I finally realize that there is a difference between being in control and being in charge. And I am learning, but this is where I am now-
I have spent a great deal of my life trying to be in control, forcing things into place, keeping things in order, sometimes keeping people in order, and failing, or even worse, succeeding for a time, then failing. It is not the nature of the world to be in control. You cannot keep a moving thing still. You cannot force a changing thing to make only the changes you would like it to make. We don't have control, it's not for us to have. The Universe, God Itself doesn't even have control. God is the movement of things moving of their own accord in accordance with some aspect of the whole. It does not determine the movement, it just allows for it. It opens space in any direction. It makes room for growth and it is the growing, but we have choices and the direction of the growth and the seeds we plant are not determined. They are for us to determine.
It is for us to take charge, not of the world, but of ourselves, of our own choices, of the seeds we have planted and the seeds we nurture, of the movements we make, of the manifesting of ourselves as we are now. We can look around at our lives and see what is here, we can breath inside ourselves and notices some things and know that those things are not to be constricted or controlled, but that we can show up and make choices about what needs attention, what needs nurturing, what needs support and how to get that support.
It is showing up for ourselves and being responsive to ourselves. It is the difference between being an attentive parent, one who listens and responds, and being a controlling parent, one who maps out ideals on living things and shames them for not matching up. You can be an attentive parent to yourself. You can show up and make choices in this moment, without silencing any bit of you but being in conversation with your self and making a choice about how you want to be. Taking responsibility for what is there, who you are now, and planting the seeds of who you want to be, intention by affirmed intention, then choice by self-loving choice; this is taking charge. And it is gentle as water. It is not fixed and harsh, it is patient and movable and attentive. It is built on a commitment of self love, instead of fear and self hate. Be easy friend. Always be easy with yourself. Be soft and open and allowing like the Universe. Always expanding, always making space for you to be as large as you please, and to move intentionfully, wherever you will.
Thursday, December 8, 2011
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
On Receiving & Gratitude, and the avoidance of feeling both
Reader, it has been a while. Perhaps because I am not one who forces herself to do a thing that is not ripened and ready to be done, or perhaps because my gift for avoidance outweighed my gift for expression. I intend to reach you monthly, if not more frequently. With that said, I want to tell you, Happy Thanksgiving. You’ll notice that Thanksgiving inspired my title for this post, and it seems to be a favored thought in my mind lately. It is a lovely idea for a holiday. It seems so rich with meaning and such a guide post in the right direction, just a clear moment of refocusing our lives. It is hopeful really. It is hopeful that we as a society got together and agreed on something good for ourselves, at least in idea, the practice of Thanksgiving we know is a little less healthful. It starts well intended enough, sometimes with opening prayers of gratitude or just a clear focus on the present moment and on feeling abundance, but then, the food is passed and each dish feels like a challenge, and the overindulgent and frequently painful eating binge follows. I can’t help but feel that the overindulgence and the extremeness of receiving food into our bodies is just a way to avoid the feel of receiving at all, and ultimately a way to avoid feeling grateful for the abundance. Consider, were you ever grateful for the food on the table once your belly swelled snuggly against your waistband and you felt distinctly uncomfortable? What I am saying is, I think we may be uncomfortable, as a culture, with both receiving and feeling grateful and I think we have adapted to avoid the feeling of both. And if that rings true, then I think it is important to just be aware of that.
I think it is true for myself. I have had a long negotiation with receiving, and even the idea of receiving anything brings up fears about expectations, motivations, and intentions of the giver. Or even the idea of, if I have this, who won’t have it- the starving child in Africa scenario, in which I feel constantly guilty for everything I am offered, because it is not offered equally to every member of the world. And I just want to say clearly, to myself, and you reader, your piece of pecan pie, if placed in more desperate hands, would not fix the broken system that made them desperate. Sure there are things that can be done to help others, and there will be time enough to do them, if you chose, but your guilt over enjoying anything is more about you than the starving people of the world, it is just another way to avoid the feeling of enjoyment, and another expression of the learned perception of not being worthy enough to partake of the literal and metaphorical feast.
This Thanksgiving, I am setting the intention to really give it to myself, and let myself have it. Anything on my plate, I am worth of having. It is mine, and I am deserving of it. And I can enjoy it! I am free to just enjoy it. I don’t need to clear the serving plate, I don’t need to worry about the leftovers and what will happen to them. No, I don’t have to. I am free to just enjoy what is in front of me. I am free to eat until I am satiated, until I have had exactly enough, and I can leave the rest, and let it go. Maybe it will go to waste, maybe not. But I will have enjoyed this meal and this moment. And I will end the meal with the intention of gratitude I set at its beginning. I don’t have to feel uncomfortable and groan and regret. I can enjoy. I am free to enjoy. I am worthy of enjoyment. I am worthy. And you are too. Happy Thanksgiving. I send love and hope every fork-full is a blessing.
Saturday, October 8, 2011
On Death
Tomorrow, I will offer a memorial service for someone I had wished would never die. For a kind of person that doesn't happen twice on this earth. And here I am, admitting that I lost something that cannot be found, not whole, not in the way I have known it. And tomorrow, I will be called to tell my family something comforting. But some parts of death cannot be smoothed over the way we smoothed a loved one's arm in the hospital. Periods at the ends of sentences are non-negotiable. I cannot rewind. Not for anyone. Not even for myself, with all my strength. Not even for a moment.
Tomorrow, I will tell my family that he is not all gone, he is here, in us, in the wind, in the trees, in spirit. But I need to admit that he is not here. Not in his body, not at our dining room tables, not in our arms anymore. And no matter how much he swirls around us in the breezes or falls around us in the leaves or the rain, his arms aren't around us, and I cannot find words pretty enough to make that seem ok. Or even to make that seem reasonable.
I believe there are large parts of us that are children who are confused and scared by the cosmic peak-a-boo game of death. If I cannot see you, you must not be there. And I don't know where you could have gone, where so much of something could go, so quickly. Where a part of my heart went. And the word death offers no kind of explanation. It is just a word we agreed upon, just so we could call it something, so we can pretend we understand it at all.
And tomorrow, I stand up at his grave, and I say, I don't know where he went but let's all look for him together. Let us check by the fig tree in his Brooklyn yard, let's look in the restaurants by the hot pepper shakers, let's all go to Atlantic City and listen for his shouts, and check the kitchens in his sons' houses, and every boardwalk, and every orchard and warehouse, and then in the evenings, we will listen to our own hearts beating and see if we can make out his heartbeat alongside.
And he may not be in any one place. We may have to gather him up. Like little gifts hidden in between things. Gifts we can't take or hold or keep or put together. Just the kind you see in passing, the way you see a lightening bug, then immediately question if you saw it at all. Just a little flash of light, here, and now there. A thing that shines for a moment, then disappears into the dark.
Tomorrow, I will tell my family that he is not all gone, he is here, in us, in the wind, in the trees, in spirit. But I need to admit that he is not here. Not in his body, not at our dining room tables, not in our arms anymore. And no matter how much he swirls around us in the breezes or falls around us in the leaves or the rain, his arms aren't around us, and I cannot find words pretty enough to make that seem ok. Or even to make that seem reasonable.
I believe there are large parts of us that are children who are confused and scared by the cosmic peak-a-boo game of death. If I cannot see you, you must not be there. And I don't know where you could have gone, where so much of something could go, so quickly. Where a part of my heart went. And the word death offers no kind of explanation. It is just a word we agreed upon, just so we could call it something, so we can pretend we understand it at all.
And tomorrow, I stand up at his grave, and I say, I don't know where he went but let's all look for him together. Let us check by the fig tree in his Brooklyn yard, let's look in the restaurants by the hot pepper shakers, let's all go to Atlantic City and listen for his shouts, and check the kitchens in his sons' houses, and every boardwalk, and every orchard and warehouse, and then in the evenings, we will listen to our own hearts beating and see if we can make out his heartbeat alongside.
And he may not be in any one place. We may have to gather him up. Like little gifts hidden in between things. Gifts we can't take or hold or keep or put together. Just the kind you see in passing, the way you see a lightening bug, then immediately question if you saw it at all. Just a little flash of light, here, and now there. A thing that shines for a moment, then disappears into the dark.
