Eleanor Rouse

Wrestling With It

Eleanor — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 03:29:44 +0000

My priest recently told me I didn’t have to be an expert in Christian scripture to begin incorporating it into my writing and workshops when I feel doing so would deepen the experience. He told me to “just get in there and wrestle with it”. His advice came as a huge relief, because I’ve been feeling uneasy about bringing in passages from the Bible – the whole of which I’ve not read. I don’t even fully understand the literal interpretations of what I have read. However, some of its words have been speaking to me at a deeper level and I’m using my weekly writings to work out their meaning in relation to my life and soul.

For the past 13 months, I’ve been on a journey with this platform. What started as a marketing tool transformed into an offering. I decided to start giving what I had to give. I believe God asks us to share the resources we have – money, food, inspiration, courage or care – whatever our wealth of the moment may be. The intent of this blog is to share what is opening my mind, body and spirit, in case something I’ve experienced could be of value to your heart. And vice versa: for you to share your wisdom and questioning with me.

Because God has played a central role in every significant growth period of my life, I want to acknowledge what I believe is the golden ticket to personal and spiritual development. I’d like to explore not only my understanding of God, but yours as well.

I’m scared, though. I’m afraid you (and my family) will think I’ve become a crazed evangelist. Even worse, I fear sounding like an amateur evangelist because of my lack of expertise in the teachings of Jesus and God’s other messengers. I’m considering attending divinity school to be able to base my work upon a vast history of knowledge and inquiry, yet for now, I’m simply diving in and “wrestling with it.”

My heart and thinking will continue to be influenced by meditation, yoga, innumerable books, the moving worship traditions of other religions, and the Divine Feminine. For me, God is everywhere.

The Jesus I believe in is anything but limiting. I’m beginning to think he was and is far deeper and more magical and mystical than usually portrayed. One of my girlfriends said the other night, “What’s the point of it all without the magic?” I love that perspective.

That is what I’d like to explore with you, going forward. Where is the magic of God found in your life?

A Mother’s Love

Eleanor — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 18:01:29 +0000

“In the earthly realm, what kind of trust most approximates your trust in God?” That was a question put to me this week. My answer was that I have never once doubted my mother’s love.

It has astounded me that through all the hard work of raising my four sisters and me, and all the grief we gave her (she raised five opinionated girls!), my Mom’s love for us remains, at its core, unwavering and limitless. My trust in the steadfastness of her love grew over time and repeated experience. By my adolescence, I was sure that it would always be there no matter what. I believe that if a child receives nothing else from a parent, trustworthy love is a rock upon which she can build a life.

When I ask teenage girls from challenging circumstances to name the most important person in their lives, almost all of them answer, “My Mom. Because she takes care of me.”

Their calm and grateful trust in their mothers’ care and my own experience illuminate my understanding of God’s motherly love – a constant, deep, and forgiving love that can be trusted despite my disappointing Her, turning my back on Her, judging Her, telling Her what to do, or rudely asserting my independence from Her.

My Mom recently wrote me about her experience as a young mother of five girls and how the women’s movement saved her. “I finally felt I had a right to my own life, and I redoubled my efforts to raise each of you girls to understand that you were as deserving of your place on earth as anyone, to have a backbone, and to have a sense of your own innate worth and strength.”

I believe that is what Mother God wants for all of Her daughters as well – to know that each of us is deserving of our place on Earth and to trust our innate worth and strength.

Even as an adult, my mother’s hug is still enormously comforting to me. Her embrace creates a feeling that is aptly described by the words of Julian of Norwich, the fourteenth-century mystic known for her theology of God as Mother:

“But all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.”

To be able to trust in that kind of love, whether from God or one’s own mother, is what I wish for everyone.

Joy Returns!

Eleanor — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 01:17:14 +0000

Many of you are aware of the sorry state I was in at Christmastime. I was down in heart, to be sure. I deemed it blessed then, only to realize later just how true that label was.

