Know for yourself.... Or as Jesus said... "You've heard it be said..."

Those have been the words that have circulated within my heart all week.  I look forward (not really) to writing about the third week of a year without fear.  It will go down as the week that fear began to say, "oh really."  But that is not this post.

"You've heard it be said," those are the words that are recorded as coming from the mouth of Christ.  He took the letter of the law.  For He had spoken it was not to abolish but to be fulfilled.  So He took what they knew and started there... So amazing.  He did that for the lawmakers, the prostitutes, those that would think themselves righteous and those who never dare such a thing.  He met everyone where they were at... Leper colony, women, Samaria... He would go to them.. Not expecting them to come to Him. Though they did.

"You've heard it be said," He would say.  He would then talk about an action.  Murder, adultery, false witness, vengence and the question of who should be loved.  He spoke, "you've heard it be said," meeting each listener in the moment, and then He took it further and further.

It was not to be about action. It was to be about the heart.  It wasn't any longer going to be what you put into the body.  It was what was now going to come out of the heart.  No longer could an external set of behavior "save" a soul.  Now one must see one's own heart and deal with what is seen there by the Divine, who is never blinded nor fooled.

So I got an email talking about a "late, great" somebody. I was being told, that which I already knew. But the person was saying, haven't you heard it be said.  I know many things about a "late, great" human being.  I understand that person's thoughts on many matters.  I have seen first hand some of the wreckage too. Such as that "late, great" somebody's opinion on yoga, on tattoos, on many subjects. I will momentarily refer to a West Wing Episode where Jeb Bartlett addresses such a thing.   I was being told, "you've heard it be said,"  but that was all that they had.. the letter of the law.  Which isn't actually a letter of the law but a person's personal opinion and preference.  What I say back is this... "You've heard it be said."  I will continue however and not just stay there....  You see I don't want you taking the "late, great" one's opinion.. I don't want you taking mine.  I want you to think for yourself.  Understand that spirituality is more about the flow of the heart then anything else.

It isn't what my body does or doesn't do, it isn't what I eat or don't eat, it isn't how I worship or if I worship, it isn't if I do yoga or if I don't.. Yoga isn't ever holy.  I am.  Yoga is a modality that brings together the body, the mind and the spirit in such a way that I find peace and union with self and the Divine.  I am not confused at what that Divine is... and neither is that Divinity confused about what the nature and character of its Divine self is......

When Jesus goes into Samaria.. a place that the Jews of that age would not go.  This is what He eventually says to a woman He meets at a well.  "But an hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers."

You've heard it be said!  There and then again in the book of Acts reiterating what the prophetic voice of a Hebrew man named Joel once spoke... Upon all flesh will the Spirit of the Lord be poured out...

I implore you... It matters not to me that which you say about me, my practice, my life and embracing of yoga... It should matter to you.. There was in the times right after the Christ would ascend the question of food. Peter had a vision. Paul would teach.  Meat having been scarified to idols was now no longer the problem. It would be what a person's heart would lead them towards. What a person's conscience could bare up under.  Weaker, was the world used to describe the one who couldn't see that it was just meat.  But the onus was upon the stronger to watch over and not use one's own liberty for gloating or anything like that.

You've heard it be said.. that there is an hour where true worshipers will worship in spirit and in truth. I'm telling you I'm seeing it .. I'm seeing it at a yoga festival with dance and beauty and mantra, and I'm seeing it in the yoga studio with practice and patience and rest.  Worship looks different.. to some it is a hymnal, to others its a rock band, to others still it is silence, and for others it incorporates the body. Some won't think one way is for them. That is ok.  But let's not be as the religious of old and insult and condemn.  Let's find the place of worship where it is in freedom we follow the Spirit of the Lord into love, laughter and life...

Where the Spirit of the Lord is there is freedom not fear....  It did start with "You've heard it be said..." but it didn't stay there... Let's not either!

Tanks or Knees? Learning a new language and sticking with it....

In 2002 my  husband and I took on an endeavor that would change our lives.  IntrepretMyDream.Com was born. (Site is now called Stir the Water. It is on a break until the Fall 2015 just in case you go looking for it and don't find it today.)

How that changed my life, was that in creating a website to train up dream interpreters, we also started a community into which we forced a new language.  How the site worked was simple.  People put their dreams in, people who wanted to learn how to interpret them and had taken classes would interpret them, and their interpretations would be examined for accuracy and clarity, approved or asked to be redone. (The infamous redo.)

What we very quickly discovered was that in wanting to train up dream interpreters to take dream interpretation to anyone, anywhere there was a journey of language that needed to be taken.  In our sphere and in our sociological group of non denominational, charismatic Christians we spoke a language that truly few could really understand.  It was a steep learning curve and a hard one.  Often I would be told I was going to hell because if I wouldn't say the name of the Christ in front of man, He wouldn't say it in front of Father.

It was never that I wouldn't say the name or speak truthful spiritual realities. It was that I wanted to learn a new way of doing so.  A way that didn't close off a heart before it could even open.  A way that didn't sound pompous, religious and full of it.  A way that was full of light and liberty and love.  We found it bit by bit as did many others.

And the journey continued.

I never thought of myself as a linguist of any sorts.  Except as the years passed my journey continued forward with a hunger to develop ways to talk about spiritual realities.  It became my passion.  A couple years ago the journey would take a sharp turn, having me face the steepest of learning curves.  Now it wasn't just language, it was culture. The questions only continued to increase.

I shouldn't be shocked by now, however I find that I continually stand in a state of awe.  I feel at times that I have come to the end of a journey, with only a dead end facing me.  The road seemingly comes to a stop sign, with a very large brick wall looming where the next step should be. 

