dailydatewithgod

In high school, I worked in the theatre crew.  Aside from building and painting sets, we were responsible for setting up all the props for the actors.  This way when they followed the direction in the script for the scene and it said they were calling someone they had something to pick up instead of using their imaginary phone in their hand.  Having the props on the stage made the story more convincing to the audience.  The props which were not specifically indicated in the script themselves were in many ways things we take for granted as being there.  As a team, we had to read the script and collect all the items ahead of time to make sure the behind-the-scenes elements were ready to go. Plays are make-believe so the audience would have gone along even if they used their hand for a phone, but why not have a prop to make it more real if you can?  We have props in our lives which support us and make our lives seem more real.  Many of these props we take for granted.  It is not until they are missing that we realize how much support we receive from them.  Many of the props we are responsible for making sure to be present in the scenes of our lives but some just happen to be there when we need them the most.  I was recently traveling and began to reflect on all the props someone thought to put in an airport or on the plane which allowed me to execute my travel plans with ease. I could be a star in showing up for my event because behind-the-scenes all these props were in place. For all our individuality, we realize how very dependent we are upon other people and systems to have what we need in place to pull off the scenes of our lives.  It is humbling when we recognize how much support we get to live out our lives from others. Clearly, there are behind-the-scenes forces working so we can show up and be ourselves.

In the world of technology where I work and where we all live, slowness is the equivalent of death.  It means something is wrong if the web page is not loading fast enough, we do not get a response to our text message right away, or we are in traffic.  We have a dual relationship with slowness.  It is arbitrary on a lot of levels because it only exists in comparison.  The technology we are using is only slow in comparison to how fast it was another time.  At the same time, we want time to move slowly so we do not age so quickly.  How then do we find a place of peace with this idea of slowness which we cannot seem to escape?  In my experience, the best way to make peace is to find a way to be grateful for it.  Just like elements of our personalities we do not want to sit with and claim as true for us, we can start by slowly recognizing where slowness benefits our lives.  Most of the time, the only reason I want it faster is so I can get it done and move on to the next thing.  What might it take to be able to be present in the moment I am in versus rushing to get on to the next one.  Perhaps life is giving me a gift in the slowness whether it is my computer, traffic, or a painful experience in my life to learn more about who I am and the people who are in the experience with me.  Maybe slowness is my invitation into my heart where the voice of my mind pushing me to the next thing goes mute.   Deep down I trust the process of life and while I will most likely never understand it, I recognize it is conspiring for me, not against me.  When I remember the truth of what I know within me, I can relax into accepting the slowness I am experiencing at the moment.

Even when we think we know how things are going to turn out, we don’t really know. We imagine based on past experiences, we plan, we prepare, and we cultivate all kind of things through our action and intentions.  Among all our intentionality and action are all the crumbs that get dropped in between.  Crumbs like the random thought overheard on the train, the misstatement made in a public forum, a word on a page, the energy felt in a building, the smile of the sweeper in the airport, or the flash of color from the stoplight.  All of these crumbs of life that fall around us can become seeds within us.  We cannot plan what or how God might end up on our lap.  Before we swipe the seemingly unimportant element of our clothing, we are invited to pause.  We can check-in and ask God, do you see a crumb to be discarded or seed to be planted? 

Within the context of living, we rely upon ideas.  Ideas engage our mind, we create images through ideas, and we learn about each other through the expression of ideas.  Sometimes we get very attached to the ideas we have about anything and we remind and repeat them to ourselves.  This turns these ideas into beliefs.  We form ideologies based on familiarity.  Yet often we forget to stop and question the ideas we encounter.  It is easier on some level to just let them incorporate into our understanding of the world because we know the person who shared the idea or they have an authoritative title or presence.  Yet many of the ideologies by which we live are not ones we have chosen.  Our identity becomes tied to ideology and we fear to take a closer look because it might mean seeing ourselves different.  God invites us to bring our hearts into the exploration of ideology.  We are given the opportunity to explore without being so attached to what the outcome of the exploration might be when we involve our hearts.  Life is about learning and I have found that I can either learn to live in the questions of my life or continually be flummoxed by the breakdown of ideologies I see as defining who I am, yet do not align with my heart. How often have we stayed wedded to an ideology which caused pain and strife in our relationships because we do not want to risk the vulnerable experience of exploration?

