We have this unique capability as human beings of saying one thing and then doing another. It is easy to identify in the grandest of ways. We call the people who do so in big way hypocrites. But we are all hypocrites. Unless we have found a way to be perfect, there is room for hypocrisy. I see it in my life all the time. When it is keenly on my radar, meaning I see it readily in others, I begin to notice it in myself. It has been most prevalent at work. I experience it specifically in a meeting requiring updates from people. As people take turns, a number of them will first say they have no updates and then proceed to continue on about their part of the project or idea. In other words they provide an update. Its maddening. Why do we do that? Have you ever been asked if you have any other questions and you immediately answer no and then ask a question? Or you asked if have any comments and you say no but go to make comments? It causes what we say and do to lack substance. I certainly have been guilty of both of those habits. We often do not think before we open our mouths. Perhaps we do not think what we have to say is important or that the other person does not really want a response. The point it not whatever story we are telling ourselves. The point is to bring who we are to the situation. If who we are being means our words do not match our actions it makes us seem less substantive. God does not create hollow beings. We all have a contribution to make and it is important that we make it. I will actually stop myself when I realize I have said no and correct my response right then and there if I need to. The example I run into at work may seem silly but it is a microcosm of what is happening in all areas of our lives. If we are to live as the beloved creatures and messengers of God the actions of our lives must match our words. God is ready and willing to help us be a person of substance by encouraging us to check in with our hearts. From the core of who we are we know the words to say and the actions to take so we are in alignment with ourselves making the substantive impression on the world we are meant to make.
Be About Shushing!
It is funny on some level that a description of a behavior is contained within the sound of the word as we make it. It is one of the marvels of the English language in the same way much of our language uses body processes to describe situations and circumstances. We talk about being punched in the gut when we are taken aback by an idea or action of someone. We say we are starving for attention or that we hunger for something that is emotional. Shushing is something done often to admonish someone or what we see adults due to kids when they are loud in a situation calling for quiet. It can also be used as a comforting expression to calm when we are ramped up emotionally. I can hear God shush reassuringly when I am upset or in pain and beginning to make up stories about why it is happening. God teaches me to tell my mind to shush when it begins to quickly conjure up reasons for something. When those reasons will only lead me down a path of stress and pain my mind needs to be shushed so as not to create more chaos and suffering. It is not done in an admonishing fashion but more of a there, there, it is going to be okay. I know you want to try to make sense of this but before we do, let’s quiet down and listen in to what our heart is telling us. Shushing is a way to pause and let our hearts speak to us before our minds run away with the latest story. The story coincidentally is usually a slightly different version of the previous story it created causing me to feel bad about myself.
My prayer for us is the willingness to practice shushing our minds long enough to engage the sight of our hearts to help us interpret the feelings evoked by whatever situation we are in today.
Be About Lambency!
Although it is not something we can see with our eyes it is something of which we are aware on an intuitive level. The lambency existing in all of us stemming from the core of who we are is engaging to those around us. When we sense the energy of love emitting from someone else’s heart or our own we are filled with the lambency that gives life. Even in our darkest times it is the soft nature of this light of our being that will never go away. As long as we are breathing we have a lambency alive inside of the truth of who we are. It can take another person to notice it in ourselves especially when our own eyes are clouded by the darkness of our reality. I remember in college a friend of mine asked me to sponsor her as she went through her spiritual initiation into our common faith practice. At the time she asked me I was stunned. I was nursing a broken heart from the break up with my first love and thought my whole heart was shut down. When I asked her why she wanted me to sponsor her, she said she saw a light in me. I thought it had been snuffed out. I in tern was blessed by being able to walk with her as she grew deeper in her relationship with God and aligning herself with a path allowing her to live it fully. It helped the lambency to go from a soft glow to a bright light and kept me engaged in my own life and remembering to see it as a gift even though I was in a lot of pain. It was the lambency I witnessed when I first walked in the 12 steps rooms of recovery. The people there had a light in them that did not bowl you over but was ever-present in their eyes. It was a lambency I had not seen in my own eyes (the few times I actually looked at myself in the mirror) for a long time. I was so marred by my addiction to food and sugar that my own eyes had become dull and almost dead to the vibrancy of life’s light in my heart. I am reminded over and over again when I take the time to look people in the eye, there is a lambent energy alive and well in them. I do my best to acknowledge it just in case they have forgotten where to find it in themselves. God gives me the courage and the breath to pause and remember to look for it. I think it is God’s way of helping me remember God’s presence in my every day life. God is sneaky like that. 😉
My prayer for us is the curiosity to see if we can identify the lambency alive in those around us especially in those whom we do not typically expect to see God in today.
