dailydatewithgod

The more I learn about how nature works the more I am fascinated by how everything moves in a circular or cyclical fashion.  It seems to be a forgiving way of moving through time and space.  As though things build upon each other and there are elements we experience again and again.  Yet these are not circles of hell like Dante wrote about, although when we imagine we are back where we started we default to thinking we must have done something wrong, a.k.a. hell.  It is more likely that we return for some other reasons.  Perhaps we circle back because there is another element of the experience or situation which will attribute to our growth.  Perhaps we circle back so we can bear witness to how much we have grown since we were in this place before. Perhaps we circle around to be the one to guide others who find themselves in that space for the first time.  We could opt to think poorly of ourselves for simple repeating elements of our lives which I have spent plenty of time doing. Strangely it did not move me through the experience any quicker. If I remember to view life as an experience of learning and opportunity to grow in love and become more fully myself I can pay more attention to the energy of my heart in the circle than what it looks like with my eyes.  My heart will always speak to the truth of my being in the circle of my life in the moment I am in.

We tend to view things as one or the other.  It is either night or day, up or down, and good or bad.  Sometimes referred to as black and white thinking it is a result of our inclination to categorize things.  It is so we can make sense of the world which is helpful.  If everything was chaotic and lacked meaning we would most likely feel out of touch with reality.  When it comes to the idea of advantages we often take the same either or approach. We either want the advantage in a situation or we do not.  We see others who have advantages that we do not and wish we were them. Our minds do this funny thing where we perceive others as having more of an advantage than ourselves.  In fact, we are often blinded to the advantages we do have because most of them we take for granted.  We bemoan the people we perceive as always having the upper hand or the golden touch.  As if they are somehow more lucky than we are.  We believe they do not even realize all the advantages they have and take them for granted.  But depending on what angle we are looking from someone always has an advantage.  Do we always recognize the ones we have?  I lose sight of them all the time.  I walked from the train to my office this morning fully clothed with a smile on my face. In that time I passed a man who was wearing tattered clothing, missing teeth, limping, who I do not think has a place to live and probably does not have any money to take the train.  It isn’t until writing this that I realized all the advantages I have compared to him.  I take action in my life to facilitate those advantages and some of them show up on my gratitude list at the end of the day but I do not usually seem them as an advantage.  It has started me wondering how many more advantages I have that I am not paying attention to.  In fact, how many advantages do I have that I do not even see as an advantage?  How many more things can I be grateful for that I currently take for granted?  I can hear the song of my heart start to hum as my eyes are opened to all the blessings in my life I have been blind to up until this point.

One of the most important elements to my daily dates with God is the daily element. The more consistent I am with showing up for myself and God the more I get to reap the benefits of a sacred relationship.  The frequency of a daily commitment sounds like something one might check off a to do list.  It is however, less of a to do and more of a willingness to try again and again.  Frequency of commitment is about the desire to grow and learn at every turn.  To show up again and again with the possibility of being surprised by the way life shows its light. It is not about doing it the same way every time or reaching some kind of perfection.  Frequency is a way of answer my heart’s call to become a little bit each day the truest expression of myself.  There are so many things we do with frequency and are not even conscious of it.  My heart beckons me to expend equal energy frequently participating in life at a frequency of intentional heart growth.  I can only image it is the energy within my own heart propelling me to slow down for a little time each day and greet God with the earnestness of child wanting to learn.  If nothing else, I can be willing to be in the presence of my creator with daily frequency just to see what I might discover within my own heart.

