dailydatewithgod

One of the most fundamental ways we can approach our lives is through inquiry. In my experience, the thing that usually gets me into trouble is when I am certain I know something.  Learning to inquire about it instead of carrying around my preconceived notions not only keeps my ego in check but makes life more interesting.  I have always been interested in learning. Remembering I can learn from everyone and everything, not just what I presume will present themselves as learning opportunities, is where I feel my heart leads me.  My mind is about certainty or the illusion of certainty and safety that comes from knowing.  Inquiry allows me to live in the space of my heart that trusts whatever I learn will not change the fundamental truth of who I am. It may alter the expression of who I am being, but nothing can undo what God has created.  Through inquiry motivated by my heart the lens through which I approach myself and my life is open and gentle. My mind tends toward the lens of fear of what may come about from inquiry.  A true practice of inquiry of the heart lies in inquiring about the fear of the mind and what is behind it.

We like the idea of knowing.  It gives us a sense of safety and satisfaction.  We all think we would be better off if we knew how things were going to turn out.  Or would we?  Our brains are focused on survival.  Survival means that certain things are in place for us to exist. I used to think things were only worth doing if I knew how they were going to turn out.  If I could map out the destiny for myself and those involved to determine that it all would be okay, then I could take a risk.  Needless to say, this leads to a very small space of existence.  Even with all kinds of planning and preparation there are always going to be elements of the unexpected and unknown.  We are wired for kismet but not the kind we think.  Our brains imagine kismet where everything is clearly laid out.  The irony is that we don’t survive.  At least we do not survive in one form forever.  I can’t speak to what happens when we leave our human bodies.  Our existence on this earth has an expiration and as far as I can tell, no one has gotten our alive. The energy in our hearts can connect us to a deeper sense of kismet that is not reliant upon physical measurement.  We recognize fate when it appears. We call out destiny in hindsight.  The kismet of our hearts is very clear.  It is about growing in love.  It is about opening ourselves up to a relationship with the core truth of who we are.  The kismet of our hearts will take us to a place of peace our brains may never know.  The willingness to connect to the kismet of our hearts is the capacity to sit in the space of the unknown and hold out the hope of what is possible.  Hold out the hope of what is possible in the world destined to love.  God invites us to dance in the kismet of our hearts by connecting to our breath and expanding our heart space to allow the truth of who we are to surface.  We get that chance every time we take a breath.  Even when we miss an opportunity to partake in the kismet of our hearts there is another one just after this exhale.

So much of the acknowledgment and acclamation we receive from others comes from our doing. It is our action that is measured as valuable and rightly so.  It is motivating and inspiring to both receive and give credit.  There is nothing wrong with deriving a sense of pride from how we operate in the world.  What happens in the in-between spaces?  What about the times we do not act in ways that are a credit to who we are?  We all have experiences where we fall short of our best.  It is normal in the fluctuation of life to get credit for what we do accomplish and what we don’t.  We look down upon those who fall short and credit them with a negative impact.  The irony, of course, is the judgment we place both on giving credit whether good or bad does nothing to enhance the understanding of the experience.  Hitler is credited with acting in a heinous nature and it does nothing to change that millions of lives were lost as a result of his actions.  The reason we give credit is somehow to calm our mind that is searching for a reason.   If we can blame someone for something bad we think it explains why and erases any darkness or capacity for bad we know exists within us. There is nothing that can explain the Holocaust.  The reality is within each of us is the potential for good and evil.  We are measured by which inclinations we act upon. It all makes sense in our minds.  Our hearts provide a different and somewhat more challenging lens on giving and receiving credit.  According to the mind of our hearts, the credit lies in our being. When who we are being is an extension of the truth of our hearts it matches up with what the mind sees as credit worth having. When who we believe we are in the resonance of our hearts is anything less than the truth God has embodied us with we find ourselves living a life for which we either don’t want credit because it is shameful or taking credit for things which have brought darkness.  The direction we must travel to find the truth of who we are in the journey of the heart past the ideas of our minds into the breath and light of life.  We need the courage in our hearts to carry us through and the conviction of mind to not give up. What kind of credit we or others attribute to ourselves will come down to the resonance of our hearts and the courage to live from the place of the truth of our being.

