dailydatewithgod

The body language used by humans to demonstrate honor seems to be present across various cultures.  Typically it consists of a bow or lowering of one’s head to indicate that whoever or whatever is being honored is of greater value than the person bending.  There is a correlating experience when it comes to the opening of one’s heart.   We see that when people are in awe, praying, or pausing to take in something that has touched them, they physically touch their hearts.  We touch our hearts to indicate honor of the power of the heart.  It seems to be a default awareness of honor in our hearts.  When we are caught by surprise or find ourselves emotionally touched we touch our hearts. God encourages us to honor ourselves for allowing something to affect our hearts.  It is part of our design for our hearts to be affected by our internal and external world.  When we touch our hearts physically we allow others to know something about us at that moment.  Given the unspoken nature by which it happens, it becomes a quiet and subtle communication between all kinds of people in the same way we know what honor outside of ourselves looks like.

The finished product looks like one thing.  It appears as a whole.  Yet anything whole is comprised of multiple parts.  If we choose to see only the whole we miss out on all the elements present in the whole.  This applies to all of life.  The fusion of elements is what makes up the whole of life.  We are far more interconnected and blended than we are aware of.  When we take into account our fusion we can operate on a more holistic level.  Recognizing the amalgamation of reality does not mean we are broken.  The reality of fusion as a universal principle is about valuing each part of the mixture and the unique flavor that its ingredient provides to the whole.  God encourages us to recognize our fusion as a human being with all our experiences, sensations, memories, ideas, feelings, and so on.  When we are responding to life we may be doing so from one part of the blend that is us.  An awareness of the element as well as the whole gives us insight into how we can steer the trajectory of our response so it is in resonance with the whole of who we are.  When a particular element of the fusion is out of balance it creates a lack of coalescence in us and hinders our ability to respond from the truth of who we are. It is not about being in perfect fusion.  It is about the recognition that sometimes we need to check the mixture and note what is of higher concentration at the moment.

My daily dates with God have taught me that I have a disproportionate relationship with time.  Living in a world that measures seconds and milliseconds, values time as a marker of wisdom or decrepitness, it is easy to be both influenced and confused by what time is even about.  I am aware of its relativity because five minutes in the company of a friend seems to go by too fast but feels like an eternity when it is holding a single yoga pose.  The world tells us to value the years of a couple’s marriage but not the years they each spent being single. We value the moment the insight occurs but not the amount of process time it took to be open to the insight.  We perceive change as a moment in time and begrudge ourselves in the transformation process because we are not there yet. God has taught me that seeing time as the only important marker of value causes a misperception of reality. The alchemy of change is not measured by minutes or years.  It is the alchemy which takes seemingly insignificant moments of time and creates something new.  Measuring change in our lives solely through a mind that measures time in numbers causes us to lose out on valuing the whole of life.

We often do not know where we might find the answers we are seeking until we stop grappling with them.  It is fun to watch a dog with a bone in part because I realize I am like that with areas of my life.  I focus on something and figure out how to get my mind around it.  The bright side of this is known as persistence, the dark side is known as stubbornness.  We all have things we wrestle with in life. We default to believing that if we can just get our minds wrapped around it and grab hold of it, we will be victorious. We will not have to be befuddled by it again should it show up.  God invites us to notice who we are being in our grappling.  How are we carrying ourselves?  What are we believing about the presence of mystery in our lives? What are we telling ourselves about ourselves as a result of having something to grapple.  When we remember who we are at our core, we come to the understanding that it is not what we are grappling with that defines us.  In fact, the opportunity to grapple with something gives us an insight into who we are and how we show up in the world.  Grappling with mystery and wanting to know is part of life.  There is no point until we are no longer present in this world, at which there will not be something to grapple with.  The courage to remember the truth of who we are and how we specifically are being called to do the grappling will enable us to face anything no matter how baffling.

How we live our life is based on who we believe ourselves to be.  We incorporate the various identities and from the conglomeration of them, we take action in the world.  Some of our action is based on what we have learned about what it means to be one of the others who also hold that identity and some are based on how we have shaped the identity to make sense for us.  As someone who identifies as a female, I learned to watch other females and got a sense of what is expected in my behavior.  The same goes for my identity as an American, a daughter, a worker in healthcare, a healthy person, and so on.  Each of these identities is essentially labels I have internalized on some level and based on my behavior one could determine how I identify myself.  It drives my habits which reinforce my identity. God invites us to consider the identity of our hearts.  Who do we know ourselves to be through the lens of our hearts?  Taking time to explore this influences the nuances of how we live out the character of our identity.  Having access to the perspective of our hearts allows us to determine the energetic movement of what it means to be a woman, a man, a worker, an American, a husband, a reporter, and whatever other labels of identification we accept. Becoming familiar with the identity of our hearts gives us the guidance we need when choosing how to authentically be who we believe our sovereign selves to be from the truth of who we are in and out of the labels we wear.

We are mostly not aware of it but our nervous system is constantly scanning our internal and external environment.  We are taking in information and processing it at a tremendously fast rate.  Most of it is outside of our awareness because the amount would overload our consciousness.  Much of it comes with the design of being a human animal and our past lived experience.  It is what facilitates the ease through which we walk through life knowing without consciously knowing what to do and how to do it.  We notice the distinction when we are learning something new because it requires additional energy.  We also become aware of the scanning when a threat pops up on our radar.  Our various systems alert us to the threat or possible threat and directly send energy to parts of our body to deal with the threat.  Unneeded physical systems will slow or shut down so all possible energy can be used to their utmost.  It makes me think of when a Star Trek captain orders all power to phasers or shields when they are under attack.  Our nervous system does the same. Post real or perceived threat there is a time for our system to restore itself.  God invites us during the time of restoration and to involve reflection of the heart.  With practice, we can invite the heart to scan our system.  Often times there are additional layers of effect from a possible threat that we are not going to perceive in our minds.  Our hearts add a layer to learning to understand ourselves as well as the world around us.  We no longer live in a world where it is just about being relieved that we survived because in most cases the threats are not life or death.  Most of the time they are simple human interactions with others that are unfamiliar or uncomfortable.  Bring in the heart to scan for how it has learned more about the presence of love in even the most unloving of circumstances guides us to a deeper knowing of who we are all called here to be.

