dailydatewithgod

Growing up in the desert there is a stillness that exists in nature I have found not too many other places.  There is something about the quiet nature of those early moments of dawn as though it is the breath right before the sun begins to sing its glorious song of awakening.  The quiet is also the space in which I have had to face some more unsettling parts of my being.  Yet the call to quiet can feel like a gentle whisper from God to step just a little closer.  Not getting input from outside of myself allows me the chance to tune in to what is going on inside of me.  I presume this is the reason many spiritual traditions have contemplative prayer practices or silent retreats.  The misguided conception is that one immediately finds a space of peace along with the quiet.  My experience has shown me I will first awaken to how loud it is inside my head before I can reach the quiet of my heart.  Sometimes it is my body that seems to be screaming for my attention. Either way the willingness to be in the quiet is the portal to peace.  If I continually ingest noise and sound there is no breathing space for the disquieted elements within me to make it to the surface. Peace comes from sitting in the inner noise that arises upon the outside quiet long enough to be reunited with the quiet knowledge of the truth of our hearts.  In the season of spring about to be reborn, there is a quiet just like right before the dawn.  Perhaps this is a good time to take God up on the invitation to reconnect with the quiet within existing deeper than the noise within which we resist by filing our outside with sound.

I grew up feeling often like I was hiding.  And if I wasn’t actually hiding I thought I was supposed to be hidden.  Based on my experiences I assumed people did not want to hear what I had to say.  I thought if I kept my mouth shut everything would somehow go away.  When that didn’t work food allowed me to escape along with TV and sleep.  I certainly had moments of feeling alive but mostly I felt as though I was just trying to get through.  I remember around age 20 thinking, maybe it just doesn’t get any better than this.  I was severely depressed at the time and while I did get professional help and enough relief to keep moving forward, my deepest shadows still remained hidden.  It was not a conscious effort on my part to stay hidden, it was my best bet for survival.  There was no space to talk about what was really going on.  There was no one who I thought would listen until I got into recovery.  The magic of 12 step rooms is in one’s opportunity to experience authentic expression and acceptance for one’s authenticity at the same time.  Just even having three minutes in a meeting to stand up and say what I was feeling and no one interrupting me was an earth shattering experience.  It was the gift I didn’t know I so desperately needed until I made my way there.  If I could have traveled a less demoralizing path to get there, perhaps I would have, but that is not my story.  Upon my willingness to face myself, my shadows, and let go of the one thing that I thought was saving me-food, I found a way out of the darkness.  It has given me the courage to face the deeper darker shadows of incest and self-degradation.  I realize it wasn’t a lack of effort or desire on my part to bring the shadows to light, it simply was not time until it was time.  God knew when I would be ready to face up to the darkest stories of my life and let go of those that no longer serve me.  My experiences, while not unique, may seem extreme.  Yet it is the little shadows still lingering that can take me out just as easily.  It is the inclination to distance myself from someone who looks, acts, or believes different from me.  It is the forgetfulness to see another person’s innocence when they are annoying me or not doing what I want them to do.  Those are just latent elements of my shadow which wants to hide and protect my heart.  Those are the times when I need God’s help to return me to the truth of my heart.  With a reminder to breath, I remember that in the deepest part of the core of who I am, there is only light and it is the same with whomever or whatever I am facing in the moment.

One of my favorite Christian scriptures is the story of Jesus of Nazareth’s baptism by John the Baptist.  Jesus humbly stepped into the Jordan river to be baptized by John who didn’t think he was worthy to untie Jesus’ sandals.  We know Jesus constantly referenced carrying out his father’s will and I gather this was no different. The scene is dramatically closed with the sky opening up, a dove descending, and the voice of God saying, “This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased.”  A scripture teacher once pointed out to me how this took place before Jesus had gathered his apostles, preached forgiveness, or performed miracles.  God was pleased with him just because of who he was.  He showed up.  God sees us the same way.  The gladness extending from our Great Creator towards all of creation is not something merited.  Not when we have read enough scripture, made more sacrifices, done good deeds, spent time with the poor and downtrodden, or even professed our belief in God.  God is ready to meet us with gladness.  We are invited to show up so we can receive the gift.  Within our hearts is the knowledge of the gladness from which we were created.  The love that emanates is ours to be connected to when we are ready.  It is given from the Source of all love, it is not earned.  In a world that is ready at any turn to declare its dissatisfaction or exclusion towards us if we don’t reach certain markers, this is a completely different way of thinking.  Honestly, I don’t need the world to threaten rejection or dissatisfaction, my own mind does it quite well on its own.  On our dates each day I bring this to God and I am invited to take a deep breath, put my hand on my heart and remember that despite the stories I have running in my head, they can be reconnected to my heart which knows the truth.

