dailydatewithgod

Our minds are creative, imaginative, and an endless source of stories. Especially when it comes to narrating the whys.  My mind can spend endless hours constructing a story about why something that does not make sense occurred.  It designed narratives of motivation, suspicion, potential reasons to hope or to despair, and I sometimes think I could be a screenwriter with the story behind the why.  It is a gift to have such creativity and an extension of who we are at our core.  However, by the time my mind is done constructing the story behind why there is little evidence to back it up.  The fearful element wants to know all the details so it can solve the puzzle.  With the mind’s inclination to survive any possible dangers it conjures up multiple potentials of dangers to watch out for going forward.  Sometimes we don’t know why things happen. Sometimes there isn’t a reason.  Sometimes things happen.  As the author and spiritual teacher, Michael Singer wrote, “you can think about it all you want, but life is still going to keep on happening.”  There will always be a why we cannot solve.  The evidence we are truly seeking is the knowledge we are okay.  We think if we can solve the mysterious why we can guard ourselves against the bad.  Yet is it the mind or our heart that is telling us the story of something being bad or good?  When we drop into our hearts we reconnect with the inner knowing of who we are at our core and how we cannot be undone by life’s happening.  It is the only evidence we need to take one more breath.

We all have a purpose in this life.  We have many pieces that feed our main purpose of being messengers of love.  God designed us to be and create more of what God started within us.  We are here to supply the means by which others can discover the truth of who they are.  We begin the journey of supplying what is needed in this world by recognizing we need it as well.  It is not about being an expert or having all the answers.  It is about our lives being the supply of our purpose in life.  We model and live the experience of what we are supplying to the world.  It comes through us.  We are the channel by which God’s message is given to the world.   Just as St. Francis of Assisi spoke of in his prayer:  “Lord, make me a channel of your peace.”  We are the instrument being played so the world around us can hear God’s song of life by looking at our lives.  We do not need to worry about how to supply our purpose, we just have to show up to the life we are in.  It may not be at all what we thought it would be but it is the message in our hearts which we discover when we get quiet and learn who we are at our core.

One of the things I learned following the spiritual path of the 12 steps is the importance of upholding the principles in all areas of my life.  Just like it makes no sense for a churchgoer who professes love for God would only be kind to people when at church, it doesn’t make sense to recreate one’s life only to keep it to a specific area of practice.  And it is a practice.  There seems to be no attainment of perfection from human standards when one approaches preserving the values one hold’s closest to their heart.  For me, it is about doing the best I can each day to live out the principles which have saved me from destroying my life in all aspects of my life.  Preserving the gifts I have been given in my relationship with God comes by showing up each day to spend time with God.  How can I preserve being in alignment with what is best for the greatest good if I am not in constant contact with the being at the core of it all?  Preserving the principles of love, hope, tolerance, kindness, accountability, honesty to name a few means living them in my thoughts and actions.  I am grateful not to have to attempt this alone.  I have a community of people who practice preserving the same principles.  At all of our core being resides the power and the courage to preserve the truth of who we are.  Many of us spend a lot of time running from getting to know the truth of who we are and end up preserving principles which do not serve us or the greater good.  The act of preserving which brings me into constant contact with God is the same act which invites me to get to know the truth of what I am preserving.

It may sound counter-intuitive to pay attention to our piques in order to better understand where our energy can best be used. Aren’t we supposed to get over our annoyances?  Aren’t we supposed to be better people and not get annoyed and resentful?  If we accept that within our lives we are going to experience piques and not make ourselves wrong for it we can actually use them.  What if underneath our piques are feelings not addressed?  What if our piques are a cover-up for the fact that we actually want to be closer to the person or situation with whom or what we are experiencing piques?  We are so quick to try and cut off our leg despite our toes or throw the baby out with the bathwater as the expression goes.  God shows us that all things in the universe are of use.  Why would they be here?  If God can sit still with us when we are focused on our piques, who are we to run? Spending time and energy squashing them down, condemning them, or condemning those who represent them do not allow us to practice love. We are here to learn and grow in love.  How can we be the messenger of love’s presence if we are busy trying to run from our piques?  Even the piques are simply a call to love.

It is humbling when we realize the depth of our lack of knowledge about everything.  We pride ourselves on knowing things.  We even have things we know we don’t know.  What sneaks up on us are the things we don’t know that we don’t know.  Even saying it one can get tongue twisted.  Our sense of reality are fragments of what is actually in existence.  It is not possible to see things from all angles.  We do not even see all the angles of a person physically when we are talking with them face to face.  Someone coming up behind us only sees one side of us and can mistake us for someone else.  None of this is good or bad, it is all about what we do with it.  Our hearts call on us to humbly accept the fragments we are exposed to in our lives and admit there may be more going on than we realize.  If we are willing to cop to the fragmented reality we are in, we can open ourselves up to wholeness.  Acknowledging the fragments and accepting our limitations as beings in a physical world allows us to know what we have to work with and where we can work with each other to fill in the gaps.  Maybe there is a reason why eyewitness accounts tell very different stories about the same event.  Maybe there is a reason why our friends and enemies do not agree with everything we think, feel, or claim to know.  Being in relationship, as our hearts invite us to do with ourselves and others with each breath of light, brings about the wholeness we crave from the deepest part of who we are.  Maybe we can let down our fragments long enough to look at or listen to someone else’s and help each other fill in the missing pieces.