We know things start and end.  We know there is a beginning of the road and an end of the road.  Yet for all we know we are often surprised when things come to an end whether it is a road, a relationship, an experience, a time period in our lives, or an idea.  Sometimes we welcome the end with open arms and look forward to new beginnings.  Other times we fight to hold on seemingly as though our lives depend upon it.  More than anything we want the ending to happen on our own terms. We imagine that if we could make things last forever it would be best. We think never having to change is the optimal.  What we fail to recognize is the ever-changing nature of life including ourselves.  We elusively think we do not change much over time and will continue to be, think, and act very much the way we do currently once we have reached adulthood.  Psychological studies tell us this is incorrect.  Yes, there are elements of ourselves which may not change drastically, but they do change.  Often it is so subtle we cannot see it in ourselves.  We perceive ourselves as enduring versus a series elemental endings happening all the time.  Ending sounds so final but every ending makes room for beginning.  The very nature of nature’s ending over and over is the enduring nature of life.  This is where the presence of God is made real.  Through the enduring nature of beginnings and endings life flows in a cycle.  We perceive time and space as linear but life reveals itself as cyclical.    Sometimes those endings come back in a slightly new form as new beginnings.  God’s enduring nature and movement in time is the thread keeping life growing and expanding.  To abandon ourselves to the enduring nature of God versus trying to hold on with our limited ability to create enduring nature is better known as controlling.   Trusting God’s enduring nature to allow the flow of beginnings and endings takes courage and humility.  This is the trust built into our hearts which fuels the courage to show up in the moment and live out the truest design of ourselves.

Sometimes we are invited by life to take a closer look.  It may not seem like an invitation but we know it when we find ourselves looking at a part of our lives from a different angle.  It is as though our eyes are being opened to a new perspective of something we have only seen from a fixed perspective.  Sometimes it is experienced as a slap in the face but prior to that we get a chance to peer at it from a different angle.  We sometimes miss those because peering is more subtle than a flash.  We are used to waiting for things to flash and grab us versus come sit besides us and whisper in our ears.  The advantage of listening to the whispers of the peering is a chance to embrace it with a gentleness.  There is no right or wrong approach or preference when it comes to change.  Change is change.  Peering may lead to less resistance and gives us the opportunity to open ourselves to it a little at a time.  God is interested in us growing in love and light at every moment of our lives. God is not interested in forcing us.  God simply opens the door of our hearts and allows us to peer in to see what is in store for us.

The effectiveness of our brain in categorizing information is very useful.  It is the reason it happens automatically.  When we have something to attach or identify a person, idea, or experience we are less fearful of it.  It makes sense therefore that we often mistakenly categorize things incorrectly in an effort to subvert discomfort.  The categories in place are often those we adopted from those who came before us.  The constructs of the categories themselves is different for different people although many are agreed upon by particular groups.  For example the way we label things as good or bad, important or unimportant, weak or strong.  We do it so automatically that we find it silly to even question it.  It is just how things are.  God invites us to question what we label as good or bad, important or  unimportant, and weak or strong.  Depending on the moment we are, the experience of being bad, might be good for us.  The context of a particular moment may reveal to us what was seemingly unimportant as the most important element.  Therefore, equally, there are times when it is our weaknesses which reveal our greatest strengths.  We are usually too busy avoiding the things we have placed on the negative to take a closer look and see what is really there.  It takes courage to come face to face with our weaknesses. In my experience when I do find the courage of heart to see what is there, I find the opposite to be true.  It makes no sense to my mind but to my heart it is more real than anything.  God invites us to at least pause and take a moment to notice in the moment we are in what is more true. . . is this really weakness or is it strength?

In this world of duality we find two opposing modes of operation present in our lives.  I suspect it is a human conundrum but I only know of it in the western culture context.  There is both a push to reveal ourselves and share our lives and every moment of it with all kinds of people while also keeping under wraps the less than acceptable elements of ourselves.  While opposing ideas they do feed into one another.  We can use the showy elements to make it seem like we are revealing more about ourselves than we really are.  Yet much of the truth of who we are and what we think often remains in obscurity.  Is it the resistance to vulnerability?  Is it the fear of judgment that we know exists because it is the same judgments we hold of others?  Or is there perhaps some prudence in participating in some levels of obscurity.  With the advent of social media it seems like the thing to do is share what you think and who you are about everything to everyone.  While I am advocate for having a voice, with everyone chiming in it sounds like noise.  I am not sure I want to know every element of the people running for political office.  I do not necessarily care what the politics are of my favorite singers.  I am happy there are things which remain in obscurity for those people.  I want to know how the politician plans to serve in office and I am curious what inspired the lyrics and the music of the latest song.  The levels of obscurity that concern me within myself are those I attempt to keep from God.  Somehow I think the Creator of my heart does not know what I want to keep hidden so I delude myself and find myself wanting to keep it from myself.  God encourages us to embrace those things within us that we perceive as best left hidden not necessarily to be shared with everyone but to be looked at through the lens of our hearts.  Within us is the capacity to see with compassion the broken and fragile elements of ourselves with the compassion we crave.  It exists in the light.  The light will not enter the obscure areas so we must bring our obscurity to the light.  Trusting the light of love to follow its design takes courage and practice.  A little at a time we strengthen the muscle of faith in the light of love each time we share an obscurity within ourselves to ourselves.

