Category: World View

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The Missing Piece

Lord, you started to say something this morning as I was getting ready to leave the house, and I found it extraordinary, and I kind of cut You off, because I was so afraid I would forget it, and I wanted to write it down. So can we start that whole conversation again, please? I was trying to wrap my mind around uniqueness versus self-centeredness, and that is when You interrupted.

Yes, you were thinking, as you often do, in dualities. Selfish or self-centered versus self-sacrificing or self-denying.

Yes, that was it! And You said there was a Third Way! Please, tell me again.

I told you to think about a jigsaw puzzle. Being selfish or self-centered would be like thinking you are the most important piece in the puzzle. Being self-sacrificing or self-denying in this sense does not mean putting the needs of someone else ahead of your own, which you all need to do from time to time, but not always, or in every single circumstance. Being self-denying as it relates to the puzzle would be to say, my piece is not important at all. The puzzle doesn’t need my piece.

The truth is, every piece is important to the puzzle. Have you ever tried to complete a jigsaw puzzle with pieces missing? Isn’t it frustrating until you figure out that not all the pieces are in the box? And if you get nearly finished and then discover a piece is missing, don’t you feel a great sense of let-down, of frustration, because without that one missing piece, the puzzle is incomplete.

Further, by trying so hard to be inconspicuous, even absent, that missing piece actually becomes, in a negative sense, the first thing you notice when you look at the puzzle in its entirety. You notice what is missing, not all the pieces that are there, in their places. You notice the lack first. By trying to be of no importance, the missing piece actually becomes the most important.

But what happens when every piece is in its place? The whole puzzle fits together, no matter how many pieces there are, no matter how intricate the pattern or design. Each tiny piece is essential to complete the pattern and to create the whole.

If everyone simply accepted this fact, that every piece is essential and important, that everyone has a unique contribution to make, and gifts to share with the world, what a different world you would inhabit!! No one would be trying to occupy the wrong space. No one would be vying for a larger or more important position. Every piece would be revered if only everyone had as a goal completing the whole picture. There would be no war and no enmity, for the purpose of completing the pattern would predominate over every other concern.

So do not worry about taking up more space, or less space, or no space. Take your place, fit yourself in to My Grand Design, and watch everything fall into place, like pieces of a puzzle, all around you.

But Lord, what if some pieces won’t play? I mean, what if some demand a larger share of the puzzle, or refuse to be a part of it at all, even if their motives for refusal are shyness, or fear, or even, they have been told they mustn’t take any public place? 

Don’t worry about other pieces. Just diligently search to find your own niche, your own place, and your own shape there. Complete your part of the puzzle in real time, in the time given to you. Do your part in making the picture beautifully and wonderfully complete.

So, Lord…I had this idea, what photograph to make to accompany this, and it is a Lion puzzle I have, which I thought was neat, because of the Chronicles of Narnia, and Aslan, so I chose it, and set up the image and realized after I clicked my shutter that the gap formed shows a heart! A heart on its side.

Yes, that was My little gift to you tonight. Can you dare to believe that you, as an individual and as a stand-in, as it were, for every human on the planet, that you complete My Heart? It’s true. Every human, as each one becomes his or her best self, completes My Heart, fills in the gaps that My Love has created specifically for them to find and fill. My Love is fully complete, you see, when it is received and shared.

God, You are amazing. Thank You.

 

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Yes and No

Lord, I don’t even want to turn on the news. All night long, I have managed to avoid most of the television and all of the online coverage. So I feel guilty, avoiding what is, what happened, what keeps happening…and I feel as if I somehow, as if we all somehow should collectively, what? Mourn? Fast? Pray? Repent? Say we are sorry for something we didn’t do? But we are sorry, profoundly, mournfully sorry. And we are desperate. And we are angry. And we are sad. And we are, I am, so very confused.

Confused about what?

Confused about what to do. What to say. Where to look. What action to take–or avoid taking. Everything is so darned political and all we want, at least I hope all we want, is for our children to be safe. Safe at school, safe at home, safe with us, safe away from us. Seriously, what parent doesn’t want their children safe?

I Am a Parent and I want all My Children safe.

Yes, okay, well, they’re not. They’re not. All Your children are not safe. Not here. Not now. Not on this planet. Not in this chapter. And the “not-safe”–it rocks us and reels us and tilts us off center. It does.

It is supposed to.

What?!?

You are not supposed to find your center, your balance, as a part of unrest, or discord, or violence. You find your center despite those things, not because of those things. You find your center in Me Who is greater than violence.

God, here we go, I am sorry, but here we go. This world makes less and less sense, and trying to find Your Presence in less and less sense is, well, getting harder. Almost impossible. 

