One thing I am acutely aware of in these different times is how little nature seems to be affected. The sun still rises and sets. The birds still sing in the morning. The plants are still growing. The wind is still moving the air. The earth knows its spring but we find ourselves not so sure. I like to think that the same ardor with which the birds greet a new day lives in each of us and always has. We are not separate from this whole system in which we live. I think we are now more attuned to how interconnected we are. The ever-changing and movement of nature can be our angels at this time. When I am out walking in the morning I hear the birds sing as if to say, “Aren’t you excited? It’s morning! The light came up again!” It may seem like dark times but the ardor with which we can choose to embrace the light as soon as it appears can be a guide to us as we are faced with what seems like continual darkness in our days. God invites us to connect with the ardor for life which lives within us. It is the hope and trust that even though the day is darkest before the dawn, the next thing is the dawn. Tapping into our heart space gives us access to the ardor needed to fuel the ability to show up for whatever comes as we walk through our days.
Be Unknown Expectation!
In recovery, I learned about the role of expectations. How they keep me out of the moment I am in and in the realm of imaging how I want things to be. They often keep me at a distance from acceptance and can lead to resentment. Whether it is expectations of myself, others, situations or outcomes, learning to adjust them to reality is my key to freedom. I have also learned the distinction between expectations and hope. An expectation is my mind’s fancy way of shoulding on something. Whenever I am in the “shoulds”, I am not in reality. Hope is the realm of the heart. Placing love at the forefront prompts hope. I can still bring love into a situation by accepting it for what it is instead of expecting it to be different because I hope it would be and then being let down. Hope is believing I can make adjustments to my behavior and not tear myself to pieces because I expected to act differently than I did. Hope is trusting that all will turn out exactly as it needs to for everyone involved without expecting things to go my way because I believe it will all end up badly if it doesn’t. Expectations are a valuable tool in helping to bring me back to reality and see it with love. Expectations are a sign that it would help to let things go and hope in the power of love even when things don’t show up the way I think they should. God invites us to hold on to the only expectation that matters . . . expect love to win.
How might we live our lives differently if we let go of all our specific expectations of how things should be and hold on to the power of God’s expectation that love will win today?
Be Unknown Within!
Growing up Catholic I learned the preciousness of this time of year. The Lenten weeks of preparation for entering into Holy Week which started with Palm Sunday and the telling of the Passion of Christ to ending in the triumph of the Resurrection on Easter. I am guessing our lives and the state of the world feels a lot like a Lenten season that has no end. We may feel it intensely like one long Holy Week that was supposed to have ended a few days ago with the resurrection on Easter. It may feel like we still haven’t woken up on Easter morning to a Resurrection experience yet. While I cannot predict the future my guess is that there will be a resurrection, I just don’t know when. I also imagine it will be different for different people. It is clear we are all walking a path where there is some level of needing to slow down, get quiet and go within. Even for me who works in the Healthcare industry and is still showing up to work each day. Aside from the grocery store, I am home. I attend recovery meetings through my computer and connect with friends and family on the phone. I never appreciated the gal who waxes my eyebrows so much as I do now. LOL! It is a good thing this blog isn’t video showing how long my eyebrows have grown or my attempt at tweezing them which is more painful when self-inflicted, but I digress. My experience on my daily dates with God is as an invitation to go within and connect to my true self. Some of us may have tried it but got distracted. Some of us may have tried a couple of times but found we didn’t like what came up and then got busy doing other things. For me, it wasn’t until my life depended upon it that I made a consistent effort I started with 2 minutes each day marked on my calendar to go within on a date with God. With persistent and consistent effort I began to meet the being God had always known and attempted to invite me to see. Maybe with no end in sight of this change in our lives, we have that same chance. Perhaps we are all being invited to go within, more than just in the physical sense. What if our resurrection is about the reunited connection with ourselves? What if this bizarre circumstance lends itself to us knowing more about the truth of who we are? What if not doing is much allows us to remember we are human beings, not human doings?
Will we use this time of slowing down our doings to get to know the being within that God has known today and every day?
Be Unknown Still!
