Month: June 2018

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Innocence

NOTE: Written intended for the evening of June 4th.

So this is wild. I can open the internet, get on google, whatever. Anywhere, basically, but my wordpress blog site! Frustrating and attention-getting all at once. 

I was going to write, I cherish the Quiet and it is not quiet right now. But all is well. Moving machinery today went well, thank You for that and for all the help we have had. Between OBX Movers and Pete’s daughters MaryAnn and Faith, and his son Pete coming for benches and tool boxes, all the large, heavy stuff is home now. What is left we can handle ourselves. What a relief! I worked on a new lyric today, inspired by Reckless Love by Cory Asbury. I like the way the lyric is coming along but the melody needs more work. 

So, back to the internet. I try again. Nope, it’s stuck. So unless it resolves in the next hour or so, I can’t upload a blog. Hmm. 

I spent about half an hour early this morning before I got up, trying to picture the scene You described, the mirroring river. What I saw was more like a whole country, bucolic, pastoral, beautiful, and everyone there was living in pure love, innocent, trusting. It was like a glimpse of the earth if Eden had persisted. It was amazing, actually, like watching some fantasy movie of some other planet, some other earth. I kept thinking, this is what You intended. This is what You created us, all of us, the whole planet of us, the whole universe for. That sense of innocence and freedom. Everyone was smiling. 

I didn’t see a figure that looked like You, I mean like the movies or visual artists have portrayed You, but it was more as if You were everywhere present, Your Spirit making the water sparkle and glinting off the trees in the sunlight. There was something palpable in the very feel of the place. I wanted to go there for real, and for always. I wanted to live there somehow. I am honestly not sure if I was being given a glimpse of what might have been, of what is on some other physical planet in the present, or of our future mode of existence in a heavenly state. Writing that, I have the sense of yes, yes, and yes. As if all three of those possible scenarios were happening at once. Hmmm.

You see, already your writer is engaged in a different way. You saw in your mind’s eye, as you like to say, and what you saw you are trying to describe, to put into words. The healing we have spoken of, the restoration, is already beginning. Remember not to try too hard and just flow with the feelings you have.

Well, the feelings I had, have, are pretty wonderful, I can tell You that!

Good. That was the idea. Remember that I told you, this doesn’t have to be hard.

So, what did I see? Was it real?

Try not to worry too much at this stage about real versus imagination. I Am trying to spark and inspire your imagination. You had a real vision from Me, yes. What you do with that vision is yours to shape, as a writer. See how this works? What do you want this to be? You get to make that choice. You get to decide if what you saw is Eden, is some parallel-universe reality, is heaven. As a writer, you are a co-creator. You know this; you have been greatly inspired by C.S. Lewis, and J. R. R. Tolkien, and others. You know the power of imagination on younger and older minds and hearts. So don’t analyze! Flow. Just flow.

So I just spent a good hour going through images to post with this entry. I finally found something that will work, but I didn’t find exactly what I was looking for.

And why do you think that is?

I have a feeling You are going to tell me.

You tell Me.

Because what I saw is meant for me to write first. IF I ever see the place in “real life” here on planet Earth, it will be after the words. Not before. My description in words will come first.

Yes, exactly. See? You are catching on quickly. Didn’t I tell you this was going to be fun?

So you want me to write about…

I want you to write about Innocence.

 

 

 

 

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Mirroring

God, I feel as if I can talk to You about anything. And increasingly, at any time. So I want to talk to You about my fingers. About this decades-old habit, started when I was, what? You know. Three? Four? Five? This lifelong habit I have of picking my fingers, which drives Pete crazy, and which, for all these years, I have assumed You judged me for. I certainly have judged myself. And in that judgment, I named the habit sin, which I really think, thought, it is. Until I was falling asleep–or between sleep and waking–and You said, I think it was You, something extraordinary. And I want and need to talk to You about it.

You said You didn’t see this habit as sin. Is that true? Was that You, that sudden thought in my head, so contrary to the way I have thought?