Not shrinking back I touch said wall wondering will it move if my finger falls upon the right brick, is there a way to scale this formidable obstacle, or is there another way.

I remember often why it is said that Carol Wimber wrote her book on the journey of her and husband and the Vineyard.  I heard that as other interpretations of what happened were coming out, she knew in her heart that that wasn't the way it had occurred. They really were just people taking a step at a time.  Whether that story is true or not, it has guided my heart through many an endeavor.  I think to myself, "There doesn't have to be some grandiose plan. Literally just take one step then another.  Touch the feeling. Risk. Go forward. Take a chance."

As a 43 year old woman I am none too ashamed to have Journey to the Past blasting forth through my stereo as I drive these days.  There's something about it that had played in my head one day.  That song and Once upon a December from the same Anastasia Disney Film.  They both speak to my heart in a way that pours into that muscle courage, hope, endurance, and a remembrance.  A remembrance to emerge and really be that which I am.

Those songs coupled with my current need to write a paper based on someone who has formed out my spiritual framework is awakening me to a whole new world. (Sorry had to throw another Disney lyric in there).  I had asked my supervisor if I could take a different approach. Recognizing my deep interior need, that while there were those I had been formed out by, all I was was yearning for a new voice to under gird, challenge and equip me.  Without hesitation, my supervisor spoke out St. Catherine of Siena.  In exaggeration I would be inclined to say that never truer words were spoken.

I have read about her, her life, her journey.  I have read what other men and women have said about her and I have fallen deeply in love.  I have been convicted and challenged as I have watched a recreation of my inner woman formed and reformed.  Here was this brilliant, articulate, illiterate woman who in the fourteenth century stood formidable changing life and history before the eyes of popes, cardinals and princes of the Church.  She stood by her vision, her passion, her understanding with tenacity and a courage that is illuminating.

I've learned much from her.  Seen places where I have shrunk back, not arising to how I am wired as a human being nor embracing the fullness of that which is within me.

At this point in our time together reading this post; we have Disney songs, a Catholic Saint, and then into the mix another conversation would render me a puddle. As form within me dissolved, forcing me to take a look at what I believe. I bumped up against a new language.  I came face to face with thought and intellectual conversation that was more spiritual than I could have ever imagined.  More than anything I came face to face with what I most earnestly believe.  The challenge reverberating in my heart was would I take the next step.   Would I open my mouth?  I was touching who I intrinsically am, the things I deeply believe even though I have not seen... My eyes were wide. My heart was leaping.

What was it?

A conversation that would introduce me to the reality of a more secularized conversation of how religion affects sociological and geopolitical realities.   Uhm, Mims... Have you completely gone off the deep end?  YES!  And it is wonderful. Take the leap with me!

As I touched the conversation with this woman that I was meeting for the first time, I could feel the intriguing nature and pull of the words being spoken and realities being shared. It wouldn't be until later that light bulb after light bulb after light bulb would begin to start filling my head with so much light that immense, unquantifiable joy began to touch all aspects of my person; body and soul.

Why?

Well.. here's the journey.

I'm often asked about my journey these days. I've learned I write in broad strokes.  The details of the journey, the passage way of the steps sometimes left out.  Now while each of us has our own unique step by step passageway, I don't mind hearing back from you that sometimes it helps to have the step by step.  I totally get that. Believe me, I do.

I know this post is getting long. I want all of this story in one posting so no part one and part two.  Pause, go do what you need to and come back if you can't keep reading.....  Now, with that out of the way... Here we go.

A while back I had an experience, one of those that changes the depths of your being, I was left changed.  It had to do with the reality of the Divine Nature.  Call God whatever you will but as Paul spoke on Mars Hill to the the populous in Athens, he said this; "We ought not to think that the Divine Nature is like gold or silver or stone, an image formed by the art and thought of man."  What touching those words did to me in that moment and in moments to come transformed me.

Man will always try to form out what exactly the Divine Nature is and I do believe we get it wrong much more than we get it right, primarily because we want to get it right and be right, making others wrong and the right "us," whoever that is, strong.  But what landed upon my heart and has in further conversations with said, Divine Nature, been sparked is many questions.  Now I am already living in a place where christian friends don't think I am christian enough, friends who fall more on the new age spectrum still think I'm too christian, theologically liberal friends think I'm a tad too conservative but those on the conservative side would so not agree.  What does all that mean?  I'm open.  I'm open to truth.  I want to be lead into all truth. Which is a job of the Holy Spirit.  It is the job of the Spirit of the Divine Nature to lead me into all truth.  I can trust that. I do trust that.  A morphing of language is once again occurring in my depths.  A new linguistic study of how even more can I speak truth in a way that calls forth those who bare the image of the Divine Nature.  Which the last time I remember reading genesis was all humanity that was formed from the dust had life and image breathed into them.  What any of us do with that image is another posting and another time. Let's move forward.

Enter the sociological, geopolitical perspective.  Divine Nature meets sociology. Divine Nature meets geography.  Divine Nature meets politics. 

My mind began to think about the story of Obed Edom in ways I never had.  Obed Edom, the flood, the earth quake happening after the crucifixion. Current affairs and the Transformations series.  Stories of how this Divine Nature acts upon geography, communities and politics.  Now I realize you can talk about the concept of religion devoid of any spirituality. While that's true about a blanket discussion on religion, I came to a place where all these thoughts were having me sitting up, thinking, stopping, pausing.. considering language and conversation and reality.

