dailydatewithgod

When we orient our intentions with our actions we are in an alignment phase that empowers us to move coherently through the world. Since none of us are perfect most of the time it is a kind of dance in out of coherence with ourselves and our lives.  God invites us to open up the experience we are in and expose it to the phase of our hearts that never changes.  There is light and life force always operating within ourselves which can courageously work to bring our various phases into alignment.  When we are scattered in mind and being we can pause and take a deep breath. The breath brings our focus to our hearts which awakens the energy needed to help us become aware of which phase is not in alignment with our truth in the moment.  It looks like pausing and taking a deep breath and choosing to step away or ask a question or not react.  All of these actions if we are honest with ourselves are in alignment with where we are in the moment we feel out of alignment. Even more expansive is how our hearts know to connect with the mind and the body to remind them how to bring ourselves to a place of peace.  Many spiritual teachers have spoken of how the peace we seek lies within ourselves.  Trusting in this message beings with a breath.

When I think of how we are programmed to function as human beings it is not hard to get caught up in the idea that we are robots of some sort.  On some level that almost sounds easier especially when it comes to reprogramming some of our inborn behaviors.  We have various reflexes set up to enable us to survive for which I am most grateful.  Other adaptive reflexes come from the programming set up at a young age which is entirely context-based.  However, because of the state of our mind and the part of the growth in which they occurred our system did put a stop in place to account for the context.  In other words, when we are reflexively reacting to something in our current environment which in any way mirrors or is similar to a past context our brain kicks in and runs the program already in place.  Gratefully, there are also mechanisms of new growth so that new reflexes can be set up but they take time to become established.  The best way to initiate the process is to introduce our hearts through our breath into the mix.  When we consciously pause and breathe we awaken our heart and change the vibration around our heart to move at a pace we want versus the automatic reflex which likely has our heart ramped up. From the pause and deeper slower breath, we can detach ourselves from the old context and how it is overlaying the current situation.  It is a skill that takes practice.  God designed our hearts to be involved in this process not only because it physically then feeds the rest of our system but it has the courage and the compassion to keep practicing.

There is a lot of conversation around the idea of truth and how to verify what is true and what is not.  Do we go with scientific proof?  Do we believe authorities?  Do we have to see it with our own ideas to believe it?  Can we really verify with our own faculties what is true and what is not?  I do not have any answers to these questions.  On my daily dates with God, I learned what I can do is tune in to my own heart.  All I really have is the moment I am in. I can make the best choice available to me as to what is true by connecting to the truth of who I am. The verification I am seeking comes as a joint effort of the whole of me. Something may seem to verify the truth with my eyes but my gut tells me there is something I am not seeing.  I may feel a sense of truth in my body but I need my mind to verify and give language to it.  All angles of truth however must be brought through the lens of my heart before a true verification can occur.  Through the lens of my heart, there is room for compassion and forgiveness of myself and others.  The heart knows how to bring balance to all elements of verification and hold the space of things unknown when no verification is possible.  Within our hearts is the grace to know that sometimes we must make choices before verification is possible and in those moments we draw from the verification present from our Creator which often defies our very understanding of verification.

I am fascinated with how sound works and our relationship to it as human beings.  It is why I love music of all kinds.  It is why we as human beings are drawn to the sound of those whom we know and love.  Vibration is what captures our mind and body together.  To me, the recognition of vibration is the recognition of ourselves.  Our hearts vibrate energy throughout our bodies.  Our breath kick starts the vibration of the heart.  Various waves of energy vibrate in and through us and the entire universe.  Is it any wonder that we recognize certain vibes?  Life seems magical when we let go of the artifices and labels of particular vibrations and allow ourselves to notice how the connect or disconnect from the vibration of our own hearts.  Vibration is how we determine resonance.  A relationship is about creating a coherent resonance.  God encourages us to know the resonant vibration within our own selves on all levels before we can know how we resonate with the vibration of people and things outside ourselves.

Most of our lives we work hard to achieve and make something of our lives.  It is part of the human spirit to grow and evolve.  Being alive means showing up for opportunities to grow and change.  We think it would be nice if those chances of growth and experiences of change were easier but that is not always the case.  I have noticed a certain default expectation in myself and others that if we must grow through difficulty then there will be a reward upon arrival.   We place importance on reaching the end or goal so that we can either sigh of relief or reap the rewards.  We tend to expect the reward to be external.  What if the real reward is the internal shift that is taking place throughout the process of growth and change?  We get so focused on the completion that we lose sight of the joy of the rewards along the path.  God invites us to notice the reward of the path as well as the end goal.  If we figure that the end goal of life is death (as no one that I know of has lived forever), then are we all aiming for the most rewarding funeral box or urn?  Tuning into our hearts to reap the reward of growing in love and we navigate our way through the ups and downs keeps us connected to the beauty of life.  The reward of a next breath is the life force needed to take the next step.  The reward of the ping we get in our hearts when we look at someone we love in the eye.  The reward of the feeling of fascination we experience when we see something we have never seen before.  All of these are rewards that have no badges, diplomas, or money attached to them. God invites us to marvel in the reward of being alive.