Yesterday, during a retreat at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church, Brother Curtis Almquist from the Society of St. John the Evangelist reaffirmed for me that when our hearts are broken – broken open – God can come in. Usually, God has been patiently waiting for a welcoming of His ever-available and powerful love.

I also find that when my heart is vulnerable, it is more sensitive to the slightest healing grace. Similarly, when my own will has repeatedly brought me to a dead end, I become far more attuned to the subtlest of Divine leadings.

So here we are eight weeks post-Christmas meltdown. And I’m deeply well. You see, after I placed my love life in the hands of God (with a touch of resignation), to my surprise, God delivered immediately. Now, I know that God often delivers in ways I don’t recognize. Yet this time, the gift came in clear-as-day and in such a form that I knew it, or rather he, must be from God.

A dear girlfriend once spoke of the comfort of being “well loved” in her long-term marriage even through its tests and trials. She wished for me the same feeling. I knew deep down that despite having been in a few romantic relationships in recent years, I had not been well loved in quite a while. Nor had I loved particularly well.

Perhaps I had to understand just how well I am loved by God before I could really experience that on a human level? Perhaps God wants me to know Him now through a man’s love? I will say that I’m amazed by the experience.

I heard a few lines of Psalm 30 yesterday that perfectly capture my gratitude for this gift I’ve received:

“O Lord my God, I cried to thee for help,
and thou has healed me…
Weeping may tarry for this night,
but joy comes with the morning.”

Joy did return, and boy, is it a good feeling! When I start to fear that this too shall pass, I take comfort knowing that joy and weeping are ongoing parts of life. I’ve come to trust that God will use each to deepen my relationship with Him.

In the meantime, I’m going to thoroughly enjoy this.

Wow, what a sight!

Eleanor — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 04:14:05 +0000

This weekend I had the immense pleasure of participating in WomanKind, an interfaith exploration of women’s spirituality hosted by the visionary St. James’s Episcopal Church in Richmond. It would not do the experience justice to recount all of the nuances here (such as the gorgeous Botticelli-inspired décor). However, I will share the most memorable moment for me.

It happened at the beginning of Saturday afternoon’s healing service. As I watched a parade of women, old and young, black and white, clergy and attendants make their way up the center aisle to the front of an estrogen-filled church; my eyes grew big as did my smile. Soon, the altar filled with women ministers and priests. I swallowed hard in disbelief and tears filled my eyes at the sight. There it was – ancient wisdom in feminine form.

After years of wondering if I would find a resonant place in a tradition about a man, a doctrine historically dictated by men and churches led predominantly by male clergy, the altar scene yesterday was startling and life-changing. I have been greatly inspired by masculine messengers and interpreters of God, including a recent embrace of the Ultimate Messenger. Nothing, however, has ever moved me more than this scene of my own kind – woman kind – delivering spiritual guidance in Christ’s name.

I know it sounds predictable coming from me to want to see women clergy. I wonder what it was like for the other 399 or so women in attendance – many of whom seemed to be followers of the Christian tradition. I believe that few would deny the lack of feminine spiritual role models held up for us to learn from, respect, and revere. The dearth of women spoken about in the Christian church was a major stumbling block for me in surrendering to this path, until I realized that Christ himself is the embodiment of what I consider most gorgeously feminine: care, love, compassion, service and community.

It isn’t that I don’t value what men bring to relationship, leadership and spiritual practice – I do, very much. Yet to surrender my heart, body and will to God is such a personal, vulnerable experience. If I am to do it within a particular tradition, I need to trust that I and all women are considered as valuable and valid as men in the eyes of the church. I’ve no doubt that we are equal in the heart and mind of Jesus, yet much of what has been built in His name has called into question the institution’s reverence for women.

Nothing can adequately convey the heart-opening power of seeing wise, white-haired female ministers with their warm smiles and distinguished voices sitting amongst an interracial mix of intellectually fabulous, young priestesses. Garbed in white robes with beautiful stoles, these women shared delivery of the Gospel and God’s spiritual food. The first prayer began, “O God, Mother of endless generations” – that alone would have sold me. The service went on to speak of “God in the midst of her” in Psalm 46 and to analyze the unconditional, deeply intuitive understanding of Christ’s power by a very poor, very sick woman as written in Mark 5:25-34. (Thanks to the flawlessly crafted and moving sermon of Dr. Linda Powell Pruitt.)