If I create something (let's say even Stir The Water) even if I take a sabbatical from it, even if it is off the web for a few months; I am still the one who has helped to fashion and form that community.  I care about her. I think about her and her development.  I wonder about what how she will be in the future and what changes are necessary to move forward.  Jim and I have authority over her name, her construct, her entire entity.  While there is also a large community that has influence and plays a significant part, so we don't govern her alone but within the construct of a people group.

So what is this Divine Nature that removed from religion will act upon the earth, humanity? What does this Divine Nature do or not do?  Then came this question and I fell to my knees and the statement Knees not Tanks entered my heart. Humanity has always looked to the proverbial Pharaoh to have impressive horses and chariots.  But what about the Divine Nature who took a man named Gideon and his army, dwindled it down from over 30,000 to 300 and gave said army victory simply by having them break glass and shout.  Who is THAT Divine Nature?

Or what about that Obed Edom story. 

Here comes a King. (Political issue) King interacts with supernatural happening around the presence of Divine Nature and someone who mishandles the situation by trying to touch the Ark dies. King leaves ark in with a non Hebrew... This is how 2 Samuel 6:11 makes an accounting of that event.

And David was unwilling to move the ark of the LORD into the city of David with him; but David took it aside to the house of Obed-edom the Gittite. Thus the ark of the LORD remained in the house of Obed-edom the Gittite three months, and the LORD blessed Obed-edom and all his household.

As I took more and more of the conversation I had had to heart, thought about all these stories I know about both biblical and current affairs, my mind raced.

Then as I sat with Divine Nature, paused, stilled myself, touched quiet; I heard, "If my people ..." And I sat and began to cry....

...and My people who are called by My name humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their ways that destroy them, each other and their relationship to me, then I will hear from heaven, will forgive their sin and will heal their land ...

Just look at the news these days... WHAT LAND DOESN'T NEED HEALING?  And how does it begin? Humility!  A willingness to admit I've gotten somethings wrong.  I want to live in more of a right manner.  I want to live a manner that puts me more in union and unity with my fellow human beings and the Divine Nature.  In so doing this Divine Nature will once again act upon creation and bring healing.

What I realized in that moment?  Was that the confidence of St. Catherine, the confidence imbued upon me because I am fashioned and formed in the likeness of Divine Nature is granting to me the reality that I have power and confidence coursing through me.  I have a voice. I have an intellect. I have ideas. I have a belief that in so believing in the reality of a Divine Nature, that it what it is not based upon humanity but just because it is, that that Divine Nature cares deeply about humanity sociologically speaking in very practical terms. That in seeking that Divine Nature, we as humanity can become more true to the image in which we were always intended to bare forth.

I realized that even if I never see such things happen around me or in my life, that I most thoroughly believe that this Divine Nature acts upon and changes things and cares deeply about geography, politics, religious expression, and sociological issues. 

 In our pride we want to relegate that compassion and kindness to one specific box, one specific people; yet reality screams forth from the invisible real that that Divine Nature so loves the whole world that the way that that Nature acts upon all of us can at any moment affect things and bring healing upon our lands.  I'm more confident of this fact then the reality of any capacity that a peace keeping UN group or military excursion would have within its abilities.  I am more confident of the capacity of stillness, quiet, rest, kindness, love (and this list could go on forever) to affect real change than I am of anything else.

If I appear to be a fool. I'll be a fool upon knees bent and a heart trying to learn true humility. I'll be a fool believing that horses and chariots, or today's tanks and weapons of war; are no match for returning to ways of living that are actually full of life, no match for the reality of what rest and sabbath can empower creation and humanity with, no match for what quietness can affect, no match for the powerful force of kindness.  

I am a life. One life.  Upon my life there has been much chaos.  In this season I feel the Spirit of Divine Nature brooding and hovering over all that has felt chaotic.  As I have not leaned upon my own understanding but in all my ways attempted to acknowledge what is right and truthful, kind and strong, I find my paths being directed in ways I would have never fathomed but am truly finding life within. I find myself stronger, more confident  while embracing that those things I once was certain I knew I no longer can believe with complete absolute certainty (now hear me.. there are pillars that I believe still hold up my building of faith, I just yearn to communicate even that in a way that is open and questioning) because  in embracing that uncertainty I am finding more mystery  and joy.  I am finding myself and some of the chaos is abating. And it is good... NO! It is very good.

So here is where I live.. Language changing day by day, boxes being crushed and put out to the curb, and me more in love with Divine Nature and the reality of that Nature to act upon my life, the life of my family, the life of my community, the life of the world.

 

The healing that comes with the friendship of trees....

I knew for days that I was supposed to watch the movie, Avatar.  I was being pulling back into it.  I wasn't aware of why.  Then this scene:

Jake Sully: Look, I know you probably don't understand this...
[Neytiri ignores him and speaks Na'vi]
Jake Sully: Thank you.
[Neytiri speaks Na'vi]
Jake Sully: That was pretty impressive. I would have been screwed if you hadn't come along.
[Neytiri stands up and leaves. Jake follows her]
Jake Sully: Hey, wait a second! Where are you goin'? Wait up! Just, hey, slow down! I just wanted to say thanks for killin' those things...
[Neytiri hits him with her bow]
Jake Sully: Aah! Damn!
Neytiri: Don't thank. You don't thank for this! This is sad. Very sad only.
Jake Sully: Okay, okay. I'm sorry. Whatever I did, I'm sorry.
Neytiri: All this is your fault. They did not need to die.
Jake Sully: My fault? They attacked me! How am I the bad guy?
Neytiri: Your fault! Your fault.
Jake Sully: Easy. Easy...
Neytiri: You are like a baby. Making noise, don't know what to do. 

