dailydatewithgod

We like hard physical evidence.  We feel better when we can witness things with our eyes, hear them with our ears, touch them with our hands and so on.  We see this in babies. As they begin to grow they want to touch things and they viscerally react to things they see, hear, taste, touch, and smell.  All of our senses provide a palpable experience of what life is.  There is so much palpability to life we get caught in thinking it is the only experience of life.  What about the things we cannot see, hear, taste or touch?  What about the things others see, hear, taste, touch or smell that we do not?  What is the value of palpability if it is not a shared experience?  Which of our senses allows us to know the palpability of a shared experience?  Our hearts are responsible for pumping the blood and bringing fresh oxygen to our body and ridding it of toxins.  But is that all it does?  How do we describe the palpable nature of our hearts?  We speak about our heart as though it is more than an organ.  We say we have a broken heart when we are in pain over a relationship.  We describe our hearts as tattered and torn when we are worn down or feel we have been violated.  We automatically touch the area of our body where our heart is when we are sharing with others something we would describe as heartfelt.  As kids when attesting to something we double ensure its palpability by crossing our heart (or say we hope to die).  Our language reveals so much about the palpability of our hearts that we cannot deny it simply because it does not fall under one of the primary physical senses. Perhaps the palpability of our hearts is more than meets the eye.

As I have grown in my relationship with God on our daily dates I have come to see the beauty in the beingness of life.  Our being shows itself to us when we dare to show up and attempt to live our lives.  We do not know who we are until we see what we are made of.  We can be full of ideas and beliefs but none of it matters if we do not know how to be it.  The phases we go through to uncover the truth of ourselves are the experiences of being.  In order to grow and change we go through different phases.  Hopefully, we take what we need and discard what we don’t for the next phase and take the next step.  Our hearts are guided by what will enable us to grow in love.  The depth and breadth of love we are willing to courageously step into will change depending on the phase we are in at the moment.  We strangely see ourselves as stagnant and unchanging. Yet how many times have we surprised ourselves and others by who we are being?  When I think about the person I have become over the years it is only when I look back at where I have come from that I can identify how much I have grown.  I see how the different phases I went through attributed to my growth of heart even if I did not think the phase I was in was where I wanted to be at all.  Sometimes we look at particular phases of growth and wish we had not gone through them. Yet we do not know to what degree they shaped the person we are today.  I try to remember this when I am in what I would call a stuck phase or a repeat phase.  I find myself thinking how much I would like to move quickly through a phase or it is one I have already dealt with.   It is in those moments, when I remember to reach for God who takes my hand, draws it to my heart, encourages me to take a breath and just be in the moment I am in, trusting the phase will pass when it is time.

The interconnected nature of our experience causes us to continually associate with others.  No man is an island and often as much as we like to think of ourselves as on our own, everything in our very nature contradicts this idea.  Literally, our biological nature is a system of connections and associations.  We are linked in the general sense as beings who have multiple facets to ourselves.  On a baseline level the links between our digestion and energy.  Then expand out a bit to think about our links to those who make the food we digest to create energy.  Even further out, we are therefore linked the people who planted, harvested, raised, and distributed the food to the store we bought it from.  Our links to everything around us are so obvious we have lost sight of them.  When we pause for a moment to look at the links in our lives there are too many to comprehend and those are the ones outside of our being.  What about the links within ourselves?  What is the strength of the links between our heart and mind?  Between our intention and action in life?  Looking at the links give us some indication based on our recognition, as to why we find ourselves feeling lost and alone.  What would it take to develop the strength of the links within ourselves?  Do the links within ourselves determine the kind of links we have with others and life in general?  These are questions we can begin to look at when we pause, take a breath, and spend some time in quiet with ourselves.  It may not be our first inclination until we realize there is nowhere else to look. God encourages us to pay attention to our links within ourselves starting with our heart is linked to all the other parts of ourselves.