So you need to look for Me where you know I Am. Everywhere you find beauty, everywhere you find lovingkindness, everywhere you find peace, everywhere you find acts of generosity, there I Am. I Am in the midst of all that. When I say, I Am Everywhere Present, here is what you must understand. I Am not present to evil, and evil is not sustained in My Presence. I Am present as rescuer or healer or restorer of the breach, yes. But I Am not present in the act of pulling the trigger, in the mindset that seeks out violent solutions, that meets blow for blow for blow. I Am in the act of redemption and restoration and renewal.

So, God. Please. What is someone like me to do? What can I possibly do or say that will make one iota of difference in the way this world is spinning? Seriously. I am not trying to be sarcastic. I am crying out in distress, please, please help us. What are we supposed to do? And please don’t say anything about how we live in a culture of violence now. I know. I am asking what one person can do.

You can opt out of that culture of violence. You can commit, again and again, to saying No to violence in any form, and Yes to peace in every form. Not the lazy, empty, fearful peace at any price that actually condones evil by ignoring it. I Am talking about something far braver and far harder. I Am talking about standing and saying No, not running or hiding and saying No. I Am talking about standing and saying Yes, not whispering yes from some secret place like a secret code between initiates. I Am talking about standing and being who you are in Me.

Don’t I do that already?

Sometimes. But sometimes you are afraid to say what you think and feel out loud. Isn’t that true?

Well, yes, a lot of the time that is true. But what does that have to do with this?

If more ordinary folks said yes, and no, those voices would become louder than the militant shouting of the violent. Turn up your own volume, not by being belligerent. Not by trying to outshout the shouters. Not by being arrogant. Do not adopt any of violence’s ways or means. But you can still be true to all your values and gently and quietly yet firmly, do as the scripture says, and let your yes BE yes, and let your no BE no. Live your Yes. Live your No. Be willing to be identified as who you truly are and what you truly believe.

You have heard and read and recited a lot of different creeds over the years. Why don’t you sit down with Me and prayerfully co-create a creed that accurately says everything that is in your heart? Everything that is in your heart about Me, about humanity in Me, about this planet you call home. Why don’t we examine your thoughts and feelings and beliefs together? Let’s write together. Let’s write something you can rely on and relay to others.

Okay, Lord. This might take more than one sitting.

Indeed it will. Indeed it must. But the time spent will be worth it to you, I promise. It will help your mind and your heart more than you realize now.

 

 

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Sees Far

God, SeesFar, that is an Eagle Name. Not a Fox Name. Or a Deer Name. Or a Mouse Name.

Yes, you have eyes in both worlds now.

Lord, in the story, Mouse gave up both its eyes eventually—to Wolf and to Buffalo—and then Became Eagle. But Fox, fox did not give up an eye to Eagle.

Nor have you given up both eyes. No sacrifice for Love is ever wasted, even if not received by the originally intended recipient. I take all those gifts to Myself. And I never forget. So Fox’s missing eye Eagle has received and made its own, and given back to Fox as extraordinary vision. Vision in the Extraordinary sense.

Like, Vision.

Exactly.

Oh!! So I have…

So you have a Fox/Mouse eye, and an Eagle eye. You have eyes in both East and South.

And my ears?

You have ears in the West and North.

Oh.

You hear language and music. You hear nature and My Spirit. You hear within and Beyond, just as you see here and Beyond. You see what is, and what will be. You also see what can be. And you hear in those directions as well. You hear what is, but you also hear what can be, and what will be. You hear My Heart. You have tuned your heart to My Rhythms. Now I want you to finetune your focus, your vision, on My Vision, just as you have tuned your heart to My Heart. Do You Understand?

Probably not. But I am willing.

That is enough.

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Planting Peace

God, I’ve started writing twice a day, morning at the page, evening here. I just realized, I am writing at night in part to avoid the nightly news, which is never, ever, positive; is always filled with some new act of violence. There is never an evening without a violent crime. So in desperation, I go over to my shelf of notebooks, year upon year of dialog with You, and choose one at random, asking You to guide my hand please, and this is what I found. It is so spot-on to what I am feeling now, even though it is five plus years old. So here it is:

God, I feel sort of numb. Like, if I experience my feelings, I will either sink or explode. I am shutting down, closing off pieces of myself, and how do I not do that? I really really need to hear from You.

You can’t light a fuse in one place and then be surprised when the bomb goes off, somewhere else.

But Lord, couldn’t You make it rain? Put that fuse out?

Your culture is lighting fuses everywhere, connected to bigger and bigger explosives. The horrible wonder isn’t that violence is happening–the horrible wonder is that it hasn’t happened in many more places.  Your whole nation is on fire. You meet anger with greater anger; you live on retaliation; you fight fire with fire.

