dailydatewithgod

Sometimes we forget how valued we are by God.  It seems nonsensical that we could matter that much to such a great being.  But if we did not matter, why would we be alive?  God could have created anything and anyone but God created all that we experience and see including ourselves.  What if we supported each other in our daily lives in the same way?  What if we had the courage to take a moment and recognize the inherent worth in ourselves and the people around us?  Regardless of our shortcomings and our failures, regardless of our eccentricities or origins, regardless of our physical demonstrations of power and success.  What might the world look like if we were supporting the inherent value of each life simply because it exists.  If the premise we worked from included supporting God’s choices and not just our own, how might we treat ourselves and every person we encounter?  At the end of our lives we do not get to take anything with us, it is simply us and our way of being.  What if our life meant the value of life was supported in a myriad of different ways?  If we truly believed God equipped us with the light of life in our hearts, would we be able to see more clearly and support the light of life in the hearts of others?

For some reason I have been around a lot more children lately.  I am absolutely stunned at the profound they way of being captured by the vitality of life in such simple ways.  I know we all have this within us.  What is it that causes us to lose our connection to the fragility of life.  It is the quickest way to access our hearts and the fastest way to stay connected to one another.  Is it because we stop allowing ourselves to feel out loud.  Granted we do not want everyone throwing pouting crying fits when they are tired but it might be more manageable than being treating others with hostility for apparently no reason.  We are know we are more fragile and affected by everything around us when we are run down. There is something of grace in just being able to be with the feeling long enough to let it work through.  Instead as adults we tell ourselves we are overreacting and chastise ourselves for being so fragile.  How might our lives have less weight to them if we gave ourselves permission to show our fragility to one another more regularly.  At least to those with whom we feel will accept it.  Maybe that is the issue, there are fewer people who feel they have someone in their lives with whom they can show their fragile nature honestly.  I am not sure what the answer is but shutting down and pushing aside our fragility is not working.  We think it is inconvenient and makes us less productive.  But we invariably shut out the impact of the downside and the upside of our fragile nature.  God encourages us to stay in alignment with our fragility and live from our heart so we do not lose sight of the connection we have to each other.

In the invitation of life to participate fully in our everyday experience lies a hidden opportunity to go rambling.  We do it a lot in our minds.  Sometimes it comes out in our speech, our writing, or our walking.  All forms of rambling reveal our predilections and curiosities.  A way to get insight into the workings of ourselves is to allow some rambling.  This is often what happens when someone attempts to meditate or just get still and quiet.  They notice, perhaps for the first time, the loops that are rambling along in their mind called thoughts.  There is a never-ending stream of them and as indicated in the description of rambling, they are not in any particular order. Many will be deterred by these revelations and not want to attempt meditation again under the guise they are doing something wrong.  After years of meditating myself, I am aware that the rambling is part of the process.  The distinction is I can observe it without buying into it.  At least during my date time with God.  In my everyday life I can get attached to the rambling and run with it before pausing if I am not paying attention.  After a while one can observe that the rambling which seems to be purposeless and nonsensical, can reveal the concerns of our minds or even our hearts.  Those are the things we can bring to God. What if anything will you have me do with this rambling?  Is it trying to tell me something?  How does my heart interpret the rambling?  If we do not allow it to occur without judgment, we will never get past the seemingly incoherent nature of it to the message it is attempting to share.

There is this beautiful wide-eyed look on a child’s face when their imagination comes online.  We can see their mind wandering and creating just observing it in progress lights up anyone around them.  Their fascination with little things most adults do not take a second look at because it is common place is full of wonder for them. To begin to see our lives through some fresh eyes requires a little wondering.  Most adults wonder in the form of worry.  At its core, the essence of wondering is the ignition of the spirit of discovery.  It is about exploring possibilities and making connections. Wondering asks us to pause on trying to figure it out and just be with whatever it is we are contemplating.  It engages the breath of spirit and the strength of the heart. It is no small task to wonder because it asks us to let go of what we think we already know and start anew.  God encourages us to bring wondering to the areas of our lives that have lost their fervor.  We can begin by engaging with the breath.  Then put aside or even blow away our current understanding of what we are facing.  Wondering invites us to be in the moment we are in and see it with new eyes.

There are all kinds of little things we find ourselves doing with great ease.  It is not difficult because we just have a knack for it. We often do not even notice until someone who lacks the ease we do points it out. We become the go to person for ideas, tasks, or even a way of being.  Our knacks provide a template through which to explore gratitude.  On days like Thanksgiving we focus on the big things for which we are grateful.  It is the knacks in our lives which add up to the big things.  If we have a knack for listening it creates good relationships.  If we have a knack for organization it creates clarity for those who interact with us.  If we have a knack for technology we can be helpful to others.  How often do we stop and appreciate our knacks?  One of my dearest friends has a knack for finding good places to stay at our yearly girls reunion.  I am so grateful for her knack because not only is it not something I do not have to wrestle with other than when it comes time to vote, but we always end up at reunion spot in a great place which adds to the overall experience.  I am very grateful for her and my core group of gal pals whom I have known since I was 10 years old for so many reasons.  My love for them just lights up my heart.  Each of them have their knacks and I do not often stop to reflect on the little things they do that make being in relationship with them so special.  We all have them and we all know other people’s knacks.  What if today we expressed gratitude for our knacks?