We spend a lot of our time and energy labeling things as good or bad.  I am not sure if it is our inclination to stay within some sort of moral construct or we just stopped paying attention the fact that we feel more comfortable with the idea of things or people being good or bad.  We get used to knowing what is right and what is wrong and within cultures and families there is a common understanding.  It does help us to feel a part of. It takes care of our survival instinct to not be left on our own to die.  But some of the things we go along with agreeing as good or bad or right or wrong may not be wholly one or the other.  The best we can do is evaluate a situation in the moment we are in.  It is good to have some guiding principles but if we fear disobeying the agreed upon group norms just to stay acceptable to the group, we might neglect the deeper question of workability.  Workability implies a level of flexibility and presence to the moment we are in as the person we are in the moment.  What was right for me as a four year old may be not good for me as a woman in my 40s simply because of its unworkability.  Holding my parents hands when I crossed the street worked and made sense as a four year old but doing so now does not only not make sense it does not work.  I do not even live in the same town as my parents.  It may sound like a silly example but when was the last time we took a mindful look at the unworkable elements of our lives we are still following because they are considered good or bad at the time we learned them?  It takes courage to pause and look at the workability or unworkability of elements of our lives because to do so brings up possible fear.  God has given us the grace through the power of our hearts to pause and be in the moment we are in.  This provides the ability to evaluate the workability of all the facets of our lives without getting lost in the boogie man of fear masquerading as sensible and the right thing.

Sometimes we find ourselves facing situations that we thought we planned for but are not at all what we planned.  Actually, I think most of life is that way.  The trick is to pay close attention to what plans are vital and which ones are nonessential.  We get very used to how we do things and what we expect from people and situations to such a degree that we do not realize many things we consider vital are actually optional or even unnecessary.  Finding a balance between the vitals of our heart and the vitals of our mind are a step in separating out the vitals from the nonessentials.  So much of what we think we want is not because we want the actual thing or situation.  What we want are what we will feel as a result of having the thing or experience.  If can learn to identify what it would feel like for our plans to go as expected we can notice what vitals we really need.  Having time on my daily dates with God to slow down enables me to notice what I am thinking and feeling.  Awareness of the vitals we need for the survival of our heart and mind makes room for us to relax into situations where things are not going to according to plan or what we expected.

Have you ever noticed when you try to squash something down it expands?  Or when you try to hide something it manages to pop out and be seen?  It is as if the very act of trying to get rid of something that is not meant to be gotten rid of only amplifies it presence.  We face this conundrum when we ignore either parts of ourselves or issues in our lives that we do not like.  Our inclination is to pretend it is not there, hope no one notices, or think it will just go away.  Yet somehow none of that happens.  We get these indications of things that come in whispers and we swish them away like a tickle in our ear.  Then it comes a little louder or in an experience in front of our eyes and we chalk it up to coincidence or blame the other people involved. This may go on for a while.  In my experience, until it becomes painful, we keep pushing it aside or think it has nothing to do with us.  Until our way of being gets in our own way enough or we admit these experiences are telling us something about ourselves that is of value, the amplification will continue to increase.  Amplified until we are not able to ignore them.  It is not that we are stupid or slow or we are not as enlightened as others who are willing to be woken up.  Sometimes those parts of ourselves are meant to be amplified.  We all have parts or sides of ourselves we would rather not befriend.  That is, until our heart extends the amplified invitation that cannot be ignored.   No one that I have come across is void of not so pleasing elements.  Bill Wilson wrote, “In everything good there is a little bit of bad, and in everything bad there is a little bit of good.” We are not meant to be one thing or the other.  The real question is do we embrace the amplifications of the parts of ourselves we are less than interested in getting to know or do we continue to hide? Our hearts call on us to embrace the whole of ourselves.  Everything about us and the universe is changing.  We are capable of making adjustments and if we wait until the call for adjustment is amplified loud enough to motivate the adjustment then so be it.  The level of amplification is up to us.  As we get to know ourselves better and open up to the idea there is nothing so wrong about us that infiltrates the core of our being, we may become more sensitive to less intense amplifications.  We can let go of the idea there is something wrong with us because a less than perfect part of ourselves keeps surfacing. Regardless of the level of, we have the opportunity us to embrace all amplifications as the catalysts they are.

Our inclination to stay in the familiar is inherent in our survival needs.  Once we experience something or create a system that can be maintained without extra brain power or consciousness needed we stick with it.  We stay with what is existing because it does not bring about potential fear, unless, of course, it is threatened.  As evolving humans who have the capability to contemplate our existence we are slowly beginning to see how this whole being human works.  We are not machines, as much as it may sound like it.  We are a system.  A living, breathing, growing, changing, and evolving expression of life. Given all the things we have going on just within our physical bodies, it is actually mind-blowing all that goes into existing.  We would never do anything outside of that if we had to be conscious of all that goes on.  The existing systems we have in place ensure we will survive and this is a very good thing.  Unlike other living things, we have the capacity to expand our awareness outside of our physical reality.  It is both a privilege and an innate curiosity.  Expanding our existing awareness is what our heart calls us to.  We could stay in simply focusing on not being present and survive but each of us seems to have an inclination at some point in our lives to move beyond survival.  Why else would we continue to learn?  Why else would we look for ways to contribute to each other?  Why else would we create ideas and beliefs around the world we live in?  Why else would we choose to challenge ourselves to be or do more?  Expanding our definition of existence for ourselves is an individual choice. Do we answer the call of our hearts or put it off?  Do we pay attention when our existing systems begin to break down or do we put our heads in the sand and hope it just gets better.  When we choose to balance our heart’s call for what it means to exist with what our mind knows existence to be we expand and become connected to something more than ourselves.  If we were meant to do it all on our own I somehow think we would not be on a planet with so many people.

