dailydatewithgod

There is something inside of us all that we share.  It is our core essence.  When we get past the facades, the appearances, and all the things we say and do to separate ourselves and make ourselves unique is the truth of who we are.  We and everything living was created out of love.  There is nothing we can do or say to make it untrue.  We can run from our quintessence, we can try to hide it, we can squish it down, but we will return to love just as we originated from it.  The greatest prayer we can say when we are struggling with ourselves and each other is, “God, help me to see me as you see me.”  In other words, “Life of the universe, help me to remember who I truly am, who they are and what it is.”  When we connect with our quintessence and allow our hearts to guide our sight, the differences fall away.  They may not stay away but for the amount of time we can be in the space of our quintessence is worth more than life itself.

We all seem to be racing to get it done, whatever it is.  As though coming to some kind of conclusion is the point of life.  That being the point of life sounds pretty sucky to me.  If that were really the case, why bother showing up for the journey?  Why not just expedite the conclusion?  When I have moments of real quite and let the outside world settle to less than a hushed whisper, I can hear the beating of my own heart.  Within the heart space lies the message longing to be lived before I reach the conclusion of life.  We are all going to get there, no one escapes without experiencing the final conclusion.  As a kid, I used to think I couldn’t wait to be an adult.  Now I wish I could more easily access the freedom and wonder at so many things I have no idea about.  I thought I would be safe if I knew what would happen.  I figured having the conclusion would make things less painful.  Now I see I only wanted to feel safe and free to be myself.  No amount of knowledge of some kind of elaborate conclusion can bring that for me.  Only my daily date with God have given me what I needed to be with what is, whatever it is and not want it to or fear it concluding. Here is what I know in my heart:  right now within me and within you exists everything we need to live in the moment we are in.  Knowing how it will ultimately conclude only takes me out of the preciousness of the moment I am in.  If I stay out of the moments of right now, I will get to their conclusions feeling like I missed out because I did.  It takes courage to be in the moment we are in not knowing how or when it will conclude.  It is the beautiful mystery God calls us to if we dare.

We can go on and on about what we value and what is important to us.  The quickest way I have learned to really get a look at what I value and what is important to me is by looking at how I allocate my time. There is no way I know of to replace time in the literal sense.  I cannot get back the 30 minutes I spent in traffic or the hours I spent worrying about the thing that never happened.  Now, I have no control over traffic, but it does indicate the importance of the things I am going to or coming from that causes me to be in traffic. Given the reality of traffic in Los Angeles, for better or worse this can be enough of a deterrent to not participate in something due to its distance or time of day.  If traffic comes to point of getting in the way of my life, I will need to consider moving.  I have learned when I look at my allocations of time and energy, I see the possible gap between what I say is of value to me and what really is.  I have never been particularly math inclined but numbers in black and white are harder to deny than our rationalizations.  They bring me to the reality of what my actions say to me.  The more finicky question these days is what do the time allocations on our phones say about what is important to us?  Most phones have an app that will give you the data on how much time you spend on particular phone applications.  The real irony is there is probably a small allocation of time actually talking on the phone.  I am beginning to think society might want to change the smart phone to another name.  Now more than ever as the world clamors for the time and energy allocations we have not already assigned or occupied in our schedule, I find going back to my heart most necessary.   It is hard when we fear missing out, do not want to disappoint others, or struggle to say no.  Drawing into my heart helps me determine where my allocations would best serve the truth of who I am and who I am created to be in the world. When my head hits the pillow at night, my heart and soul are at peace knowing I did my best to use my allocation of  time and energy in most alignment with the truth of who I am even if it meant saying no, missing out, or disappointing others.