Yes, that was Me. What I need you to understand is that all the times you felt prompted by Me to stop, those leadings were not to lead you out of something I was judging you guilty for. I have asked you to stop because of what the habit is doing to you. I see, deeper than you yourself see, the sense of shame and guilt and even despair you carry, over this seemingly simple little habit. You began as a way to handle stress and tension in your house when you were a very young child. You have used it ever since, when you were tired, or stressed, or afraid, or under any kind of accusation. To keep yourself silent, you took to tearing at yourself.

Let Me ask you a question. In fact, let Me ask you several questions.

Would you reach over, take Pete’s hands in yours, and begin systematically to tear at his fingers?

No, of course not!

Would you do this to a close friend?

No.

To an acquaintance, perhaps?

No.

How about a stranger? Would you feel free, would you be motivated, to do that  to a stranger’s hands?

No, Lord. You know not.

Well, how about someone who hurt you? Would you reach out and hurt them back in this way?

NO.

Okay, well, what about an animal, then? Would you do something comparable to an animal?

No, never.

So. Last question. Would you, if you could be with Me in a physical way, would you do this to Me?

No, Lord, of course not!

Look at what you are saying. You are making yourself less than anyone else you would ever know, or meet. Less than the animals, whom you purport to love.

I do love them, You know I do.

Here is what I know: you do not yet fully love yourself. You have not yet fully received the depth, the breadth, the length and the height of My love for you. I have asked you to stop, and told you that stopping will open doors to greater service and ministry, not because this habit is sinful in My eyes, but because it reveals you are not yet fully healed, fully whole. You don’t see yourself as I see you, and you see yourself much less clearly than you see every other living thing on the planet.

Lord, something set me off this past spring. Sometimes I know my triggers but this time I am not sure what did it. I was fine, I was okay all during Pete not feeling well last fall, and holidays with family which are always stressful, and then the decision to move Yellowhouse, everything involved with that, and then suddenly something upset me to the point I started again.

And the shame of starting has fueled you to continue. That is what I want to address, and relieve–your deep sense of shame. Every one of My Children is worthy of love, of My Love. Every one of My Children begins as a precious and innocent being. And as you well know, I will move heaven and earth to show each one the truth of that Love. So what do I have to do, what can I say, to bring you to a place where the mirror you look deeply into is My Eyes of Love for you?

That sounds like a Vision Quest question.

Indeed it is. You have an old, flawed, distorted mirror. I would like to lead you away from that mirror to a place where you can see a clear, honest, pure reflection. You have been afraid to come to that place, seeing it as a place of shame and accusation, which is what you are running from, and what your tearing at your fingers is an expression of. But I Am calling you, asking you, pleading with you, please stop running. Stop running from your own precious self. Stop running from the you I see, the you I love, the you I chose before you were even born. Be willing to live in the light I Am offering you now, and I promise you, the compulsion you have felt for the past five-and-a-half decades will lose its grip and its power on your mind and your heart.

I Am asking you because your pain grieves Me, and I would relieve it. But we must be partners for that to happen. Because this originated in your feelings about yourself, you have to have a part in its resolution. This isn’t a work I can do by Myself; I need you as My Partner in your wholeness.

Okay, Lord. I really do want to be free of it. 

Yes, I know you do. But hear Me well — you need to be free of your distorted view of yourself, in order to be free of the habit you so despise. You think the habit is causing the distorted self-image, but I tell you, the reverse is true. The distorted self-image is manifesting in your habit, not the other way around. So Come. Come to My Pool of Reflection; stand here beside Me, look into My Love and see what I see. You–and your life–will never be the same.

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Runner

Well, this was certainly an interesting ten days. I am not sure what I expected, exactly, in the middle of a busy-busy stretch. Holiday weeks are always busier at the shop and this one included inventory deliveries as well as lots of folks to serve. I write that and I smile. It’s true, I really do think of the galleries as places of ministry as well as places of commerce, of sales. Art ministers. I watch it happen over and over. And I love that. I am so grateful that my commerce-life revolves around beauty and talent and investment in the gifts given. I love that.