Sometimes we try to insert ourselves into situations where we are not a good fit.  We are asked by others to get involved and do not feel we can decline the invitation or directive. We have strong feelings positive or negative about it and want to be involved.  It is so easy for me to think because I have strong feelings I must do something about them.  But does the role I am playing fit with a way I can best be of service? Does what I have been asked to be a part of fit with what I am effective in life? Am I trying to make myself fit a situation because it is all I know and I fear to chart new waters? Is something no longer a fit for me and I am afraid about what it says about me that it no longer fits? We know change is inevitable yet we fight so hard to hold on to how we see ourselves fitting in the world and are used to. We lose the willingness to find new ways to fit.  When we slow down and take the time to listen to our hearts, we take the necessary step in determining where we fit best at this moment.  Our heart is guided by an in and an out breath through which we connect to its wisdom to notice how are lives call upon us to fit here today but maybe not fit tomorrow.

Often when I hear someone talk about doing some sort of soothing, I feel uncomfortable.  It sounds like an amelioration of weakness or a coping for something gone wrong.  In my critical mind soothing is a compensation for the bad end of things.  The dogooder in me is convinced that there would be no need for soothing if the right amount of preparation occurred beforehand.  Unfortunately, life is not that clear cut.  Fortunately, this perspective on life is not one that dominates my reality anymore.  I was so afraid of making mistakes that the mere notion of doing something to soothe myself or others after something has gone wrong scared me.  It would mean admitting I was wrong.  Unfortunately, this caused me to seek out unhealthy forms of soothing because life can be harsh.  I sought soothing in food and sugar because I did not know how to handle life.  Strangely I sought soothing in making my feelings wrong and turning off my heart.  God offers us a different kind of soothing. A soothing requiring us to go within.  I have learned in my recovery and on my daily dates with God that by paying attention to the prompting of my heart and taking a breath I can experience soothing.  A soothing which places me in the moment.  A soothing that makes room for whatever my experience is in the moment without judgment.  When I allow the soothing of my heart and invite its perspective by first taking a breath, I do not need to hold the same harsh perspective the critical judge in my mind is holding.  It is not a weakness to seek soothing in our lives, it is part of the deal.  It is how we find peace and balance amidst the dual nature of our reality.  When we listen to our body’s speaking to us we will know how to find healthy ways to experience soothing.

We readily accept the idea that when other people around us are sick we may catch what they have.  Why is it we do not think we energetically catch what someone else is transmitting as well? Is it not just as likely we can be impacted by the presence of others?  How many times have you noticed someone walk in a room?  For some reason, they caught your eye?  Is it their look, their presence, or something you heard them say?  The more interesting question is why are they catching to you?  Are you fascinated or irritated?  Our hearts whisper to us from our interactions with others, even in seemingly unimportant situations.  When we notice what goes from catching us to getting us caught up in it or them we might want to take a closer look. Sometimes when I ride the train to work I will look around the cabin and see who is there.  There are some who catch my eye more than others.  Is there something in them I recognize?  Is there something that reminds me of me or that I can relate to about them?  Am I caught by their presence or their presentation?  Are they someone I might engage in conversation which would be kind of taboo considering how no one talks to each other?  When we notice what or who is catching to us we can take life’s invitation to notice what is being woken up in us and what it might have to teach us.

