Behind the teen’s question, “How do I know that what I see as blue is the same as what you see as blue?” is a fear, a fear that there are no words to bridge the chasm between my inner experience and yours. “What if every time I see blue, it looks like yellow looks to you?” We will never know, and so we live side by side, you seeing yellow and calling it blue, and me wanting to believe that we understand each other and see the same thing.
This past week, I told someone I am just starting to know something
personal about myself. Nothing big and no big deal, I thought.
Today, I heard their take on my words and jarringly realized that what I had offered as a clearer glimpse into who I am had instead distorted how this person sees me. Being misunderstood in this way makes me a bit sad.
So much of our inner experience cannot be described and add to that all the layers of story revealing who we really are and it’s a wonder that we ever have those magical encounters of feeling truly seen, truly heard by someone new.
What if it wasn’t so rare and instead we learned how to see past idiosyncrasies, personality differences and into each other’s story in such a way that reveals the beauty of their humanness? I’ll tell you, it’s so easy as a spiritual director to see the beauty of each person who sits in my office and tells me their story. So easy!
And then I go out into the world and sometimes struggle to hear in that way, to see with love.
Feeling sad today about being misunderstood makes me wonder
about all the times I have misunderstood others and caused them to feel distorted,
unseen, unheard.
There are countless ways to interpret a person’s words and what you call blue may be my yellow. But if you are telling me something about yourself, I hope to interpret with an aim to meet you in your inner experience and see the beauty in who you are.
I’m very slowly making my way through the book It Didn’t Start with You by Mark Wolynn about how family trauma is passed down through generations.
Did you know that when mice are given an electric shock (mean scientists, I know) every time they smell cherry blossoms, their descendants TWO generations later will jump at that smell – even though it was only their grandparents who experienced that trauma! Lots of other real life human examples too (but that one intrigued me.)
Then I think about the state of our world -and how maybe all the unresolved family and ancestral trauma everyone’s lugging around is reaching a boiling point.
Would the world be different if more of us took responsibility for healing the wounds of our own families? Connecting with the family spirits – living or dead, imagining what we know of their lives, offering compassion, acknowledging their grief, anger or regret that we blindly carry inside ourselves -and then doing the work of healing.
Not turning a blind eye to what we pass onto our own kids, pretending everything is fine or feeling victimized or holding grudges against certain relatives or projecting judgments onto other people’s families – or any of the other ways we sidestep the hard work of our own healing – but actually doing the inner work, facing the family demons buried within.
Warning – it’s really hard! Lots of tough stuff to face, our own shadows, deep grief and pain we don’t want to see. So much easier to just stay in our comfort zones with good enough.
Maybe that’s why there’s so much anger, anxiety, depression choking the air these days.
WHAT DO YOU THINK? – can you see how trauma has rolled down through your family?
Do you think personal healing affects the larger world? (whether or not you have kids, or they’re grown or not?)
(Throughout this post, I use different names for the conscious sacred energy that exists for many people: God, Higher Power, Spirit, Universe, Divine Love, Source. Notice those names that resonate, those that annoy or shut you down)
When I was asked to lead a weekend retreat on Gratitude last winter, I knew right away I wanted to focus on Suffering – and how we can retain a grateful heart even when horrible things happen to us or those we love.
After all, it’s not very challenging to feel gratitude when everything is swell.
Telling people Suffering was my intended approach to Gratitude was often met with a blank stare.
Oprah and self-help/personal growth writers have done a good job teaching how a grateful attitude can change lives and bringing gratitude practices (gratitude journals, etc) to the mainstream.
For people who believe in a conscious sacred energy, gratitude goes beyond an attitude and becomes a prayer, a conversation with Source. Contemplatives seek to be in this conversation continually, able to praise Source in every moment…..even the rotten ones.
Sounds ridiculous to some people, but let me explain the nature of a contemplative’s relationship with Spirit. Here’s a fancy spectrum I made to show different kinds of relationship:
On the left are those who believe that God is in control of everything that happens. The poster child for this belief is the guy who CNN interviews every hurricane season to ask why he stayed put during the mandatory evacuation. “Because if God decides my number is up today, then my number is up whether I follow the evacuation or not!” You may or may not think this way- but you surely have met those who do.
