dailydatewithgod

In the season of cooler weather I am mindful of the experience of the lack of heat.  There is a reason why we associate warmer temperatures with comfort.  The word warmth is one used to describe more than temperature.  In science class we learn there is no such thing as cold, there is only lack of heat.  Heat is the measurement of energy.  So in our daily lives we can measure what kind of energy we are putting into something by its level of warmth.  In our interactions, we have the option to be cold and shut off or warm and inviting.  We think it may be easier to be cold towards someone but that is because it does not require as much energy.  If we are focused on survival, we do not have extra energy to extend to others.  Extending warmth requires energy but it is energy we can get connected to if we make the attempt. The presence of love in our hearts fuels our energy if we let it.  God continually invites us to cultivate the energy within our deepest and truest self.  Our minds may try to tell us that we don’t have time or the energy to be kind and extend warmth but our hearts have a different story.

We make a multitude of decisions in the course of a day or even an hour.  Most of them we do not recognize as decisions because we do not believe we are making decisions.  We tell ourselves we have to do something, it needs to get done, or we do not have a say in the matter.  None of these are true.  We always have a choice.  We may not like the choice but we still have it.  Except for dying just about everything else we have some choice in the matter.  The real question is what is sanctioning our choice?  Is it our head or our heart or both? Is it us or something or someone we are giving the power to choose for us?  It can be difficult to decipher whether our heads or our hearts sanction the decisions.  Mostly they are made by both but may be more head than heart or vice versa.  We like to think we are so logical that our heart does not get involved but we underestimate the integrated design of our being.  The truer question is what state of presence are our hearts and heads in when they sanction the decisions we make.  In fact, where are they when it comes to getting us believe we are not making decisions.  The only way I know to stay in touch with what is sanctioning the decisions in my life is to get quiet.  I also watch my language.  Anytime I find myself saying I have to do something and it catches in my ear, I stop and reflect on what or why I have chosen to give my sanctioning power over to an expectation.  Is it an expectation that is of value in my heart or in my mind?  Is it sanctioned because I am more concerned with who I look like to someone else or because my soul is calling on me to step up and I am not sure I can do it?  So much goes into what we sanction in our lives. God encourages us to make a practice of pausing, notice what is sanctioning our decisions, and ask if we are beholden only to our best selves, would we still sanction the same choice?

Stopping to take a closer look at our lives is something we do not do until we experience a disturbance.  “No news is good news“ and “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” are expressions we have heard before. Life has a way of getting our attention when things seem to fall apart.  When our world view is disrupted we sit up and take notice.  Pain and discomfort can be great motivators. Sometimes in an effort to move through the discomfort we take on the stance of getting rid of the current arrangement.  We rationalize that because it did not sustain through the disruption, it must be flawed.  If we are looking at the rubble of relationships and frayed edges that are just about to break off entirely, it may be a good idea to chuck the whole deal.  More often than not there are indications before the major disturbance that something is not working in the arrangement of our lives.  It is as quiet as a whispering wind coming through one or two small experiences that show us some flaws in the arrangement.  But we push it aside as merely an anomaly or being the fault of something outside of ourselves and move forward.  What if we took those opportunities to take a closer look at the arrangement in our lives when queued subtly by life?  What if all that is being asked of us is to make adjustments to the arrangement by incorporating some perspective from our hearts?  It can take a great deal of courage to adjust an arrangement than get rid of it all together.  What if in our hurry to get through the discomfort of change, we rush to make the existing arrangement all wrong when it is not?  Isn’t this what we do with people and ideas we have deemed as others?  What if the arrangement is a part of who we are that only wants to know of the love dwelling in our hearts?  Maybe we are being asked to bring love to a part of the arrangement of ourselves that has never received it.