There are always at least two sides to every story.  Actually, there are way more but for simplicity sake, it is helpful to acknowledge at least the existence of more than one side.  Just like as human beings there are many physical and personal sides to us and how we might be described or describe ourselves. In the same way, we can acknowledge the various sides, we see the potential to choose our perspective.  Often we do not see a choice.  We experience something strike us and it feels like we have been hit and are down for the count.  We experience a strike as a way of standing out against something.  We acknowledge that at first what seemed like a strike against us because it felt like a hit in the head, ended up impacting our hearts and changing our lives.  We have all heard people say that what seemed like the worst thing to happen to them turned out to be a blessing in disguise.  The different strikes we come across in our lives we can choose to see as a positive, negative, or neutral impact.  Acknowledge our first experience of a strike may be different than how we see the strike after the fact.  Much like strikes in a baseball game, they are a part of life. It is all in the game.  It is what we do with them that matters.  Do we take the impact made by the strike and change course?  Do we use it to increase our determination?  Do we stomp our feet in protest insisting we have been wronged?  Do we try so hard to get everything set up so we can avoid strikes?  Sometimes we need to be hit by life to get the impact of what it means to be alive.  In my disease, I put up a lot of layers of protection, especially around my heart.  I learned about betrayal and confusion as it relates to love early on and I wanted to avoid any more of it.  I chose to numb out in protest and ended up putting up steel doors around my heart.  When I got into recovery and starting spending time on my daily dates with God I learned to let the doors open a bit.  With time I came to see the false nature of the supposed safety I had created by avoiding any further strikes.  Today when I do my best to keep my heart open I still have strikes.  But these strikes, good and bad impact me deeply and enable me to grow.  Strangely, I have come to see strikes as a gift.  It may not be my first reaction but over time I see how the strikes of life are designed to strike open my heart and allow me to breathe in the beauty and madness of this game called being alive.

How many times have you found yourself caught up in an idea or upset by something that someone else does?  It just gets you going and you all of a sudden are focused on the idea or the behavior and lose track of an essential question.  How is this relevant to me?  What pertinence does this have in my life or to me personally?  We can equally go the other direction and determine that many things are not pertinent in our lives because they are too overwhelming to think about or we feel above them.  Again, we lose sight of an important question, is this relevant in my life today?  Pertinence is a multilevel decision.  Rarely are things black and white.  If we approach the question of pertinence in our lives we can not do so just from a thinking mind.  We are also invited to do so with a feeling mind, the one called the heart.  If we find ourselves emotionally hooked into something and feel it is relevant to us simply because we have an opinion of it is one layer.  The deeper layer is investigating why we got hooked by the thing or idea in the first place.   Maybe there is something in that person’s behavior which we are so bothered by that reminds us of us.  Maybe we care more about this person than we realized. Our hearts call upon to take a closer look at what is coming up for us in the experience we have now made pertinent to us.  Equally, the things we find overwhelming may still be pertinent to us but we need to go within and determine what kind of role we can actually play instead of just choosing to dismiss its pertinence in our lives.  These are the quandaries we can bring to God.  When we pause, take a breath, engage our hearts readying ourselves for a deeper conversation with these pertinent aspects, we can ask God for help.

So often we jump to conclusions before we have the full picture. The reality is we can never fully have the full picture. There will always be something outside our vision or perspective which will prevent all the angles and background from making it into our view.  The best we can do is surmise based on the info we have at the time.  Our ego likes to tell us we have the full story and it is humbling to admit otherwise but it can also be engaging.  We are on this planet and in relationships with so many people.  Why do we think we were created to have the full view just with ourselves?  It does not make any sense.  When surmising a situation about our lives it is helpful to converse with others to get a sense of how they see things, especially if it is a decision that involves them.  In the same we are not on this planet alone, nothing we do just affects us.  To make for better surmising requires an attempt to connect to others and to God.  It does not mean we are required to do anything with their input, the conclusions are still ours.  The longer I engage in this daily relationship with God the more thankful I am to not have to know everything.  As a child, I thought I was supposed to know how to do and be in ways I had no clue about.  We think it is humiliating to admit we don’t know before surmising, but what if it is intelligent and courageous?  I appreciate being in relationship with others at work or even in the everyday world who can acknowledge their surmising was based on what they knew at the time but are aware that there may have been some angles missed.  God placed the desire to grow and love within our hearts.  This prompts us from our core to engage with others and learn from each other.  Surmising does not mean I have the right answer or all the perspectives, it means I came to the conclusion for the moment with what I had within and around me.