Be About Hurting!
We identify hurt in our lives from the pain points. Whether they be physical, emotional or spiritual they present is with a choice of how we want to approach it. We can look at the hurt in our lives as a message about how we perceive the pain. We can look at our hurt as though we are victims of circumstance. We can look at the hurt as some sort of existential punishment or sign of us being wrong or bad. Our approach sometimes depends on the gravity of our hurting. One of the more challenging experiences in my life has come by evaluating how I handle the hurt I experience in my life. It seems to be the difference between having pain and suffering from the pain. When I am willing to see me hurting as a call for attention and not a sign of my value or role in life, there is room for my heart to enter. I remember having an experience on one of my daily dates with God where I was imagining the person of Jesus comforting me in his arms. As my head lay on his chest I saw his heart surrounded by thorns. It is a depiction I have seen in statues known as the sacred heart of Jesus. I asked if I could touch one of the thorns. He said yes. They were very sharp. I asked him if it hurt. He said matter-of-factly, “only when I believe it is real.” The more I create story and validate it about my pain the more hurting I experience. I often think of this experience with Jesus and ask myself when I am hurting, what part of this is not real? What could the pain be here to teach me instead of hurt me? It is not easy and I do not default to it but I am steadfast in my belief that I am here in this life to learn from everything and everyone. God encourages me to check in with my heart because I may be getting lost in the unreal story I have created about my pain and lost sight of the lesson. Just as those thorns were piercing Jesus’ heart, so too can my heart pierce the perception of my mind to open up space to move from hurting to hoping to healing.
My prayer for us is the curiosity to notice our hurting as an invitation from our hearts to step from hurting to hoping to healing today.
Be About Participating!
Woody Allen is credited with saying “Showing up is 80 % of life.” If we aren’t present there is not much we can do. It is the courage of our hearts that prompts us to show up. While our heads are busy giving us all the reasons why we can’t participate, our hearts can engage our emotions in moving us into action. How often have we found ourselves doing something we told ourselves we could not or would not do and yet we are participating in it? I have learned to notice the things I find myself objecting to participating in as well as things I am willing to participate in. Often there is something underlying the unwillingness in our minds. If we stop to take a look at the story we have created around what participating means, we can get an inkling of what is driving the conversation. God encourages us to run our choices in every area of our lives through the barometers of our heart. Participation in life takes courage, it takes faith, it takes being willing to fail, and all those powers come from our heart. When we choose participation in life from the core of who we are we find ourselves showing up in a way we never thought we could.
My prayer for us is the curiosity to notice what our hearts have to say about participating in the areas of our lives our mind is telling us to not do so today.
Be About Names!
There is great power in words. I do not think it is a mistake that people read and reread texts they hold sacred over and over again. Perhaps you have known the experience of rereading something and seeing things you did not see before. We feel a sense of relief when we have words to name and describe our experiences. The first thing couples are asked when they find out they are expecting is if they have any names picked out. When we get a new animal the owners have to come to a decision on a name for their new pet. It has been scientifically proven that human beings love hearing the sound of our own names. We feel pressure to pronounce the name of someone we are interacting with correctly. The one who names something is considered the founder whether it is a company, invention or medical diagnosis. The name of God while not the same for each religious or spiritual practice, is typically held in high regard and used with respecting and reverence. Naming is more than letters put together to form a word. It is an identification. It is an orientation and a way of connecting. The sounding of a name creates a vibration and leaves a resonance after the word has left the voice of the person speaking it. Naming is a chance to make a connection with someone or something. God’s name is written on our hearts. When we venture to connect with the truth of who we are we experience the vibration of love’s deep claim on our being. The claim has been there since God wrote our names on God’s heart. It’s God’s way of showing respect and reverence not only for our names but for our very being.
My prayer for us is the experience of knowing God is speaking our name when we feel the light of love awaken in our hearts today.
Be About Aside!
In order to function well in life we need to be able to filter through all the information coming at us all the time. Our brains do the majority of the bulk work with such ease we do not even realize how much has already been put aside. It is only when we stop to notice trends and commonalities about what is in our attention do we think to ask about what we have automatically placed on the side. It takes a good amount of self-reflection to be willing to see what we are not seeing. Being able to consciously put aside our inclinations based on the filters which have been grooved into our brains takes conscious persistent effort. We are asking our minds to wake up and take a look at something it is used to looking past. It feels unfamiliar and our minds interpret unfamiliar as uncomfortable. As human beings whose goal is survival, a lack of comfort would be tantamount to possible death. In other words, we will want to avoid it. So we come up with excuses and make up stories to justify sticking to what we know and unconsciously keeping the filters in place. On my daily date with God through the discipline of showing up for prayer and meditation no matter what, I have learned to be in discomfort. It may sound counter-intuitive but our inner knowing calls us to stretch our minds and be at peace with discomfort so our hearts can grow. The more willing we are to open our eyes and put aside our filters, the more visible love becomes.
