Pray to God and row to shore

This quote appeared in a newsletter I received this morning, and it occurred to me that I understood it differently than I did the last time I heard it, which was years ago. The question of our agency--how much do I do, and how much does God do?--has always been a struggle for me. As an independent, self-employed writer, I tend to conceptualize, plan, and produce something on my own. I work well that way, when it comes to books and articles and web content. But for the larger, life-impacting things, for organic life-blossoming possibilities, for love and healing and grace and unfolding, the lines of agency seem much fuzzier to me.

When I first heard "Pray to God and row to shore" years ago, it meant to me that the action was really all up to me. God wanted things to turn out well for me, of course, and was there for me to talk to (and listen to) when I needed the support and encouragement. But when push came to shove, it all depended on my choices and actions. So I continued to live that way, trying real hard, working real hard, taking everything pretty seriously with all the earnestness a stoic work ethic requires.

But today I heard this phrase differently. I'm glad to say there must be a lot more grace within and around me. It's certainly present in my thinking. Today "Pray to God and row to shore" means simply that my actions need to blossom naturally from my beliefs. They need to be in alignment with the beliefs so the beliefs can manifest in my life. When I believe God is good, that God is caring for me, that God is at work in my situation, I can act with gentleness, confidence, peace, patience. When I say I believe God is good, caring for me, and at work in my situation and then feel burdened and overwhelmed and work myself half to death trying to solve something, my actions are not in line with my beliefs. It's not all up to me. That's the opposite of my inner beliefs.

That's worth at least one hallelujah. Thank God for growth in grace and understanding! May your own discoveries today help you relax into these Loving Arms that uphold us all.

Kinship with all life

“Look at the animals roaming the forest: God’s spirit dwells within them. Look at the birds flying across the sky: God’s spirit dwells within them. Look at the tiny insects crawling in the grass: God’s spirit dwells within them. Look at the fish in the river and the sea: God’s spirit dwells within them. There is no creature on earth in whom God is absent. ..When God pronounced that his creation was good, it was not only that his hand had fashioned every creature; it was that his breath had brought every creature to life. Look too at the great trees of the forest; look at the wild flowers and the grass in the fields; look even at your crops. God’s spirit is present within all plants as well. The presence of God in all living things is what makes them beautiful; and if we look with God’s eyes, nothing on earth is ugly.”

Beautiful! From Pelagius, in Listening for the Heartbeat of God: A Celtic Spirituality, by J. Philip Newell

What redemption looks like

This morning Ruby (age 3), Henry (10 months), and I were playing ball in the music room. We sat on the rug and rolled the ball to each other in different ways, laughing and having fun. Suddenly Ruby looked at me with a startled look on her face. Her eyes were sad.

"I am so so sorry," she said. "This morning I hit mama. Mama said it is not okay to hit."

I nodded and smiled. "I can hear that you're really sorry," I said. "And mama is right--hitting isn't good." I asked her whether she wanted to call mama and say sorry, and at first she said yes. But then, just as suddenly, the cloud of contrition was gone and she wanted to play roll-the-ball some more.

I've had those moments of self-realization when a regret for a word, an action, an intention washes over me like a wave. Being able to confess it and put it in context--out loud with another person or silently, in my heart, with God--is one of the instant, saving graces I'm so grateful for. Whether we go to confession, pray, or simply share our feelings with a friend, something lightens, a little light shines in, and we are released from that which had us bound just moments before. Nice.

Being named

Hello! I hope you're enjoying the changing seasons wherever in the world you find yourself. Just a little while ago I ran across this simple but profound verse:

Watching gardeners label their plants

I vow with all beings

to practce the old horticulture

and let the plants identify me.

Loving the Earth

Happy 83rd birthday, Thich Nhat Hahn! A favorite quote:

Walk and touch peace every moment.
Walk and touch happiness every moment.
Each step brings a fresh breeze.
Each step makes a flower bloom.
Kiss the Earth with your feet.
Bring the Earth your love and happiness.
The Earth will be safe
when we feel safe in ourselves.

