How could this be? Me? Writing about God all the time? I’m no God expert – I’ve got a million questions! Won’t I scare away potential clients? Shouldn’t I be talking about attracting true love, creating a fabulous career or manifesting the sexy, red, stretchy dress I want for Christmas?
Is this authentic? How could I be so into God? Yikes… that makes me a little different than I thought I was going to be. You see, I grew up feeling shocked and mad that kids in my high school said I would go to hell if I didn’t believe what they did. “Well,” I thought, “That’s not too fair now is it? I’m 16! I’m not perfect, but I try to be a good person. What kind of God would send me and my loved ones to hell just because we didn’t go to your church?”
More importantly, why would I want anything to do with that kind of judgment and exclusion? No way! I had enough heartache to deal with as a teenager much less worrying about going to hell.
So here I am 25 years later… not totally sure I fit within the Christian church, not really matching the low-key vibration of a Buddhist path, loving the gorgeous Hindu goddesses while knowing nothing about Hinduism, and coming from a family who finds spiritual grandeur and truth in nature. Yet lately, when I sit to write this weekly email about what is on my mind and heart (that I hope will be of some use for others), it keeps coming back to something about God.
(Note: if this ever gets too preachy for you or I start sounding like the high school people I just dissed, you are always welcome to send me a note or to simply unsubscribe.)
The thing is… it’s all God for me. This whole exploration of the depth and breadth of self, the fullness of life, and the sweetness and heartache of love is completely intertwined with the spiritual aspect of living as a human in the world and on the Earth.
This weekend I watched a simple, little, funny movie called “The Answer Man” about a renowned spiritual “guru” who is also a cranky, foul-mouthed, lonely guy. People come to him for the answers that he himself is seeking. It is in an unexpected love for a woman and her son that he begins to feel his authenticity and his connection to God again.
From that place, he offers to his girlfriend this beautiful line, “You are here so God can experience the world through your eyes…Through you, He falls in love with the world all over again.”
That’s the little nugget I’d love to offer you this week. It reminded me that there is a reason for our being here in exactly our unique form – so God can experience the world through our eyes, our skin, our breath, and our hearts.
For every yummy glass of buttery Chardonnay God gets to taste through my lips, you may share a cold Heineken. For every new crush that makes my heart skip a beat, you may allow God to experience a mother’s wide-open love for her precious new baby. And for every ounce of human anger and sorrow God can feel through the New York Times’ Nicholas Kristof’s description of injustice (ala this young man’s health care travesty), your passions may ignite a thousand different responses.
This week, I invite you (and myself!) to try this practice on for size: Let God feel what it is like to be human through you, your love, your body, your emotions and your actions. Notice if and how life feels different and whether little things seem a bit more magical and sacred. I’d love to hear how it goes.
Archive for November, 2009
Experiencing Life Through You and Me
November 30, 2009Who Speaks to You?
November 24, 2009Yesterday, I was introduced to Rob Bell by way of his Open video. I then proceeded to watch Flame, Whirlwind and She. (see NOOMA for downloadable full length versions.) I may be the last person in America to have heard about this hip and controversial Christian thinker. Let me say, it was instant wow and deep regard. Perhaps even infatuation (I admit I have a weakness for big thinking, cool-glasses-wearing, idealistic guys.)
He’s the evangelical pastor of Mars Hill Bible Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and… a graduate of Wheaton College (note: they don’t dance there.) Hoo boy! Bible church, no dancing, and evangelical… that trifecta is more like “lions, tigers and bears” for liberal, pole dancing, multi-faith me!
Yet I took it as a good sign that conservative bloggers blast him. In a Boston Globe interview he says the word “evangelical” has been ”hijacked” by the political right. He offers instead, ”I embrace the term evangelical, if by that we mean a belief that we together can actually work for change in the world, caring for the environment, extending to the poor generosity and kindness.”
He’s written a book called Sex God: Exploring the Endless Connections between Sexuality and Spirituality; he honors the feminine qualities in God (that alone makes me want to move to Michigan) and he likens God’s care to that of a mother’s fierce, lay-down-her-life love for her children. He speaks with palpable commitment, yearning and gentleness. And most importantly for doubters like me, he struggles with having no answers to unanswerable questions.