And I began to weep.

I realized more places where I was "like a baby," in things that matter.  All the places I would call good evil and evil good.  The places that still reverberate within me more as American Non denominational consumer based "christian," playing with things of the spirit with no, to little understanding  versus settling into knowing God. His heart, His vision, His purposes... His ways that are higher then.

His reality.

His understanding.

 His spoken good into Creation and very good into man...

What did it all mean? What does it all mean?  What is the fullness of Christ's High Priestly prayer of oneness? What is the oneness of the Body of Christ? What is it to truly be only as strong as our weakest part? The reality of so much of truth; that I and the culture and form of Christianity  I participate within, don't understand. Aren't willing to understand or touch possible understanding out of fear or laziness.. Yet the premise and foundations for it all are within our very scriptures. 

The truths that His power is made perfect in weakness but I hate weakness.
That the poor are blessed and called rich, but I want money to spend and entertain myself
That the meek rule and yet I want to be strong and show but metered vulnerabilities
That in losing life we find it but who truly wants to die and face loss
That not leaning on our own understanding but in all our ways acknowledging God our paths will be made straight unless of course it comes to planning out a Sunday service or a 5 year plan for church growth

In oh so many ways, I am "like baby."

Except today a tutor came on the scene.

 I am deeply moved.

Altered.

 Struck dumb.

Sitting with my husband who has loved the trees well; we have talked and talked this evening about many things ... Still, I am "like baby," but I am being held by beauty and transformation and growth is being added to me.

Here is my story of this afternoon... Beauty, and moments not sought after could have been easily ignored. Ever so grateful God has pressed in teaching me to listen to the stillest of whispers; the gentlest of breezes.

I sat on the patio with a bag full of reading needing to be done. Except I was drawn to my notebook.  Reading some journal entries I had written yesterday.  Then I knew. Pick up pen.  Find new page. No reading for class was going to be done.  As I looked to my left, trees caught my attention. 

As I looked in front of me, trees caught my attention.

My whole being alighted.

The sky began to pulse, the earth began to sing and the trees began to whisper.  His voice became clear within the symphony of creation. " This is Creation's groan for you.  For you to understand and be revealed as a daughter."

  Creations groans go unheard more often then not and yet they are still sung over and over and over again. Their melodies are never not in the air.

This is my journey  of the afternoon. The affects reverberate deep and deeper still.  I  lay down, now, in my bed, reviewing in my mind the dance and beauty of the trees. Smiling. More full. Breathing. At rest.

The tree taught me many secrets this day; she and I will know one another forever.  I am not special that I heard  her song, I was just willing to listen.

This is how it began.

Father's desire came through the clouds wooing me to look up and enjoy Creation.  The sky, the clouds, the breeze, the air, the trees, the earth... the music was pure and brilliant and fun.  Creation was smiling. The Lord was smiling as I lifted my head from what I wanted to do, allowing all that I am to be touched and brought away from what I wanted to occupy my time with.

The blue of the sky expressed its nature.  Blue and tones of purple swirled to form the sky as did the white clouds enter covering the sun; illuminating themselves, making a display so awe inspiring that I was moved by wonder and fascination at how Creation so quickly bowed and obeyed.  Creating a most entrancing blend of color, light, sound, air,  and all the more that English language is not mature enough to bring forth fullness of explanation.

His voice came through the scene, through the clouds as it added to the wholeness of all that was transpiring.  "When you lock yourself into me and practice radical abiding, you live. A branch can not live apart from the tree and the tree needs its roots."  I could sense the wonder of the trees as the Lord talked about them.  How they love Him. They recognize Him for Creator always.  Never do they not know Him.  Never do they not bow.  We could learn much from trees.

Then He continued, " A tree needs its roots to go deep and its branches to stretch reaching up; meeting the air, meeting the sky.

Abide,

Abiding... Lean into that reality. Lean. Lean even more. Lean with everything in you.

I am the Vine. You are the branch."

Then I knew to pray and ask my Lord, my God; Creator of all that was and is and is to come the following,

Deepen the roots
Reach down and empower healing to go to all their ends.
(Knowing I was praying for generations  past and all that that entails.)
I reach up
Up into the air.
Reaching for warmth, sun, clouds, air, breath

I knew inside of me that by watching the reality of the trees in this season of Spring that  healing ... deep healing would enter my soul.  So I sat. I sat and I watched her and as I watched her I began to hear something ever so slightly.  I began to connect dots.  The beckoning to know to lean was for this moment. I was not to be afraid. I was not to think this wasn't happening.  I was to lean.  I was to lean into the moment. In leaning into the moment, in listening to the objective of the lesson taught merely minutes before, transformation began to saturate my flesh bearing into my soul.

The tree was singing.  Singing its Spring time songs.  Reaching up...  stretching down.
And I realized the last line of my prayer was actually picking up on the first line of the song of the tree.  Giving me their words.....

Reaching for warmth, sun, clouds, air, breath;
They enter to travel down..
Coursing through your frame
While the roots reach down into the depths of earth
meeting Earthen soil, minerals, nutrients pulling them up

Breeze and air,
sunlight and the kisses of the stars saturate your branches, your  leaves, your fragrance cascading downwards through all that you are
Earthen riches seep into your roots, feeding hunger.. strengthening base.

Moisture and Dew caught forth from the Heavens are pulled up as if through a straw by that which anchors you firmly into Earth.

The richness and gifts of air and earth meet within and form out a most incredible song.
If I dare to listen to its holy message I will find myself changed, renewed.. made strong.