Compared to extreme adventurers I live a boring and complacent life. Don’t get me wrong, I love nature and have done enough camping trips where roughing it meant breaking up and setting up your own camp daily and going without a shower for days on end to earn some street cred.  But this gal much prefers a nice hotel with soft towels to spending the night with creepy crawly bugs.  The frame of my life as compared to a seasoned outdoor adventurer is less extreme depending on one’s definition of extreme.  The real question is what do I do when I reach the edges in my life?  I am not talking about literal cliffs, but the edges I reach when I find myself saying: “I don’t know how to handle this,” or “This could be uncomfortable” or “I am afraid . . . ”  All of us have the edges we reach in our lives. The question is do we keep inside them or do we rub up against them?  Do we listen when our minds tell us not to go near there or do we take the adventure our heart’s tell us too when we can feel the fear beating against it louder and louder?  It is not the content, it is the experience.  We all know our edges and when we are being in the truth of who we are we are a bit more willing to dance up close.  Having faith in the power of love means we know within ourselves no matter what happens or does not happen, nothing can truly be undone.  God is more powerful than any fear of a person, situation, physical experience, idea or belief.  With all that has come and gone throughout the history of time, love still stands.  Our hearts call us not to recklessly mock our edges but take a closer look, do a little dance, find a laugh, and see what we are made of.  Our edges show up to remind us we were designed to create our experience and it may mean redrawing the lines of our lives.

It is hard to imagine how others really see us, or rather how we appear to them.  Our visage is one we can only witness of ourselves.  Because we do not have the same exact experiences, lenses, and default patterns as another person we are limited.  We can only do our best to convey the visage we feel is the best representation of ourselves.  There are so many aspects of each human being that from moment to moment we may convey a different visage than we intend.  Our best hope is to create a congruent thread that runs through all the parts of ourselves.  Even so, we have no control over how we appear to others.  It is very much based upon the moment the other person is in.  Despite this lack of control we all tend to spend a lot of time trying to carve out a visage we think cannot be seen as anything than our intention.  But others cannot know all our intentions.  Some with whom we are close may engage with us to find out.  Others are genuinely curious, but even we can become blinded by not realizing our actions do not convey our intentions despite our best efforts in a given moment.  The greatest service we can do for one another is to connect with the truth of ourselves in our hearts and let it guide our visage.  At the very least it provides a peace of mind that no matter how another person may or may not interpret our actions, we know the truth from which we are being.  In a loud and noisy world that puts a lot of value on one’s visage, it can feel rebellious and counter cultural to put more importance on the value of our own heart than what the world has to say.  This is why our hearts’ are equipped with the courage needed to live life.  God did not design us to be what others’ want or supposedly need us to be.  God designed us to be the truest version of ourselves.  The great irony is when we all connect with the truth of ourselves and present the visage form the lens of the heart, there is little distinction between who we are all being in the game of life.

In our world today most of us are in a hurry. It has become such a way of life we don’t realize that what may have started out as a practice in one area has seeped into our very perspective of how things are.  If we look at nature, we notice how rarely it seems to be in a hurry.  There is no rush to get to spring when in winter.  The trees aren’t howling to see the sun in winter.  The branches waiting to grow new flowers do not seem sad.  I am not sure where along the way we separated from the ease and confidence of things unfolding as they are meant to  I am not sure any of knows.  There are clearly elements in life where rushing is important.  When life is on the line, when we are in danger rushing is a must.  But most of the time, this is not our reality.  Being in the healthcare field I have come to know the distinction. Yet, I am not a physician or a nurse so I do not have their common default of thinking it only matters if it is life or death either.  The ease calling to us from our hearts is not to just sit by and watch life happen but the ease of vacillating between the times of rush and the time of slowness.  We need both forces present to make life work.  The key is trusting we have the ease within us to accurately determine which of those forces applies to this moment.  Because of the automatic nature of the way our bodies kick into gear when it comes to the rush, we think it is the more important force.  When we slow down we often feel lost or unsure.  We are able to hear the nonsense conversation in our heads and would rather distract ourselves by moving faster.  Ease is the space where we do not have to run from the moment just because it feels uncomfortable.  Ease is trusting in all forces of the universe existing for a purpose. It took me a long time on my daily dates with God to get used to the idea that there was not something I was missing out on and needed to rush to.  I still get tripped up, like this morning when my mind kept diverting my attention to the sound of my phone going off.  When my heart prompted me to bring my attention back to my breath, I saw it would be there for me when our date was done.  The ease coming from the heart’s reminder for us to breathe gives us the knowledge to know which force to engage with this moment.