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
Owning Our Darkness, A Sermon
Thich Nhat Hanh, a very gentle Buddhist monk can find within himself a mix of both darkness and light as it occurs in the world. In his poem, “Call me by my True Names,” he identifies with such beautiful images of spring but he does not stop there. He does not decline to see the darkness in himself, he also identifies as a rape victim and a rapist, as both the predator and prey. He knows that darkness is a part of him, as much as light, ugliness as much as beauty, and he acknowledges all of himself with compassion.
Can we look upon our own darkness with that same compassion? Can we find the murderer and rapist within ourselves and still love ourselves? If not to that extreme, can we own our anger, our violent speech and desires, our moments of dehumanizing others? Can we find the seed of the horrible things of this world within ourselves? And can we have compassion for those cold, loveless, aching parts?
Lately I have been angry. Just filled with anger. No reason for the anger that I can find. Just anger. Someone who I respect very much once said, emotions don’t have to make sense, they don’t need a reason. I don’t need to prove that I have a right to feel this anger. I feel it. That’s it. Anger was something I wasn’t allowing myself to feel for a long time. Anger was something I wasn’t supposed to feel. I was supposed to be a well of understanding and forgiveness. And so for a long time I buried my anger and loved and forgave and understood until I felt like I couldn’t breathe. I am not asking you to only feel a narrow range of emotion, just the opposite, I am asking you to allow yourself to feel everything you feel. Allowing is a form of loving. You don’t need to explain yourself, you don’t need to justify yourself. You don’t need to paint yourself holy. You just need to allow yourself to be you. It’s the only way to be peaceful. Let everything that is there, be there. It won’t hurt you. It won’t overtake you. You always have a choice about how you want to act in this world, being more honest about how you are feeling or what you are thinking doesn’t take away that choice.
We have imaged that everything we are ashamed of is like a powerful demon that we must always resist, deny, and never say the name of. I will tell you, I have met this demon within myself. I would like to share a somewhat disturbing experience with you. In meditation, I saw a horrific figure, a demonic being, actually eating the remains of a human body. And I knew that this being was a part of me. Just that, just that alone, horrified me. That my mind held this inside of it. But I would not open my eyes. I stayed with the meditation. And I felt myself as the demon now, I was hiding in a clothing trunk, eating human remains in the dark. I felt my teeth ripping and tearing at the flesh of a severed leg and I felt the dirty shame of eating it. But I was also the person I knew myself to be, standing at a distance, aware of the demon, and trying to have courage, not just to face this terrible thing, but to face the fact that this terrible thing was a part of me. Myself as the demon knew that it had been found and began to panic and opened the trunk and waved a knife at the self I knew, and warned it to stay back, promising violence, promising death. “I’ll kill you, I’ll f-ing kill you.” I screamed to my human self, desperate to be left alone to my shame, in the safe space of my dark box. As the demon, I felt such panic, and such anger. As the human, I gathered my courage and said, “I am not here to hurt you, I just want to get to know you better. I just want to understand what you mean.” And the demon was screaming, “look what you have made me become to survive, look at what I have had to do.” And then the demon became a child, a hurt angry child, now crying and screaming, a child who had to find a way to live without love for so long. I stayed with her a while until she trusted me enough to take my hand and I took her by the seashore and told her that the world doesn’t have to be like the one she had known, I wouldn’t keep her in a dark room in a box anymore. I wanted her to know the light, I wanted her to see how beautiful the world could be. I told her I was sorry. And she cried the soft cry that comes when you’ve grown weak with crying. And I took her to a room full of windows, with a view of the water, and I tucked her into bed, and told her to rest. I think she is still recovering in some room inside of me.
This was my demon, a hurt unloved child who had to find a way to survive. I believe this demon represented what I created when I did not offer myself self care. When I would give and give to others and pay no attention to myself I became like a cannibal, eating away at myself. I needed to nourish myself somehow. When I was so giving, I was also very manipulative. I had to get my needs met without claiming them, because I was taught that having needs was selfish. So I took when I could in shady ways, to survive, and then felt even more shame. Either I make better choices about how to nourish myself or I go into hiding and get my needs met in any ugly way I could in the dark. When we have the courage to face the most horrible parts of ourselves, we see that it is still ourselves, asking for attention, still in need of kindness.
In a course in miracles, we are told that everything that is done is either an act of love or a call for love.
When parts of us are raging, violent, and ugly, can we answer their call for love? Can we have compassion for the parts of us that are hurting and now seek to hurt others? I think we need to, if we don’t want their call for love to grow louder and more desperate I think we need to listen, understand the aching, and have some compassion.
It is time to call the homeless parts of ourselves back home. The parts we are ashamed of, the parts that we are sure need to stay hidden if we want to be loved in this world. There is no way around it, we have got to love it all, every aching ugly part of our complicated spirit. We have got to allow the space in our mind/bodies for every insistent part. What we resist, persists. Denying it doesn’t change it, pushing it out won’t work, trying to kill it makes it stronger, you have got to learn to love the ugly parts of you.
The thing about wanting to feel whole is that wholeness means everything, everything. We want unity; we want an undivided self and world. Unity means everything and everyone. It means living with contradictions, it means allowing both sides. Stop frantically rooting out your weeds, weeds and grass will grow in you and will keep growing. You are what you are. Everything you are God/Goddess has enfolded in you. So love your darkness as you would the most lovable part of you. Every part of you needs love. Every part of you needs a place to come to rest. No way around it. And the ugly parts are just hurting and they need even more love and acceptance than the rest.
Every feeling ever felt by anyone, all those murderous, ugly, hateful feelings: you are capable of feeling every one of them. Every horrible act ever done by a human being, you are capable of doing yourself. You aren’t above or separate from anyone who has ever lived in this world. Every dark thing you see outside of you is inside you as well. Until we face our own darkness, our own angry, seething, destructive instinct, we are going to keep acting it out thoughtlessly. Know what you are, know what you are capable of being, then make your choices.
Awareness of our darkness will empower us to make choices, instead of acting out of subconscious motivation. It seems to me, we can’t authentically shine our light unless we are willing to begin to embrace our darkness. If we don’t own that we are capable of magnificent ugliness, we will go around judging people and pretending ugly isn’t our nature. Everything is our nature. We are capable of so much, don’t sell yourself short in any direction. You can descend as far as you can ascend. As above so below. It is all there within you, but you have a choice about what you want to act out, so make your choices.
That is not to say, it is easy. We may find ourselves screaming at a loved one and feeling shameful. All a call for love. There is a saying in Italian,
“Amami quando lo merito meno,
perché sará quando ne ho piú bisogno."
Translation: "Love me when I deserve it the least,
because that is when I will need it the most.”
perché sará quando ne ho piú bisogno."
Translation: "Love me when I deserve it the least,
because that is when I will need it the most.”
See if you can offer yourself some understanding, and forgiveness, no matter how many times you do a thing you are ashamed of. No matter what you do, you are deserving of understanding, love, and forgiveness. I was raised Catholic, and I was told that no matter how many times I go to confession for the same issues, I would be forgiven. The Quran speaks about a merciful and forgiving God. Many religions attribute these qualities to God. Friends, every atom of ourselves is made of God. Allow the God of ourselves to forgive the aching God within us. Everything is God. We are creating God as much as God is creating us. Let the God that you are, be merciful and loving and forgiving to the parts that need it the most. Manifest a kind and gentle God to yourself, to all parts of you that are calling for love in the dark.
We can’t love and accept outside, what we can’t love and accept inside. When I see a homeless person, I feel aversion and fear and I fill my mind with judgments about him, trying to convince myself that somehow he deserved it, and that is if I consider him at all. I am not proud of it, but there it is. The aversion is me trying to protect myself from what I am, from the reality that I am vulnerable to the same things which put the homeless person in that position. There isn’t much stopping me from curling up beside him tonight. That scares me. That aversion was me trying to create distance, trying to cut off my connection to that person by arguing that there is something substantially different between him and me, but there isn’t. We are so similar and I am afraid. A part of my shadow is homeless and cold and hungry, and by speaking its name to you I am trying to give it a little warmth, a little food, a little comfort that it has a place to come home to now within me. And when I really welcome that part home, maybe then I can really give some comfort and warmth to someone outside of me. Metaphorically all of my shadow is homeless.
It’s time to put the porch light on in our hearts and say, “come back, it’s safe now, you have a home here,” to every part of us we thought couldn’t be loved. “Get out of the shadows and come warm yourself by the fire.” Let’s say that to ourselves first, and maybe in some distant time, we can show that kindness to someone outside of ourselves, without looking down on the person, without a feeling of difference. Just another part of the whole that needs some love.