We all have a knack for allowing something to replay in our heads.  It is as though our minds are convinced that if we ruminate long enough it will cycle itself through and we will find the resolution to stop the rumination we are seeking by ruminating. I suppose that is like hoping that banging our head against a surface will result in the removal of the headache. More often than not it is the break of the rumination that enables us to find what we are seeking.  Getting our bodies to move or do something different which redirects our attention is what I have found works.  I sometimes like to think of it as the point at which my mind tires of the rumination, sends it to my heart out of surrender or in some cases defeat, the heart then prompts a breath which interrupts the ruminating.  Upon interruption, there is a pause to choose another option.  In the times when I am stubborn, I will continue the rumination.  When I open and surrendered to the heart’s suggestion to move my attention I do something else. Within our system is a process by which we can involve our whole selves in the process of rumination.  Left to just one of our systems we are stuck with the same thoughts on replay, feelings of defeat, or showing in action that we are not going to be present with the process.  For the rumination to be more than just our life on repeat, we need to invite our whole self to the party.

The more time I spend with God on our daily dates and throughout the day, the more I see things for what they really are.  God invites me continually to an inner awareness of whatever experiences or ideas I am having.  It is not because I have all the answers, but I am the one having the ideas and experiences.  On some level, they work for me.  What I may not realize at the moment is the division they are causing within myself.  When I experience separateness outside in the world, I am merely witnessing my own capacity for division with myself.  God draws me back again and again to the space within my heart where there is no division.  No division of me from the truth of who I am.  I buy into the division because I am busy trying to get life to fit into the picture of what I think and want it to be.  I get stuck on the challenge of taking life as it comes.  From a survival standpoint, this makes complete sense.  Our brains are geared for survival.  Our hearts are geared for full life experience.  That includes standing at the edge of what we think is the division and finding a bridge.  The bridge is the connection between our minds and our hearts.  When we focus on needing life to be a certain way instead of tending to the maintenance of the inner connection we see the division.  It takes consistent practice to cultivate the awareness of the bridge within us. It takes faith to trust it is there even when we don’t see it.

While my drinking career was relatively brief, given that sugar is one of my mainline drugs, it is no surprise that I was drawn to various cocktail concoctions over beer or wine.  The explosion that occurred in my system from the medley of sugar-based elements along with the initiation of the alcoholic buzz was fun.  Unfortunately, given my propensity for not ingesting small amounts of anything or slowly meant that I did not stay long in the fun state.  I will spare you the details and just say that had I been more entranced by the lack of control that ensued I would have spent more time drinking and progressed even further into alcohol addiction.  For me, the sugar and whatever foods followed worked well enough, until I was in enough pain due to those consequences to take a different path.  On my daily dates with God which started because of the direction laid out for me in the 12 steps of recovery, I learned to fine-tune my awareness of the medleys already existing within me.  I used to look to the various sugar medleys and how I could create my own as a way to numb out the pain.  God has shown me how to connect to the medley of my heart and spirit. When the medley of being alive seems like not enough or too much and we are inclined to look outside ourselves for some relief, God invites us to get quiet and listen for the medley of our heart.  Often, I need to pause and step away from the hodgepodge of the scrambles of life and my breath is the first step.  The breath then awakens my heart which allows me to attune myself to the medley of the truth of who I am.  It takes practice especially when the medley of the world and its messages are loud and familiar.  Moment by moment I can choose which medley I am listening to.

From an early age, the adults around us pick up on our particular aptitudes.  They notice how we are drawn to particular activities or ideas.  They pay attention because as children we are endlessly fascinating (at least that is how children are described when they are behaving well) mostly because they find all new things fascinating.  Children find newness in places adults call familiar.  There is a seemingly never-ending curiosity about life. We tend to think that we have lost the sense of novelty entirely and it is only a faculty of childhood because so many things are familiar.  Our minds create structures around familiarity and away from entirely new because that can cause discomfort and requires energy.  It is where we get the notion that we are too old to learn or do something.  Yet within our hearts lies the faculty of newness.  Each breath we take is not the same as the last one.  Just ask anyone present in the room when someone farted.  One moment the breath you take in is free of outstanding odor and then next it is not.  The whole experience of breath is new and a part of our system wakes up because a decision has to be made.  Do we stay knowing in the next few breaths the odor will recede or do we get out?  I supposed it depends on the kind of fart or if it is our own.  My point (and I do hope you are laughing right now) is the faculty of seeing newness and approaching life with curiosity is not one we lose with age.  We may forget it is there or it may sound like a foreign idea for approaching life to our mind, but our hearts know it and practice it in the simplest of ways.  God invites us to make use of the faculty of seeing novelty and initiating a renewed fascination with life by using the lens of our hearts.  The faculty of sight in our hearts enables us to see past the labels and classifications we know and look at people and things from a different angle.  Even the simple pause presented through the breath, enables us to set aside a moment to ask, God, how do you see this right now?