We all have an inner critic.  For some of us, the inner critic is loud and for some, it is very quiet.  The easy thing to do is to villainize the critic or try to ignore it.  If you have ever found yourself judging yourself for something you thought was wrong and then judging yourself for judging yourself you know my dilemma.  Thankfully as a result of being open to how God sees things this is no longer my dominant perspective.  Approaching one’s inner critic as an amenity is one way to shift our perspective.  I did not create the inner critic, it seemed to just appear one day. This leads me to believe it is part of the design. Sometimes it may be an element of myself I struggle with, want to excise from my life, or am befuddled as to its purpose.  Yet none of my thinking about it has proven to make it obsolete.  If I could understand how God designed all the parts of who we are, then I would most likely be God.  What I can do is take the amenity approach. It is a way of opening the door of the heart to see what the inner critic is trying to convey.  If one has been around long enough, one has witnessed how people who are bullies are often trying to compensate for some weakness or those who tout themselves as above others are attempting to compensate for feeling less than. It is no different than what is happening for us internally.  Most of the time when I approach my inner critic with amenity I find out what is underneath it. Often it is fear, sometimes it is anger about something completely unrelated, and always it is another way of learning to embrace all of who I am with love.  I cannot hope to even broach the deeper level of what is trying to be conveyed if I am in judgment. Amenity is the lens of the heart, especially when being civil is the last thing we are inclined to use an approach with our inner critic.  I think often of a question I heard once: When you are at war with yourself, who wins?

I have found great value in connecting with an outlet which helps me to reconnect to whom I am at my core.  Writing is one of them for me. Being silly is another one.  Anything that allows me to express myself freely is an outlet.  Anything that shows me the fullness of who I am often outside of who I think I should be can be an outlet. We all have them, we all need them.  Our hearts call out to us to create and connect with them through an outlet. We live in a world full of ideas and expectations.  We live in a world driven by how the mind operates.  Sometimes it seems the minds that rule the world have neglected to set up an outlet to their hearts.  The outlet opens the channel for the heart and the mind to work together as they are designed to do.  At the physical level, if the heart is not getting oxygen to the brain, there is not much thinking going on.  At the same time, the brain sends electrical signatures to the heart to keep pumping.  Outlets provide an energetic current through which to be whole human beings.  Sometimes simply stopping and paying attention to my breath is an outlet to reconnect to my heart and be whole.

We associate the heart with kindness, love, and appreciation.  These elements of the heart are resounding but are often seen as nice things and something we only do when we are being good. What is often looked past is the cordial nature of those qualities. It is invigorating to live from a place of kindness and appreciation. The capacity of our courage comes from our hearts.  The fierceness of love comes from our hearts.  These invigorating elements of what it means to be alive come from the energy of our hearts.  Having compassion is a cordial quality.  It is not passive.  It is about living from the truth of who we are.  The cordial nature of our hearts is what brings us back to the inner knowing of our goodness.  Resonating with the cordial nature of our hearts gives us the strength to show up and be in the present moment.  There is nothing passive about living from the heart.  God invites us to reconnect to the cordial nature of our hearts where we can soak up the invigorating energy needed to participate in life. When we find ourselves weary and out of steam we can breathe into the cordial nature of our heart to find the energy to take the next indicated step.