When we find ourselves around people or things we like we describe our state of being differently than when we are around things or people we don’t like.  Our state of being is often described as being in the flow, a good fit, feeling at home with ourselves and things just come easily.  The state of being is one we enjoy being in.  It is one where we generate instead of lose energy.  So why would we bother to approach something the opposite of that?  What benefit could come from approaching an unlikable person or unlikely experience?  What could we possibly learn from being in a state of discontent, lack of flow, feeling like a foreigner and difficulty?  Why would anyone want to approach such a state of being?  Perhaps a different question might be, why wouldn’t we go nearer to experiences and people who see the world differently?  Why would we not approach a circumstance we have never faced before and discover resources we did not know we had?  We are naturally inclined to approach things similar to ourselves.  It comes from our inherent design of belonging meaning survival.  It makes sense. Yet most of what we dare not approach has nothing to do with what is on the outside.  It is the feelings and inner reality that surfaces as a result of our approach we are not interested in.  (To be clear, I am not advocating to put yourself in a life threatening or dangerous situation.) But what if our hearts could show us a door to love by being willing to approach the seemingly unpleasant states of being within us?  Maybe what appears like an outside experience is really more of an inside one.  Maybe God is disguised as someone we would not imagine God to be to awaken the courage of our hearts so we can approach with greater power the experiences within us calling for love.

Our minds want to move to a solution usually as quickly as possible.  It is inherent to our survival that we have a way to move forward.  To stay to long in perplexity can cause us to feel anxious and unsettled.  We find great pride in having the answer and knowing which step to take.  There is nothing wrong with either of those.  From a purely survival perspective it makes sense.  But we are at a point in our evolution where our survival is not the kind of question in our minds it used to be.  With some exception most human beings do not need to fear having their basic needs met.  Which means those of us who have that luxury to not be so burdened by the need to meet our survival needs can learn to discipline our minds to see differently.  We can entertain the experiences of perplexity to get at some of the deeper questions of our soul.  This requires some re-wiring in our brains.  At first we will balk and want to squirm out of it, but if we commit to practice sitting in the perplexity without running away at the first sign of discomfort or the making of a story in our minds about how we are a loser because we do not have an answer, we may find ourselves opened up to new understandings we may not have otherwise allowed to be revealed to us.  It is like contemplating the idea of our hearts being more than just a pump for blood.  It is being willing to see the multifaceted nature of our bodies as more than just a physical vehicle but a clue as to how the universe operates.  There is a flow, interaction between various systems, interacting with bodies outside of itself, it take in and gets rid of various kinds of energy, and so on. By making room for perplexity we are not a walking advertisement for cluelessness but a distinctive possibility of things which are more than we may have imagined.

There are many facets of ourselves that we come to know on our walk of life.  Some aspects we have with us from the beginning, others we take on as we go through life.  Some aspects we acquire by choice, others we take on because we sense it is what is considered normal or expected.  We can get caught up in demonstrating those aspects of ourselves which fit neatly into the tapestry of our lives and they become dominant and shape our personality.  The real question is, are those the aspects of our heart we want to live through?  Or are they the aspects we know will get us the approval we need to feel like we belong?  It is not wrong to want to belong, it is in our inherent nature of survival.  But if we are refraining from allowing aspects of ourselves driven from our hearts to be seen, who is it that is belonging?  Over and over again on my daily dates with God, I hear God asking me to keep my eyes on him.  When I am inclined to not share an aspect of my heart because I fear it will be rejected or there is no place for it, God reminds me she wants nothing more than the aspects of myself which are cultivated in my heart to be shared whether or not they are accepted by others.  God accepts them.  Those who are open to the heart aspects of themselves will see its genuine expression of the heart.  It can be risky but it is part of this game called life to allow the aspects of our hearts to be seen and shared with ourselves and others so God can be known.

My prayer for us is the curiosity to notice the things we are binding whether identities, experiences, or ideas and if the bindings are defined by our hearts or our heads today.