Ideas and experiences come to us in the form of messages.  What we actually experience depends upon the message we attach to it.  Two people can have the same experience or be exposed to the same idea but have two different interpretations to it.  We attach a message of good or bad, then we add in details and explanations.  We use it to either enhance or detract from what we already know.  We feel things in our body and we have messages attached to those so we can make sense of them.  Our minds are quite busy with all the messages that have to run from our various systems back and forth to the heart and the mind.  This is what we call our experiences.  We are drawn to messages that confirm what we already know.  It is easier for the brain to work with the already known entities because it requires more energy to work with the unknown.  To bring mindfulness to our daily lives we are going to have to start using some energy.  If the messages we are seeking to confirm work for us then we can rest, but if they do not, we have an opportunity to make adjustments.  We can interpret the experiences differently.  We can attach a different message to the same experience.  It takes repeated action because we are working against the already well-worn loop of messages, but it is possible.  It is how I have rewritten a lot of my experiences.  Because of my experience as in incest survivor the messages I attach about any kind of sexual feeling or experience is defaulted to fear, pain, confusion, pleasure and that is not mine to feel.  To actively counteract the automatic default when I notice I am having a sexual feeling or thought I talk myself through it.  I remind myself of where I am and the body I am currently inhabiting.  I affirm what is good and remind myself there is nothing to be afraid of or in pain about. This new message creates a new groove with time.  Eventually, I find myself in those experiences with the new messages in place.  We all have our experiences which default into negative spaces. If it no longer works for us God invites us to change the messages. Not sure what a new message could be, start is asking what God thinks about the experience.

Freedom is a word that gets thrown around a lot.  We speak of it as a birth right.  Our freedom is inherent.  Most of the restrictions on our freedom are self-imposed.  We allow what others think of us or circumstances determine our worth.  We look to the world to tell us who we are and what we can do.  Yet God bestowed within us the power to choose to recognize the true value of our worth. Therein lies our freedom.  If we are able to step back and listen to the voice of our heart we will find the freedom we keep expecting someone or something to grant us.  God does not treat us like enslaved beings.  Yet some people imagine God as some overbearing master who is waiting for them to screw up.  How free can we be if we are giving a freedom crushing characteristic to a power greater than us?  How free can we be if we allow the ideas and actions of others to determine our own?  It may not be easy to pause and check in with ourselves about what is most aligned for us in the moment but choosing to do so or not is within our freedom.  It is simple.  It is a choice.  We are called to choose freedom.

It is funny the difference between what we think people know and observe about us and what they actual observe. We think the things we focus on are the things they focus on.  But why would they? Others are not us.  Sure, there are similarities among humans, cultures, and families, but we are each gifted with our own perspective and the ability to change it.  This perspective informs what we focus on, think about, act on and observe in the world. It is the most freeing thing to recognize that we are the observers and reactors in our own lives.  We get to choose. It let’s us off the hook in terms of concerning ourselves with what others think of us. Many of us have at some point perceived ourselves as people-pleasers.  While I do not think the term adequately describes what is happening, I will use it for the commonly understood meaning of choosing what to do or think about based on the desire to make someone else happy, not upset them, or meet their approval often at the expense of ignoring our own hearts. Even when we say we don’t care what others think, if we use it to choose the opposite of the perceived like of the other person it is still motivating us in our choices. In the end, we have no control in pleasing others because we cannot control what they perceive at any given moment.  We do not know what is motivating their choices.  We may acquiesce to the movie they want to see in an effort to please them only to find out they do not care about the movie but where we go to eat. Why not value our own choices?  Our hearts are ready to share our true wisdom about our choices when we stop to listen.  It calls upon us to pause, take a breath, get quiet and check in with ourselves before determining what will please another. This is our freedom.  Looking at what pleasing our hearts would look like gives us the courage to navigate the world by being who we are meant to be in the moment.  With courage we can handle the potential differences arising from another’s perception in relationship of two whole persons.

It is easy to look at what is happening on the outside and believe it is all it presents itself to be.  We look at gifts and determine their worth based on the size and the wrapping.  We look at people and make assessments about what kind of person they are by what they are wearing, their gender, or the way they stand. If we stay at the surface level we have some concept of what something, someone, or a situation is but we do not have the full picture.  We don’t default to staying with  the first surface we encounter because we are shallow.  We do it because it happens automatically.  We have to actively take a step back and begin some inquiry to get at what is beneath the surface.  This takes time and effort.  It requires us to stop going with the automatic and be in the in between space where we do not know.  Curiosity is the antidote to going with the surface alone.  If we are open to a little investigation and are open to learning we can gain a better understanding of everything.  Surfaces are indicators of things but what is below the surface is another story.  Just like an iceberg that you only see the top of when you are on the water.  To understand just how big of a presence the iceberg takes up we need to look below the surface. Below the surface can also be perceived as another side of the surface. Our hearts call upon us to pause, breathe and take a second look.  We do not necessarily need to go below the surface.  Sometimes just looking at something from a different side of the surface provides a completely different perspective.  Think of how many times you thought you knew who someone was based on seeing their back.  When you tap them on their shoulder and they turn around so you can say hello you realize the person looking at you is not who you thought they were.  We have multiple surfaces and part of life’s exploration is getting to know the various surfaces of ourselves as well as looking below the surface.  Given the breadth and depth of the designs of God, we might just be surprised and amazed with what we discover about ourselves and others by peeking at one of the other surfaces.

My prayer for us is the willingness to see the gift of presence we are able to provide for ourselves and others today.