I had the intimate joy of witnessing this with my mother, an early 70’s feminist, who raised my four sisters and me to believe that something different from what she had lived as a young woman of the 50’s was possible for us. We both wondered how much more welcoming church might have felt to her as a girl and to independent young women today were this service their first experience of Christianity.

Even when the Christian church develops more balance of spiritual leadership, I will never forget my first time – yesterday at WomanKind – realizing what is possible and being sure that I belong.

13 Going on Fabulous!

Eleanor — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 02:25:38 +0000

I’ve just returned from my niece’s 13th birthday celebration in Portland. Let me tell you, 13 is the new fabulous! It brings me such delight to be in Libby’s company. I could listen to her wise, funny and poignant thoughts on life for hours. She is perceptive, inquisitive and completely accepting. She generates pure joy.

Her hugs last forever and she’ll still hold my hand when walking off the soccer field after a winning game. She she says things like, “I meditate in bed. I like to embrace the last few moments before I wake up,” and, “I love spending Sundays with Aunt Eleanor and Nanny Kathleen.”

Because she inspires me so with her genuine spirit and unique style (notice feline socks with flowered ballet flats in picture above), I’d like to say a word on behalf of teenage girls for I believe they routinely, unfairly, get a bad rap. Adults label teen girls as “difficult.” We approach them anticipating angst, closure and disregard. If that is what we expect from girls, that is the dynamic we will create.

For several years, I’ve been a part of Girls For A Change, an organization that respects girls for exactly who they are. I’ve seen many a girl, including those from challenging circumstances, blossom upon realizing that an adult genuinely cares about what she has to say.

As most of you may remember, it is damn hard being a teen girl – on the inside and the outside. Trying to be cool is usually masking painful insecurity. Our society doesn’t make it easy for girls to feel at peace with themselves. Among the twisted messages girls receive about their value, or lack thereof, are this week’s display of young women’s bodies in Sports Illustrated’s swimsuit issue and yet another Nicholas Kristof report of a young girl being repeatedly gang-raped in the Congo.

For this reason, my niece’s sweet and profound soul opens my heart even more. Will she go through emotional and physical trials as she grows into a woman? Of course. Can we honor and have patience for her and other girls’ natural process of discerning who they are and what they will become? I pray so.

When I look into Libby’s eyes, I see her love-filled teenaged heart. I hope she is certain of my complete admiration. My wish is that every girl has at least one person who thinks she is the absolute cat’s meow.

More than a Few Good Men

Eleanor — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 04:25:14 +0000

I don’t read much about football as I’m not a sporty girl. However, this article in today’s New York Times spoke to me. It’s about a group of middle-aged friends and their Sunday pickup games; it reveals what I love about men.

“People say, ‘Why do you spend so much time in the huddle?’ ” Mr. Lupo said. “By the time you tell the seventh guy what to do, the first guy forgot what he’s supposed to do.”

I love when men are confident enough to be humble. I love men who are kind and good. Many men are of course. Yet growing up in a household of six women, I didn’t know a lot of them.

My Dad was the guy who rode me on his back in the pool, brought home chocolate footballs from Rip’s Cigarettes, and held me when my kitten John died in a shoebox, yet I didn’t know really know him when I was young. Now, looking back at photos of a 30-year-old with five little girls surrounding him, I see the man. Doing the best he could to provide for and protect us. Imperfectly, he freely admitted, yet trying.

I came to know and respect my Dad’s humility, his goodness, the love behind his anger, his effort to do the right thing, and to right what had gone wrong.

I’ve spent a lot of time “learning” about men. Books. Classes. Dinners with girlfriends. What I’ve really absorbed though has come through my brothers-in-law, my friends’ husbands, a fair boss, an octogenarian mentor, a funny colleague, and …. a special few.