You that stand so mighty, so full, with such stature and beauty reaching towards Heaven and mining the Earth tell me your secrets, convey to me your mysteries and sing to me your songs.  Your longing.. your groaning is that we would be revealed as the sons and daughters of God.. of the sons and daughters of Creator that we are....  Your songs so full of hope, so melodious.. so utterly aching for liberty.. so deep and full of the earth and yet so light and saturated with breeze that the notes float along the clouds.

Tell me your secrets
convey to me your mysteries
within your trunk it is all found
Rings upon rings
 It, you, all sing a melody... a melodious symphony cascades deeply from within sky rocketing up from the tops of your branches.. swirling together the songs of earthen creation and heavenly atmospheres.
It is a grander music.. it is a grander sound.. it is a grander symphony than has ever been known to man...
We have touched it here and there... those that listen and borrow from it's excellence...

Trees are magnificent tutors..

More prayers erupted from the depths of my soul...

Oh sweet tree, giver of life and fruit and that which is embodied to your care...
May I never negate you or treat you less than the divine good spoken upon thee..
You are  gift
You are friend...

The moment those words were spoken, I was caught up into a vision and I was standing next to the tree... I placed my hand upon its bark and all that was the tree coursed from the inside to meet my hand on it's exterior.

I closed my eyes
Warmth
Light
Breeze
Clouds fill out the sky, making lavender blueness with its pale essence.
Sun, cloud, sky .. they all nurture and again a fullness of music and sound and song and notes began ever so quietly.

I could see how in moments not recognized by us .. by me...  Humanity feels strengthened by the efforts and songs of the earth and sky, the trees, the grass, the air, light, color, wind... We hear it not with the ears given to us but yet these notes silently register upon our person.. upon hungry.. upon starved souls.

Blue meets purple as a kiss and forms out sky
White enters not as a timid ballerina but effortlessly stretching across the canvas; the stage of the sky with strength and precision.  White filtering and filling in the song.  Light erupts through them all.. through blue, purple, white, sky and cloud...  liken unto a cymbal marking a transition of movement in this most majestic symphony of Creation.

It is the day.  It is the music of the sky, saying come look at me... come gaze into me ... Into you I will flow with life such as a  melody that will alter you and bring you further up and further into His ways.

This is not a distraction but an impartation. Creation knows its Creator with the goodness spoken into its essence while humanity allows distraction away from reality of the very good and image reflecting properties of Him.  "Is it any  wonder why we groan," asked the tree? " How is that we, as good, as lesser.. know ?  Listen to our songs and be pulled up into His ways...."

Then I saw life within in the tree and it was magnificent...

 

A song continued to emerge. The more I was willing to listen, the more I could hear the life.  

Let me course through you and sing you a song that will strengthen your frame.  

I am light

I am air

I am wind, gust, breeze

I am water

I am fire

I am earth

I am sky

Each has a song

a call

a story

a melody

 a place

Each has a hunger

Each has a passion

Each has a way

I knew I felt stronger and I knew I was called to abide, abide deeply and learn to abide even deeper still.

I knew I was to breathe in and listen and heal

I knew Creation's groan and song were for me, for us all...

I knew I was being made more full.. more whole... I knew that the groan's of earth contained tears I could not shed for who I was not yet willing to be, but that she would not relent until I was formed fully into His image... for it was out of her that I was made.. out of her earthen dust ... earthen dust met divine breathe and I came forth...  It would be in her groan and again His divine breathe that I would be made new...

I knew I was to cultivate the awareness of what light and air and breathe and color and creation's song does for me, how it strengthens me as it bows all that it is to the One who spoke it all into existence. 

Then as the moments began to fade one last heart beat of instruction coursed forth on a fresh gust of air...

Trust

trust and believe

hope and nurture hope .. be and become 

Let love come... Let yourself be loved.

Then the words and picture that emerged healed depths of loneliness and pangs of sorrow...Creation befriended me; the tree specifically... But sun, air, light, color, song all took it's place, smiling.

I'll enfold you in my branches and wrap you in my bough

I'll hold your very being .. your body

Leaves once covered frightened human beings confounded by deception and pained by shame, let us cover you the same..

abide.. Abide!

This was my last prayer as the sun began to make its way slightly further down...

"You've touched my loneliness through creation and met me...  Bypassing my defenses through beauty, color, creation, wind, air, sound and song. You have cradled me and nurtured my inner most being.. thank you.. thank you (was being spoken to Father and to His creation, His trees.) "

And the sun smiled

And the wind played

And the child was carried up and beyond the notes Creation sung to her 

And God was pleased and called it good

And God was very pleased, thoroughly  happy and called it very good.

 

And I go to make sure that they have it.... Every man dies

One of the best home purchases I have ever made was an amazing queen size  blanket that is brown. I bought it at TJ MAXX, and it is the softest, most amazing blanket I have ever had.  I had fallen asleep earlier in the evening but actually way too late for a nap, upon waking up at 10:30, I knew the evening was going to be interesting.

I moved my body from the couch, heading down the hallway towards my bedroom.  Just eyeing the brown softness of that blanket invited me back into bed, back into lying down.  Except sleep would elude me as I had just had a three hour nap.

I did what I do often. Curled up within the folds of my blanket, I turned to my left and reached towards the stack of books that tower upon my night stand.  My favorite posture; blanket, pillows, curled up body and book.  Smile....