We have so many choices it can be overwhelming.  Scientists have coined the term decision fatigue to account for how our will power gets zapped from making so many day to day decisions.  It can cause us to not have the needed will to face more important decisions. It seems strange to think one could gain power by taking the decision factor out of something.  In essence, it becomes about being with what is even if we do not have a say in how it goes.  Yet our mindset is always an option.  We may not like the choices we have but we still have a choice.  According to Victor Frankl, author of Man’s Search for Meaning, “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms — to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”  When I find myself not liking where I am or what I am dealing with, it does not seem helpful at the outset to realize it is one option not to like it.  If I wanted to go with another option, I could choose to see my circumstances from a different angle and opt out of the victim narrative I have slipped into.  Sometimes it takes a while for me to use the options I have.  Other times I am defeated by the idea of being a victim of my circumstances and I opt to see how this whatever this is, may not be all of what it seems.  When I slip into the space of my heart, I can step away from the content and pay attention to what is going on below the surface.  Perhaps one option is to focus on what I am making it mean and change it for something else.  Another option would be to focus on how I am feeling as a result of the situation and allow determine what purpose the feeling might serve.  Our hearts open up options our minds may have not considered.  Interacting and sharing with others provides options from their perspectives if we want to hear them.  Inviting in God’s eyes to a situation provides more options.  The various avenues to get to additional options are even an option.

When we connect with something familiar there is a sense of ease and comfort.  It is like we can relax and breathe and our minds do not have to work overtime to figure out where something fits.  Comfort and familiarity already have space in our being and why we experience discomfort when we begin to explore outside the known.  What often experienced as uncomfortable is simply unfamiliar.  Based on our survival history there are times when unfamiliar can be life-threatening but in the modern world, we do not come into contact with a possible life ending experience on a daily basis.  When we recognize something or someone we can operate from the known.  On a deeper level when we recognize something within our hearts there is a resonance guiding us in knowing we are moving in the right direction. We are able to affirm a deeper knowledge beyond what we comprehend in the mind.  We experience it when we see a long time friend.  It happens when we remember an experience of warmth and love. We know it when we turn our minds in gratitude for what is.  We savor it when we are able to be fully present in the moment we are in.  Recognizing allows us to find our peace.  Our hearts recognition allows us to move through the discomfort of our minds and be with whatever outside experiences without judgment or criticism about how we should be somewhere else or doing something else.  When our heart is recognizing itself we are at peace with ourselves and we are capable of being with whatever unfamiliar or discomfort may exist.

We have so many questions about everything.  We want answers about everything. At our heart, we are all learners who desire to wish and grow.  We cannot help ourselves when it comes to being in a world full of mysteries.  Sometimes life feels like a bunch of jigsaw puzzle pieces without a box for which we have no guide on how to fit them together.  So we start to look for similarities and patterns.  We pay attention to which shapes match up and slowly begin to piece together the fabric of our lives.  We wonder if the pieces have value within themselves or are only valuable in the big picture.  Are we guided by the patterns set up by the creator of the puzzle or what we are told need to go together?  Do the pieces of our heart and mind both play a vital role in the whole picture or are some more important than others?  How long does it take us to put enough of the pieces together to get a fuller understanding of who we are? When we have pieced together the central focus of the picture are the pieces outside of that portion important? How do we move forward in the moments when we feel more like a bunch of scattered pieces than a full picture?  Is the picture still there even if we haven’t put it together?  God sees and values all the pieces of who we are.  God knows there are days when we need a hand in putting the pieces together to see how they fit into the fullness of life.  How long before we work on the puzzle pieces before we see what God sees?

So much emphasis in this world is on the acceleration process.  How can we be more productive in a shorter amount of time?  How can something be done faster? What is needed to expedite the process?  We get used to the fast pace of commerce and technology and want to use the same modality to get through things that pop up as issues in our personal interactions. I like to call them bumps in the road. Things that slow us down and cause us to reflect. There was a movie once about this which enabled a man to use a remote control and click past the difficult experiences.  Unfortunately, the side effect was he eventually missed out on the good stuff too because his life moved as if on fast forward.  It wasn’t until it was too late he realized the cost of being able to expedite the negative experiences.  We label people and occurrences as negative or positive so quickly we miss out on the journey to explore what is behind what is on the surface.  It takes courage of heart to be willing to embark on an expedition and learn something about ourselves and the nature of life.  I can think of many times in my life where if given the chance I would have opted for expediting versus and expedition.  What I could not see at the time was the benefit I would gain from going on the journey of the expedition.  Each time whether in a personal or a job situation, going through it, as painful as it was at the time, I learned about the nature of my own heart.  I discovered my capacity to endure heartbreak and not be broken in half.  I got the chance to distinguish between my expectations of others and the reality of who they are.  The expeditions I resisted in my mind were the callings of the heart’s journey to see my own level of courage in action.  A willingness to take the expedition instead of expediting the process provided the confidence to face the next bump in the road.  And as long as we are still breathing, there will always be another bump.  Looking back I would not trade the expedition for the chance to expedite the journey and I will need to remember that for this next bump coming up.

It is hard to know how far we can extend ourselves until we try.  We may think our reach applies only within a particular area.  We think only if we are experts can we reach others with our ideas.  But those are only encompassing the scope of the mind.  Our hearts have a reach in a spectrum our minds cannot see.  We are not visibly aware of the energetic range scientists have detected extending from our hearts.  This means we are reaching those with our hearts energy beyond our physical reach. We know it when we come across someone and we acknowledge there is something about them making us either want to spend more or less time with them.  How far is the reach of our hearts?  If we see a homeless person on the street when we pull up to the stoplight, but do not have or want to give them money, will the reach of our hearts get to them if we hold a loving space for them for a minute?  If we extend the reach of our hearts ahead of us before entering the door to meet someone we love might they get the energy of our hearts before they even see us?  Might it affect our interaction?  We do not know until we try.  One thing I do know, underestimating the power of the reach of the heart is usually initiated by my mind, not by the creator of my heart.