it easier to be quiet and go along with whatever someone else said than to speak up and say what was true for me.  I lost my voice.  But God did not put me on this planet to play out someone else’s life.  While it may not seem like it from what I say here, speaking my truth continues to be a place to demonstrate courage in my life.  It is an adventurous ride to speak up.  The beauty of it is that I can see it as an adventure instead of something to fear.  First, I must speak the truth to myself.  Then I can decide if it is something to be said or just to live.  It seems easier to just go along with whomever has the loudest and strongest voice, but we are not drones.  We each have a unique expression and way of showing God to the world.  Somehow I don’t think that God would want us to hide who we truly are.  My prayer for you today is that you speak your truth from within your heart.  Sing it to your God and ask to find a place to share it with others.  Who knows, maybe your adventure is music to someone else’s ears.  Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen

It always strikes me that a message repeated over and over by God in the Hebrew and Christian scriptures is “Be Not Afraid” or “Fear not”.  God knows that we experience fear.  But when he tells us not to be afraid or to fear not, I don’t think he is telling us not to actually feel that or somehow excise it out of us.  He is telling us not to be ruled by it.  He acknowledges that it exists and calls it out, but encourages us to trust him.  As if to say “I see that you are afraid, I got that.  I AM here.  There is no longer a need to let it run you.”  Feelings are indications of how we are experiencing the world.  They provide us with clues as to where I am in regards to my center, my core, my source of all being.  In other words.  My feelings indicate for me if my thinking is in alignment with God or if it is solely relying on my perspective of things.  My mind, as beautiful as it is, cannot imagine the infinite possibilities born of God.  So when things are happening and I am reacting, creating meaning I can know where I am drawing my sense of power–from myself or something greater than myself.  If my options seem limited or black and white, if all I can see is what is wrong and it is hopeless than it is an indication that I am only inside my own head.  When I am in that place, I am fearful, angry, resentful, jealous, prideful.  When I am connected to God there are many solutions to the situations I face, transformation occurs, I feel at peace, and most of all I am present in the moment.  Thus I feel happy, joyous, free, and am given the courage to walk through whatever it is.  I know that I am not alone.  So when God is encouraging us to be dauntless he is not criticizing that we are full of fear, he is simply extending a hand to see things as He sees things.  My prayer for you today is that you see your feelings as an indication of your connection with your Creator and an opportunity to connect with the possibilities that lie outside your mind.  Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen

Last night as I heard the story of Jesus appearing to Mary after the resurrection I was struck by a few things.  One, according to the Christian scriptures, a woman was the first witness and person to interact with the risen Christ.  She was then called to go immediately and share what she had witnessed to others no matter how unbelievable it might be to them.  Second, that it was when Jesus said her name that she recognized who he truly was, her savior, not a farmer who might have moved his body.  Lastly, and this was with me when I woke up this morning: in Mary’s recognition of Jesus, she called him “Rabboni” which is Hebrew for “Teacher.”  Of all the words or titles that she could have used to express her recognition of the man she was looking for, she chose Teacher.  This was the man who had taught her heart, this was the man who knew that saying her name would open her eyes. This was the man who she witnessed breath his last breath only a few days before.  This was the man who did not condemn her when her sin was brought before him in a crowd.  Instead he recognized in her the capacity to love and care for herself and ultimately others and she did that when she followed him.  He saw her and now she saw him.  By calling him teacher she acknowledges that she is still learning from him.  That the one who means so much to her that she came as soon as she could after his death to anoint his body (as was their tradition).  He had lived a life of forgiveness and courage, spoke truth even when others did not want to hear it, compassionately reached out to those in need only to die a brutal and painful death, be abandoned by his followers except for a few, and now here he stood before her.  She must have been beside herself in shock and she called him Teacher.  He had foretold that this would happen and yet again he was true to his word.  I know for me that when I approach life with an attitude of what can I learn from this, my eyes are opened, my heart is touched, and I am that much closer to experience peace. There was no “I told you so, why didn’t you believe me?”, or anything of the sort.  Jesus simply acknowledged Mary and told her to go tell the others.  And what was his greeting to his followers and closest friends, most of whom abandoned and denied him at his greatest hour of need?  “Peace.”  What can we all learn from that? Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen

