dailydatewithgod

One of my favorite things in the world are flowers.  They are a gift of possibility among plants.  There are so many variations of colors, shapes, and sizes.  Flowers brighten up a room and bring smiles to people’s faces.  They are like a love letter from God that arrives unexpectedly.  There is so much that goes into the creation and development of flowers that happens without our knowing.  Yet we get to benefit from their presences all the time.  We come to know them in their blooming.  In our own lives our period of flowering can seem effortless to those outside of ourselves because they cannot know what is happening beneath the surface.  Unless we share the story of our flowering most may just see the end product and think we have always been that way.  We do not benefit just from the end product of a beautiful flower.  We benefit from the whole process because other systems and ways of life continue because of the needs of a flower for its growth.  A botanist could explain it better than I could, but many elements including how we get food to eat come down to the interplay of flowering in nature.  Flowering happens to flowers and all other plants, including ones that sustain our livelihood. Having a greater appreciation for the process of flowering in nature provides an enriched perspective of the gift of beauty that flowers provide.  The same can be said in the story of our flowering.  Knowing how we bloomed is as much an essential part to appreciating the beauty of who we are as noticing it when it reaches its pinnacle.

We tend to think new is better.  In many cases it is.  Who doesn’t want the newest version of something, even ourselves?  When we are new into an experience it is the fascination with the unknown.  We see this all the time in children.  Everything is new for them and holds such possibility.  As we age, newness is largely defined as better or a chance to start over.  We are okay with newness as something else but are not always as open to newness is replacement of something of which we prefer the old.  Many times we prefer the old simply because it is familiar. Instead of the new bringing possibility, it brings fear because we are being asked to let go of what we already know.  It is apparent in our thinking which impacts our feelings and our actions.  There is nothing wrong with something that works, but we are funny creatures that hold on to things even when they aren’t working.  God encourages us to embrace newness as children do with a sense of wonder and fascination.  We are asked to open our hearts and embrace the fear of the unknown so as to grow our capacity for greater love in our lives.

It can be hard for us to imagine the breadth and depth of God’s reach.  For many people God is some sort of entity in the sky that overlooks all of what is happening and seems to not be involved in our every day lives.  I do not recall identifying strongly with this concept.  Perhaps the God as father idea has been distant for me.  But the idea of all of God being so far removed from my day-to-day is not something I have found to be true.  On my daily dates with God which began around 16 years ago, I slowly discovered a completely new experience.  The degree to which God is involved in my daily life is the degree to which I welcome God in.  God does not come uninvited.  God does not wear out his welcome.  The degree of peace in my life is directly correlated to the areas of my life into which I welcome God into my heart to be near me.  It can be scary at first, but when I realized my freedom of spirit lies on the other side of the welcome I began to shift my perspective.  God has designed us all to be free within our hearts to love unabashedly and be the messengers of light to ourselves and the world.  When I welcomed God deeper into my heart despite my trepidation, I found a gentle and loving experience of acceptance that I did not know was possible.  And when I welcome God into the darkest parts of myself, I humorously find God accepting and ready to get to work to help me see the gift of my dark parts.

It is said that hope is eternal.  It is a timeless and transcendent experience.  Hope is maddening on one level and the only choice that makes on another.  It is the flame of faith that carries us through when nothing else will.  A life without hope seems glum and dark and yet we often label it as fanciful and trite. We tell ourselves to push through the difficulties and pretend it isn’t the hope living within our hearts that is carrying us through.  We tell ourselves to be tough in mind and keep focused.  All the while hope is fueling us from within.  It is the silent partner that we take for granted.  To be hopeful is sometimes labeled as being gullible but is the childlike quality of love magnified.  It is a gift from God to be able to hope.  When we allow ourselves to embrace this quality within our hearts, we commence a way of living that holds all kinds of possibilities.  Hope engenders a new breath, a new moment, the sense that neither we nor God has given up on us yet.  Hope allows us to know deep down that the story is not yet over because love has not yet found its fullest expression but it is on its way.

The gift of a new time frame to begin again is a sprinkling of hope on the tapestry of our lives.  We place a lot of meaning on phases of time.  Meaning that would not be present unless we put it there.  We do this to make sense of our lives and provide a purpose.  If we did not have special meaning for new phases we would miss out on the ceremonial experience which is intrinsic to human life.  We would not have cause for celebration and a reason to bring ritual to share the stories of our lives.  A new year is reason to celebrate because it is an opening to possibilities.  It is the indication that we have not yet given up nor has the universe given up on us.  Each day on my date with God when I take the time to connect to my heart and to listen for the breath of the gift of life that moves in and around me, I am reminded of the openness and expandedness of the universe existing within me.  It is there all the time but I am often too busy to notice.  My time with God allows me to be within the openness and reconnect with the power of love and hope that God made inherent in all of us.