One thing I have learned in recovery and all I have been through in my life, no matter what, God is still love. Love is still love. It doesn’t matter how big or loud the fear gets. It doesn’t matter how crazy or uncertain I feel. Nothing in my experience or thinking can undo the power of love. Love is still love. It triumphs in little ways, it triumphs in big ways. Until the day when I figure out how not to be born, I must concede that God is still love. My concept of God will change. My understanding and experiences of God will change as I grow and change. At my core in my heart of hearts where love’s vibration keeps me alive literally and figuratively, love is still love. It sounds like a silly saying or a way of making myself feel better when it all feels like crap. Yet in my quiet time, I have learned to connect when the truth is being spoken. A truth that resonates in my heart and for me today that truth is God is still love. So I will sit in that stillness, I will cry in that stillness, I will laugh in that stillness, I will be held in that stillness, I will bank on that stillness and most importantly, I will breathe in that stillness.
Do we dare believe the still small voice in our hearts that resonates with the truth that God is still love today?
Be Unknown Shot!
Years ago as a teacher of religion in a Catholic school, once a week my students opening class journal entry prompt would ask them about a Godincidence that occurred in the last week. It was my term for coincidence in which God remained anonymous. The idea was to get them thinking about how God might show up in their lives that perhaps was outside of what they originally preconceived as God. As seventh graders, they would often default to a time they interacted with a religious figure. With a little discussion, I would invite them over and over to see God in the random coincidences: an unexpected encounter with a friend, finding something they thought they lost, a warm hug from a loved one, seeing the flowers after the rain, finding money in their backpack, something that made them smile, and so on. They were the best journal entries to read and I think fondly of the discussions about all their Godincidences. Seventh graders have creative ideas about how God shows up. My hope was that one day maybe when things were stressful or they could not find the presence of anything good in their lives they might notice a shot of love from God by recognizing a Godincidence. I suppose I was shifting their attention to see from the lens of their hearts. I was inviting them to find things to be grateful for. Later in recovery, I heard people talk about the same concept but they called them God-shots. Hearing it was a Godincidence for me. All these names are made up of the same experience. It is a moment when shots of love open our eyes to allow something outside of us to remind us of the space of love within us that knows nothing else. In this uncertain and troubling time, God invites us to seek out as many God shots as we can lest we forget who we truly are.
How many Godincidences will we recognize and allow to bring shots of love into our hearts and remind us of who we are today?
Be Unknown Steadiness!
One of the gems to come out of my daily dates with God is the experience of the steadiness of love’s presence. I have had my fair share of ups and downs with God over the years but the one thing that always stayed present in my mind and heart was how God remained steady in love’s commitment. No matter what my ideas or experiences were, even in moments when I doubted if God was present, my heart kept beating, my eyes kept opening, and my breath went in and out. I do not know what happens when we die. I sense it is a transition to another experience but as long as I am alive, I am available to the steadiness of love. I may dance around it, I may run from it, I may fear it, or I may embrace it. Love’s power is steady no matter my thoughts or feelings about it. God has shown me on our daily dates the power of presence even when I am disconnected from it. I can’t quite explain what I am trying to convey but there is something that compels me to show up to our dates regardless of what I am thinking or feeling. The commitment of showing up carries me through the times when I am not interested or don’t believe it makes a difference. Showing up is the steadiness of making room for love to surprise me when I am about to give up hope. My system echoes the steady capacity for love to take a turn when I am facing what seems like a dead end.
What stands in the way of trusting the idea that maybe showing up for a commitment to love professes the steadiness of its power to transform us and others today?
Be Unknown Partners!
One of the things coming to light in this time of change is the smashing of the illusion of our individuality. Especially here in the United States where we pride ourselves on our individualism, we are coming to terms with how interconnected we are and how much we need each other. Not just as people but in the different kinds of jobs and businesses that are in operation. I know many parents who are starting to realize just how valuable the school and teachers are. I know many people are much more appreciative of all the systems we have set up to grow and transport food and goods to our stores, delivery drivers, and those who operate the electricity and water. Those are just the ones I can think of offhand who play an integral role in my life. We are all partners in this thing called living. We are really good at separating things out by categories that our mind does to make sense of things. We then place value on those different categories and give them monetary value or even time value to those who play a role in those categories. The players are our partners and we need them more than we ever realized. This tendency to think we can do all this stuff on our own is quite ridiculous. While I give tremendous value to personal sovereignty, I am acutely aware of how it is supported by the partnership of others having a value in their role. I cannot be an individual in culture, society, family, organization or role without playing my part and being aware of the kind of contribution I am and can make. God invites us to see how we are acting in partnership with others. I may not choose to do what the grocery workers or delivery drivers do but being in partnership with them can mean acknowledging and appreciating the value they bring in supporting me in playing the role I am playing in the world. God invites us to acknowledge our partners in this world with intentional acknowledgment of their value. We could even go so far as to tell them how much we appreciate their partnership.