Being that yesterday was Good Friday I decided to approach it with quiet.  I took some extra meditation time in the middle of the day-stepping outside my office to embrace the warmth of the sun and listen to the sounds of nature (sometimes hard to hear over the sirens 😉  But most of what I did was made an effort to calmly accept everything as it came.  To not be roused by anything.  Not get irritated when my phone started acting up, smiling with patience when the woman in the grocery store parking lot was taking her time and there were five cars lined up behind me waiting to get through, breathe deeply when sitting in traffic and not playing the radio.  It is amazing what you can hear when you are quiet.  I noticed that everyone has a certain rhythm.  In fact, at one point it seemed as though all the pedestrians crossing the street seemed to be moving to a song that only they could hear.  What I didn’t expect from the quiet, though I have experienced it before, was the way everything was much more colorful.  I wasn’t busy filling in the narrative and somehow all around me people and things had their own voice. I did not do this perfectly, but I accepted that however I practiced this silence would be enough for the day.  I have benefited from taking times of silence (in addition to my set time each morning with God) because I get to hear things as they are not as I predispose them to be.  If I am busy talking to life and placing my own narrative on what is happening, I am not able to hear it speak its truth.  My prayer for you today is that you are able to spend some time in quiet.  Let yourself experience the initial discomfort of doing so and ride it out until you are enchanted by the things that you hear.  Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen

It seems that the longer I live the more there is to let go of.  It is as though growing up and living as an adult means shedding ideas and concepts that I took on as I was growing up.  It is amazing to me how wedded I have become to some of my ideas.  In Landmark education and in other places there is the concept that we don’t know what we don’t know.  In other words, we know what we do know, we know what we don’t know but the majority of what is available to us consists in what we don’t know that we don’t know.  At first this can be alarming to concede, but once it begins to sink in it brings great relief.  It frees me from having to “know” how it is all going to turn out.  the humorous part of that is that I actually think sometimes that I know how something is going to turn out.  The reality of it is the “knowing” of how it is going to turn out is based on past experience.  A given set of circumstances mirror something similar and in my mind’s eye, it will happen as it did similarly before.  The problem with that is that I have already formed a reality in my mind and that is what I am looking for. I have a perception of people and circumstances and when I focus on how I have always seen them, that is what I continue to see.  For those of you whose brains are hurting or the voice in your head is saying “that is ridiculous” take note.  So what does all this have to do with God and with being released?  I can be released of my past way of seeing things and open to the moment and its authentic experiences but I have to be in my God-mind, not my human programmed mind to accomplish that.  Since it is much easier to go with the set programming, it takes a conscious effort to see the programming for what it is, stop, breathe, and ask to be open to seeing it as it truly is.  I cannot function on automatic programming alone to truly be present.  I believe that God is in the moment, in the breath I take, in the unknown, and in the experience.  God is in the present action and in the heart of new living.  When I am connected to God the beauty is that I can be at peace with the uncertainty which is good because when I am honest with myself I recognize that most things truly are uncertain.  I am no fortune-teller.  The gift I give to those around me when I approach things that way is that everything and anything can change right before my eyes. If there is anything certain it is change.  My prayer for you today is that before you walk into a familiar situation or conversation, ask God to be released of how it is going to turn out and for the eyes and the HEART to experience the moment for what it is.  Make it a great one!  Peace~Colleen

When you were born the heavens rejoiced!  God had manifested a gift for the world by your coming into being.  Out of love every cell and atom that makes up your body was formed to show the world that love still lives, love still wins and there is more than we can imagine.  Have you ever thought of yourself in this way?  One of my favorite quotes (of the author I am amiss at the moment) is “Every newborn child is a sign that God has not yet given up on us.”  How different would our lives be if we awoke to that understanding of ourselves?  We get so caught up in the day-to-day living that we don’t reflect on all that was done to bring us into this world or the intention in which we were created.  The world is not made up of a few “special” people who are meant to do great things and live fantastic vibrant lives.  Every one of us is meant to be an expression of love, peace, hope, and beauty. We each do that in our own special way and like no other.  My prayer for you today is that you let this anointing sink into your hearts.    Even for just a moment remind yourself that because you are breathing means you were chosen by the great Creator.  Will you choose you today too?  Make it a great one! Peace~Colleen