My prayer for us is the courage to put aside our automatic filters and walk through the unfamiliar territory to the experience of heart’s expansion and know love in a different way today.
Be About Limiting!
Most of the limits we have in our lives come from our thinking about what is possible. God is all about possibilities and does not perceive the same limits we do. God can see further, deeper, and more wholly the big picture of what can be than what is within our capacity to see. Just because we see limits does not mean they cannot be surpassed. Us limiting ourselves is because we are relying only our on own capabilities. Me keeping off 160 plus pounds and living at a healthy body weight for 15 years, not possible. Me being present in the lives of my family members without compromising the truth of who I am, not possible. Me looking at a man who is looking at me and not feeling responsible, not possible. Even things I did not think were possible even six months ago in terms of how I interact with people or sense an aliveness in my heart are now happening. I had done my best to walk through all of those things but came up against what I believed were limits. I only saw limits and had no sense of how it could all come about. I did the only thing I learned in recovery to do. I turned to God with each limiting belief. “God how do you see this? Does this still ring true for me? I trust all things are possible for you and you are not hindered by the limiting beliefs I have. I surrender my heart and mind to you today. Show me what to do, tell me what to say and use me as you will.” It is the willingness to let go and trust that while we may not know how it is possible, God knows it is possible. Limiting becomes a sign post to me of where I need God to show me what is beyond my limiting ideas and return to the truth of who I am according to God.
My prayer for us is the willingness to take a closer look at our limiting beliefs and ask God if God sees those beliefs aligned with the truth of who we are today.
Be About Timing!
I often wonder about God’s sense of timing. If nothing else in my life is a confirmation that God thinks differently than I do, it is in regards to timing. Why is it when the things we think want to happen and don’t, in retrospect are grateful they didn’t? Or how come I become inpatient about how long the process of finding a job I resonate with that uses more of my talents after searching for a long time seems like it wont happen just shows up and the process is seamless? And while it is not what I thought it was going to be it is the first time in a long time where I feel like I am exactly where I am supposed to be. I suppose I chalk it up to the mysterious elements of God and the universe that the cheeky phrase, all is exactly as it should be in this moment, seems to be true. God’s sense of timing has elements of peace and freedom that are not present when it comes to my sense of timing. Timing for me is often exacting, pressure filled, and with the fear that time will run out. In those moments I sense the support of God behind me giving me the breath space to pause and notice that it is not the timing that is stressing me out. It is what I am telling myself about the timing of my life that is causing me suffering. As a woman in my 40s who is not yet married or a mother and envisioned that as part of her life for a long time, surrendering to God’s timing and plan is something I have to do continuously. Whatever the elements are that I long to experience about those situations I trust are desires in my heart for a reason. Being willing to surrender to the timing and the manifestation only comes because I trust God to know my heart even better than I do.
My prayer for us is the curiosity to notice what stresses us about the timing of things in our lives and ask God how God sees the timing of lived experiences in our lives today.
Be About Binding!
In my advocacy for the movement to abolish the death penalty in California and ultimately the United States, I see how easy it is for us to label people and their mistakes. We lock people up and throw away their humanity. I believe people should own up to their mistakes and face the consequences. I just do not understand how us inflicting death on others is anything more than being bound by our hatred. I get it the feelings of anger. As an incest survivor I have faced many dark thoughts about my father. I learned after a while, however, that my anger and dark thoughts did nothing to him. It was when I decided I no longer wanted to be bound by my feelings of anger that God was able to show me how to soften my heart. It does not make what he did okay but I am not responsible for keeping him bound because it binds me to anger. We all have our own forms of depriving ourselves of freedom. We think our binding keeps us safe or protects of from further harm. Unfortunately we are not able to keep it from binding our hearts from love. We are the ones who suffer when we allow ourselves to be deprived of the freedom of love. Each person has their own process and I believe what it says in Ecclesiastes that there is a time for all things under heaven. I believe we have to move through phases of the spiritual lessons that walk the path from recognizing what is binding our hearts to desiring freedom of love within us more than the binding. God wants our hearts to be free to love and anything big or small that our hearts God is willing to help us let go of.
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