 Except other words than those I was reading danced through my head.  Before I knew it I knew that the warmth that surrounded me was not just because I was wrapped within softness and fabric.  It was the warmth that starts above oneself.  A glowing warmth.  A magnificent light.  A powerful gentleness.  Saturating my soul and encasing me into its strength and beauty Holy Spirit was saying, "Hello."  Coming with pictures, a warmth of Spirit's own, and a powerful gentleness that is continually my undoing.

I hadn't thought of Braveheart in years. 

Flashes of scenes danced through my heart resonating into the depths of my being.  

Then the words... There's a difference between us... Then other words.. "Title," "Position," "People." Images of moments in my own life, words I have heard spoken and then again the words of very talented screen writers all swirled within my mind.

Then this:

" There's a difference between us. You think the people of this country exist to provide you with position. I think your position exists to provide those people with freedom. And I go to make sure that they have it. "

Then as if a split screen; I could hear when it is written that the Christ spoke as it is recorded by His disciple, John.  

"In My Father's house are many dwelling places; if it were not so, I would have told you; for I go to prepare a place for you. "If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am, there you may be also. "And you know the way where I am going." ( John 14:3)

He, whose equality with God certainly gives Him titles beyond anything of this Creation,  has a passion.  That passion is humanity.  It is flashed upon every screen during sports games, invariably someone is wearing something with the famous John 3:16 passage.  

So how have we gotten it so wrong for so long?

Too often and more than naught, my eyes have beheld more the statements written by the writers of the Braveheart movie.  "You think the people .. exist to provide you with.........." Fill in the blank.  While position exists to provide for people freedom.  I have heard it said and spoken that which our ears want to hear.  That this statement of inverse service and that the leader is the point of an upside down triangle called to serve all.  More than words spoken and ideals shared I have seen, partaken in and known to be true the more real  reality of a hierarchical system  where the people exist to provide leaders and organizations numbers and finance.

These days have been filled with reflection.  These days have been filled with searching of the heart.  These days have been filled with pictures of spectacles of man and words of man that seem empty and futile.  As I lay wrapped within warmth both physically and upon my depths of being, other quotes came to mind...  What people are truly hungry for.... What within conversation ends up stirring up passion and actual real interest.  Authentic.  Not supposed or fabricated authenticity because of understanding of culture and necessity to be relevant and use the key words that this generation wants to hear, but a true resonance of hunger and truth and spirit.

This interchange between characters; between father and son....

Robert the Bruce: Lands, titles, men, power, nothing.
Robert's Father: Nothing?
Robert the Bruce: I have nothing. Men fight for me because if they do not, I throw them off my land and I starve their wives and their children. Those men who bled the ground red at Falkirk, they fought for William Wallace, and he fights for something that I never had. And I took it from him, when I betrayed him. I saw it in his face on the battlefield and it's tearing me apart.
Robert's Father: All men betray. All lose heart.
Robert the Bruce: I don't want to lose heart. I want to believe as he does. 

"Men fight for me because if they do not, I throw them off my land and I starve their wives and their children"

Obviously not so dramatic as this; but I have watched men and women serve and continue to serve despite the way they are treated because they are enslaved to a person, vision or some false sense of importance and need of identity.  I have watched men "fight," (serve) leaders because if they did not they knew that there were hundreds of others that would, so they allowed their families and themselves to be put through things that should have never been.  Too many have lost heart. That needs to matter.

What comes to matter is this... Solomon knew it to be true....  All is meaningless under the sun. All pass away.... History has seen men and women come and go. Today's names give way to tomorrow's stars.  And still Creation goes round.

 Every man dies, not every man really lives.  

It may sound corny or cliche. But I want to live.... I desire to live and not die.

  I don't mean a final death.  I mean the million tiny deaths we allow into our beings out of fear.  I don't want those anymore.  I want life.  I hunger for life. I desire life.  I want to find life in all moments.  In the breeze of the morning, in the setting of the sun, in the whispers and laughter of my children, in the embrace of my husband and in the affections of my God.  Too much death has stolen moments of my life away.  I have died.  Now I really need to live.  

I know naught where I am going.  I have more questions than answers.  But I know this what erupts within conversation these days is awakening.  Awakening.  There are realities beyond cultural norms of Church and service that people can sense in their very bones and though language might eclipse us all for a moment, it is emerging as is strength and hunger and passion.  Exhaustion and death and dry bones have led to an exceedingly great army having had and beginning to have renewed breathe, a determination to search, seek out, pursue and find expression.  

"And I go to make sure they have it...."  Ah Jesus speaks similar words as I shared....   His hunger and desire and passion for people. His laying down of divinity for humanity's sake..  His example... His ways... True and authentic and real .. The hunger for that expression is palpable upon the atmosphere and within the hearts of people.  

Now courage... courage to live....

I've quoted the movie, Braveheart.  Now to end with one of my ultimate favorites from another show...

Mr. Edward Magorium: [to Molly, about dying] When King Lear dies in Act V, do you know what Shakespeare has written? He's written "He dies." That's all, nothing more. No fanfare, no metaphor, no brilliant final words. The culmination of the most influential work of dramatic literature is "He dies." It takes Shakespeare, a genius, to come up with "He dies." And yet every time I read those two words, I find myself overwhelmed with dysphoria. And I know it's only natural to be sad, but not because of the words "He dies." but because of the life we saw prior to the words.
[pause, walks over to Molly]
Mr. Edward Magorium: I've lived all five of my acts, Mahoney, and I am not asking you to be happy that I must go. I'm only asking that you turn the page, continue reading... and let the next story begin. And if anyone asks what became of me, you relate my life in all its wonder, and end it with a simple and modest "He died."
Molly Mahoney: [starting to sob] I love you.
Mr. Edward Magorium: I love you, too.
[picks Molly up, sighs heavily]
Mr. Edward Magorium: Your life is an occasion. Rise to it.