For many of us even our light is a part of our shadow. We have learned to be ashamed of our goodness, our innocence, our loving, our brilliance, all of the gifts that we were given in order to make a difference in this life. Anything we were taught to be ashamed of is in the darkness, not just our dark seething desires, but also our magnificence, our beauty, our power. When we were young, maybe we said something that was a little too wise for our time, maybe we offered the answer to a question a little quicker than we should have, maybe we loved someone we were supposed to be disgusted by, and we were “corrected.” We were corrected for shining too brightly in a world that convinced itself that being a little dim always is the only way to survive.
We were meant to do more than just survive. We need to wiggle the lamp shades off of our spirit. We need to come alive. Howard Thurman wrote, “Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” Coming alive means allowing every part of yourself to receive blood, to be nourished. And when you give yourself permission to be everything you are, you give that permission to others, you allow others to be less afraid of themselves, less ashamed, you allow others to come home to themselves. Everything in you is acceptable and understandable and lovable.
Let us pray:
Mother,
Please guide and protect us as we seek reconciliation with all of the parts of ourselves. A part of us yearns for the experience of wholeness. Remind us that wholeness means everything. It means viewing everything inside of us as acceptable and loveable.
Please give us grace to forgive ourselves when we fall short of what we think is acceptable and remind us that we are just calling out for love. Give us the grace to love what we have learned is unlovable. We know everything is of one substance, and everything is divine, even the darkness in us and in our world. Remind us to consider loving when the call for love is made in any form and to forgive ourselves when we cannot answer the call.
Please help us to accept and heal our divided self so that we may be empowered in time to help heal our divided world.
Let it be. Amen.
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
On Weightloss and Being Human- A road map
As many of you know, I've lost 70+ lbs in about 7 months. When asked how I did it, I could simply say that I used this fabulous free website, www.sparkpeople.com , and that would be true but not the whole truth. Weight loss is about more than counting calories, and working out consistently, it is about having the courage to feel. Feel the emotions you've actively avoided with food and feel the dimensions of your body as it is. And it takes faith, faith that a change is happening that may still remain unseen, faith that this seemingly impossible vision can be a possibility for you.
The thing about weight loss is that losing weight isn't enough to keep you at it. Frequently there are stretches of time during which no weight is lost, so what kept me there? I fell in love with the energy of activity. I fell in love with the movement, with the internal stirring of life that comes from exercise, and the feeling of self love which comes from doing the thing that is good for you, and the pride and sense of accomplishment that comes from doing a difficult thing, and most wonderful, the freedom and openness that comes from doing the thing you thought wasn't meant for you, that was impossible for you to do.
But friend, there are days when none of that is enough, I call them eatin' days. These are days when these wonderful feelings, even all the weight I lost is simply not what I want. Some days I need to rest in the quiet comfortable place of old patterns.. and I overeat to the point of pain, like the old days. And sister, brother, it is good! It is good to allow that slack. A friend and teacher once said, the God of Compassion is a God of Slack. I want to be a God of compassion for myself. And I allow myself the old choice, but this time I feel it differently. I experience the crazy feeling of eating until you are in pain and all the enjoyment is lost, I experience the feeling of sleepiness and not wanting to move, and the shame of a food addiction, and the highs when food is brought to the table and the lows when the food is gone, and the moment is gone and I've done it again. But glory to the old choice. Because immediately, I remember what made me make a different choice. I feel the old feelings, I remember that the pain of overeating was my reality, and I get re-affirmed in the choice to not have that be my reality again, but maybe only a passing reminder of how far I have come.
I frequently have eatin' days when the reality of my success becomes clear. When I started this process, I weighed 237 lbs, and I set a goal of 160 lbs. As of yesterday I weighed 161 lbs, and shortly after stepping off the scale I felt the fear of success and yesterday became an eatin' day. I cannot describe to you the fear that comes when your vision becomes reality, when the feeling of your body is different from the body you have known most of your life, when your concept of yourself meets fewer limits and more becomes possible to you than you allowed to be possible before. I got scared because the walls which felt like my shelter from the world fell away, and all I had was open air and space to grow, and I needed to feel the walls again. I needed to know myself in an old way again. I needed the old comfort of a familiar thing, even if it hurt. And I ate until it hurt yesterday, to hold back the reality that I could be anything I want to be and life can be more than I have know.
It is a process, mixed with resistance and excitement and fear of failure and success. It is a negotiation of feeling and unwillingness to feel. And it is good. It is not about being perfect, being the model of wellness. I do not get it "right" all the time. And no one needs to. First, it is just about being conscious that you have a choice and you are making one, and seeing if you can be compassionate with your choice, no matter what you choose to do. See if you can see what the choice feels like, what are you feeling as you play out that choice. If it doesn't feel good, consider that there is a different choice, and that is where www.sparkpeople.com comes in. You need information and support. Check it out. Just learn what is also an option. And just keep making your choices, meal by meal, day by day. And allow the old choice with compassion if you are able. This process involves a lot of fear, and sometimes you just need the old security blanket, and it is ok. You are still lovable.
You don't have to get it perfect to lose weight, you just have to make the new choice more often than the old one. More frequently than you have made it before. And see if you can enjoy the process. See if you can feel your energy changing. Your energy feels different almost immediately, it's the new energy that shapes the body. Notice it. Notice if you feel different to yourself. And allow the fear that comes, it's ok, and allow the excitement that comes, it is wonderful. And slowly, the body changes. And you see muscles and bones you've never seen before, and your clothes start to sag around your hips, and you live in between for a time, you live between a past and future experience of your body, not fully landing anywhere, just moving through. Just keep riding the new energy you make with the new choice, with the exercise, with the food choices. Focus on your experience in the moment, and have compassion.
On exercise:
- The wonderful thing about it is that at best, it is exciting and energizing and you feel your energy changing in the moment, at worst, it is only horrible for as long as it lasts. The rest of the day will feel so good, physically and spiritually and emotionally. Set little goals and take great pride in them.
-No extremes, don't be a one hour warrior who wears herself out so much that she cannot/ will not work out again for a week. Try 5 min first. It is a success.
-See if you can really feel what you are feeling through the work out. Go into the discomfort of it, instead of pushing it aside and zoning out, or zone out.. it's all ok.
-The hardest part is starting, just stepping onto the treadmill is a success.
Yesterday I came too close to success and I needed to stop, so I stopped. I needed a break, and I took a break. And today I get to make a choice. Every day I get to make a choice anew. And I get to love myself through it, whatever I choose. I get to love myself anyway. Whatever my body looks like, whatever experience I have, I am lovable.
I was afraid of losing myself with the weight. I was afraid of loss. I can tell you, I did not lose any part of me. I became clearer. The ME of me became less muddled and bulky. I am here. Clearer and more defined. I am not lost. I am here and I have more energy and more willingness and less fear of life. I know the weight was a barrier to life, I was afraid of the world, and I felt that I needed a buffer. When I committed to making boundaries, expressing my needs and my limits and honoring them, I felt safer to let my physical boundary go. I showed up as an adult for myself, with more willingness to be clear about my needs and more willingness to feel knowing that feelings are just feelings and cannot hurt. The point is, we need to feel safe in the world, and anything we can do to support ourselves in feeling safe will help us to let go of our physical guard of excess weight. It is safe to feel and you have the right to boundaries, speak up, and tell people when things aren't ok, you will still be loved if you do.
The process of losing weight happens long before the first pound is lost. It is a negotiation with trust in yourself and in the world. Be gentle with yourself. It can be done and the reality of that statement is a scary and wonderful thing. Have courage and have faith in yourself and your process and have compassion and self love. You are lovable no matter what.
The thing about weight loss is that losing weight isn't enough to keep you at it. Frequently there are stretches of time during which no weight is lost, so what kept me there? I fell in love with the energy of activity. I fell in love with the movement, with the internal stirring of life that comes from exercise, and the feeling of self love which comes from doing the thing that is good for you, and the pride and sense of accomplishment that comes from doing a difficult thing, and most wonderful, the freedom and openness that comes from doing the thing you thought wasn't meant for you, that was impossible for you to do.