On the right are those who believe in God, but do not experience God as active or present in their daily lives. They might believe the Bible is the word of God, follow God’s rules and expect to meet God in the afterlife but they don’t experience God as a loving, active presence in the here and now.
In the center are those who believe that God is in a living, two-way relationship with them. How I think of this is that
God/the Universe is constantly luring us to be our most authentic self, giving us signs,
nudging us towards alignment with our deepest values and living our unique gifts in a way that increases love, beauty and healing in the world.
In another post, I can describe HOW Divine Love communicates with us, lures us, gives us signs, etc… but for now let’s just say I believe this communication is continual, and my “job” is to try to be present to it as often as possible.
Being open to this continual conversation can keep us afloat even as we seem to drown in a miserable situation.
It helps to first understand that Source is not to blame for the misery.
The Source that sparked the birth of the Universe communicates with us but does not control us or our circumstances. The Source is Pure Love and pure love never controls, coerces or manipulates. Therefore, Source “self-limits divine power.”
This explains how Spirit does not cause nor intervene when humans are cruel to each other. Spirit is there trying to lure each of us away from war, hatred, abuse and towards loving one another.
Spirit is there comforting us when we suffer at the hands of others or from our own poor choices. We can hold onto this thread of love and genuinely feel grateful for it, even as we suffer.
(From a Christian trinitarian perspective, Source gave completely to us by embodying human form (serving as a living example of how to love while also experiencing human pain so that we know we are not alone in our human suffering) and the form of Holy Spirit (which continues to inspire, comfort, counsel and lure us into Love.)
What about suffering that stems not from the free will of humans, but from natural causes? Diseases, disasters, fatal mishaps…. how can Pure Love allow the cruelty of nature?
Pure Love is also the Creator, the spark that ignites the unfolding of the cosmos and sets evolution into motion. Divine creation has endless diversity – and one thing we can know for sure if we believe Creation reveals the mind of the Creator is that diversity is key to life.
Infinite diversity unfolding through creation (and perhaps all creativity) requires something important: chance.
“Biology wants a wild mix” is what a doctor explained to Heather Kirn Lanier in this powerfully profound essay. Lanier’s daughter was born with a debilitating chromosomal syndrome.
Chromosomes come together then pull apart in a process where a lot can go wrong – but this process is also what allows for the most random mix of ancestral chromosome pairs. In other words, chromosomal syndromes happen because of the same chance that allows for the greatest diversity between humans. (Lanier beautifully describes how she loves her daughter for being her unique self – syndrome and all, even though the syndrome causes suffering.)
No two people are the same. Even identical twins are born with different fingerprints because of random variations in how amniotic fluid swirls around them. Chance allows the biodiversity in our oceans and rainforests. It also allows cancers and hurricanes and lightening strikes.
The price we pay for the chance that creates our own uniqueness and the immense beauty of our wildly diverse planet and cosmos – is that we suffer.
(Lanier asks if we really want to be perfect, non-suffering robots and suggests what a soulless world that would be.)
In sum, suffering happens because of 1) free will which is necessary in love and 2) chance which is necessary for diversity.
Of course, I am not grateful for the pain of an excruciating migraine, or for my child’s sobbing grief or for a dear friend’s premature death. I am not grateful for terrible things happening, but I am grateful for Pure Love being alongside me as they happen.
At the very least, I am grateful for my present breath, and the one after that.
But we die! Why do we have to die?
Well, as a hardcore procrastinator, I wonder how much I would accomplish, create, do for others, if I knew I had infinity to do it. Seriously! I kind of appreciate having a dead- line (ha!) in which to add some love, beauty and healing to the world.
And to make me even more grateful for the breaths I still have.
Acknowledgements: This post owes much to the brilliant theological discussion about free will, chance and suffering in Sidney Callahan’s Women Who Hear Voices: The Challenge of Religious Experience as well as the above mentioned essay Superbabies Don’t Cry by Heather Kirn Lanier. There is also a nod to Richard Rohr’s writings on the divine unfolding of evolution.
Halloween is more than a month away, and already the stores are cluttering our minds with Christmas merchandise. Dread of the imminent Holiday muzak is starting to make us sweat. But…what if Christmas 2018 was different? What if this year you reimagined the spiritual essence of the season?