It has been said many times that the only constant in life is change.  There are the ones we choose and the ones that seem to happen with or without our choosing.  For something that is a given, it is amazing how resistant we are to change.  I once heard a speaker giving a talk about change and he said it was not the change we are resistant to, it is the transition.  The in between times when the change has not yet taken hold where things feel uncertain is where we get squiggly.  Many of the changes in my life happen as alters.  Alters are like little adjustments which change the shape, texture, and context of an experience of myself and others.  By recognizing the alters of our lives as movements in the direction of our truest selves, we see the gentle hand of God moving within us.  There is something sacred about welcoming and inviting in opportunities to alter ourselves or our experience.  When I see something I want to change, I can approach it by looking for the spaces where my thinking or being can be altered to create something new.  The beauty of change is how it signifying the presence of aliveness.  Choosing to participate in that aliveness despite the fear that comes up is easier to swallow when I see myself participating in alters. By initiating alters I am laying the groundwork for new life through my being.

When we witness confidence in others we know it.  It is conveyed in all facets of their being including verbal expression, body language, posture, and word choice.  We give credence to the person we see as confident.  We believe what they are telling us.  If we stop to look closer, we will notice they give credence to the message they are conveying.  They believe themselves to their core.  This is how we can be deceived by those who provide us faulty information.  We fall for it because we are not buying into what they say or do as much as who they are being when they say or do it. The same can be said for ourselves.  When we give credence to what lies at the core of who we are, we will convey whatever message is housed in there with everything we do.  If we believe we are not worth others’ time, we will convey that message and others will see us as not worth their time.  If we give credence and value to what we are sharing with another person as our truth, they will believe us because it comes through our verbal expression, body language, posture and word choice.  Just saying it to someone else will not enable them to see its truth.  For many years our ancestors lived and related to each other without formal language.  We needed a way to be able to pick up on messages being conveyed other than through words.  We still possess this capability.  If we want others to believe what we are saying and doing, we need to start with giving credence to what is the truth of our hearts.  God invites us over and over again to pause and look inward to find the jewel of our being beneath whatever circumstance created beliefs we have thrown over our hearts. If we are not conveying with credence through our being what we think we believe about ourselves it would behoove us to take a closer look and see how it might differ from how God sees us.

There are models of behavior that we use as a society to demonstrate what is acceptable or not.  Within those societal models of acceptable behavior are the contours of personality, a way of relating to others, clothing, specified roles or jobs, and definitions of what constitutes different kinds of relationships.  Learning to live with those contours keeps us safe as children.  By operating within those accepted contours we make our way through life without over exposing ourselves to criticism or the risk of being ostracized by those close to us or society as a whole.  Being a part of the group insures our survival.  Part of the process of maturation involved testing the boundaries of those contours which we see teenagers engage in much to the dismay of many adults who have forgotten this is part of what is needed to mature into an adult. The degrees to which we test the boundaries of the contours matters little, the point is to test them.  The spirit within us is prompting us to a deeper level of testing of contours. But the prompting comes as a whisper and can get missed among the loud noise of the accepted contours.  This is what helps determine the contours of our heart and to seek alignment with it as the ultimate authority in our lives. This level of maturation sometimes never occurs.  It is however the deep calling of our soul to determine the contours of own hearts so we can use them to guide our role in becoming the best version of ourselves.