But friend, there are days when none of that is enough, I call them eatin' days. These are days when these wonderful feelings, even all the weight I lost is simply not what I want. Some days I need to rest in the quiet comfortable place of old patterns.. and I overeat to the point of pain, like the old days. And sister, brother, it is good! It is good to allow that slack. A friend and teacher once said, the God of Compassion is a God of Slack. I want to be a God of compassion for myself. And I allow myself the old choice, but this time I feel it differently. I experience the crazy feeling of eating until you are in pain and all the enjoyment is lost, I experience the feeling of sleepiness and not wanting to move, and the shame of a food addiction, and the highs when food is brought to the table and the lows when the food is gone, and the moment is gone and I've done it again. But glory to the old choice. Because immediately, I remember what made me make a different choice. I feel the old feelings, I remember that the pain of overeating was my reality, and I get re-affirmed in the choice to not have that be my reality again, but maybe only a passing reminder of how far I have come.
I frequently have eatin' days when the reality of my success becomes clear. When I started this process, I weighed 237 lbs, and I set a goal of 160 lbs. As of yesterday I weighed 161 lbs, and shortly after stepping off the scale I felt the fear of success and yesterday became an eatin' day. I cannot describe to you the fear that comes when your vision becomes reality, when the feeling of your body is different from the body you have known most of your life, when your concept of yourself meets fewer limits and more becomes possible to you than you allowed to be possible before. I got scared because the walls which felt like my shelter from the world fell away, and all I had was open air and space to grow, and I needed to feel the walls again. I needed to know myself in an old way again. I needed the old comfort of a familiar thing, even if it hurt. And I ate until it hurt yesterday, to hold back the reality that I could be anything I want to be and life can be more than I have know.
It is a process, mixed with resistance and excitement and fear of failure and success. It is a negotiation of feeling and unwillingness to feel. And it is good. It is not about being perfect, being the model of wellness. I do not get it "right" all the time. And no one needs to. First, it is just about being conscious that you have a choice and you are making one, and seeing if you can be compassionate with your choice, no matter what you choose to do. See if you can see what the choice feels like, what are you feeling as you play out that choice. If it doesn't feel good, consider that there is a different choice, and that is where www.sparkpeople.com comes in. You need information and support. Check it out. Just learn what is also an option. And just keep making your choices, meal by meal, day by day. And allow the old choice with compassion if you are able. This process involves a lot of fear, and sometimes you just need the old security blanket, and it is ok. You are still lovable.
You don't have to get it perfect to lose weight, you just have to make the new choice more often than the old one. More frequently than you have made it before. And see if you can enjoy the process. See if you can feel your energy changing. Your energy feels different almost immediately, it's the new energy that shapes the body. Notice it. Notice if you feel different to yourself. And allow the fear that comes, it's ok, and allow the excitement that comes, it is wonderful. And slowly, the body changes. And you see muscles and bones you've never seen before, and your clothes start to sag around your hips, and you live in between for a time, you live between a past and future experience of your body, not fully landing anywhere, just moving through. Just keep riding the new energy you make with the new choice, with the exercise, with the food choices. Focus on your experience in the moment, and have compassion.
On exercise:
- The wonderful thing about it is that at best, it is exciting and energizing and you feel your energy changing in the moment, at worst, it is only horrible for as long as it lasts. The rest of the day will feel so good, physically and spiritually and emotionally. Set little goals and take great pride in them.
-No extremes, don't be a one hour warrior who wears herself out so much that she cannot/ will not work out again for a week. Try 5 min first. It is a success.
-See if you can really feel what you are feeling through the work out. Go into the discomfort of it, instead of pushing it aside and zoning out, or zone out.. it's all ok.
-The hardest part is starting, just stepping onto the treadmill is a success.
Yesterday I came too close to success and I needed to stop, so I stopped. I needed a break, and I took a break. And today I get to make a choice. Every day I get to make a choice anew. And I get to love myself through it, whatever I choose. I get to love myself anyway. Whatever my body looks like, whatever experience I have, I am lovable.
I was afraid of losing myself with the weight. I was afraid of loss. I can tell you, I did not lose any part of me. I became clearer. The ME of me became less muddled and bulky. I am here. Clearer and more defined. I am not lost. I am here and I have more energy and more willingness and less fear of life. I know the weight was a barrier to life, I was afraid of the world, and I felt that I needed a buffer. When I committed to making boundaries, expressing my needs and my limits and honoring them, I felt safer to let my physical boundary go. I showed up as an adult for myself, with more willingness to be clear about my needs and more willingness to feel knowing that feelings are just feelings and cannot hurt. The point is, we need to feel safe in the world, and anything we can do to support ourselves in feeling safe will help us to let go of our physical guard of excess weight. It is safe to feel and you have the right to boundaries, speak up, and tell people when things aren't ok, you will still be loved if you do.
The process of losing weight happens long before the first pound is lost. It is a negotiation with trust in yourself and in the world. Be gentle with yourself. It can be done and the reality of that statement is a scary and wonderful thing. Have courage and have faith in yourself and your process and have compassion and self love. You are lovable no matter what.
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
On the Judgment Day, A Poem
Despite everything,
I believe that in the end,
when we show god what we made,
she will accept it like a gift and put it on the refrigerator.
And she will tell us to stand tall
and she will mark our growth on the door frame
and pretend not to notice when we stand on our toes.
Because she knows that by inches we ascend.
Mother, I wear your pencil marks
like crowns I am forever outgrowing and growing into.
And if one day I reach your height,
I’ll watch over my brothers and sisters while you rest
and at your bedside I will kiss your forehead
and hold your hand and pray
“world without end, world without end, world without end…”
Amen.
Unrefined
It feels like a long time since I had written last. How can I tell you about the in between times in a succinct way? Life is full of in between times. Long successions of moments about which you don't have much to say. Which isn't to say they aren't rich in meaning, or eventful, just that you haven't found the words to talk about those moments yet.
They are still resting in a nebulous glob of experience, unprocessed, unrefined into coherent thoughts. Sometimes things are better appreciated when left unrefined. Sometimes moments feels dishonored by the words they get reduced down to. Sometimes silence is just right. But it doesn't translate well into a blog.
I suppose it reads like apathy or abandonment or what ever silence signifies to an anonymous reader who takes some pleasure (i hope) in reading. I wonder who is reading. Often this just feels like I am skipping stones over a vast lake. Frequently the stones don't feel like they skip very far, and they don't make very much of an impact on anything. And even more frequently I'd have you know, the stones never leave my hand. In this span of time I have written and deleted so many posts. It has been a study in what I want the world to know about me. How willing I am to be vulnerable, or less than brilliant. As it turns out, I am not very willing to be either, at least not in this medium. One never knows who is reading. And as a human being in the world, not a minister or a woman or whatever else, but just as a human, I am still experimenting with the idea of trust. As I write, I feel the gentle hope that where ever my words land, they will find a soft place to rest.
So what can I tell you about the space between those words and these. The last post and this one. I can tell you about those moments when you feel like you are riding something bigger than you, like something big is leading, and your willingness and lightness allows you to just float with it. I can tell you about the scary and beautiful places that willingness takes you. I can tell you how it always seems to take you back into yourself, into your own yearnings and fears, and that I just lately discovered the amazing division between what life is and what I experience it as, and I am just starting to learn about the life outside of my experience. The life so big that it accommodates all experience. And I am just starting to get in a choosing way about my experience of life. Like a lucid dream. I get to choose. I have learned the power of intentions and how just being clear with myself about the experience I hope to have will help me to have it. I have learned how amazing my work is. I have learned that frequently my work takes place at moments outside of time and space, at thresholds, and my work is to build the doorway and offer people the opportunity to walk through. And when they choose to, it is enough to bring me to my knees with joy, with excitement. When a couple really shows up on their wedding day, looks into each others eyes and says "I do" it is a moment outside of time. It is a moment during which something unquestionable has changed and everyone in the room is different for having experienced it. And by the end, we have all walked through together, and we are somewhere else now. I help make doorways, but I can't make anyone walk through. And many times, people aren't ready to walk through. The door stays closed.
But reader I wish you were there the moment that a little baby, during her baby blessing finds the doorway I have made for her and slips right in. She may not know how to walk but children know how to navigate passages. They know how to chase the light until they see still brighter light. They haven't learned to be afraid of growing or feeling or living, and with such ease they move right through, into a deeper experience of life, into the blessing someone has made, into the crescent arms of whoever is nurturing and near. They know trust like I can't remember having.