Thich Nhat Hanh
Source: Kiss The Earth
Found here: http://www.gaia.com/quotes/Thich_Nhat_Hanh

The art of giving

I just read this on the side of a box of Celestial Seasonings tea...but I love it. :) It's from Letters to My Son, by Kent Nerburn. Wisdom pops up everywhere:

"Remember to be gentle with yourself and others. We are all children of chance, and none can say why some fields blossom and others lay brown beneath the August sun. Care for those around you. Look past your differences. Their dreams are no less than yours, their choices in life no more easily made. And give. Give in any way you can, of whatever you possess. To give is to love. To withhold is to wither. Care less for your harvest than how it is shared, and your life will have meaning and your heart wil have peace."

Beautiful! May our harvest joy be multipled through great sharing today. :)

Unearthing the seeds of stress

On Friday, I was talking to a friend about the way we externalize stress in our lives. She wiped her eyes and said, "I just had a good cry. For some reason whenever I feel really stressed, the tears start flowing. That's frowned on in business because people think I'm weak. I'm not--I'm just stressed!" She asked me how stress shows up for me and I thought about it a minute and said, "Appreciation is the first thing to go for me. When I get stressed, I stop noticing the little things around me."

Our conversation has been popping into my head all weekend. As I push hard to get chapters completed on my current project, I realize that I am continually choosing whether I notice the little things around me right now--the candle burning, the quiet in the house, the breeze from the open window--or let the pressure from the deadline rush me toward some future goal. When I let my awareness be controlled by my worry of that eventual time, my eyes stop seeing and my ears stop hearing what's right here, right now. My edges get harder. I push myself to move through things quickly, not valuing the moment, which requires open hands and eyes and ears, and a soft heart. Losing touch with appreciation means the volume on my heart gets turned down while my brain barks orders. No wonder I feel stress!

I wonder whether there's a way to get things done, to honor commitments, to work from love and fullness and awareness, without letting stress be the controlling factor. If stress makes me leave the gentleness at the core of being, it's not helping me. It's worth thinking about today, at any rate.

And I say, if you need to cry, cry. Let it all out and reconnect with your life right now. It loves you.

The simple power of plain speech

I have always loved language, and languages. Words carry power. They really are creative little packets of energy that can cause things to happen. The more I learn about my own words and phrases--and the intentions behind them--the more I understand what I am creating in my life. This is happening slowly, over decades, but I can see it (alleluia). :)

The more I notice the power of speech, the more I want to use it clearly, simply, effectively. This is a good desire for a writer, but it's also more than that. It's a need to manifest what's true--to use words to bring about good for all, as much as possible. To be congruent in feelings and actions--and to be able to speak about it in a framework of language that flows naturally from the essence of the desire and hope. Wouldn't that be wonderful?

This learning about words draws me inward and down--inward into my own heart and mind and spirit and down to the clearest possible denominator of meaning. You and I will be closer when we can speak plainly, truthfully to each other. When we spiral up and out--mostly because of fear of judgment or of being misunderstood--we pad our language, we make it sound high-brow, we work on eloquent turns of phrase.

We "dialogue" instead of "talk." I'd rather laugh, love, fall on my face, and get up and do it all over again--joyfully, sloppily, imperfectly. Maybe we'll laugh together--I hope so. But let's not use our words to create things we don't want or--heaven forbid--separate us. Today Love beckons. Let's accept. :)

A daily guide for Ramadan

Hi everyone,

I just wanted to pass along this link to a gentle site called Existensis.com, now offering daily reflections throughout Ramadan. The author also has made available a downloadable e-book that is very clear and centered. These reflections are for people of all traditions and bring me into a feeling of celebrating spirit in harmony with others throughout the world. Beautiful!