I’m not writing about him so you too will think he’s great. I bring him up simply to say that this unexpected “evangelical” voice went straight to the heart of someone who feels closer to God on a yoga mat than dressed up in a pew.
Who does that for you? Whose integrity inspires you? Whose passion speaks to the deepest questions in your heart? Whose values make you feel ah, yes, there is hope?
As you can tell, I love people who speak up about what they believe. People who say, “This is what I stand for. This is what I suffer. This is how I yearn to love and live.” By letting you know exactly who they are, they give you permission to take or leave them.
Richmond yoga teacher Aimee Yowell is another one who really goes for it. She is pure embodiment of what she teaches. With the spirit she exudes and the devotion to something greater that she brings to her teaching, each 1 hour and 15 minute class feels like a 3-hour journey to the core of it all. She is unabashed in moving as if the life of her soul depended on it. It’s infectious and it is an invitation to discover what frees my own soul. I love her willingness to put out there exactly who she is and the gift she offers.
Tell me, who turns you on to life? Who inspires you to rise up and participate with all you have in this magical, mystical ride? Tell me. Tell them. Tell others.
Making a place for uncertainty
November 16, 2009I began to wonder if my arch nemesis – uncertainty – could somehow find a comfy home within me along side my yearning to know. Normally I try my damndest to make uncertainty disappear just as fast as it came deeming it wrong, harassing, and unsafe. Perhaps its presence isn’t so bad after all.
Another wise friend, who is entering into a potentially amazing or potentially heartbreaking situation with ease, said that she was “making a place at the table for uncertainty” because it was not hers yet to know the outcome. She was so calm. I want that…
Gracefully making space in me to hold both the excitement of new love and the fear of being abandoned… The tender and profound memory of my father’s last weeks of life and the agony of witnessing his journey towards death… A clear and cherished vision for a family and career while not knowing in what exact form either will unfold.
I feel repeatedly asked to say goodbye to one safe harbor, surrender to unpredictable seas, and become willing to land in a place that is perhaps different (and I believe always better) than my planned destination.
Allowing these paradoxes to live within me takes an enormous amount of courage. Sometimes I don’t think I can do it because the fear of failure and disappointment is too huge. Then I ask myself, “What if I give up? I will miss so much beauty. I might even miss a miracle.”
As you live with your own internal paradoxes, I bow to you and my heart is with you. I would love to hear from you here or privately your own experience and practices with this aspect of being human.
The Body as…
November 9, 2009I’ve been away practicing what I preach – deepening my commitment to my work at a profoundly impactful Presence-Based Coaching retreat with Doug Silsbee in North Carolina and deepening my well of trust and joy on a profoundly fun adventure in Chicago!
This “Body as Prayer” video by master yoga teacher and social activist Seane Corn became the moment-to-moment meditation for my journeys. It brought a new, gorgeous level of awareness and devotion to my actions and state of being.
She inspired me to consider how much richer my experience of life might be were every gesture of the hand an offering. Every breath a dedication. The subtlest opening of my heart a sublimely felt blessing to another.
The body as commitment. The body as surrender. The body as power. The body as happiness…. as tenderness… as curiosity… as faith.
Exploring this over the past 10 days meant breathing low and steady into the deepest part of me. It required coming back to the center of my energetic self again, again and then again. In moments of fear, it asked me to ground into my inherent value as a human being, my commitment to something greater, and my faith in the goodness of life.
I consciously allowed each sensation to permeate my whole being: every limb, each fingernail, the light in my eyes, the sides of my smile, the tissues of my brain, my big Buddha belly, and the center of my heart.
Then I practiced giving it away. Devotionally. As if it meant something.
I’m no Seane Corn; I wasn’t nearly as elegant in my practice as she; yet still, it was a profound experience of life fully felt in this body, with this heart and grounded in this soul. I don’t do drugs (ok, I do have an iced green tea addiction) but I imagine this is what they feel like. I just prefer to get there in a slightly more conscious way.
Whatever you are feeling in this very moment as you read this… what would it be like to let it permeate your whole being? Breathe it in deeply, allow it to move your body and move through your body to its final transformation. Even (and especially) if you are feeling stress, anger, fear or sadness… what could they be as bodily prayer? How would they feel as a whole-you offering?
I’d love to know.