It is a little hard to grasp at the idea that God is enthralled with us.  I am not a parent, but I have heard it compared to how parents are enthralled with the newborn child.  Everything is fascinating, everything holds promise, everything is something to be proud of and marveled at.  Yet somewhere along the way the parent loses connection with the enthrallment as the child grows up. Perhaps the lack of enthrallment has less to do with the child and more to do with the parents. It is analogous as to what happens with us when we grow up.  As kids we are fascinated with the unknown until we become afraid of it.  Children find joy and marvel in what they do not know.  Adults build a life around what they do know.  Kids test things out with dogged attention sometimes over and over again to figure out how something works.  Adults are more likely to give up when it doesn’t work out the first time or fails to meet his or her expectations .  The level of enthrallment God has with God’s creation is like a child’s with the presence of life.  God never stops seeing the blessed nature with which we were created.  God is always aware of how much we are growing and becoming and does not fear the paths we travel. God holds the space for us to become tomorrow something we know nothing about today. God is the constant presence within us that does not stray no matter how many times we miss the mark.  God’s enthrallment with us is not limited by our capacity to conceive of it.  When God invites us to draw closer in our hearts each time we take a breath, it is an opportunity to see what has God so enthralled.

According to the laws of thermodynamics energy can neither be created nor destroyed.  It can be changed but all that is has always been and will always be.  If that is the case, why do we go around with this fear of the end or the destruction?  Why do we worry that we must get something done before it’s too late if whatever it is never gets destroyed?  There is no fear of whether or not energy will last.  We get wedded to the context and form of what it is we want to last.  We hold the expectation of the energy in that form to not change or fear it changing before we experience it.  God holds no expectations.  God is not held by our fears.  God is the lasting energy.  As I began to open up my eyes to how God was showing up outside my expectations of God, I began to chip away at the fear.  Being open to the change of God’s presence because I trusted in it lasting outside of my definitions has made life as a whole less fearful.  I am less wedded to energy in any form staying the form I am experiencing it in today whether that is a relationship with a family member, a job, the look of a person, the song I hear on the radio, or even what I see when I look in the mirror.  Being within the presence of what is lasting is being present within myself.  It is kind of what I think of when I look at the trees in my neighborhood.  They have all been here long before I got here and they will be here long after.  They still stand tall despite the wind, the rain, the sun, and the smog.  Over the years their leaves have grown and fallen off.  They have even lost parts of themselves from a powerful rain storm.  The trees are lasting in their roots, in their connectivity to the core of what gives them life.  It happens below the surface of what I can see, but whatever it is, it is lasting for them.  The more I focus on the lasting energies in my life the fuller, broader, and deeper my experience of life becomes.

It is good to know what we like and what we do not like.  It is helpful to spend our time and energy with things and people with which we feel connection and want to contribute towards.  Our energy grows and expands with our intention and attention.  Our focus and attention is affected by our attitudes and approaches to life.  In theory, the idea of only focusing and putting attention on the things we like, feel connected to, or want to contribute towards makes the most sense.  Unfortunately, theories are not reality.  We cannot go through life never encountering aversions.  Our hearts encourage us to embrace the aversions of our lives with the same interest as the things we find delightful.  It is not to make our lives difficult but to show us that even the things or people we are averse to can teach us something about ourselves and the scope of love.  We do not need to torture ourselves but allow ourselves to be exposed to and open to what we might learn from our aversions.  Our aversions can teach us about our likes.  Our aversions can open our eyes to the presence of love in a person or situation we were certain love did not exist and expose us to a different idea of God.  When we barricade ourselves up out of a desire to protect our hearts we misleadingly believe we are creating greater growth in love. Inadvertently, we end up protecting ourselves from love and aversions.  If we trust the process of life enough to know that if we breathe in the aversion we will eventually breathe it out, we can trust that nothing will drive our core life enhancing, love expanding reality out of who we are.  Nothing outside of us can destroy the core strength of love God created within us.