It is hard to get very far in my day without being cognizant of how I am connected to everything and everyone around me.  I notice the cars I share the road with and the DJ on the radio who is playing music.  I feel the crispness of the air when the wind blows and my heart smile when I see someone extend their hand to a fellow human being in a friendly hello. I am changed by these connections because we are all linked.  It can delude myself into thinking I am independent and even not affected by others but on levels below my consciousness in the reality of my heart, I am impacted.  We are linking in our hearts with all of life because we were all created from the same force of love.  There is God in everyone and every thing and while sometimes we cannot see it with our eyes, the linking is sensed in our hearts. We leave an imprint of our similar nature with each other because it resonates with them and vice versa. If we were not linked we would not be affected by what others do or say.  If we were not linked we would not feel so torn and alone after a time of not connecting with others.  There is an interdependence that is threaded throughout life and the more we acknowledge the linking, the more at peace we are in our souls.  God reminds me on our dates and in our conversations that we are all here to guide each other on our path to remember the love from which we were created.  Some of us do so in an obvious or expected way, and others in way that appears the farthest from any notion of connection or love.  God invites us to be open and acknowledge our linking in whatever form it shows up and utilize it to learn more about the fullest nature of love.

Our minds have this incredible capability and desire to make meaning from everything.  It is what moves us to action in positive and negative ways.  The disciplined life is about reigning in our meanings and pausing before acting on them.  Questioning is a tool so we can begin to make sense of the meaning.  Each day on my date, I turn to God with my heart open as much as it is that morning and ask to be directed by God’s sense of things.  “God, is this how you see the events of my life?”  I want to touch the transcendent meanings of my self and my world.  I know from experience that within God’s sense of life is the power of love.  Within God’s sense of existence and purpose is the knowledge of the multitude of possibilities existing within each encounter and relationship.  Within God’s sense of the here and now is the reminder that love is all there is no matter what ever else is appearing in the moment.  My heart longs to be connected with this sense because no matter how profound or logical the meanings are that I come up with, they all fall short.  Only God’s sense contains the everlasting nature of peace.

Growing up I remember hearing the phrase, “God helps those who help themselves.”  While I am not entirely sure of the source of this expression, I have come to understand it as a way of saying that in order for God to help us we have to play a part.  God will not just swoop in and take over.  In a cooperative relationship with God, I invite God to intervene. I have lived long enough to recognize when I need to surrender. Sometimes I do so calmly, other times it is done in a frantic request. I can tell when I have no control over something and the only thing I can do is turn it over to God.  I have to let go of it to give it to God.  God will not yank it out of my hand.  Sometimes I have to turn it over and over again.  When it comes to relationships in life, I find I have to turn things over and then later on when I get hooked again, I turn it over again.  I am powerless over not being able to see love in a particular situation, so I turn that over.  I am powerless over being in fear about something in my life, so I turn that over.  My part of cooperating with God is in my willingness to hand it over. Sometimes when I turn it over, it comes back to me with new insight.  Other times the situation or person is no longer in my life.  When I get stuck in wanting to control a situation or a person’s reaction and thus modify my behavior and am not myself, it is because I fear that God will not be enough to get me through real or perceived loss.  The cooperation God asks is to trust God in any situation.  God desires for me to cooperate with him by knowing that the presence of love I experience in the depths of my heart during our dates or at other times, is more real than whatever I fear I losing.  Sometimes it takes me a while to be willing to cooperate with God’s perspective in a situation or relationship, but when I do I find the peace that no level of fear can supersede. It is a daily practice of cooperation that I practice on our dates each morning so I can bring the spirit which is the best version of myself into my day today.