One of the many things developed from my daily date with God is the re-connection to my sense of creating. We were designed to be contriving.  It is not about trying to defy reality, it is about choosing which perspective to take.  When we link into the energy of our hearts, we may find designs we did not know were possible according to our mind.  Our ability to contrive a perspective on a situation or experience is vast.  We do not often tap into it because we buy into someone else’s perspective.  It seems easier to go along with the status quo than put our energy into contriving a new perspective.  It is basic fundamentals of survival.  Our brains are not interested in going against our programming because it requires energy and we may need that energy for something more crucial at a later time.  God invites us to regularly spend time in the space of our hearts and discover an untapped energy which has space to be contriving.  We already attach meaning to everything.  Why not contrive the meaning to something useful?  Much of our default is not bad, it just different from the default of our heart’s perspective.  Any time I pause, take a breath, and connect with my heart, my eyes see my life differently.  Just in the bothering to breathe in and out provides new life, literally.  The more I witness it in myself, the more I can believe in my contriving ability to make the most of whatever situation I am in.  At the very least, I am reminded of the creative nature of God to provide a continual invitation to pause and be.

In the world of adult learning there is emphasis placed on knowing what the WIIFM (What’s In It For Me) is for one’s audience. If you can know what their WIIFM is then you will more readily capture and keep the attention of the learner.  It is a concept used broadly and certainly has merit.  We tend to approach life in this way.  We look to people and situations to determine what they have to offer us.  We hold the expectations that people or circumstances are designed to meet our needs.  If reading this in black and while makes us sound rather selfish and self-centered all I can say is the truth hurts.  Now, it is not necessarily all bad.  It is important to have what we need to survive.  The challenge is moving out of survival into a place of thriving and ultimately contribution.  The paradoxical nature of the universe is when we go into a situation focused on what we have to offer instead of what it is offering us, we get are offered more.  This does not mean offering at the sake of our survival but finding ways outside of that which enable us to be an offering to whatever person we encounter or situation we are in.  An offering is not necessarily something tangible.  Since life happens in multiple elements, sometimes the most profound offering we can provide is our attention in the moment.  It is something we have to give, if we choose. All it costs us is taking our attention away from ourselves.  In recovery I learned offering service is the quickest way to get out whatever negative head space I find myself in.  I stop and ask myself, what am I offering myself in this moment by listening to the harsh self-criticism versus what can I be offering to someone else who needs a smile or a look in the eye?  The experience of my heart has shown me when I am offering my presence and attention outside of myself, my mind cannot simultaneously continue on about what I am doing wrong.  My offering to another ends up being my gift.

I was reminded recently of my choices.  I was reading about how we have these experiences we find inconvenient or troublesome.  Our initial inclination is to avoid them, get out of them as fast as possible, or hope they go away.  Who likes discomfort really?  I am not a big fan myself as much as I know it is a catalyst for growth.  The spiritual text reminded me, the reader, of how each rub is an opportunity to practice my kit of spiritual tools.  This is not the first time I have come across this concept.  I had a spiritual mentor years ago who reminded me regularly that life is a gift or a chance to grow.  She emphatically pointed out that in the moments it did not feel like a gift, I was experiencing an opportunity to grow.  When I am in a good space, I see this view from my heart’s eyes.  The issue is I default to the opportunities according to just my mind.  Those include the aforementioned of avoidance, speeding through, or hoping it disappears.  The opportunity presented by my heart is always hopeful.  It reminds me no matter what I am experiencing it is a chance to see myself as well as the other person in a different light.  It is an opportunity to be reminded at the very least that more is happening than the eyes can see.  God invites us and seemingly challenges us in our moments of discontent or discomfort, to pause, connect with our hearts and see what opportunity is right in front of us.  While I may be inclined to chastise myself for not remembering this more often, this too is not how my heart sees it.  God gently guides me to again, pause, connect with my heart and see the opportunity to view myself as someone who is willing to pause and see it differently.  There are endless opportunities available to us if we pause and connect with our hearts.