The few who are committed, honorable, humble and real, and whose paths, I’m grateful, have crossed mine. I look at men with more admiration and wonder now. Nothing melts my heart more than a man speaking from his.

I facilitate workshops and coach the Women’s Circle so that we may feel ourselves as women, fully. I’m inspired by the men in my life to explore even more what that means.

Palms Up

Eleanor — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 17:25:44 +0000

As a former fundraising professional, I feel compelled to give you – my investors of the heart – a progress report on my Year of Love as there have been some fabulous first quarter results! Here’s how things are stacking up:

1. “Contribute love to my community”: Launching 150 girls on 15 GFC Girl Action Teams next week!
2. “Create love through my work”: Come to WomanKind, the Women’s Circle or the GRCC Pink Bag Seminar to let me know how I’m doing!
3. “Love my body”: Continuing my hurt-so-good, hip-opening yogic pursuit!
4. “Express and experience fabulous love with a man”: In a Q2 report perhaps…
5. “Channel love to family and friends”: Gladly, this is an ongoing practice.

You know what though? The most impactful Q1 outcome was not part of the original proposal. I do indeed have a new love… God. I know; I know you were rooting for a real, live, in-the-flesh man. (And I know some of you may think I’ve gone off the deep end.) There may indeed be a he; however, what I’m writing about is He. The He that had to (and for me, has to) come first.

My God is a combo of Divine Masculine, Feminine and That-Which-Can’t-Be-Defined. For this Year of Love, it was God in masculine form that I needed. Unbeknownst to me, this is what I have hungered for, a hunger that no mere mortal could satisfy (and isn’t meant to.)

Going alone to my sister’s for Christmas one more time had brought me to my spiritual knees. I was offered a hand and I surrendered. I leaned in and against. I trusted. I had no other choice.

Sure enough, when I yearn to be held, I feel His arms. When I need to talk, He’s completely there. To this Being, I open my heart. I’ve fallen in love.

I thought I had “let go and let God” before (oh, about 500 million times!) Yet this is different. I knew it immediately. For the first time, I feel free from the pursuit of perfection. For the first real time, I’ve let go of the reins.

With each passing day, I trust more. When I start grasping onto the earthly good this reordering has brought, I remember the wise words of a friend: “Palms Up”. With palms up, I release that which isn’t mine and I receive that which is.

Many of you wrote me of your own proclamations including “The Year of Financial Security” and “The Year of Healthy, Happy Family.” What I offer for your quest is simply, “palms up, my friends, palms up.”

Where was God?

Eleanor — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 01:34:46 +0000

On Saturday, my sister asked why I thought God allowed the Haiti earthquake to happen, especially to a people who are already so acquainted with suffering. Many have asked this question.

Of course I do not have the answer. A wise mentor recently cautioned me against creating a “theology of Eleanor”. What I think she meant is to distinguish between sharing my evolving beliefs about God based on study, prayer, questioning and personal experience versus promoting my conclusions as truth for others. (Henceforth, dear reader, please check me on this!)

I come to you as a fellow spiritual seeker not as an expert. What I’m inspired by is the conversation. I’m interested in what you hold true. What do you question? How do you reconcile tragedy in the world and in your life? I’m moved by people digging deep and becoming willing to reveal their discoveries. For some, faith is a private matter. For me, with innumerable sorrows occurring around the globe and in our own communities, I find it healing to talk.

So, to answer my sister’s question and to open the conversation, this is where I am today and I’m curious about you…

I don’t believe God had any involvement in the earthquake happening; I believe God created the natural world to do what it does. (I’m not knowledgeable enough to discuss the politics of poverty or civil infrastructure here though I acknowledge their impact on the extent of the toll.) I believe the rescue and relief teams are sharing the love of God though I don’t believe God chooses whom to save and not. I am humbled by the surviving faith of Haiti’s people. I don’t know how to reconcile my belief that God has a hand in creating good, yet not, what I consider, the bad. I believe God is with us through it all: the whole, at times agonizing, at times glorious, human experience on Earth and beyond.