Your life is an occasion ... Rise to it! 

 

 

 

What the adding of sinews is like... a practice..

I do believe it is human nature to want to make transformation complicated.  I am not under some delusion that it doesn't take hard work.  What I have found is some of the hardest work is letting it go.  The "it" for all of us will be different.

Last year I was in a horrible car accident that placed me in bed for ten weeks and had numerous consequences that lingered. March 11 was the date of the event.  On March 27 I made a decision away from bitterness that had been encroaching way before the accident occurred.  There was only a very small amount of things I could do during those days, and as I lay in bed with noise and light of any kind being a problem I remembered..

Him...

I had read Brother Lawrence and his writings on practicing the presence of God back in 1991 and had loved my copy well.  I returned to what I had known.  Unable to do much I could invite and linger within His presence.  I would be introduced to Frank Laubach and his, "Game of Minutes."  I would begin to "play" on March 27th 2014.

Frank Laubach had once said, "All who have tried that kind of abiding for a month know the power of it -- it is like being born again from center to circumference."  Those words, "from center to circumference," resonated deeply within me as I stepped (laying flat on my back in a dark and quiet room) into a journey that would forever change my life.  It brought me back to the center. It realigned my course. It reminded me of who I was.. of who I am.  Laubach's challenge to "Fill every minute with the thought of God," was something I could do.  And that coupled with Brother Lawrence's quote, "In these times of dryness and unclearness which bother our souls, there needs to be fidelity to Him."

None of that hit me with religious overtones, it was a Lover's pursuit to come away from all else and be with Him. 

From March 27th to April 27 of 2014 I, to the best of my ability,  invited God into every moment that I could remember to do so... and within a month I felt from center to circumference different... It wasn't some magically expression of any sort of given words, it was a practice that I worked on every day.  As going to the gym daily builds physical strength this practice was strengthened my spiritual core.. my center. 

Pile of dry bones meets sinews... pile of dry bones encounters breath. Pile of dry bones arises and remembers what it is like to stand not as a pile but as a creative creature who can breathe.

This practice is one of thousands out there.  It happens to be one that has transformed my life.  As I have at other times I invite you to journey into center to circumference living and touch its capacity to change and birth and resurrect life.  Not just the good moments but all moments inviting Him in and asking Him to abide with you as you abide with Him.

Let's stay in touch and let me know on February 1st or any day in between ... I'd love to hear about your journey....

You are not a decent little cottage.. you are so much more.............

 
“Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on; you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make any sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of - throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were being made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself.”
― C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

I don't know...

My heart feels grief and sorrow at times fills my eyes. The steps don't feel laborsome though. They feel magnetic.  The pull forward towards more... towards Him.  It is away from the known, the safe, that which has been and it is a journey into an unknowning and an unchartered place.

I am so utterly reminded of Thomas Merton's prayer and my dear Episcopal priest friend who has read it to me often.

“My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it. Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.”

― Thomas Merton, Thoughts in Solitude

I love when we sit in his office and converse on all things transitional.  And I love when he has pulled out the little card that sits upon his desk and reads this prayer to me, over me, into me... And we sit in silence as the words echo into the recesses of my being.  

But I believe  that the desire to please you does  in fact please you.  

I let those words sit upon my being and bring their peace.  It is reminiscent of my own daily prayer/ pleas of asking Holy Spirit to lead me into all truth.  

The answers to those prayers aren't taking me where I thought or anticipated they would.  At times they have led me down paths that feel quite opposite to the directions I would take on my own.  

So I check myself throughout each day.

Pray to Holy Spirit again and cling to the reality that I must believe His capacity to lead me is greater than any power existing that could deceive me.  Including self and religion.

I daily examin my steps.  Ignatian tradition has taught me well. And upon examining the infantile fruit, trying to peer through soil at baby seeds and seedlings that have yet to sprout, I feel different.  Empowered. More like Him.  Less full of religious fear and more full of holy awe and reverence.

I want to see Christ as He is, undressed from the imposed Westernization of who He was and is and what the ideas of what a follower of Him looks like.  

In His own time He was called everything from insane to demonic.. accused (accurately) of consorting with all the wrong types of people and doing all sorts of inappropriate things.  In the end He would not live up to but far exceed everybody's thoughts of who He was. 

I do not desire to be wise in my own eyes just His.  Childlike exploration. His wisdom is imploring me and pulling me into Him. Into higher places that are full of wonder and beauty and a majestic nature that knows no boundaries. 

I long to discover Him ever deeper... It isn't that the deep darknesses of Moses or the unknowing isn't terrifying at times, it's just that I am more terrified of not taking the journey. I am more terrified of who or what I would become without the pilgrimage into the deepest darknesses of our Lord.

I can't or don't want to remember who I was even upon the more recent of yesterdays, for each day pulls me in closer, deeper...and each day I find myself both more and less afraid.  

I don't know and find myself frightened often at the bends in the path.. then He reminds me of Samaria (it His favorite thing to recall to my mind.. He went to the places He was not supposed to go.. that no good Jew would go.. That no rabbi would go...  He does remind me of that daily these days and seemingly delights in doing so.)  He talks to me about the lepers, those healed upon the sabbath, tables being toppled, women touching His cloak, loving Matthew, the tax-collector.  He talks to me about Peter's vision and the removal of unclean towards any food.  He reminds me of the angst felt over the removal of circumcision for an entrance and prerequisite into salvation and faith. 

