Month: September 2018

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Give-Away

Lord, You said an extraordinary thing to me the other morning. I was driving, not taking notes. And by the way, I love that we can talk, do talk, anytime, anywhere. Thank You. Thank You for that. So I want to restart that conversation, because I never got back to You on what You began to tell me.

I was thinking about friends who are vegetarian, and wishing I were, actually. And thinking how often, even though I try to thank You, and thank the animals, for my food, I regret that something else died so I could be nourished. In the midst of that thought, which is a very old thought for me, I remembered the verses in Genesis, where in the beginning of the story, The Great Story, You gave humans the green growing plants to eat. And then after the Ark, You added in the animals. And so, driving the other morning, I said to You, why did You do that? I wish You had never done that!! And then You said…

I said, it was the animals’ thank-you to humankind, for saving them in the great flood. It was their idea, to give-away back to humanity.

So…NOT Your idea. I mean, You didn’t. I mean. I don’t know what I mean. You didn’t force them. You didn’t throw them under the bus, so to speak.

No.

But if I am reading the story right–and let me just say, maybe I am not, maybe all of us aren’t–the point of the whole story seems to be, You made the flood happen in the first place. The story’s point is, You caused all that destruction, to punish and destroy humanity. Because we were, collectively, so awful.

That is one way to read the story. Here is another: how many times have you wished for a do-over? You’ve wished that the minute a sentence came out of your mouth and you saw the reaction on the face of the one you were speaking to. Or you took an action you later regretted. You’ve wished for whole chapters, months and years of your younger days to be rewritten. The idea of a Great Ark and a Great Flood could be read as a story of destruction. It can also be read as a story of redemption and hope. In the story, Noah spent years building that Ark. It could have held much more than sailed with him. The point is that many were invited to come aboard, but refused. Who listened? The animals listened–as you sometimes experience them listening to you. It is really a story, again, about taming and saving this planet’s creatures, more than a story about condemning this planet’s peoples. It is a story about choices, and consequences, and about one man’s determination to do all the good he could, for anyone and anything that would listen to him. Noah did not view creation as something to be exploited but as something to be cherished, and preserved. That is one lesson of the story that is rarely taught. And in response, the animals thus spared decided to forever knit their lives with humanity by giving the ultimate sacrifice and allowing themselves to exchange their individual lives for the health and nourishment of humanity.

So when you eat, you do well to remember their earliest intent. Try not to focus on the product, or the process, at least not at first. It’s the same as when you ask for an animal or a bird to come to be photographed. They are nourishing you. You are calling them, and they are coming to you. If you continue to approach your photography with love in your heart, you will not have subjects, you will have collaborators. The creatures will collaborate with you. And if you could approach your meals with the same love, the same receptivity, you would find your body strengthened and nourished so that you could continue the work I have called you to do.

Eventually, everything and everyone comes Home to Me. So much fear has been woven into this! But I Am Source. From Me you have come and to Me you will return–all of you, all of everything. Some sooner, some later. Some dancing, some weeping. But all come. All come Home. And here is the Mystery: all find Love waiting. For Love overcomes All. Love overcomes fear, Love overcomes greed, Love overcomes pride, and at the last, Love overcomes Death. Light overtakes darkness, all the time, every time, and beyond Time.

So whether a deer dies of old age in the forest, or gives away to an arrow or a rifle, that deer comes Home to Me. And whether a young hunter dies of starvation in a harsh winter, or is nourished by a Give-Away deer, and lives to grow strong and lead his people for many years, in the end, the hunter comes Home to Me. Sometimes people give up too soon. The hunter could have said, it is no use. There is no game to feed me or my family. Many among you have not, because they ask not. More and more you are being schooled to believe that I Am Not. Not Good. Not Loving. Not Involved. Not Participatory. Not a Healer. Not a Provider. Not Interested. Or, simply, Not. Not Real. But I Am. Someday, all of those who believed Not, and taught Not, and spoke Not, shall too come Home. They shall come Home and find Love waiting. And all their Not shall come to Naught, and the Great Yes shall overtake them. The Yes of My Redeeming Love.

God, that’s mercy. That is extraordinary mercy. From You. From creation. And for us. I mean, humans. Honestly, we don’t really deserve it.

This is not a story about deserving. This is a story about Loving. This is a story about Great Love. Go thou and…  You get to fill in the blank. All of you. So what role will you play in the great love story of creation, unfolding? Every day is a new opportunity. Who and whose will you be today? Every rivulet in a waterfall flows in its own way, yet all have the same source. All are part of the whole and all are pure. Stay pure. Flow in Love.

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The Promise of Love

OK, I know what I want to talk to You about.

How come I am reluctant to talk to You when things are going badly–or might go badly–but I am quick to talk to You when things are going well? It’s the opposite of what I know a lot of people do. So what’s up with that? Why do I do that?

When things “go badly” as you say, this brings up for you all your old fears, all of which revolve around being abandoned, or punished, or both.

Why do I have those? I wasn’t raised that way.

No, but you were taught to fear Me, rather than to love Me, and taught that you had to please Me–in very specific ways–in order to secure My Love, or at the least, My favor, and My involvement in your daily life. You were taught, in other words, that My Love is conditional. And depending on whom you listen to, the conditions under which that Love flows may vary, but the idea that I love only under strict conditions is pervasive, and still persists within you. Worse, you were taught that all sorts of bad behavior, behavior you would not tolerate in an earthly parent, was to be accepted in the name of so-called Love, “for your own good” as a child of God, Bigger and more Powerful than you. Most of the time, you have grown enough in your relationship with Me to know differently, both by experience and by words, words you trust spoken through others and My own words to you. But in times of crisis, or great stress, you forget, and you fall back to an earlier way of perceiving and being.

It’s true! I went to the beach yesterday and tried to sing and walk, like I used to do, 30-some years ago.

And what happened?

Every time I looked up, I could see swaths of rainbow colors in two different clouds. It wasn’t raining where I was but it must have been raining offshore. And I kept thinking of the rainbow as a sign of Your promise and presence.

And so it is–and so it can be, for those with eyes to see and ears to hear. I Am not interested in punishing humanity. I Am very interested in saving humanity–which is to say in healing humanity, in restoring humanity, and in elevating humanity beyond small pettiness into great Love. I Am very interested in drawing humanity more fully into My Presence which, as you well know, is where transformation happens.

If you could transform one thing in your life, what would it be?

Only one? Ha!

Let’s start with one. Let’s see what happens from there. What one thing would you choose?

Gosh, God, I am thinking of so many things. But the one thing I would choose first, I think, is that the old default, which apparently is still active within me, of reacting in fear, which leads to doubt, and then to despair–I’d ditch that somehow. Instead I’d react b what I know, or say I know a lot of the time, about You. I’d react with Love, and all of Love’s outworking, like faith and courage and hope.

You do this all the time for others. It’s time, past time, you learn to do that for yourself.

How do I do that?

By playing a little game, and imagining, each time you are tempted to panic, or to give into fear, that you just learned of the triggering circumstances in the life of a best friend. Imagine she would listen to you, and your task is to speak, from your heart and Mine, into her fear. Into her upset. Into her stress. What would you say, if it wasn’t yourself you were talking to?

Hmm. I never thought of that. 

Give it a try. Treat yourself like your own best friend–and imagine you get to tell her what you know, deep in your heart, about Me. Tell it to yourself in those times you need to be reminded. Remember, David encouraged himself in God. You can too.