What do you believe? What has come up for you in the last week? If you’d like to share your thoughts, please, I’d love to hear them.

Let It Out! A Story of Hips, Drama and PMS

Eleanor — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 23:34:23 +0000

As you can imagine, I’m a big believer in the potential of aches and pains to reveal more than physical ailments. It’s no surprise that my sister thinks I do a lot of navel gazing. I’m trying to figure out what’s in there! What am I storing in that tight, lower left back of mine? I’m quite sure my body is trying to speak (sometimes scream!) some fabulously useful information to my heart and mind. I, for one, think it’s imperative (and fascinating) to listen.

And let me tell you, my hips have been doing some talking lately. Despite regular yoga classes, I haven’t been able to discern on my own what they were saying. So yesterday I had the great fortune to experience the gifts of Bev Johnson, a practitioner-in-training of Phoenix Rising Yoga Therapy (PRYT). “Through assisted yoga postures and non-directive dialogue, PRYT guides clients to experience the connection of their physical and emotional selves.” (Contact Bev this month for a half-priced session!)

Boy did that little right hip flexor have a lot to say! In 90 minutes, out came pouring a virtual storehouse of vision, emotion and deep knowledge about who I am, what I’m becoming, and what I need to leave behind.

I’m sure you know by now that I’m also a big believer in the transformative power of tears. Let that river flow, I say! So many women try to tamp down their sensitivity. They apologize for their emotions. Perhaps you are one of them. Perhaps you believe your God-given, feminine, feeling self is an unwelcome burden on loved ones, colleagues, and pets (I’m no dog expert, but the few I’ve come to know are pretty amazing in the face of a crying human.)

You may believe that others are not interested in the depths of your heart. Well, I am! Your body is! And I’m quite sure God is. I’d venture to guess that those who love you most are too – even if they’re unsure of their own capacity to be your witness.

In the online dating world, there are some men who profess rather loudly that they want “NO DRAMA” (and they usually capitalize it!) To that, I respond with a DELETE! I believe these men would be better off dating their own kind for a while. In my opinion, an evolved man has grown his ability to hold space for a woman’s emotions. While he might not understand or even like her in that state, he honors the part of her that feels deeply, the same part that has the capacity to love him without end. Stuff one; you stuff the other.

I’m not advocating reckless wielding of the emotional torch; yet, I am encouraging all women to feel. It is just fine to do so. Really, you were made this way. Who cares if it is PMS induced? Open the flood gates! We can do our best to consciously minimize the impact of our darker emotions on others, yet by some means, we must let them out. Otherwise, they get stored. We’re going to feel them one way or another.

I used to cry a lot more. My Colorado friends lasted through many a tear-streamed hike up and down Arbaney Kittle Trail. There are pews across America soaked because I was moved by words, ritual, and the coaxing open of my heart by a power greater than I. Nowadays, I can predictably count on at least one massive bawl-my-eyes-out session per month. It usually happens in the car. Sometimes mildly prompted by the day’s events; more often brought on by a good country song like Keith Urban’s “Thank You“. Sometimes I think I’m losing it; until two days later when I remember it is part of the territory of me as a woman. Part of the territory of me as woman.

Being a woman is not something to be contained, altered, fixed, or managed. In the words of our esteemed 43rd President, bring ’em on! Bring on the PMS tears, the church tears, the weeping at family goodbyes and the moving realizations of greater truth. Trust their capacity to cleanse and inform. Trust that your rawest self is a grace and power to behold.

Stillness

Eleanor — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 04:00:51 +0000

“Can you be still and just feel?” said my yoga teacher Karen Hansen during savasana on New Year’s Day.

“Be still and know,” (Psalm 46:10) quoted the priest during contemplative prayer at St. James’s.

Thousands of years apart, the same gentle invitation.

Be still… feel… know.
Be still… feel… know.
Be still… feel… know.

What more needs to be said?

Here’s to being profoundly still in 2010.