I know how to make doorways, and I know how to hold the roofbeams high enough to support them and make the room wide enough and the time slow enough to let you walk through in your time. But I know well, from experience, it isn't always your time. There are many doorways I have passed by myself. Not ready and not willing is its own gift and its own blessing, especially when you just allow yourself to be that.
But lately, I have been more willing than I remember. And for a while I felt like my whole life felt like a series of doors opening to more doors never leading me to any room. Now I have found a room and from here I write to you to tell you where I have been, and unfortunately I only have these vague words to tell you.
I can tell you I have faced so many little fears, and come through to find the leash I have made for myself has become a little longer than before, I have allowed myself to experience more of the world, farther away from the range I have known.
Do you remember the last time you were in the ocean? Do you remember feeling like you were at the mercy of it, like by its grace you lived or died? Did you feel reverence for it, and did you feel blessed when you felt the waves move gently over you, knowing they could just as easily knock you over? Did you ever feel like the whole ocean was watching out for you, like the whole universe was making a way for you, like there was something like love in the little grains of sand that chose to stick to your legs and feet and then hide in your rolled pant legs just so they could take the ride back home with you? Did you ever feel in relationship with the world? With a pigeon as it crosses before you as you stop for its crossing, with the rain when it comes at the moment when your spirit just needs the rain to come and make everything outside moist and quiet? The whole sky makes rain for the grass to drink. The sky makes rain for my spirit to feel safe, for the sound it makes that makes me feel at home, for the gratitude I feel for being warm and dry when so much is wet and cold. Cared for by the world. What an experience. And maybe not everything is cared for, and that feels complicated and dreadful, but I know well enough to appreciate when I feel cared for and to take it in the way the roots do rain.
What else can I tell you? I can tell you how hard it is to write after not writing. I can tell you how hard it is to keep writing when I don't feel like I am saying much at all. I wonder if I have said anything that gives you pleasure. I am thinking of you now reader, reading this at the hour and minute that you are reading it, I am thinking of you and considering you and considering what we might have in common. If I had told you these experiences? Could you have told me similar ones? I wonder, are we aligned in some way? Do I make sense to you? What do we share between us? What is at the core, what is the skeleton of our spirit that we can agree upon and then continue on to shape our meat around? What can be said that no one can deny? What unites us? Does anything reader? Tell me, where can I reach out from my self and find you reaching out from yourself?
Maybe through these simple rambling insecure notes. Maybe you have written ones like these and left them out for someone else to read and makes sense of. What is the meaning of all of this? What does it mean to seek for meaning? What is it your hoping to define? In my teenage years I had the urge to title everything I wrote "untitled" like "damn the man!, I won't have your descriptions." But I am older now and my descriptions feed and clothe and shelter me. What am I if I am not a minister? I am unemployed, and some of my biggest commitments and passions have no outlet and I am lost. I am blissfully defined. But self defined. And maybe that was what I intended from the beginning, what all my angsty poems tended toward, self definition. With me at the center of my experience, as an authority on myself. Brilliant. To think that all that angst held a deep lesson in it... the value of self creation, definition, and ultimately self acceptance.
So now I am being asked to accept my muddled self expression here, in this blog. I've no idea what I have been going on about and maybe I am ok with not knowing. Maybe I am ok with being incoherent. Maybe I am still acceptable and good, even when I can't offer precise words on a clear topic. Maybe I am still worth reading and hearing and maybe I am still valuable and worthy as I am. And if I am, then you must be too. Let's have that in common. Allow me to accept my ramblings and lay them out like dirty raw gold and I'll let you love yours, and present them to me in their jagged dirty fashion. And we can just be that unrefined thing together. A thing just fresh out of silence. Still searching for the meaning and purpose of words. Looking for a way to connect.
They are still resting in a nebulous glob of experience, unprocessed, unrefined into coherent thoughts. Sometimes things are better appreciated when left unrefined. Sometimes moments feels dishonored by the words they get reduced down to. Sometimes silence is just right. But it doesn't translate well into a blog.
I suppose it reads like apathy or abandonment or what ever silence signifies to an anonymous reader who takes some pleasure (i hope) in reading. I wonder who is reading. Often this just feels like I am skipping stones over a vast lake. Frequently the stones don't feel like they skip very far, and they don't make very much of an impact on anything. And even more frequently I'd have you know, the stones never leave my hand. In this span of time I have written and deleted so many posts. It has been a study in what I want the world to know about me. How willing I am to be vulnerable, or less than brilliant. As it turns out, I am not very willing to be either, at least not in this medium. One never knows who is reading. And as a human being in the world, not a minister or a woman or whatever else, but just as a human, I am still experimenting with the idea of trust. As I write, I feel the gentle hope that where ever my words land, they will find a soft place to rest.
So what can I tell you about the space between those words and these. The last post and this one. I can tell you about those moments when you feel like you are riding something bigger than you, like something big is leading, and your willingness and lightness allows you to just float with it. I can tell you about the scary and beautiful places that willingness takes you. I can tell you how it always seems to take you back into yourself, into your own yearnings and fears, and that I just lately discovered the amazing division between what life is and what I experience it as, and I am just starting to learn about the life outside of my experience. The life so big that it accommodates all experience. And I am just starting to get in a choosing way about my experience of life. Like a lucid dream. I get to choose. I have learned the power of intentions and how just being clear with myself about the experience I hope to have will help me to have it. I have learned how amazing my work is. I have learned that frequently my work takes place at moments outside of time and space, at thresholds, and my work is to build the doorway and offer people the opportunity to walk through. And when they choose to, it is enough to bring me to my knees with joy, with excitement. When a couple really shows up on their wedding day, looks into each others eyes and says "I do" it is a moment outside of time. It is a moment during which something unquestionable has changed and everyone in the room is different for having experienced it. And by the end, we have all walked through together, and we are somewhere else now. I help make doorways, but I can't make anyone walk through. And many times, people aren't ready to walk through. The door stays closed.
But reader I wish you were there the moment that a little baby, during her baby blessing finds the doorway I have made for her and slips right in. She may not know how to walk but children know how to navigate passages. They know how to chase the light until they see still brighter light. They haven't learned to be afraid of growing or feeling or living, and with such ease they move right through, into a deeper experience of life, into the blessing someone has made, into the crescent arms of whoever is nurturing and near. They know trust like I can't remember having.
I know how to make doorways, and I know how to hold the roofbeams high enough to support them and make the room wide enough and the time slow enough to let you walk through in your time. But I know well, from experience, it isn't always your time. There are many doorways I have passed by myself. Not ready and not willing is its own gift and its own blessing, especially when you just allow yourself to be that.
But lately, I have been more willing than I remember. And for a while I felt like my whole life felt like a series of doors opening to more doors never leading me to any room. Now I have found a room and from here I write to you to tell you where I have been, and unfortunately I only have these vague words to tell you.
I can tell you I have faced so many little fears, and come through to find the leash I have made for myself has become a little longer than before, I have allowed myself to experience more of the world, farther away from the range I have known.
Do you remember the last time you were in the ocean? Do you remember feeling like you were at the mercy of it, like by its grace you lived or died? Did you feel reverence for it, and did you feel blessed when you felt the waves move gently over you, knowing they could just as easily knock you over? Did you ever feel like the whole ocean was watching out for you, like the whole universe was making a way for you, like there was something like love in the little grains of sand that chose to stick to your legs and feet and then hide in your rolled pant legs just so they could take the ride back home with you? Did you ever feel in relationship with the world? With a pigeon as it crosses before you as you stop for its crossing, with the rain when it comes at the moment when your spirit just needs the rain to come and make everything outside moist and quiet? The whole sky makes rain for the grass to drink. The sky makes rain for my spirit to feel safe, for the sound it makes that makes me feel at home, for the gratitude I feel for being warm and dry when so much is wet and cold. Cared for by the world. What an experience. And maybe not everything is cared for, and that feels complicated and dreadful, but I know well enough to appreciate when I feel cared for and to take it in the way the roots do rain.
What else can I tell you? I can tell you how hard it is to write after not writing. I can tell you how hard it is to keep writing when I don't feel like I am saying much at all. I wonder if I have said anything that gives you pleasure. I am thinking of you now reader, reading this at the hour and minute that you are reading it, I am thinking of you and considering you and considering what we might have in common. If I had told you these experiences? Could you have told me similar ones? I wonder, are we aligned in some way? Do I make sense to you? What do we share between us? What is at the core, what is the skeleton of our spirit that we can agree upon and then continue on to shape our meat around? What can be said that no one can deny? What unites us? Does anything reader? Tell me, where can I reach out from my self and find you reaching out from yourself?