He reminds me of the road He walked and how the religious judged Him voraciously and then He reminds me that it was for freedom that He came and to show us all the very heart of the Father...

And then that is all I need...  And my prayer, even if through trembling lips, becomes .. May I do the same in my lifetime....

From ghetto to garden..... Let's be the WE

“To dare is to lose one's footing momentarily. Not to dare is to lose oneself.”

― Søren Kierkegaard


 I have lived in ghettos.
Not the actual ones that reside within the homelands of our cities but ghetto is still the term that describes most perfectly.
Draw upon that image. Pause. Think. Picture.

Ghetto

Close your eyes. Let the words come in... Let the images come...



























It is good for me to reminisce.

It is good for me to think upon such things...

But what am I talking about...

I have not ever lived in an actual ghetto.  I have never had to touch the realities of danger or fear or poverty that come with such a life.  I have never had to lived in apartments where the wind howls in during the winter and the steam of the hot Summer days equate to violence.  I have never had to live in a physical ghetto.  I have chosen in the past to live in spiritual ones and there is truly comparisons beyond comparisons to be made.

I am not talking about interior places either.  These are actually places where we, as Christians, reside more than naught.  The ghettos of our specific denominations or non-denominations, the ghettos of our faith that scream be afraid.. don't touch.. don't look.. don't go....

The things I have heard as I have come to faith and spent decades in the church  .. we do it this way, we don't do that, we don't go there, they have it wrong...
The "they's," the "us's" the "DNA" comments that have even come out of my own mouth...

I would get glimpses to step away but then be pulled back, allured by the sense of belonging that it granted to be a part of an "us."

I remember once saying to someone who was about to plant a church within one such ghetto that I had lived within, that the things that empowered this person to step into the future would be the very things that were not exactly the "DNA," of the ghetto. Unbeknown to me the person had just come from a meeting where he had been told that they were concerned he wasn't of their ghetto enough.

Now I just shake my head.  Now I just grieve for my own participation within all that stupidity.  And the grief calls me forth to find a more excellent way.

A garden has fruit. A garden has vegetables. A garden has color.  A garden has variation.  A garden has life and growth and hope. It has its own weeds and manure of a different sort. Sadly there is no utopia.  But I would  chose a garden over a ghetto.

We know nothing of our Lord when we act more like the Pharisees he held contempt for; when we won't go into Samaria, when we don't touch the lepers, the tax collectors, the prostitutes.When the Protestants remain ignorant of their Catholic brothers and sisters. When non-denominational critique main line brothers and sisters.  When we in our ignorance think ourselves wise and we step away from today Zachesus'.  It's to their houses we are called to go, regardless of which "ghetto," we come from and where they reside.

I want to have the lepers, the women, the tax-collectors... I want to be where they are...

Think again. Close your eyes. Picture all you know or think you know of a ghetto.  What aspects of your faith communities operate as such?  Where is there poverty of belief? Of practice? Of love? Of cooperation? Where do we risk our sacred cows? Where do we challenge long held practices? Where do we ask the hard questions of ourselves and our beliefs?

I was saved by a visitation.  I can say like Paul in Galatians; "for I neither received it from man, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ." (Galatians 1:12)  I believed nothing and yet out of desperation opened my  mouth to pray to an unknown deity.  He soundly introduced Himself that day... with light and presence and quite the display.  I knew five things that day... He shared that He indeed was God, that He had to do with Jesus Christ, the Cross, and the Bible and He was going to lead me somewhere where He would teach me more about Himself.  That was what was important for Him for me to know in those very first moments.  He does indeed exist.  His name and identity will be found in Jesus Christ. The cross is of utmost importance to Him as is His Word.  And more than anything He promised to lead me.  That is His job after all.. One of Holy Spirit's main tasks in this world is to lead us into all truth.

I didn't know what I didn't know in those days.  I would learn soon enough.

But what I have learned through 24 years and what I return to is mercy, justice and humility. There is a language we can all speak.  There is spiritual truth that reverberates throughout creation.  We must learn that language.

Jesus came and He touched those who the religious said should not be touched, those that would make Him unclean would touch Him.. He walked into places where who He was was questioned because He sat with those He sat with....  He overturned privately held tables that had been placed in His Father's home.

I don't know where or what my journey will comprise of... If asked even weeks ago about places I step into now I wouldn't have known what to answer...  But the quote that began all of this won't leave me alone...

“To dare is to lose one's footing momentarily. Not to dare is to lose oneself.”
― Søren Kierkegaard

I will lose my footing but I can not but lose myself except to Christ and more often then nought I have lost it to man's opinions and thoughts.  I lay down my life  and in that I chose to trust that His capacity to lead me is greater than anything else would be to deceive me....

I am willing to lose my way and my footing in the garden as to never live in the ghettos of men ever again.... the poverty of that mentality left me frail and weak and vulnerable.  He came for freedom, chastising those who would impinge upon the freedom of others.  He granted us free will to choose or not choose, and to explore and to create and to be like Him.  He did not grasp equality with His Father but became a servant for all that His Spirit would fall upon all.....

There is a way of life and liberty that honors Him and to that discovery I will lose myself... I will dwell in the garden of His hope and His life and His joy and His ways that are higher and more magnificent then anything we could think or imagine.....  He is so much bigger.. He is so much richer.. He is so much kinder than our narrow ghetto like ideologies.   His priestly prayer at the end of His life cried forth His greatest desire that we would be one as He and the Father are one... To that end I journey away from the confines of "us," and "them."  I hunger to find the WE... and I know that it too is bigger and brighter and more precious than anything I have ever thought or imagined....