dailydatewithgod

Sometimes as we stand on the earth we do not recognize how much we are moving. The fact is we are standing straight up on a spinning sphere that is hurling through the universe so much faster than we can possibly comprehend.  Equally less apparent to us is the various waves of energy flying around us all the time.  Without realizing it we are in an undulating energetic experience that moves in and around us.  We are synced with the light and energy waves of the earth. We are impacted by the sound waves as they cross our hearing perception.  We are also undulating energy from our hearts which extends approximately 6 feet out from our physical hearts.  God encourages us to be aware of what kind of undulating expression we are sharing with others and ultimately the universe.  It may seem strange to ask ourselves what is kind of undulating energy am I making on the immediate world around me and within me but it is the perfect question.  Whatever the state of our heart is we undulate that within ourselves as much as others.  It is not about having some sort of perfect or always the most loving energy undulating from our hearts but being attuned to whatever it is.  It affects how we react to the undulating energy of others and what we do when it reaches us.

Maybe it’s the warmer weather in Los Angeles or the fact that it is so sunny but I find myself in a mental space as I write today in alignment with the aliveness of life.  It is nice when that happens.  Having an open heart and seeing possibilities makes everything more breathable and less frightening.  No particular circumstance has changed.  We are still dealing with a pandemic that seems to keep shape-shifting, it can still be hard to be at work in the field of healthcare yet I am grateful to have work and be needed, and I have not looked at the number of those infected or died as a result of COVID-19 yet today and I probably will not. I was struck by something one of my higher-ups in management said today in a business meeting which incidentally was rather gloomy as we look at how work will be changing and how that will impact staff.  She said that often what seems like the worst thing to happen turns out to be an opportunity.  While this is not the first nor the last time I will hear this, I heard it in my heart.  It was as though God said to meditate on this idea of opportunity.  It sounds like one of the gifts that come in crappy wrapping and smells nothing like a gift.  Opportunity by definition is a situation seen as occurring at an appropriate or favorable time.  I can’t say this is what I would call an appropriate or favorable time, quite the opposite.  Honestly, if this is presenting an opportunity, it is a God kind of opportunity.  Only God, in my experience, is just about the only one who uses the seemingly worst situations to birth newness.  It is a spiritual perspective that the lotus flower comes out of the mud. No one looks at the mud and sees the possibility of new life unless they have attuned their hearts through which to see.  On days like today when my heart seems to be leading my sight, I ask God to help me pause and see what possibility might be right in front of me.

Attention and focus are buzz words in business.  In a world full of distractions where anything and everything interposes itself between what we need or want to pay attention to and what wants our attention it is a little overwhelming.  One thing I have learned on my daily dates with God is I have a choice on how I handle the interpose.  I can use it as an opportunity to remind myself what my intended focus point is.  I can use it to get frustrated and angry because I am earnestly trying to focus in one direction in particular.  I can use the interpose that occurs as a signify-er of how it is not enough sometimes to want to give my attention to something specific I have to build in supports to keep the attention.  Like Odysseus with the Sirens, the interpose may bring to light something alluring and interesting. If I work from the premise that an interpose is going to happen, I can guard myself against getting off track from my intended focus.  The simplest way comes from creating my own interpose through my breath.  Each moment we breathe we wake up our system and reinvigorate it with new energy.  The interpose of breath is a way for us to not be pulled astray by outside interposes and reclaim our intended focus.  It is more than just a business advantage to know how to bring one’s focus back or keep one’s focus on the intended target.  It is a life essential skill.  All the outside interposes would have us believe we have no say in the matter.  We always have a say, we just may not like taking personal responsibility.  The bad news is we are responsible for our choices and our reactions.  The good news is we are responsible for our choices and our reactions.  Using the God-given utility of our breath we can bring an interpose to meet the interpose of the outside and use it to continue us on our course instead of letting the outer interpose take us off course.