Maybe through these simple rambling insecure notes. Maybe you have written ones like these and left them out for someone else to read and makes sense of. What is the meaning of all of this? What does it mean to seek for meaning? What is it your hoping to define? In my teenage years I had the urge to title everything I wrote "untitled" like "damn the man!, I won't have your descriptions." But I am older now and my descriptions feed and clothe and shelter me. What am I if I am not a minister? I am unemployed, and some of my biggest commitments and passions have no outlet and I am lost. I am blissfully defined. But self defined. And maybe that was what I intended from the beginning, what all my angsty poems tended toward, self definition. With me at the center of my experience, as an authority on myself. Brilliant. To think that all that angst held a deep lesson in it... the value of self creation, definition, and ultimately self acceptance.
So now I am being asked to accept my muddled self expression here, in this blog. I've no idea what I have been going on about and maybe I am ok with not knowing. Maybe I am ok with being incoherent. Maybe I am still acceptable and good, even when I can't offer precise words on a clear topic. Maybe I am still worth reading and hearing and maybe I am still valuable and worthy as I am. And if I am, then you must be too. Let's have that in common. Allow me to accept my ramblings and lay them out like dirty raw gold and I'll let you love yours, and present them to me in their jagged dirty fashion. And we can just be that unrefined thing together. A thing just fresh out of silence. Still searching for the meaning and purpose of words. Looking for a way to connect.
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
Marriage Equality in NY
And in all the celebration and joy, I nearly forgot that hate itself was not conquered, just quieted, in this place, so that loving became the louder sound.
But I know that elsewhere love still speaks quietly in dark places, I know that even in NY, hate can be loud as gunshots sometimes.
But we will celebrate, because love is powerful, and it overcame something so big I didn't think I would ever be able to see around it. So we celebrate. And we speak our pronouncements (I now pronounce you..) like incantations against the space/time when they could not be spoken. Or like little prayers to protect a small, sacred thing,. "I now pronounce you...." Like the way a new mother pronounces her baby's name for the first time. "Wife and Wife." "Husband and Husband." Amen.
I believe in love. I believe in love the way I believe in air, a soft thing I can't always sense, but a necessary thing without which there is just empty space between separate beings. I need love to connect it all, to be the fascia of the divine body, the substance that allows commerce between us. I believe that love must be there, at the bottom of everything, between two people, any two people, when the eyes are open and clear enough, I believe there must be love. Love being a kind of subtle recognition of a common thing. There must be that recognition. And dear God, let there be a common thing to recognize. There must be a unifying love. Or else I don't know anything at all.
Sometimes, when I hear old hate in this new time, it makes me feel like I don't know anything at all. How can you argue a simple thing? How can you explain that your body is fiber and marrow enough to be called a human body and that your spirit is full of God enough to love the God unfurled on your bedsheets?
I believe in love. I believe in celebrating love, after a long fight for love. And I know it is not over, not until our love is no longer a controversial thing. Not until our equality is a simple truth rather than a political stance. When our love can just be love, then we can fully lay down our sword and shield. But what has happened means something.
There used to be a mountain here.
In this place, in this time, we have worn it down.
So let's enjoy the soft sand we have made.
But I know that elsewhere love still speaks quietly in dark places, I know that even in NY, hate can be loud as gunshots sometimes.
But we will celebrate, because love is powerful, and it overcame something so big I didn't think I would ever be able to see around it. So we celebrate. And we speak our pronouncements (I now pronounce you..) like incantations against the space/time when they could not be spoken. Or like little prayers to protect a small, sacred thing,. "I now pronounce you...." Like the way a new mother pronounces her baby's name for the first time. "Wife and Wife." "Husband and Husband." Amen.
I believe in love. I believe in love the way I believe in air, a soft thing I can't always sense, but a necessary thing without which there is just empty space between separate beings. I need love to connect it all, to be the fascia of the divine body, the substance that allows commerce between us. I believe that love must be there, at the bottom of everything, between two people, any two people, when the eyes are open and clear enough, I believe there must be love. Love being a kind of subtle recognition of a common thing. There must be that recognition. And dear God, let there be a common thing to recognize. There must be a unifying love. Or else I don't know anything at all.
Sometimes, when I hear old hate in this new time, it makes me feel like I don't know anything at all. How can you argue a simple thing? How can you explain that your body is fiber and marrow enough to be called a human body and that your spirit is full of God enough to love the God unfurled on your bedsheets?
I believe in love. I believe in celebrating love, after a long fight for love. And I know it is not over, not until our love is no longer a controversial thing. Not until our equality is a simple truth rather than a political stance. When our love can just be love, then we can fully lay down our sword and shield. But what has happened means something.
There used to be a mountain here.
In this place, in this time, we have worn it down.
So let's enjoy the soft sand we have made.
Monday, July 18, 2011
A Short Sermon
I don’t have access to an ounce more wisdom or truth than you do. I don’t know what happens when we die, I don’t know why we are here, and I don’t know if anything matters. But sometimes things feel true, or sometimes I hear something that I really want to be true, and so I believe it. And maybe I stand up and talk about these things, the things that feel true to me. But I am not that certain. I just invested my life in a few beliefs that might give it meaning, and for the sake of my investment, for the sake of feeling like something more than an empty passing occurrence on this earth, I hold on to my beliefs. But I don’t really know. And that is why I am Interfaith, I believe in the equality of the beliefs we choose to give ourselves meaning. I believe in the equal ability of all people to access what truth is for themselves.
I don’t need to be here. You don’t need me here to tell you what my truth is. You have truth of your own, go find that and you stand here. My truth is equal to yours. You don’t need a stole, and if you do, you can borrow mine. A stole doesn’t make you a minister. If you want to be a minister, speak your truth and get out of the way for other people to find and speak theirs. The history of the world is not a one woman show. Each of us says a few things, does a few things then lets someone else take the stage. Speak what you believe, the real truth of yourself as clearly as you can, then make room. God(dess) speaks through everything. Me speaking my truth can only be useful to you if it helps you to find your own truth.
The thing about truth, when you hear real truth, you feel it, it clarifies things, it clears the fog out of the room and you are left there, seeing what is really there and what is really there is you. You recognize yourself in truth, you feel truth in your body, it feels like there is more room for you to live. I am trying to make room for all of myself, and for you, room for all the ugly and the beautiful parts of you.
We have felt contracted for too long. We have lived on ideals and shoulds for so long that we have forgotten ourselves. We have felt like we have had to be something or do something. We have to be good people, we have to give to charity, we have to love and forgive everyone. You don’t have to be or do anything that isn’t true to you, and as a minister, I don’t have to be or do anything that isn’t true to me. I do not love everyone, it is hard for me to love even myself sometimes, I hold grudges and I give grudgingly. That’s my truth. You can judge me, but you will be judging yourself too because I know I am not the only one.
I just made room for that in me, and I am making room for that in you. I believe we have practiced so long at believing what isn’t there, at having faith in the unseen that we forgot to see and accept what is right in front of us, or in our bodies. Truth lets us make room for ourselves and when we make room for ourselves we make room for others too. Before you believe in the God that isn’t there, look for the God that is; the God of your body and the God manifesting as the person beside you. Close the bible and listen to the God reveling herself through another’s truth. Speak your truth like scripture. Your truth is equal to the truth that anyone has ever said or written. Your truth can set us free as much as the truth of Jesus or the Buddha. But don’t find the truth for us, find your truth for yourself.
We don’t need to learn something from someone else to survive. We have access to everything we need to know. We don’t need anyone else to tell us what is true, we know truth when we feel it. And when we have some truth, well that’s a gift that you can choose to share or keep to yourself. You don’t owe your truth to anybody, and you don’t need to hide your truth from anybody. I choose now to share my truth and pray that this truth leads forward the discovery and revelation of still more truth in each of you.
Let it be. Amen.
What is your name?
Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.
-Howard Thurman
Tonight, I am thinking about the sacred dreams for our lives that we hold close to our chests like newborn babies.
The ones that take courage to name.
Tell me the name of your dream. Come in close, whisper it to me. I will guard it like a little flame on a candle. I will offer you handfuls of kindling.
