Month: July 2018

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Walk by Walking

I had a wonderful day this weekend. I was out three times! Dawn, mid-afternoon on the dunes, and then dusk. I didn’t post a blog; I slept in, I enjoyed some quiet, I worked some, I walked some, I played some. How did I feel come Monday morning? Sleepy…but so refreshed. It’s a week since my mini retreat. Obstacles are blocks to power, our retreat director said. Like a frayed electrical line. Or like–as with the long jewelry case–a toggle switch, hidden from sight under the toe kick–turned, bumped off. Sheesh! And a simple enough fix. Let the Power flow! So what would You say?

Let the Peace flow. Most of your issues and difficulties stem from agitation. You don’t know what tomorrow will bring–nobody does. You need to follow what you told your friend recently, what Joel Osteen wrote, that you can drive a long way at night seeing only the next few feet ahead of you in your headlights. You can’t see the whole road, around each curve–even in daylight! And it’s an illusion to think you can. You have to trust that each step is leading you on your journey. You have to keep driving, keep walking, keep moving forward. If your heart is truly to walk with Me, then the light you are walking by is knowing I Am with you and I will lead you. You won’t stray far from the trail.

Speaking of trails, moment by moment you are making decisions that help to create the day you are going to have, today and tomorrow. It is not so much that there is only one perfect narrow path designed specifically step by step for your life. It is that when you commit to living a life centered in Me, you are increasingly more sensitive to the nudges of wind, to the nuances of sights or sounds that catch your attention. Your possibilities actually increase rather than decrease. Ah, that got your attention!

A life centered on Love and Peace can have many outworkings, not just one. Just don’t forget all the fruits of My Presence–love and joy and peace and goodness and kindness and gentleness–are meant for you as well. This is not an Either/Or way. This is a Both/And way. “They” thrive and you thrive. That’s the model.

When you are agitated, in worry-mode, stressed out about particular circumstances, you have frozen yourself in time. You have stopped walking. You have forgotten Who is walking with you. Pause, take a few deep breaths, and check your soul’s compass. Is the path you are following helping to build My Kingdom-Come within you and those around you? If the answer is yes, then take the next step. If the answer is no, course-correct and take the next step. It truly is as simple as that, to abide in Me. Stay close, stay in focus, and enjoy the journey.

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Retreat

So, Lord, I have just spent the equivalent of two days—an evening, a day, a long morning—in a mini retreat, with eight other folks similarly engaged. There was such good material, most of which bubbled up inside each one of us as we individually and collectively responded to each other’s insights, questions, griefs, fears, longings. We were in “it”—this business of a daily life, spiritually centered—together, and in a way we don’t, or I should say, I don’t, despite my longing, often practice in the daily all by myself.

So my question, or one of my questions, is this: given a sense of calling, given experiences that feel to me like being invited into a deeper sense of Your Presence, why would I, why would anyone turn away from that invitation? Here is a follow-on question: despite what might be my fears around that invitation (what will others think? How will those I love react?), how can I live more fully aware and engaged? Our director said, over and over, Just Breathe. How do you feel right now in your body?

God, I think I know why I keep being drawn to bicycles. It’s the balancing act motif. Live connected to You, live connected to others—but not in a way that diminishes either Your Voice or my own—and live connected to myself. That is the challenge, to keep present, God, with all that is, and still hold to, or allow myself to be held by, and in, Your Love. That’s it, isn’t it! It feels like an aha. To allow myself to simultaneously be present to what is happening around me and at the same instant, to allow myself to be held by and in Your Love. Bingo. And I don’t. I mean, I do, but then I slip. I fall. I tumble into trying to fix everything around me (as if I even could, or as if it would be wise if I could), or I stumble over what is happening around me because I have closed my eyes and ears if it seems too painful or hard to bear, and neither one of those is the Third Way, of being present in a way that still allows Your Love to flow and center me in that Love.

All this is really heady, heavy stuff. But I love it. I love taking time to acknowledge it, and talk about it, and practice Your Presence, and write about it, and go out with my camera in hand, into a world I view as one You made initially, and look for evidence that You are still present here.

You said a lot this weekend, and some of it was beyond words. But is there anything You would say now, that I can share here?

Why don’t you write about what you saw and experienced when you went outside at sunset by yourself.

Ok, well, I think I saw the Green Flash. I had seen an afterflash of white light, once, just after the sun went down, and that was a couple years ago. But last evening as the sun disappeared, and there was a thin haze layer right at the horizon so the last glimpse was ever so slightly above it,I clearly experienced a shift of color in my perception from yellow to green and then gone. It doesn’t exactly show on the photograph; it looks more yellow, but if I desaturate all the yellow there is still a tonality present in the flash than in the streaks of color in the clouds above. And then, when I sensed it was time to go, and I got in my car, there were three deer that came out of the trees on the other side of the road and walked out into the marsh. One of those was a buck in velvet, with just-growing antler. Whether they would have come if I had stayed, I doubt. But it was a special treat to see them.