Sometimes we find ourselves stuck in a situation because we cannot figure a way out of it.  We may be unknowingly constrained by a frame the is encasing our capacity to think outside the box.  There are boundaries and perimeters of expectation that accompany any process which can impede growth.  Particular constraints and limitations may be in place either by literal rules or societal norms which seem to prevent a solution.  Reaching out and working with others can often help open up the frame and allow for an expansion of possibilities.  The same internal process occurs when we extend our focus outside the frame of our minds and tap into the energy of our hearts.  I can think of so many times when I was convinced that if I just thought about something long enough I would come up with an answer.  Yet it is on my daily dates with God that I learned the dynamics of an alternate frame.  To connect to the limitless perspective of God, we are encouraged to step outside the frame of our minds and connect to our hearts.  In the sometimes ethereal feeling space, we can pause and make room for the breath.  The breath of life which we need to infuse alternate insights.  When we get so focused within the frame of what is possible according to our mind we can forget to breathe. Opening the heart space with a breath relaxes the frame of our minds and allows a joint effort in troubleshooting whatever it is we are facing.  Staying constricted in the frame of our minds only keeps us looping over and over with the same solutions. Sometimes we need to spend lots of time looping inside the frame of our mind because we fear to step outside the well-known frame.  God invites us whenever we are done looping to pause, breathe, and open the frame of our hearts.

If we ever find ourselves wondering how it is we are so resistant to allowing love in we have to take a closer look at what we have surrounding our hearts. It is not the truth of who we are that puts limits on love.  It is not the core of our being that does not have room for love.  It is all the stories and ideas about ourselves that we have enclosed over our hearts.  More than likely we do not get very far in life without some wounding.  It is not because life is meant to be hard and cruel.  It is because life is lived in the discovering.  When we have an opportunity to get to know the truth of who we are it is only because we had to do some sorting through all we had surrounding our truth.  I am talking about the layers of stories, the untruths we told ourselves so we could get up after being beaten down a bit and keep moving.  Our minds kicked in to motivate us for survival.  If there is any question about how deeply the heart feels wounded by life and makes us think we cannot go on, just ask anyone who has ever lost someone they truly loved.  There is a reason our stories and myths surround the life and death of love.  It is because they are interconnected. Love is what makes life worth it. When we dare to face and let go of the surrounding untruths about what we need to protect our hearts or cover up the truth of who we are so we do not get hurt again, we can embrace the fragility and beauty of the life-giving energy of love which lies within our hearts and surrounds the whole of our being. God designed us to be surround with love.  The false ideas we surround our truth with under the guise of protection eventually break down because anything other than love is simply not true.  We can be thankful for the purpose those false stories played in aiding our will to survive and leading us to a breakdown where there was nowhere else to look than our hearts.  It is in the discovery we find the truth of our whole self surround with love.

Often times we are more affected by situations than we realize.  Life is designed to awaken us to the truth of who we are.  When we get in tune with the sensitivity that draws our attention, we learn about the power to live our lives courageously.  It is not about protecting our sensitivity which is a natural conclusion given that it can cause us to feel vulnerable.  It is about embracing our sensitivity as an avenue to developing our strengths.  People are often made fun of because of their level of sensitivity or because they have certain sensitivities in which the vulnerability is obvious to others.  What if the making fun of was a sign of jealousy? What if the reason it is looked down upon is that those making fun are not in touch with their sensitivity and deep down feel lost?  Perhaps it is mocked is because it is painful to see someone courageously embrace their sensitivity when we do not think we possess the same courage. When we are willing to embrace our sensitivity as a sign of our courage to live life to the fullest we awaken our hearts to take action in alignment with the truth of who we are.  Our being becomes the demonstration of love in action. We may think the world is telling us to hide away and simply protect ourselves from sensitivity but perhaps the world does not know how to ask us to show the courage they too possess but do not know how to tap into.