There is a thing uncrafted, a way not made, a wild unwritten thing I feel the aching loss of, and I think you know the thing. The thing we are missing, the thing that could make us all a little more whole inside.
I was raise on stories of things undone. Of time that moved too fast and circumstances that wore down at the life we had in mind, like the water that wears at rocks. Sister brother, I know the sound of your cannots, cannot was my first language. My first response to anything was a good reason for nothing. And I spoke fluently for years. I am ready to hear the names of things I have not heard. I am even now learning to speak the name of a thing myself.
I want to know the truth of you. Tell me who you were and what you did in that dream you didn't want to wake up from. Tell me the youness of you when you are proud. And I want to tell you the truth of me too. I want to be known. I want to be manifested like a revelation. And not just my hope for my life, it's bigger than that, it's my ((I am)) that I want to be known for.
There is a reason that God calls Him/Herself "I am." It's the most powerful thing we can say. It is the act of choosing to manifest yourself. It is ratifying the moment of your birth. It was the impulse to be that was so loud it made a Bang that made the whole universe. I see you there. What a miracle you are. Tell me your name and mean it.
According to hadith, God said "I was a hidden treasure, and I wished to be known, so I created a creation, then made Myself known to them, and they recognized Me."
I recognize something in you.
The divine impulse behind creation is the desire to be known. Everything in existence is God manifesting Her/Himself so that She/He might know Herself fully, in all the forms She could make. This is God playing out Her full potential. God learning about what She can be.
In Hinduism, there is the concept of Lila, God-play- the belief that everything in existence is just God playing.
The world is to be enjoyed. We are here to learn about our true nature, to manifest ourselves beautifully into anything we want to be. To be known, and to be loved by those who know, and to love the ones brave and trusting enough to be known by us. And not with solemnity, but with playfulness. All of this, somehow, is for the fun of it.We are here for the mere pleasure of being here. In this form, in this way, for a time, until we find ourselves expressing differently.
Getting to know someone is divine work. Letting yourself be seen is sacred. And behind and under it is that primal fear and anxiety- what if there isn't anything interesting to know, what if who I truly am is unlovable, what if I am not enough, as I am. Friend, you are everything, made perfectly. You are full of God. You are sacred as you are. Everything in the universe is enfolded in you. Be brave, have faith in the vastness of your being, and learn about your nature in everything you see. All God Godding. All You Youing. It is sufficient. It is enough.
So there's God, opening Her feathers like a peacock at a cocktail party, and here we are trying to contain our vastness in the little cavern of our bodies. There is a reason for the pressure pushing out of your chest, God is calling something into existence in you, through you. And sweet one, you are watching that television or blogging till dawn just to drown out the impulse to come alive, but coming alive is your nature, it is the desire imprinted in every atom of that sacred body of yours. And it is exhausting not to. As hard as the thing you are called to do may seem, stopping it from happening is harder.
Have you ever felt the easiness of being in the right place? Have you ever experienced the world making way for you? Everything coming into position to support you? I wish that for you. I believe you being you more fully will be easy. I believe you will feel everything get softer around you, maybe not all at once, maybe it will take a little time, but then you will realize, effortlessness. It is the gift that God gives to a piece of God that is riding the wave, in the flow, accepting itself.
But as it stands, there is a thing uncrafted, a way not made, a wild unwritten thing I have not read and I feel the yawning space of it. You have a piece, and we can't be whole without you. God broke Herself into pieces to see the shapes, to feel the pleasure of breaking open, to see what's inside. And you sister, you brother, are a piece. A piece of God that only you can manifest. And we are missing you. We are looking everywhere. Though you may not know it, though we may not know it, but I know. We are saving your place.
-Howard Thurman
Tonight, I am thinking about the sacred dreams for our lives that we hold close to our chests like newborn babies.
The ones that take courage to name.
Tell me the name of your dream. Come in close, whisper it to me. I will guard it like a little flame on a candle. I will offer you handfuls of kindling.
There is a thing uncrafted, a way not made, a wild unwritten thing I feel the aching loss of, and I think you know the thing. The thing we are missing, the thing that could make us all a little more whole inside.
I was raise on stories of things undone. Of time that moved too fast and circumstances that wore down at the life we had in mind, like the water that wears at rocks. Sister brother, I know the sound of your cannots, cannot was my first language. My first response to anything was a good reason for nothing. And I spoke fluently for years. I am ready to hear the names of things I have not heard. I am even now learning to speak the name of a thing myself.
I want to know the truth of you. Tell me who you were and what you did in that dream you didn't want to wake up from. Tell me the youness of you when you are proud. And I want to tell you the truth of me too. I want to be known. I want to be manifested like a revelation. And not just my hope for my life, it's bigger than that, it's my ((I am)) that I want to be known for.
There is a reason that God calls Him/Herself "I am." It's the most powerful thing we can say. It is the act of choosing to manifest yourself. It is ratifying the moment of your birth. It was the impulse to be that was so loud it made a Bang that made the whole universe. I see you there. What a miracle you are. Tell me your name and mean it.
According to hadith, God said "I was a hidden treasure, and I wished to be known, so I created a creation, then made Myself known to them, and they recognized Me."
I recognize something in you.
The divine impulse behind creation is the desire to be known. Everything in existence is God manifesting Her/Himself so that She/He might know Herself fully, in all the forms She could make. This is God playing out Her full potential. God learning about what She can be.
In Hinduism, there is the concept of Lila, God-play- the belief that everything in existence is just God playing.
The world is to be enjoyed. We are here to learn about our true nature, to manifest ourselves beautifully into anything we want to be. To be known, and to be loved by those who know, and to love the ones brave and trusting enough to be known by us. And not with solemnity, but with playfulness. All of this, somehow, is for the fun of it.We are here for the mere pleasure of being here. In this form, in this way, for a time, until we find ourselves expressing differently.
Getting to know someone is divine work. Letting yourself be seen is sacred. And behind and under it is that primal fear and anxiety- what if there isn't anything interesting to know, what if who I truly am is unlovable, what if I am not enough, as I am. Friend, you are everything, made perfectly. You are full of God. You are sacred as you are. Everything in the universe is enfolded in you. Be brave, have faith in the vastness of your being, and learn about your nature in everything you see. All God Godding. All You Youing. It is sufficient. It is enough.
So there's God, opening Her feathers like a peacock at a cocktail party, and here we are trying to contain our vastness in the little cavern of our bodies. There is a reason for the pressure pushing out of your chest, God is calling something into existence in you, through you. And sweet one, you are watching that television or blogging till dawn just to drown out the impulse to come alive, but coming alive is your nature, it is the desire imprinted in every atom of that sacred body of yours. And it is exhausting not to. As hard as the thing you are called to do may seem, stopping it from happening is harder.
Have you ever felt the easiness of being in the right place? Have you ever experienced the world making way for you? Everything coming into position to support you? I wish that for you. I believe you being you more fully will be easy. I believe you will feel everything get softer around you, maybe not all at once, maybe it will take a little time, but then you will realize, effortlessness. It is the gift that God gives to a piece of God that is riding the wave, in the flow, accepting itself.
But as it stands, there is a thing uncrafted, a way not made, a wild unwritten thing I have not read and I feel the yawning space of it. You have a piece, and we can't be whole without you. God broke Herself into pieces to see the shapes, to feel the pleasure of breaking open, to see what's inside. And you sister, you brother, are a piece. A piece of God that only you can manifest. And we are missing you. We are looking everywhere. Though you may not know it, though we may not know it, but I know. We are saving your place.
Life
Being a minister in the world is a strange thing. This week, I have written a Baby Blessing for my baby cousin, a Memorial Service for my Uncle, and a Wedding for a wonderful couple I met only a few days ago. As a minister, the grand events of life get juxtaposed in such a way that it can sometimes leave you speechless. What can you say to a child newly born, after writing a memorial for a man that died too young? It's hard to honor life as your life's work. How can there be professional distance when I am so implicated in all of it? There is always a part of a minister that gets married along with every couple, is reborn with every baby blessing, and comes to rest beside every casket. And so, this blog, although it is a professional blog, will also be personal. I celebrate and mourn with you. I walk with you, by your side.
Today I took my cat, Winter, out for some sun. And I took the baby blessing I was working on and sat with the intention of convincing a little baby that this world was the place to be. I wanted to tell her that this world is endlessly beautiful, and I believe it is, a lot of the time. And I wanted to tell her she would be surrounded by love all the days of her life. And God, I hope so. And this is how it goes, I write a sentence then pray for it to be true.