The vital space of doubt

Today is Alfred Lord Tennyson's 200th birthday. Reading about him this morning, I discovered this quote:

There lives more faith in honest doubt, believe me, than in half the creeds.

I find beauty in all traditions and practices of faith, but the point Tennyson makes here strikes me as integral to a real, growing, embodied living out of an alive, aware, and owned faith. If we are just parrotting the views of our parents, our tradition, our region, our particular demographic, we are only participating in response to an external framework. We haven't owned it; the living out of our faith is not coming from within us, from a seed of transformation we plant and nurture. In my own life Love has grown greatly through doubt--pushing and prodding, asking "why?" and "why not?", and listening, discerning, and testing over time. For some reason I was willing to risk shaking my fist at the ceiling and yelling at God (literally...I know that's not a pretty picture), and even today continue to risk leaving groupthink, again and again, in spite of the sense of belonging the journey might cost me.

Knowing what I believe and in what and whom I believe and how that belief frames my life has always been important to me...and doubt opens up the vital space for me to explore, push, create, and show up as part of Life's arising. I, for one, need that.

Happy Tennyson's birthday!

How will you see today?

This morning I felt a need for refreshment and I picked up John O'Donohue's Anam Cara, a beautiful, spacious, and deeply kind book of Celtic spirituality. In the chapter where he writes about the senses as being the thresholds of soul, he says

Vision is central to your presence and creativity.

He describes--in a tenderly gentle way--the different kinds of eyes we may use to engage (or not engage) the world:

• The fearful eye, which sees all as threatening;
  
• The greedy eye, which sees everything as something to be possessed;
  
• The judgmental eye, which separates and compares;
  
• The resentful eye, which begrudges others what they have;
  
• The indifferent eye, which holds control and distance;
  
• The inferior eye, which sees everyone else as greater;
  
• The loving eye, to which everything is real.

May we know today that our seeing is a sacred, creative act and that as we look upon the world with love we are blessing it, and it, us. :)

One more today...

Hi again, I'm not sure why this popped into my head today, but I decided to prepare a book I wrote back in 1992 (during the heartbreaking L.A. riots) and post it on Scribd as a free download. I was still a "baby" writer in those days, but it's interesting to me that the thought--on Oneness, the light within, overcoming differences, and a desire to dissolve separation--is the sweet essence of the way I live today. Wonderful to see! If you feel so moved, please take a look and let me know what you think. Namaste. :)
Getting Over the Rainbow

Healing the Space

Hi everyone! I hope you're having a beautiful day in your part of the world. I just posted a new meditation on Scribd called Healing the Space. It is a gentle meditation with a blessing for the physical places we encounter. You can use it anywhere--in your house, in the country, in the forest...wherever it occurs to you. :) Peace.

Healing the Space

Seeing it all

Last night I took my older son to the immediate care clinic in the middle of a severe allergy attack. His eyes were swollen almost shut; he had hives and splotches everywhere; he looked like the losing prizefighter in a 12-round match; and most upsetting of all--he was suffering.

Immediate care centers being what they are, you are asked right away if you consider anything you're experiencing to be life-threatening; and if not, you wait. And wait. And wait. We sat with a dozen other people--all equally discouraged, hurting, upset, and worried--waiting for our turn to see the doctor. After a little more than two hours, we were ushered into a small room where we waited another 30 minutes. By this time, the Benadryl had begun to work and the cold wet towel my son had been holding to his face all evening had helped; the swelling had gone down and what was left was a still splotchy face and neck, bright red eyes, heavy fatigue (due at least in part to the medicine), and stopped-upedness.

The doctor walked in with lots of swirling energy, took a look at my son, noticed his eyes, and said, "looks like pinkeye" all in about 10 seconds. From that misdiagnosis, we worked backward, trying to push toward her the details of living with this allergy (from my view, as the mom, and his view, as the experiencer); what we thought about it; what we wondered; what we hoped.