Often we determine what we do or do not do based on the reaction or expected reaction of others.  Given the multitude of people and all the possible variations of responses, it seems quite silly. Still we do it. It is inherent in us to want to be loved and accepted. There is nothing wrong wanting to be loved an accepted.  When it causes us to stop listening to the wisdom of our own hearts we go against what we were designed to do as children of God. I have learned the hard way that at the end of the day, it is between me and God. When I leave this earth, no one goes with  me and each and every day no one else lives inside my head.  My daily date with God reminds me to check with my heart and move from there. God knows our hearts and sits still within them.  God invites us to explore the inner workings of our hearts by pausing and connecting.  Upon reflection in the stillness of our hearts we have the courage to go ahead anyway.  Mother Teresa lived by following what she knew from the stillness of her heart. No matter what others did or said, she went ahead anyway.  She kept her version of “The Paradoxical Commandments,” written by Kent M. Keith on the wall in her home for children:

We all have inclinations to certain things.  Some of are drawn to a particular profession, a preferred living area, or certain types of people.  The elements which appeal to us, draw us in, attract us, and tell us something about how we are designed.  Yet there is a competing notion telling us we need to fit in. It gets confusing when we try to compare what is appealing to us versus someone else.  Then you add social media in the mix and the comparison train is going faster than a speeding bullet.  We get lost in trying to justify our attractions or make them like others. To discern what is truly appealing to us requires us to pause and check in with our hearts.  We get to ask questions, explore, and find out what might be behind what we are attracted to.  Our hearts are in touch with our desires but we tend to quickly jump into judgment in our minds so we can explain to those outside of us why we find certain things appealing.  Maybe there is no reason other than we are designed to find them appealing.  Who’s to say that what you or I find appealing is better or worse than what others find appealing? What we are attracted to will draw us out to be the expression of love we are meant to be.  If we were all supposed to line up like ducks wearing the same outfits we would have been part of the von Trapp family singers.  The greatest gift we can give to each other and to the world is to follow what is appealing to us and use it to create the expression of light and life we are designed to be.

One of the things we do not realize is how many requirements we place on ourselves and those around us.  Life itself is believed to go according to plan.  Any time we find ourselves stating a “should” we know we are in the realm of requirements.  We are telling ourselves and others that as long as the people and the situation are going as expected, I am okay. We are asking ourselves and others to be a certain way in order to procure our sense of well-being.  We have timing requirements, behavior requirements, and visual requirements. We are uncomfortable with the unknown and the unexpected because our mind interprets it as possible danger.  To avoid danger, we place the requirement expectations and fall for the illusion that we are okay.  However, we set ourselves up for trouble because rarely do people or circumstances meet all our requirements.  At the very least we end up disappointed in ourselves, others, or situations.  At the very worst, we have based our peace and serenity on something or someone who cannot meet that need.  My daily dates with God are the only thing I have found to keep from falling for the very worst of what comes of requirements.  In our time together and consequently throughout the day, I get reacclimated to the truth. The truth that nothing outside of my own heart provides the consistency and the core grounding which guides my peace and serenity.  Any time I forget, all I have to do is pause, draw my attention to my heart, and take a deep breath.  Letting go of requirements is a process and I mess it up all the time.  The more time I spend reconnecting with my heart, the easier it becomes to not fall for the “shoulds” I am ridiculously requiring of myself or others.

We look for and depend upon what we perceive as unchanging.  We as humans like the permanence idea.  Yet we know the only permanence is the presence of change.  It is the great dance of life to vacillate between our expectations of reality and reality as it exists in truth.  God invites us into our hearts to experience a solidity that allows us to dance with the impermanence of life. We like to struggle in the dance, much to our own dismay or thinking we don’t we really like to struggle.  Our minds are a camping ground for the discussion, the managing of multiple ideas and experiences, the facts and figures,and the justifications and excuses for why things are not as they should be.  With all that mulling around in our mind it gets clouded and loud.  Pausing and breathing into our hearts allows us to send some of the energy of presence in the moment and quiet the mind.  God provides the solidity of the never-changing characteristics of our hearts and the permanence of the dance from our heart to our head and back again.  It is the mystery and the moment reigniting our spirit and encouraging us to keep dancing through the impermanence of life.  It is the stillness and power of love in our hearts giving us the courage to take one more step and stay in the dance just for today.

Time has some illusory qualities.  Three minutes can seem like no time at all when we are rushing from one thing to another and seem like everything when we are three minutes late for an important appointment.  As a kid, we thought for use summer was so far away.  As adults we are amazed to be at the end of another year that just seemed to fly by. Time seems to depend on the context.  We like to think of it in a mechanical fashion as in an hour is always an hour.  If you are sitting in traffic or spending time with a loved one that same hour either does not move fast enough or is not enough time.  You break it down to 60 minutes or 3600 seconds for either experience so it is clear that the actual time has not changed.  We take for granted that time moves us on.  Whether we like it or not whatever the experience of time we are having, it will pass.  In our hearts exists a timelessness.  When we are engaged from our hearts time is described as standing still.  It is as though the restrictions of the mind disappears.  Some describe it as being in the flow of life.  Letting go for a minute or two of the fixation on the number of seconds or minutes allows us to drop into our hearts perspective of right here, right now.  The big deal about being in the present is the magical quality it seems to possess for overriding reality.  One is able to make the hour stretch out because we step out of our mind keeping track of the seconds and savor every breath that happens as it happens.