So in a traditional sort of Vision Quest, the quester would debrief, so to speak. Come to the tribal or traditional equivalent of a spiritual director, report in, and seek feedback. Sometimes that feedback would be revelation, a new name, or confirmation of what the quester discerned. So here I am, coming to You. What stood out? That is the question first asked.

Well, one big thing unfolded over a couple of days. I went looking for the mama bear and four cubs, whom I did not get a clear view of, and instead was startled near dusk by a deer I obviously startled first, because she darted out from the brush in front of my car and then raced ahead down the road. Gosh, she was fast! Then she bounded off to the other side of the road and I lost sight of her. The whole thing made me recall a name I thought You spoke to me maybe 30 years ago–Running Deer. And a line from a poem that is from 2007, “footprints like hearts through my day”–because deer’s hoof prints are in fact heart-shaped. Maybe I will put the whole poem here. 

The Wood Between The Worlds

You are always

Breathing out

Largesse

I inhale hurriedly

The ten thousand things

Scarcely notice

Your breath, my life

You wait

Slow still center

I come to ground

Gently deciduous

Float leaflike

Your breath

CS Lewis says

Nothing much happens

Look again

Nothing

Much happens

The trees go on growing

I follow

Footprints like hearts

Through my day

You breathe out

I breathe in

Connected

There. That makes me happy.

 

Why? Why does that make you happy?

Because it’s the real me. It is how I feel, how I think.

This quest was all about authenticity, finding and owning your authentic self.

Yes, well, after that whole deer episode, a couple days later I was driving on the beach road, and up ahead of me was what looked like a school activity or athletic bus, pulled over, half on and half off the road. I skirted around it, no problem, but in huge letters across the back of the bus were the words Running Deer. THAT got my attention! So I have been trying to think, running from what? Running to what? And You said, running with whom?

And what do you think is your answer?

I think I am running from how I actually feel, a lot of the time. I am trying to be responsible and diligent and on top of things; I feel disorganized and frustrated and stressed, and honestly, I miss being outside. But You said this time was to help restore my writer. So what does Running Deer have to do with that?

You don’t write because writing is all about feeling for you. It is not so much about thought–it used to be, but not anymore. You have made a shift from what you think to what you feel, and because you are so used to hiding what you feel, you have put a straitjacket on your writing self. And speaking of thinking, you THINK no one cares what you think or feel. And you are so mistaken. You could not be more mistaken. I care. I, the Lord of the Universe, care what you think, and I care what you feel. You want so much not to offend anyone, and to be as loving as you can to everyone. That is what you feel. You want to give everyone, anyone, another chance, a break, a massive break. That is what you feel. You get frustrated, as you said, and then you take your frustration out on yourself for not doing more, not being more, when what is really the issue is that you see folks around you who don’t seem to care even half as much as you do. You see that, and you think, how could they waste this life? How could they waste this day? How could they waste this minute? And you have been reluctant to name your frustration, because you want so much to give them, all of them, another chance.

Don’t they get that, God? Another chance, I mean. 

Yes of course. Always. But that doesn’t mean you need to consume yourself with their choices. It is essential that you begin to name, to yourself in My Presence, how you really feel. That is not judging, that is not criticizing, especially if you never verbalize it beyond the page, the private page with Me. But you need to be more honest. It is not that you lie, it is that you are trying to hard to be who you think I want you to be, instead of just being the glorious creation you already are. What did you read this week?

Oh yes! That quote! So it came in an email from Richard Rohr, whose writing I like very much, but the quote itself came from Dr. Howard Thurman. “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.” And then, I was placing a re-order with ceramic artisans for lamps and plaques, and they had a word plaque with that exact quote! So I took that as a confirmation.

You have answered this before. It is time for you to answer this again. Not here, not right now. Over the course of the next week. Keep breathing in the question and breathing out your answer: what makes you come alive, Eve? You think you know the answer. Don’t just think. Feel. What makes you come alive?