She wasn't really listening. She adjusted her initial diagnosis a bit--it was an allergy-related conjunctivitis, she decided. But she was completely missing the point. He was suffering He was hoping someone would give him some indication that this suffering could end. He didn't want another drop for his eyes--he wanted this not to happen anymore.

The doctor had walked into the room, summed up the situation based purely on what she saw--which was simply what stood out to her most in that moment--and never listened to the full story in the room or the past or possible future of this story. We were never real whole living beings to her (even though she was friendly enough) and her mind never opened enough to let her heart suggest a couple of things that might have really helped.

I write this hoping that when I am called to make quick judgments--professionally or just in my daily life--that I can remember to take a deep breath and listen and receive what is present, to understand the story that is arising to be heard, before I diagnose the situation and act. There is a soul to be honored. There is a need to be met. And the answer isn't just to prescribe eyedrops to make the red go away--it's a need of the heart, the mind, the spirit.

An earth meditation

I've just returned from a weekend at Grace's House, the solar home on 40 acres beside the Abbey of Gethsemani in New Haven, Kentucky. The house is one of the retreat properties of the Merton Institute's Bethany Spring--nestled between hills, forest, and lake in a perfect, peaceful spot. I created the following earth meditation one night while I was there...these photos don't really capture the awe-inspiring beauty of the land, but they do help you glimpse at least the doorway in to the experience. :)

Let Your Longing Guide You

May the light of your soul guide you

Peace...
peace....
peace....

From John O'Donohue (1954-2008)...may the light of your soul guide you, dear:

May the light of your soul guide you.
May the light of your soul bless the work
You do with the secret love and warmth of your heart.
May you see in what you do the beauty of your own soul.
May the sacredness of your work bring healing, light and renewal to those
Who work with you and to those who see and receive your work.
May your work never weary you.
May it release within you wellsprings of refreshment, inspiration and excitement.
May you be present in what you do.
May you never become lost in the bland absences.
May the day never burden you.
May dawn find you awake and alert, approaching your new day with dreams,
Possibilities and promises.
May evening find you gracious and fulfilled.
May you go into the night blessed, sheltered and protected.
May your soul calm, console and renew you.

Walking Two Dogs

I just had an interesting object lesson a few minutes ago. For years now, I've had Georgie and Edgar. Georgie is an 8-year-old Newfoundland, and Edgar is an almost 14-year-old Bichon. When I take them outside on their leashes, whether we're just going out to the backyard or going for a walk in the neighborhood, they almost never want to go the same direction. Invariably I am pulled in two directions, or trying to compensate for one sniffing or squatting while the other pulls ahead. Always it seems I am the tension point between two desires--Georgie wants to go one direction, and Edgar the other.

Tonight it occurred to me that it's not fun to be that point of tension, trying to manage everyone else's wishes. How do you decide whose desires are more important? Is it more important to drag Edgar along to keep up with George or to hold George back so Edgar can take his sweet time? Either answer produces inner tension because I'm aware that one dog isn't getting what he or she wants. One has to be pushed somehow to meet the other's need. In a peer-to-peer relationship, they might be able to work that out themselves. But as the one trying to coordinate it all, I am responsible, so I have to choose. And I'm never comfortable because I am busy trying to keep it all balanced and as even as possible.

Of course, unseen in this push-me-pull-you dynamic is my own desires, which are probably acting the loudest of all without me noticing. Am I rushing them both because I've got other things I'd rather be doing? Am I letting them have their sniffy doggy moments, finding out which bunny has been in the yard today? What if I directly admitted how I felt about being pushed and pulled this way and just led them in the way I wanted to according to my desires? Wow, there's an interesting thought. And perhaps a key insight into some other puzzles in my past. LOL!