Lord, there are all those verses about last days. How everything gets worse–violence, wars, famine, earthquakes, violence in the weather–and the end is not yet, You said, which I always have taken to mean, but wait, it gets worse. So how can I, how can any of us actually believe in goodness and peace here? In Your Kingdom coming, here? In working for peace, here? Aren’t we just kidding ourselves? What’s the use? Meaning, our love and sincerity don’t really matter in the grand scheme of things, because everything is actually going to get worse, like a spreading poison taking over a clean lake and…

This isn’t a lake. This is a River.

Ok, whatever, like a spreading poison taking over a river, and–

STOP. Ssshhh. Just stop. The tears you won’t let yourself cry are blinding you. “Of the increase of His government and of Peace there will be no end.” That is the River.

But Lord, there are people, deluded, sick, whatever, and they are dumping poison into Your River.

The biggest poison of all, the most potent, is the poison that says I don’t care, I Am not involved, I have given up on your world. Do you have any idea how much I, the Lord, grieve: My tears will not stop until “there is no more crying or sorrow or pain or death.” Not until “the old order of things has passed away.”

Lord, what message can I bring?  I am seeing me kneeling, planting seeds in a garden, believing for flowers, believing for harvest. Every farmer lives on that faith, huh?

And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace. Begin to speak your truth. Not your opinion–opinions can be argued with–but your truth.

Lord, what? What is my truth?

That you love Me, and you trust Me. That you grapple, as others do, with hard questions, but fro a framework that assumes that I Am, that I Am Good, that I love you, and I love your world.

Gosh, Lord, the field goes on and on and on, as far as I can see.

This is your life’s work, sowing seeds of goodness and kindness and peace.

Lord, you know how I think nobody cares what I think.

I care what you think. I care especially what you think. If you–and others like you–lose faith, faith in Me, faith in My heart, faith in My goodness, faith in a glorious future, then the world really will go dark, You–all of you who believe–are the light of the world, now. You are a city set on a hill, now. Build My Kingdom, plant My Kingdom. Speak your peace, now. Add to the storehouse of goodness. Make a beautiful difference. The world needs you, and others like you.

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Perspectives

Lord, I think I need to talk about perspective. Somebody could come along tonight and ask, how was your day? And depending on my perspective, on what particular aspect or moment I want to focus on, I would answer in any number of ways! I might say, great! I might say, exhausting. I might say, tense. I might say, overwhelming. I might say, truly wonderful. And all of those things would be true! 

You remember the proverb, as someone thinks, so someone is? So what is your dominant emotion right now?

Joy. Gratitude.

And why is that?

Well…we had some difficulties today with the move, no doubt. But they all resolved in the end–or are close enough to being resolved that I don’t have to fret over them. Pete is no longer frustrated or anxious and that helps me, too, it does. And overarching any difficulties was my gratitude for all the help, the moving guys, Phyllis’ trojan efforts over the past days to get us ready, and her vision and Pete’s vision for the new space as well. Then there was the synchronistic serendipity of the two gals who “just happened” to wander in, and right at the time we could talk and connect. Honestly, that was huge. Encouraging that fledgling artist, I say fledgling only because that is what she might, if she were being generous, name herself, when actually she is full stature and doesn’t see it yet, but encouraging her was a highlight of my week so far. I had a brief conversation with a grandson and his voice always brings me joy. I connected with several friends over the past couple days. It has been good.

So your perspective acknowledges all the realities of your day. You aren’t ignoring the difficult parts or pretending they did not happen. You lived through them and felt the weight of them in real time. The difference is, you did not allow them to overtake your overall perspective, of life being basically good, and of seeking–and therefore finding–places to connect and ways to bless. Your perspective shapes your reality. It does.

 I have had this happen, actually, in a photograph, where the perspective was skewed because of my lens choice. And what my lens saw and the reality my eyes saw were very different.

If you can keep holding on to your chosen perspective, to live a life centered in Love, in Gratitude, in Peace, that does not mean you will not encounter any difficulties. It does mean you have tools to navigate through them, and beyond. It also means at the end of the day, like right now, when you look back on your day, you do so from this position your perspective offers.

When you look back on your week, this time tomorrow, and when you look back on your year, at the end of the season, and when you look back on this chapter, and when you eventually look back on your life, you will see clearly the valleys you walked through, but you will also see how they did not predominate your life’s landscape. Instead you will see the shining reality your perspective created for you and those around you, over and over, just as today–a reality of beauty and hope, of centering and encouragement, of joy and peace and love. Remember, if you want to change something in your outward reality, have a good close look at your perspective.

Ok, God. I hear You. And God…thank You.