It is difficult for us to fully grasp how interconnected we really are.  Our minds are trained to notice differences.  We are taught to look for how we are like some and unlike others.  We are told there is the body and the mind.  We are biologically wired to be alerted when something is different.  These are all helpful and useful tools for life.  What is beauty without distinction?  What is curiosity without nuance? What is ingenuity with out determined independence?  It is not that we need to focus less on how things are separate from one another but not focus only on our separateness.  There is also power, beauty, curiosity, and ingenuity in our unity.  Do we balance our inclination to see our distinctions with our heart’s longing to belong to each other?  Do we open ourselves up to how one element of us may be separate we have just as many elements which are similar?  If we all come from the same source of life, clearly there is just as much value in our unity as our separateness.  It takes us out of our mind and into our hearts when we see the similar rhythms of life present in each other.  When we are able to notice the differences and not let them keep us from discovering the similarities we have reached the experience of peace. Do we strive to do this as much within ourselves as with others? The universe is composed of both positive and negative forces.  Energy is both drawn away and drawn to itself.  Being in harmony by balancing our perspective of unity with our ability to notice separateness is our spirit’s call.

We never know when exactly something will be revealed.  We can be alone in the dark with a particular idea about ourselves and through a series of circumstances, it comes into the light.  There are all kinds of things we try to hide about ourselves that we do not really hide.  There are countless ways of being we have that those around us are quite aware of and we are clueless about.  It is a wonder we see anything at all.  One thing I have learned on my daily dates with God is if I want to have any kind of awareness about myself and others, I need to be within.  Spending time in the quiet of my heart with my breath and not needing to be anywhere or with anyone brings more revelation into my life than any book or experience.  We do a lot of looking out there for insights into our lives when everything we have ever needed has been provided by God within ourselves.  The things outside of us whether they be people, ideas, or experiences can only come into contact with the truth of who we are to the extent that we let them.  We get to choose how we experience revelations about our lives.  I have had many ahas from reading about concepts, hearing other’s stories and identifying, and being involved in seemingly random circumstances.  When it comes to personal revelations, it does not click until I have had time to digest my outside experience in the quiet of my own heart.  Each outside aha can become an internal revelation if we allow it to sink beneath the surface of our skin and be with it in our hearts.

There is an expression used in recovery rooms: progress not perfection.  It is a loose translation of what is in the book Alcoholics Anonymous, pg. 60 stating: “The principles we have set down are guides to progress. We claim spiritual progress rather than spiritual perfection.”  The idea being the purpose of the 12 steps as a spiritual path are meant to help one grow steadily in a spiritual life. In other literature it refers to progress not perfection when it comes to acknowledging and working with the elements of ourselves, sometimes referred to as character defects or defenses which stand in contrast to who we are growing into becoming.  There is a gentleness and forgiving approach in this way of thinking.  As a recovering addict it was a relief to know I was not expected to become different all at once.  I will often look for a reason to find wrong with myself or chide myself for not being further along.  I know I am not the only one who tries to hold myself to unrealistic spiritual ideals as though I can spiritualize my way out of being human.  I used to think it was about finding a way out of falling down and regressing.  I see now God is not interested in me being better than my human self but continually progressing toward’s God’s view of me as not just my human self.  God sees us as these beautiful sacred beings of love created by Love.  God desires for us to see ourselves the same way.  Progress towards this view of ourselves is not some prize to be won. Within the truth of who we are this perspective lies in waiting.  The more time we spend getting acquainted with our own hearts, we will begin to see what God sees.  We will also know where to return when our eyes become clouded.  Knowing we are meant to progress towards the sight of our heart gives us a path to follow.  A path God happily meets us on anytime we invite God.  We have our whole loves to make progress in the path of our heart.  God is not impatient, we are.  God has all of eternity and is happy to hold firm the sacred view of our wholly selves which is not tainted in God’s eyes no matter how much we stumble in our progression towards our truth.

We often want proof before moving forward.  We look for evidence to show us the possibility of something.  We expect to be given the full picture before making a decision.  Most of the time all we have are traces. Elements of proof that do not provide the whole picture.  We have indications which speak to the possibility but not the potentiality.  At some level  we must move forward trusting with whatever traces we have.  A greater question would be are the traces in alignment with our hearts or with our minds.  Perhaps both.  Traces of our heart will lead us further into the space of our own truth.  Following those traces at the very least will allow us to grow in connection to ourselves.  Strengthening our relationship to our own truth sets the stage for numerous possibilities and many potentialities.  Letting the traces of our lives as small as they are guide us to the core of our own design is what we are here to do.  We will not often have the evidence or proof of what we are looking for, but if a traces leads us in the direction of our heart it will set the stage for growth in love which is why we are here.