So tonight, seeing now a thousand stars shining in through the open window, I offer you this little flicker of light. The next time you feel torn between two choices, people, events, or priorities, ask yourself about the unspoken third voice that is waiting to be heard. It's the voice of your own desire that will clearly tell you what feels right for you in the moment. Then you have the choice to act on it or not, but at least you won't be unconsciously yanked along at the end of anybody's leash. :)

Joy within joy

It is a beautiful morning here in Indiana...I am sitting in the sunroom, drinking coffee, listening to the sound of the wind in the trees, watching the patterns of light and shadow move on the floor and wall. Peaceful, relaxed, enjoying.

Sid the cat has another idea. His idea of joy is a good healthy scratch on the head, between the ears. In fact, he'll climb into my lap and do quite a few calisthenics in order to achieve his goal. He flips around, he butts my hand (holding a full mug of coffee) with his head. He looks at me and meows. He's very persistent.

At first I resist. I want to sit quietly and witness all the beauty going on around me. I don't particularly feel like being bullied from my reverie by a three-year-old cat.

And yet, as I watch him persist, a little bud of admiration begins to smile within me. He really is a remarkable cat. And what an honor that he would choose me--choose my lap, choose this moment, need my hands--to help him find his joy. I give up my idea of nonmovement and pet his head, and he pushes his face into my hand, smiling and purring loudly. I have never seen a more appreciative cat. I laugh and continue petting.

I realize after a moment that I am experiencing joy, too. It is not the peaceful, introspective awe kind of joy I was feeling before Sid moved into my lap, but it is a rich, full, connected joy that comes from participating in the joy of another and knowing you had a part in making it possible. It is interesting to me that one kind of joy makes me want to avoid contact (because I will have to leave the quiet spot of wonder I have found), while the other joy draws me into contact (often, perhaps because of my introverted personality, against my own preference). How nice to realize that there is joy along both paths--and the one that is not my natural choice may be even richer for me because it draws me into relationship.

May you experience joy within joy--inwardly and outwardly--today.

Which shoes will you wear?

This morning I walked into the sunroom and noticed (odd how things just pop into your noticing like that) four pairs of my shoes by the back door. Four! The first thing that washed over me was the sheer extravagance of that. Do I really need four pairs of shoes? Three of them were sandals, and one a pair of boots for taking the dogs out in the rain and mud. And what's more, there are other pairs upstairs in my closet. Shoes with heels; shoes without. Fancy shoes, comfortable shoes.

The shoes have different personalities. The ones I'm wearing are made of hemp. Very light, soft, comfortable.

As I slipped my feet into the shoes, I thought of the way in which we put on our attitudes for the day. Will my approach to life be natural, soft, comfortable today? I hope so. May you choose the day you hope to create in much the same way you decided what to put on your feet this morning. It's all the same choice, you know. :)

Song of the body

Mary Oliver's new book of poetry (just made available in paperback) is Red Bird, and this poem is the last one in the volume. But it's beautiful, lifting up a key idea that's been gleaming at the center of my attention for the last few weeks--the tender interplay between body, mind, and spirit. So much of religion seems like it wants to cast off the body and value the soul or spirit; so much of practical life ignores or tunes out the call of spirit; but it's really a both/and--and that is the recipe for joy and peace. I'm learning that, g r a d u a l l y. :) Here's the poem:

Red Bird Explains Himself

Yes, I was the brilliance floating over the snow
and I was the song in the summer leaves, but this was
only the first trick
I had hold of among my other mythologies,
for I also knew obedience: bring sticks to the nest,
food to the young, kisses to my bride.

But don’t stop there, stay with me: listen.

If I was the song that entered your heart
then I was the music of your heart, that you wanted and needed,
and thus wilderness bloomed that, with all its
followers: gardeners, lovers, people who weep
for the death of rivers.

And this was my true task, to be the
music of the body. Do you understand? for truly the body needs
a song, a spirit, a soul. And no less, to make this work,
the soul has need of a body,
and I am both of the earth and I am of the inexplicable
beauty of heaven
where I fly so easily, so welcome, yes,
and this is why I have been sent, to teach this to your heart.