What if……every time you saw a nativity scene, you visualized the baby as a metaphor for the mysterious, beautiful Spirit that is constantly birthing itself into the world?
…every time you heard a song with lyrics such as ‘O Come Let Us Adore Him’ you remembered to honor the Spirit that is already alive within you and within everyone you meet?
…every time you encountered any version of the Christmas story, you allowed it to serve as a reminder that although the Spirit is “forever being born in the human soul,” we must constantly make room in our awareness for it – emptying our minds of the clutter, opening to the reality of the present – because otherwise “there is no room in the inn for such a mystery?”
Using art, music, storytelling and guided visualization, we will:
reconsider the Nativity story – angels singing in the sky, refugee woman giving birth in stranger’s shed, lowly field men approaching in awe – as a metaphor for the moment when suddenly the Universe stops and loudly announces “The Spirit of love is here! Alive in the world! Incarnate!”
and
reflect on ways we can be like the wise men who followed their intuition and outsmarted evil so the Spirit could flourish.
What if the point of the Christmas story has always been that:
1) this mysterious, beautiful Spirit is already present “hidden inside of everything”
2) yet we’re still always waiting (longing!) to see it revealed in the world because we’re so clouded from the reality that Spirit is everywhere and already birthed inside of us?
After much imagining, planning and dreaming, my 50th birthday did not go as hoped.
I had been feeling under the weather for a few days, then woke up on the big 5-0 to a great intestinal purging – the likes of which I never before experienced. My mind, body and spirit were so preoccupied with expelling all contents that even the most pitiful of birthday excursions – going downstairs to watch tv – was more than I could muster.
I did have one birthday perk to lift my spirits however – dozens of sweet messages from friends near and far reminding me of 50 years well lived.
If I am going to spend time languishing from the plague – I am happy to do it on a day when so many loved ones think to reach out and send me some love.
Lesson 1: You can train yourself to view the Pepto-Bismol bottle as half full instead of half empty. The payoff is that crap will still happen but it won’t crush your spirit.
What does it mean that my second half of life began with a dramatic purging, purifying and detoxing?
Several friends turned 50 with me this summer, and we talked about each coming up with a theme to make the whole year special. I created a list of things I’d like to do while 50, but couldn’t think of a theme until the Universe hit me upside the head with this one:
Purging, purifying, detoxing
Hmmm. I don’t think it’s about purging physical items because I’ve never cared much about material stuff. I could certainly lose weight, but I’m a pretty clean eater and being fat doesn’t really bother me.
Something does resonate with me though when I think about purging old perspectives and thought patterns. A fresh perspective for the second half! I like that.
I’ll have to think about this some more after the plague’s residual brain fog and lethargy has lifted. Or maybe I’ll forget.
Lesson 2: Some people view unforeseen events as happenstance, and some view everything as happening for a reason. Either way, why not use these events as opportunities to uncover spiritual lessons in the metaphors presenting themselves? (Of course, if you can’t figure it out, that’s okay too.)
Last summer, I gave a eulogy for my friend Lisa who died after spending most of age 50 in hospice. My 49th birthday was filled with love, joy and gratitude for the gift of my friend and the gift of being alive.
This summer however, I approached my birthday feeling sad and a little hopeless.
Then I got sick. So sick I couldn’t get out of bed my whole birthday, and the next day I could only make it downstairs to the couch and then
the third day I could step outside into the fresh night air.
What a thrill it was to be outside after so many days indoors! I breathed the fresh air, listened to the crickets, looked up at the moon and felt Lisa smiling on me in a way that filled up my whole body.
Lesson 3: It is a great beautiful blessing to be alive.
Right now, we are the woman draped in roses in this painting. The trumpets are sounding for the dawn of the new year. 2017 crawls away. Soon, we will have no choice but to get up, get moving and create 2018.
But first, we rest in the liminal space of what was and what will be.
Perhaps my reflections from this liminal space will bring to mind gifts you received in the passing year…
In 2017, I joined the team of spiritual directors at Loyola Spirituality Center in St Paul, MN and listened to the spiritual journeys of people ranging in age from 18 to 67, from atheists to Christian clergy.
It’s hard to articulate just how much I love this work I do, how much I love each person who comes to my office or home to share glimpses of their heart.