What would it look like for us to recognize ourselves as partners in all the systems we rely upon to sustain our personal sovereignty today?
Be Unknown Articulation!
We are mostly aware of the standard roles we inhabit of mother, daughter, coworker, brother, husband, woman, man, and so on. We also know the labels we carry sometimes given by others based on our achievements or behavior such as smart, goofy, or slacker. None of these speak to the unique articulation we bring to an experience simply based on our being. Our lives and our presence often speak much louder than words or labels. Connecting to what kind of articulation we bring begins by connecting within to the core of who we are. We may try to plan a particular articulation when going into a situation but ultimately who we are being through it speaks louder than words. Resonating from our depth the message on our hearts clues us into the articulation we are meant to bring to ourselves and the world. We may not realize the power of our articulation of love because we do not see it. We can either be a beacon of love through our articulation or a detractor of love. Knowing the truth of our own heart and perhaps what we have covered it up with is the beginning of connecting to what we are articulating with our presence.
Are we curious enough to connect deeply with our hearts and come to know what articulation of love we are bringing to the table today?
Be Unknown Pulsation!
When we choose to go inside and connect to the truth of who we are we are confronted first by all the coverage we have built on top of the truth of our being. This often scares us away because we are bombarded by a pulsation of noise that makes us feel uncomfortable. If we have gotten used to things just happening to us we are unaware of the inner workings. Not until a part of breaks down do we notice how crucial it is. We sense the pulsation of our being as what we see on the outside of us. We do not recognize that is our own pulse which is navigating our reaction. It is why different people have different reactions. God invites us to get to know our internal pulsation. Taking God up on the invitation means pausing to question what comes up as discomfort and check to see if it is even real. We are so used to reacting we find ourselves reacting to ourselves instead of responding. The pulsation that resonates from the truth of who we are is present in the response of the heart. The heart invites us to find the rhythm of truth in our pulsation which is throughout our being. Learning to ride the rhythm of our heart’s beating allows us to move fluidly through any internal or external discomfort. It is not about avoiding discomfort or judging its presence as wrong. It is about seeing it for the temporary thing that it is. If we hitch a ride on the pulsation extending from the truth of our hearts we will have the courage to ride the wave through to the next beat. We are reminded of this in nature and as we navigate through the discomforts of our lives, big or small, we can build the evidence for the power of connecting to the pulsating music which guides our being to respond to whatever presents itself on the outside, even a virus.
Is it possible the pulsation of our being is present behind the stories we have built to avoid discomfort has the courage we need to ride the waves of love pulsating from the truth of who we are at our core and face whatever comes along today?
Be Unknown Bedrock!
One of the tools I learned on my daily prayer and meditation dates with God is developing curiosity about my thoughts. By observing them come and go through my head, noticing which ones I attach myself to, I get an insight into ideas about my bedrock. The difficulty comes when I simply accept all thoughts as my foundation. In other words practicing a blind acceptance of truth simply because I am thinking them. I have learned that I do something similar when it comes to feelings. I am having a feeling and instead of recognizing it as something I am experiencing I describe it as being me. I am frustrated, angry, happy, excited, and so on instead of I am feeling frustrated, feeling angry, feeling happy, or feeling excited. It is a subtle difference but it is one that separates my mind’s ideas from what my bedrock is to what my heart’s ideas about my bedrock. My mind is full of ideas that I use to lay the foundation of who I believe myself to be. My heart makes room for all experiences and thoughts to occur without as much attachment to my sense of being. We take action in our lives based on the bedrock of our belief of ourselves. God invites us to bring our heart’s lens into the equation before acting from a misunderstanding of our bedrock. God knows the heart is closer to the view God has of us as whole, complete, worthy, and sacred just because we are alive. Our heart allows for us to be whole no matter what is happening or what we are thinking about ourselves or anything else. This is our bedrock. Getting stuck in our thinking and feeling as our bedrock shifts the whole truth of who we are into separate pieces always searching and never finding peace. The peace God has placed intrinsically to our design.