So much of what we seem to be looking for as we go through our days is a reason to keep going. It is overstated that having a sense of purpose in our lives is powerful.   It sounds trite and rather confusing when it gets into the nitty-gritty of determining one’s purpose, but what if it is simple?  What if stringing together the little boosts of life that carry us from one moment to the next shows us our purpose?  We get a sense of ourselves through meaning.  Our minds are meaning-making machines.  We create meaning where in theory there is none.  Most of the time the meaning we create will fit the narrative of who we think we are.  God invites us to notice the boost we get from our hearts and how it can contribute to our sense of selves and why we are here.  What if the experience you planned to have did not work out but the exchange you had with the people involved while planning it was a boost from your heart to remind you how valuable a role you play in the lives of others by connecting with them?  Our minds will tell us we fail but our heart can provide the boost to our experience by reminding us just because it doesn’t look a certain way does not mean we have failed.  On my daily dates with God, I learned to connect with my heart through my breath. When I do not feel connected to or recognize the boost my heart is giving me all day long, all I have to do is go back to my breath.  We are by design given access to the boost we need to take one more step through our breath.  Think of how many boosts that is in one day.  Imagine how much meaning and purpose we could connect to when we acknowledge the boost provided by paying attention to our breath.  Bringing ourselves to the moment we are in shows us our purpose right now.

We tend to pride ourselves, at least in American society, on our independence.  The reality is most things happen as a process of interdependence.  All areas of our lives are assisted by many other forces.  We do not exist in a vacuum.  We are the ones who make the choices in our lives and we base those decisions on internal and external information and understanding.  We get to choose the weight we give each of the factors that provide input but it is not possible to be so independent that we are not assisted, supported, and influenced by the world around us.  The key to making our lives our own is knowing which helpers we give greater significance. We get to choose the helpers who have a say in what we choose to do.  We have the capacity to decide which helpers in the form of people, ideas, and situations provide feedback on our choices.  My daily dates with God have allowed me to see where I may have given well-meaning helpers more power over my life than they deserved.  As children, we can’t help but give people or ideas the role of helper simply because of our need to survive.  Maturity is about wising up to which helpers will take us further in the direction we want to go and which will lead us astray.  God invites us to rely on our hearts as a helper.  Instead of assuming our mind has all the answers and is most helpful because it is logical, through our breath we get the chance to pause and open our eyes to more than just logic.  We are whole human beings composed of more than just our thoughts.  Our hearts can be helpers by tuning us into much-needed insight on our choices.

We like to think we can control the results in our lives.  I have certainly had moments when I was dismayed by the effect of something because I was certain it would not happen that way. It is a bit like the old Yiddish adage: “Make plans, and God laughs.”   It simply points out that there are so many factors involved in the outcome of things that there is no way we could plan and account for them all.  One could use that as an excuse to not do anything.  We can ignore for the sake of the argument that it is actually not possible to not do anything because even what you are not doing anything the thing you are doing is nothing. On a deeper level, it is an opportunity to create a stronger connection between our heart and our head.  Most of the planning we do happens in our minds which then creates actions.  If we remember to involved our heart in the process then our whole selves are present for the outcome whether it is what we wanted or not.  Actively engaging our hearts creates the courageous space to move in the direction of what we hope while able to hold the space for the joy or disappointment we assign to the outcome.  The truth of who we are knows no matter the outcome, we can grow from it.  The core of our being is always trusting that no matter the outcome our essence cannot be undone by it.  Our hearts provide the lens through which we can see any outcome as the result of being in the game of life.  Dancing with outcomes in life is what living spiritually and from the space of love is all about.

The one thing we can count on in this life is change. It comes in small and big ways and more so than any other reality is always present.  We can attempt to resist it, push it away, avoid it, or deny it but there is no stopping it.  The greatest peace is found through acceptance.  It does not mean we have to like it or look forward to it but we are open to being in the reality of it.  God invites us to embrace change from the perspective of opening up the possibilities in life.  We may not know how or when it is going to occur but we can hold it in the space of hope within our hearts.  We can opt to trust that nothing that changes will undo the truth of who we are at our core.  We do not have to fight change because we know that change will not erase all God has designed within us but open us up to see it with new eyes. On my daily dates, I have learned that God always holds the space of what is possible in our growth towards love and that change is the vehicle that can open our eyes to it.  Change causes us to pause and look again. Change wakes us up out of the routine we hold onto and operate in as though it is unchanging.  In my years of daily dates with God as I am rooted in the unchanging nature of God, the more I am willing to initiate my own changes because I have a desire to grow and explore the possibilities I cannot see. Faith is the capacity to walk through changes with our hearts open and connected to the unchanging truth.