While the outside world of 2017 was ugly on many levels, my work as a spiritual director keeps me tapped into the beauty of the human heart. In one way or another, each seeker reveals to me their earnest desire to be more… (genuine, balanced, whole, loving, mindful, thoughtful, open-hearted, joyful, close to the Divine, aligned with their true gifts and purpose and so on.)
It is this ache to embody the fullness of who we really are that is so beautiful, and I get to witness it daily.
Also in 2017, I spent months assisting a friend through her dying process. I walked her through her fears, held her during her final night and the next day I offered a blessing during her bedside service. I stayed there in her house with her loved ones all through the next day too, and when I finally emerged out into the public – a grocery store, to be exact – I was nearly knocked over with love for the first stranger I saw. It was weird, because at first I pictured this stranger dead, and then I saw his light shining within and all around him
and then my heart felt “we are exactly the same” – this man of a different age, race, gender and size than me – we all have these bodies that we carry around and we are all the same light.
I guess spending so much time in that veil between the physical and spiritual realm gave me a glimpse of this reality in a visceral, visible way. That is the greatest gift I received in 2017, and I credit the expansively loving nature of my beautiful friend who died.
In sum, 2017 cracked open my heart and more fully connected me to the hearts of others. That was not my goal or new year’s resolution, it is just what happened. Less poetic things happened too – financially, physically, etc – but my expanded heart and the gift of a vocation that makes it beat louder and stronger all the time keeps everything else in perspective.
What gift of awareness did 2017 bring you?
Happy New Year, Everyone and
may 2018 bring you closer to embodying the fullness of who you really are!
Are you interested in trying a spiritual direction session?
…every time you saw a nativity scene, you visualized the baby as a metaphor for a mysterious, beautiful energy that is constantly birthing itself into the world?
…every time you heard a song about the nativity, you used lyrics such as ‘o come let us adore him’ as a reminder to honor this energy that is already alive within yourself and within everyone you meet?
…every time you encountered any version of the Christmas story, you allowed it to serve as a reminder that although this beautiful energy is “forever being born in the human soul,” we must constantly make room in our awareness for it – emptying our minds of the clutter, opening to the reality of the present – because otherwise “there is no room in the inn for such a mystery?”
What if the point of the Christmas story has always been that:
1) this mysterious, beautiful energy is already present “hidden inside of everything”
2) yet we’re still always waiting (longing!) to see it revealed in the world because we’re too clouded from the reality that this energy is everywhere and already birthed inside of us?
Try listening to the story and all of its details – angels singing in the sky, refugee woman giving birth in stranger’s shed, lowly field men approaching in awe – as a metaphor for a moment when suddenly the universe stops and loudly announces that this energy of love is here! alive in the world! incarnate!
Behold! I bring you great news! The beautiful energy of love is here! Alive in the world! Incarnate!
And when an evil king tries to snuff out this loving energy – be like the wise person who followed their intuition and enabled the energy to prevail.
May each of you fully know the beauty that is already birthed inside of you.
Merry Christmas!
(All quotes come from Richard Rohr’s Advent Message video which can be found here.)
self, others, the world around you and the great Mystery.
Medications and therapy ease the symptoms, but are not a cure.
You know that, right?
My guess is that every person reading this either takes, or knows someone who takes, anti-depressants and still experiences some level of depression.
Why? Because CONNECTION is the only path to relief.
Anti-depressants can give us the boost we need to get out of our ruts and seek connection,
but without that critical step – connection – there is no real end to the misery.
Need some ideas of what can connect you?
I have suggestions,
but the key is to do something mindfully,
meaning that you are present in the activity
rather than just trying to get through it or pass the time.
Connect to the moment.
Be present to the moment and clear in your intention.
If your intention is to connect with yourself,
then create something that releases your spirit onto a physical form – paper, clay, garden plot – even if just for your eyes only. Or move your body in a way that focuses your attention on how the air fills your lungs or the sun warms your face or each of your muscles pulls and releases.
If your intention is to seek connection with others,
then be mindful during your interactions with others of feeling tenderness for each person. Dare to have deeply honest and meaningful conversations.
If your intention is to connect with the world around you,
then be present to the clouds, the grass, the birds.