In the grand design of the universe, we see the interplay of light and dark. We hide in the dark, we play in the light.  We are so enraptured by the light that we use it to guide our way.  How is it then that we are surprised by people or experiences that delight us?  Perhaps it is because of the nature of light itself.  The experience of delight is one in which we feel touched by the light we perceive as outside of us on the inside.  We are captured by something but it is not the thing outside of us which is stirred. It is the presence of light within us that is stirred in moments of delight. We are reminded at that moment that we have light within us.  The all-powerful energy which literally lights up the world lives inside of us all the time.  We are caught off guard by moments of delight and find joy in the surprise because it reminds us of who we are at our core. God encourages to experience moments of delight so that we can remember to carry ourselves connected to the light of life within us as we go through the world.  Our connection to the light allows the love shown in light to be shared and displayed to the delight of others.

The reason everything seems so relative is because of the context in which it occurs.  The black and what perspective of our nature stemming from the survival need to know if we are going to make it through alive wants the certainty.  Opening ourselves up to being in the moment means surrendering to context.  I can read all about something.  I can take advice from those who have been through it before.  It is not until I am in the experience I am being the fullness of who I am resonating with the moment can I respond authentically.  The context of a situation sets the scene and in some cases narrows or widens the possible ways of responding.  Expecting an either-or option causes reaction versus response.  Our breath is about a response.  Our hearts beat in the moment and the rate is affected by the context. Context provides clues and when we do not consider the context in which we are responding we are not being authentic to where or who we are with.  Pausing to check in with the truth of who we are and engaging our soul come by asking, how does the truth of who I am respond to the context of this moment?  If the context from which we operate is in love we will respond with love even in a context that lacks love.  It will look different than a context that encourages love and that is authentic.

A familiar phrase that I have seen often over the years on dating profiles is either in a guy’s personal statement that he is not interested in a woman with baggage or that he does not have any baggage.  The comment causing me to laugh was from the guy who said it didn’t matter if someone had baggage, only that it was a matching set with his. 🙂 I appreciated his humility and honesty and I think I reached out to him, but we never connected.  I guess my profile or picture let him know at the outset that we didn’t have a matching set.  I am not sure I agree with the matching set idea either but it is a step up from the complete fantasy of no baggage.  We all carry around a backpack in this school of life.  In it, we hold on to stories and perceptions from our past.  We have cool pockets with points towards the future, and sometimes there is an old moldy sandwich leftover from well, more than a few days.  I do not care that you have a backpack or any kind of baggage as I want to be in a relationship with a man who is human and who has been affected and shaped by his life as I have.  For me, the deal-breaker is whether or not he knows what is in the backpack and how to find the moldy stinky sandwich and clean it out when needed.  We all, whether on the dating scene or not, have backpacks.  When we look with our eyes, we do not see a backpack, but sometimes their words or actions are an indication that they are reacting to something they are carrying around that is not in the room.  Our hearts give us the courage to look a little closer and see the backpack.  The lens of our hearts provides the compassion to remember we too are carrying around backpacks and maybe do our own share of reacting to them versus the present situation.

There are so many parts that make up any given system.  As individuals we each play a role in our relationships, in the economy, in our idea sharing, in making things, in nature, and so on.  A number of us often go around thinking we do not matter or at least we do not matter that much.  It keeps us from speaking up.  Perhaps somewhere along the way, we were not given a sense of our value or we were valued only for what we could do. Either way not knowing the cog we are in the grand scheme of life leaves us disconnected from the truth of who we are.  We do not see the value we provide as a cog in life that God does.  We assume one little action of ours will not make a difference but we cannot see the whole picture.  We see seconds of impact, God sees millions of ripple effects.  Comically, this was portrayed in the movie Forrest Gump.  He clearly was not someone that most people thought had particularly high value because they perceived him as a stupid. Yet he was a pivotal cog in the wheel of life of so many people like Elvis and Lt. Dan, the events of relations with China to Watergate, and of course those with whom he was in close relationships like Jenny and little Forrest. Forrest was a cog that impacted popular culture and changed the lives of others for the better.  He did it by being himself.  We are the cog that transforms life for so many when we learn to see our role as part of the greater whole.  Like Forrest, we never know when being the cog in the wheel is the very one needed to make the gears move and make incredible things happen.  Our work is to simply show up as the cog we are and allow God to handle working the gears.