I have noticed how much meaning there is around the language of difficult conversations.  We use words like conflict to describe the uncomfortable or unfamiliar and in essence, there is a conflict between where we are and where we want to be.  The conflict is based on the idea that someone else needs to see things as we do. Given our inclination to figure it out and at least in Western culture convince ourselves the best way through is how we are thinking about it.  There is a great bit of truth to this.  Changing our thinking changes our lives.   To this end, we read more, use more words, attempt to be convinced, or be convincing to others. All of this is about getting access to change through our minds alone.  However, to the degree to which we identify ourselves with our idea, the harder it is to change it.  We are very wedded to our identity. God invites us to look at attempting to access change through our hearts. The view of ourselves in our hearts is holistic.  Our hearts contain knowledge of us as a multilevel expression of life.  It encompasses God’s knowing of us which is much more than our identities and our ideas. The access to change through our hearts makes room for acceptance of where we are in the moment.  When we access change through our hearts, there is room to learn and grow because it is the truth of who we are.  Access through the heart to create change means we will not be threatened by identity changing through any opportunity for growth no matter what shape it takes.

Based on what we know about our physical growth and changes on a physical level as human beings it is fair to say that when we see babies we know roughly how they will change shape and size as they grow.  Yet each one is distinct and tends to do so based on the genetic characteristics of one’s parents.  The blooming of one’s heart and mind is another matter. Certain patterns are laid down in the first seven years of life.  It is also clear that through neuroplasticity we can make changes to those patterns as we grow.  The piece we often lose sight of is how much power we have over the blooming of our hearts and minds.  It may seem as though we must resign ourselves to those templates set down at an early age but anyone who has learned to overcome a habit can tell you, it is possible.  The distinction comes in owning the choice over our blooming.  Setting forth an intention to make the blooming of our heart in an open and love learning direction is ours to make.  Choosing to focus the blooming of our minds to work in conjunction with the growth of our hearts is also possible.  God invites us to find the courageous energy in our hearts to move through the potential discomfort that makes come from blooming. Life offers us many chances and it is up to us to use them for our blooming or not.

As people who measure our life by time in hours, minutes, years and so on it may appear as though there are delays.  We are waiting for someone because they are delayed.  We were hoping for a package to arrive and it is delayed.  We are on a trip and our car breaks down and causes a delay in our arrival.  Through the lens of chronological time, there are delays all over the place.  It almost seems like we spend our life navigating around the delays.  God invites us to open the eyes of our hearts to reframe the perspective through which we see a delay.  I attended a retreat in high school called Kairos.  Chiros versus Chronos both from the Greek language referring to two different understandings of time. Chronos is the minute measurement and Chiros or Kairos is God’s measurement.  The first thing we had to do was turn in our watches.  We were given the chance to let go of watching out for and dealing with delays.  Those in charge would instruct as we needed to know. There were probably all kinds of delays that occurred over those 4 days but I was not aware of most of them.  I trusted the faculty and students leading the retreat to not let us miss out on anything.  There were conversations and laughter, long (at least they felt like long) meals and recreation time.  In the space of Kairos we were able to be.  Chiros is the lens of our hearts.  Through it we see a delay as an unexpected gift and a chance to surrender to God’s vision for our day instead of ours.  It took me many years of our daily dates for me to be willing to let go of my idea of a delay and open up to God’s idea of an opportunity.  It is not easy to let go of one’s agenda and find a reason to be frustrated by any kind of delay.  Often I simply need to pause, take a breath, open my heart a bit and ask God, what is the gift in what I think is delay?  What is the unplanned pause you are showing me making room for today?  This is not easy when it comes to a delay on the road or a delay of needed information but what is the point of trusting God if I cannot show it by being willing to let go?

When we say that we or someone else has a certain je ne sais quoi we are talking about their flair. Life is full of flair.  It is the energetic force that moves in and through us.  When we connect to it in a specific way, the expression of this energy is our flair.  We might acknowledge it as a talent or a way of being as if it were completely cognitive but our flair comes from our energetic presence and connection to the greater life force.  We tap into it when we are in a flow state. It shows up in the poignant moments of life that we carry in our memory. The flair of life is about our connection to the life within us as well as around us.  When we figure out what our flair is it becomes the expression of life itself.  Connecting to our hearts opens up the flow reminding us we are always connected to all of life.  We just get stuck in our heads and think life is about us being human doings, not human beings.

As a kid growing up near New York City I marveled at how energetic and electric it felt being in the city.  There is an ambiance of the fast-paced, flashy lights, and so much going on at once that draws me in.  I notice a similar feeling when I have visited Chicago or San Francisco or when I lived in Washington, D.C. although each has its own unique flavor.  This exposure early on to the big city and its heightened energy was then balanced out by the contemplative and quiet nature of the desert I moved to around age 10.  At first, I hated it.  There was no one around, it was too hot, where was the ocean, and so on?  Over time I found an element of contemplation was thread through my being just by the presence of a pause which was not amidst a hustle and bustle style of the city. On some level an opportunity whether welcomed or not, to notice my inner workings.  For anyone who is not yet ready to face their own reality, there are many distractions and numbing agents available to assist.  It would be a good long while before I would have the necessary tools to open up and hear what was really going on for me.  Even amidst the contemplation of the desert, I was not yet ready to make use of the pause even offered between each breath to reconnect to my heart.  I do not fault myself for that, I believe there is a purpose for everything under heaven as it says in Ecclesiastes.  What I now appreciate learning on my daily dates with God is how to utilize the pauses both given to me and the ones I create.  I have come to know that no matter what my outside environment is, I can find a space of pause to reconnect to my own heart whenever I want or need it.