If you intention is to seek connection with the great Mystery,
then let your mind soar into the space of your ancestors, the moment you came into being, or the source of all Love and Beauty.
You can connect by:
gardening, painting, writing, running, playing, volunteering at a senior living center, dancing, volunteering at an animal shelter, taking a slow walk in the forest as the trees graciously fill your lungs, performing your own water ballet in the deep end of the local pool, meditating, volunteering at a crisis nursery, praying, heart to heart talks with an old friend, heart to heart talks with a new friend, doing something for the sheer joy of it, reading a book that questions reality, watching a movie that shows you life through fresh eyes.
What works for you?
If this sounds overwhelming or you don’t know what will connect you and you don’t have the energy to find out –
then get the boost you need from medication, therapy –
and then take that next step towards
connecting yourself to what brings meaning to your life.
This post stems from the lowest of lows in public discourse – a trivial social media disagreement about a pop culture topic.
Specifically, a group of nice, middle-aged white ladies (yes, I’m the pot with the kettle in this story) criticizing how “full of herself” Beyoncé was during the “spectacle” of her Grammys performance.
I don’t know much about Beyoncé. I’m generally dismissive of pop culture artists since they are often just corporations in disguise. I don’t listen to much pop.
I watched the Grammys from my sick bed while recovering from the flu and goofing around online.
Visually stunning, it was not based on the usual shock-factor or hyper-sexuality that dominates so much of pop star women’s performances. Rather, it seemed to be exalting the love between mothers and daughters, Black mothers and daughters, to sacred status.
At one point Beyoncé said,
“If we’re going to heal, let it be glorious/ One thousand girls raise their arms.”
Quite a powerful statement given how much healing we’re yearning for in this political climate, and how girls and women are leading the march towards healing in unprecedented ways.
I googled Beyoncé’s words and learned that they came from the Somali-British poet Warsan Shire, whom Beyoncé collaborated with to make her Lemonade album.
Shire also wrote the devastating poem “Home” about the refugee experience, which begins:
“no one leaves home unless/home is the mouth of a shark”
It turns out that in addition to being “full of herself,” Beyoncé was using her platform to highlight a voice that needs to be heard, a story that needs to be told.
Which brings me to the point of my post:
These days the battle between love and hate has been pushed to the forefront in a way I have not seen (noticed) in my lifetime. As one of those nice, middle aged white ladies, I am not confronted with hatred often – I get to observe it from the safety of my couch while watching the news. Even so, I can plainly see that hatred (toward refugees, people of color, anyone made to live on the margins of society) is more out in the open, but love is too.
I appreciate artists using their medium to elevate love to its sacred status.
Let’s appreciate the voice of love when we see it – especially if it takes us out of our comfort zone.
It’s easy to say that we stand for love, just like it is easy for some people to go to church and think they’ve done their weekly work for God. But standing for love and being close to God is not meant to be easy.
Living our lives as embodied love is elusive. You can work at it for years, studying the great spiritual leaders of your faith, doing the psychological uncovering of your ego and yet still be withholding love in countless ways – from your too-loud neighbors, or from a community of people in your own town who are struggling in ways you’re blind to, or even from your own child who is working your very last nerve.
We each withhold love in various ways each day and that is what separates us from the Divine. Moving closer to God means moving closer to fully embodying love in our daily lives.
What if our love for others was as bright and bold as Beyoncé’s headdress?
We have arrived in an era when hate speech and love speech are more out in the open than has been the case for awhile.
If you are on the side of love, it’s time to be fully love, full of love, full of yourself as love. Anything less is to comply with the hate that surrounds you.
And white readers, if we are turned off by something that a black or brown person is doing, let’s think long and hard before using “they are full of themselves” as a proclamation of our distaste.
If we are on the side of love, we strive for everyone – especially those who have blatant hatred directed at them just for existing – to be fully themselves.
Photo Credits
Courtesy of Beyoncé/eonline.combeyonce-en-deesse-solaire-a-la-ceremonie-des-grammy-awards-2017_230698_w696[1].jpgMatt Sayles/Invision/APKevin Winter/Getty Images for NARAS/eonline.com
Womens March in Providence, RI (AP ) NYTCREDIT: Sait Serkan Gurbuz/Associated Press