Just then I saw my little cat dart out of sight. I run over and find her furiously searching for something. Finally she catches some desperately squeaking thing in her teeth. I come to the center of my being, a kind of deep clarity comes over me, I feel I am witnessing some moment outside of speech and time- the moment that something dies. The moment that God plays out God's plan, or acts out Her own dark nature. The moment that a dark natural thing forcibly stops you from ignoring or forgetting its presence. And my cat seems to swagger or sashay, expressing her primal instinct to be proud of a freshly bleeding thing between her teeth. And I feel some kind of wisdom in it, in her so called senseless hunt. A wisdom that doesn't make sense to me but feels unquestionably true and therefore leaves me silent. There is wisdom in ferocity. I can't always understand, but I know when to be silent. I know when something vast and sacred is seeping out of a little furry thing now lying on the pavement. I know there is nothing to do but witness and wait. For a moment, I thought myself a hero, I thought myself very noble and considered ending its suffering. Me, the vegetarian, considering offering a lethal blow to what looked like an adorable little pointy nosed mouse. (Google, God(dess)'s manifestation of her all-knowingness, tells me it was a baby mole.) Me, Carri, Carolyn, Rev. Carolyn, the one who just yesterday, for the first time in her life, made an attempt to wack a bug, (a mosquito that has been feeding on her nightly), but intentionally missed, then promptly felt bad about even considering the venture and apologized to the alive and well bug intermittently for the succeeding half hour. So it was this courageous huntress who was consider finishing the job. After spinning around in place a few times, it became apparent that I was not the kind of person who "handled things" as the mosquito in my room can attest. And I decided instead, I was the kind of person who witnessed and honored and prayed,which I suspect is why I became a minister, rather than a marine. So I stretched out my hands over the little animal in the place that my cat had laid it. And I started offering it reiki energy. If I could not facilitate its healing, I prayed to facilitate its peaceful passing. Shortly, the little heaves of dying stopped and the sweet little one came to rest, as my cat and I looked on with reverence. My cat understood the game had ended, and regarded its ending with watchful and gentle silence. There is something primal about honoring death. So there laid this little baby animal, at rest. And I took my cat indoors, and I was still confused by how she could hold such gentleness and sweetness beside her senseless violence.
And so, in the middle of writing a Baby Blessing, I paused to create a funeral. I dug a hole beneath a tree, and laid the body down in it. I directed divine light to it, and cried, and prayed that it felt peace and love, and cried, and recited a poem from memory and cried. There is never a last final perfect thing to say. There is nothing one could say that would make one ready to cover over a little grave. So I cobbled together some feeble, well-intended words and resigned myself to the smallness of myself in the vastness of the thing that just happened and keeps happening, everywhere. As a minister, sometimes I feel like I am throwing words into vast dark spaces, as if the spaces are listening, as if I can make them brighter with my speaking. The truth is, there isn't anything I could have said that was more true and more loving than the attentive silence I offered at the moment of its passing. Attentive silence means so much. So I covered over the little grave and placed a freshly cut flower on it. I believe in marking the place, I believe in saying, the body of a once living thing rests here, no matter how small it is. I believe in honoring life.
And so I come indoors, and finish writing a baby blessing. Telling a baby about the beauty of the world. Not about its fairness, or its comprehensibility, but about its beauty, about God(dess) manifesting as the people around her. God(dess) manifesting as her. And I pray silently, in between the lines, that the God that manifests is a gentle one, a loving one, not the one that rummages through dead leaves looking for a living thing, but the one that snuggles beside you at night, and nuzzles you awake at dawn. I pray for softness for her, and for all of us. I pray for gentleness, and kindness. Beneath it all, I pray for attentive silence. Silence in which we can manifest ourselves, vulnerably, softly. Silence in which we can speak the best that we know and pray that it is true. Thank you for the silence of this blank space in which I can write. I pray it brings us peace.
Today I took my cat, Winter, out for some sun. And I took the baby blessing I was working on and sat with the intention of convincing a little baby that this world was the place to be. I wanted to tell her that this world is endlessly beautiful, and I believe it is, a lot of the time. And I wanted to tell her she would be surrounded by love all the days of her life. And God, I hope so. And this is how it goes, I write a sentence then pray for it to be true.
Just then I saw my little cat dart out of sight. I run over and find her furiously searching for something. Finally she catches some desperately squeaking thing in her teeth. I come to the center of my being, a kind of deep clarity comes over me, I feel I am witnessing some moment outside of speech and time- the moment that something dies. The moment that God plays out God's plan, or acts out Her own dark nature. The moment that a dark natural thing forcibly stops you from ignoring or forgetting its presence. And my cat seems to swagger or sashay, expressing her primal instinct to be proud of a freshly bleeding thing between her teeth. And I feel some kind of wisdom in it, in her so called senseless hunt. A wisdom that doesn't make sense to me but feels unquestionably true and therefore leaves me silent. There is wisdom in ferocity. I can't always understand, but I know when to be silent. I know when something vast and sacred is seeping out of a little furry thing now lying on the pavement. I know there is nothing to do but witness and wait. For a moment, I thought myself a hero, I thought myself very noble and considered ending its suffering. Me, the vegetarian, considering offering a lethal blow to what looked like an adorable little pointy nosed mouse. (Google, God(dess)'s manifestation of her all-knowingness, tells me it was a baby mole.) Me, Carri, Carolyn, Rev. Carolyn, the one who just yesterday, for the first time in her life, made an attempt to wack a bug, (a mosquito that has been feeding on her nightly), but intentionally missed, then promptly felt bad about even considering the venture and apologized to the alive and well bug intermittently for the succeeding half hour. So it was this courageous huntress who was consider finishing the job. After spinning around in place a few times, it became apparent that I was not the kind of person who "handled things" as the mosquito in my room can attest. And I decided instead, I was the kind of person who witnessed and honored and prayed,which I suspect is why I became a minister, rather than a marine. So I stretched out my hands over the little animal in the place that my cat had laid it. And I started offering it reiki energy. If I could not facilitate its healing, I prayed to facilitate its peaceful passing. Shortly, the little heaves of dying stopped and the sweet little one came to rest, as my cat and I looked on with reverence. My cat understood the game had ended, and regarded its ending with watchful and gentle silence. There is something primal about honoring death. So there laid this little baby animal, at rest. And I took my cat indoors, and I was still confused by how she could hold such gentleness and sweetness beside her senseless violence.
And so, in the middle of writing a Baby Blessing, I paused to create a funeral. I dug a hole beneath a tree, and laid the body down in it. I directed divine light to it, and cried, and prayed that it felt peace and love, and cried, and recited a poem from memory and cried. There is never a last final perfect thing to say. There is nothing one could say that would make one ready to cover over a little grave. So I cobbled together some feeble, well-intended words and resigned myself to the smallness of myself in the vastness of the thing that just happened and keeps happening, everywhere. As a minister, sometimes I feel like I am throwing words into vast dark spaces, as if the spaces are listening, as if I can make them brighter with my speaking. The truth is, there isn't anything I could have said that was more true and more loving than the attentive silence I offered at the moment of its passing. Attentive silence means so much. So I covered over the little grave and placed a freshly cut flower on it. I believe in marking the place, I believe in saying, the body of a once living thing rests here, no matter how small it is. I believe in honoring life.
And so I come indoors, and finish writing a baby blessing. Telling a baby about the beauty of the world. Not about its fairness, or its comprehensibility, but about its beauty, about God(dess) manifesting as the people around her. God(dess) manifesting as her. And I pray silently, in between the lines, that the God that manifests is a gentle one, a loving one, not the one that rummages through dead leaves looking for a living thing, but the one that snuggles beside you at night, and nuzzles you awake at dawn. I pray for softness for her, and for all of us. I pray for gentleness, and kindness. Beneath it all, I pray for attentive silence. Silence in which we can manifest ourselves, vulnerably, softly. Silence in which we can speak the best that we know and pray that it is true. Thank you for the silence of this blank space in which I can write. I pray it brings us peace.
Wednesday, July 6, 2011
Same-sex couples marry for free!
To reserve a time for your 15-minute ceremony please contact Rev. Annie (revannielawrence@gmail.com, 917-620-6307) or Rev. Will (revwillmercer@gmail.com, 646-753-2959).
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