And what did you ask for at the beginning of your retreat?

Well, I asked for an experience of You. Not just words. Something beyond words, something sensory. I asked for clarity. I asked for Vision, as in Vision Quest. I wanted insight.

How do you feel right now?

Very calm. Relaxed. As if I could take a nap! Really, I feel drained in the best possible sense.

So why don’t you?

Why don’t I what?

Why don’t you nap? I cleared your calendar for the weekend, and that included today. That includes this afternoon. Do you remember the scripture, He gives to His Beloved even in sleep? Well, that goes for you too. All the while you were there to receive for yourself, you were also holding sacred space for those around you. You deliberately set about to do that work, to be a silent assisting partner. Now it is time for Eve to rest, and simply, merely, only receive. Not receive AND give. Just receive. You rarely do that fully awake, but in this semi-drowsy state, I can impart much to you—much healing, much insight, much strength. Everything you need, I can impart. Are you willing to lay down your need to appear strong and just receive? If you can answer yes, then go take a nap. And trust that everything in your world will be okay, while you rest and receive.

 

 

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First Thoughts

Lord, Julia Cameron counsels coming to the page first thing, with first thoughts. Unfiltered, uncensored and not yet influenced by day’s events, first thoughts reveal so much that might otherwise go unsaid. I know their importance, yet I don’t always get here first thing. Sometimes this seems like the last thing! Sometimes it’s intermittent, these conversations, all during the day. 

And what do you find, in those intermittent moments?

That You are always, always here. Always present. I was going to say always waiting, but that is not exactly it–is it?

How many times have you had the experience of reconnecting with an old friend or getting in touch with a close friend you’ve not been able to see for a while, and you pick up right where you left off, as if no time had passed?

That happens a lot, actually.

You see, since I Am Timeless, there is really no “waiting” in your sense of the word. I Am always present to you and with you. All you lack is awareness. I Am Now, all the time and for all time and beyond time. So you are not keeping Me waiting. You are, however, sometimes keeping your own heart waiting. Why do you do that?

I don’t know, God! Why do I do that? It’s not that I don’t think time spent with You is important. And I am not taking Your Presence for granted, I hope–or am I?

Taking for granted can mean two different things. One devalues a relationship while the other realizes how precious a gift that relationship is. Which do you think you do?

Honestly, I do think I consider our relationship a precious gift, something You have granted, and also something I can always count on. When I stop to think, I know in my heart and mind You are always there. I mean, always here. 

And how does that assurance make you feel?

Safe. I type that and I pause. So my life has had its share of scary moments, God, truthfully. And I think of the old joke, no one gets out alive. But walking with You, that makes all the difference. It does. Maybe being an only child has made me more sensitive or more aware of how precious our connection is, especially with my folks gone. I know no matter what, You are with me. Your presence has gotten me through lots of challenges, and I guess I just count on the fact of it now, that You will continue to be right here.

As I said, I will never leave you nor forsake you.

Not even when hard things happen?

Especially not then. Not ever. But especially not then.

You know, when I think of first thoughts in that context, I don’t even think “thoughts.” I think more “feelings” and the feeling is the same as a great big hug. All the feelings that I associate with giving or receiving a hug with someone I love–presence, comfort, gladness, laughter, relief–that is what I think of when I think of being with You. So I guess the overarching thought, first and last, is Love. Love and Gratitude. Thank You, God.

You know Pete loves you, and you know you love him, as a reality that is as much a part of your being as your breath is. Love Me the same way. Count on My Love in the same way. You don’t always have to talk, and you don’t always have to hear Me in words. But you can always have the experience you just described, of awareness of My Presence with you deep in your heart, not just at any given moment, but at all moments. Then there really is no need for First Thoughts, per se, for all your thoughts will be colored and shaped by your being always with Me. That is how transformation occurs, first moment by moment and then in flashes of insight that illuminate all moments thereafter.

Wow, God, I can sort of see this possibility, of complete and continuing awareness. That WOULD be transformative. I am sitting very still, watching the wind outside my window lift and dip the tree branches. I see through a glass…like the scripture quote that gave this blog its title. If I were to step beyond the glass, I would feel the wind. Right now looking out the window I “know” the wind is blowing but I cannot feel it or experience it myself. I know it as fact, but…but…I am struggling to understand and express in words. But I am not living in the wind. I am insulated from its effects. I don’t want to be insulated from Your Love and Your Presence. I don’t want to just know it. I do want to live it. Live in it. Live aware. Live Alive. Again, God, thank You.