Like many people wanting a mate, I’ve made lists upon lists of attributes I desired in a partner. I created collages envisioning what he would look like, do for a living, drive (I admit my shallowness), wear (ditto), read and be. Mental constructs of my ideal guy. My visualization seemed to “work” – many times, the descriptions I outlined came to be. Years ago, I even met one of the men I had cut out of a magazine and pasted into a collage. Yet often what looked good on the outside was missing something crucial on the inside.
Several editions into my collage, a wise friend gave me great advice. “Create a collage about how you want your life to feel, rather than look, with or without a man.” I took her advice. That collage led me to move home to Virginia from San Francisco, and it lives on my wall today. When faced with decisions, I go to it as a reference point for my heart. It contains images that represent feelings of home, centeredness, sexiness, inspiration, fullness, love, joy, friendship, strength and devotion.
Yesterday, I felt all of that combined, as I snuggled against my man on a rainy Saturday, after a great yoga class and fun pedicure conversation with a good friend. Looking out my window at bright green trees, here was the feeling I’d been walking toward for a long, long time: pure, open-hearted contentment.
You see, I think I’ve become reasonably whole (with much earthly and heavenly assistance). During the years of wanting, and not experiencing, a relationship of length and depth, I practiced cultivating a sense of joy and contentment within myself (sometimes kicking and screaming along the way). If I wanted to live a full life – no matter what – I had no other choice.
It is upon that foundation of love for myself, my winding path, and God, that I now find myself experiencing love for and from someone else.
There is a line from an Eva Cassidy song that describes the mechanism by which I recognize this relationship as deeply good: ‘Cause I know you by heart. Sure, my guy is amazing on paper; he’s handsome, smart, funny, directed, strong, kind, does good in the world, and all sorts of other things that have appeared on my lists. However, it is the feeling in my heart when I am with him that is startlingly different from the past.
I feel authentic, happy, seen, honored, adored, admiring, in love, and grateful. My breath is deep and full in my belly; my body is completely relaxed; and a mighty flower opens in the center of my heart. I believe this is how God intends for me to feel.
Last night, looking at my boyfriend while he studied for exams, I heard the words of a favorite Clay Walker song:
All I know is what I see when I look at you.
And all I see is what I’m feeling down inside.
And all I’m feeling is the feeling that I finally got it right.
I finally learned that it is the feeling – not the list – that makes something right.
What is your heart telling you? I’d love to know.
Posts Tagged ‘faith’
What Our Hearts Know
April 26, 2010Peace
April 5, 2010Of all the devotion, betrayal, strength, fallibility, sadness, and glory I heard and read about during Holy Week, the line that moved me the most was this: “Peace is my last gift to you, my own peace I now leave with you; peace which the world cannot give, I give to you.” (The Book of Common Prayer)
I’ve written often about doubt and uncertainty on this winding path of mine. It is challenging, at times, to feel lasting peace about earthly matters such as money, love, work, health insurance, family misunderstandings, and social injustice. Yet, in the midst of all or any of those, I’ve come to recognize the kind of peace that is a gift from God – “peace which the world cannot give.”
This peace I feel in my body. When the core of me is open, breathing, and calm, my mind feels safe to follow suit. In this state, I trust the peace of the certainty I feel – certainty that it all means something and God is there for me to lean on. It is the deep peace of forgiveness after confessing “things done and left undone.” It is the peace of saying, “Yes, I do believe in this mystery that ‘passes all understanding.’”
When watching and participating in Maundy Thursday and Good Friday services last week, I had to acknowledge that I believe in what this sacred practice represents. Seeing my clergy dressed in black with their backs turned to the congregation as they prayed was incredibly moving for me. I believe in the underlying story. So I say the words; I sing; I kneel; I eat the spiritual food. On Easter, it sank in deeper.
The judgmental, exclusionary, violent, sexist, neighbor-against-neighbor interpretations of Christianity have made me wary of Christianity as a whole. I’m grateful now to be learning a profoundly different take on what Jesus was teaching and to have found an understanding of God’s kingdom that I want to be a part of.
My mind still asks, “Am I for real? Is this devotion to and worship of God coming from my heart or my head?” I trust my body when she replies, “Yes. This is real for me. I feel this deeply. It has integrity.” Writing about and saying “Jesus” out loud is, at times, uncomfortable for me, yet being with him in private always feels natural. When I meditate, I invite him to sit with me. He offers his hands. I take them. This is complete peace for me.
What brings you peace? If you’d like to share your own practice, please do so.
Where was God?
January 19, 2010On 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.
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.
Come Again
September 4, 2009I admit, I got a little knocked off center this week. Mary Chapin Carpenter pretty well sums up my experience in these song lines:
“I thought my heart had broken, but it was just a little bruised. I thought love had spoken, guess I was just confused.”
Several years ago, I studied with the incredible Mama Gena, renowned teacher of the “Womanly Arts“. She would often talk about driftwood. That after crossing the big ocean toward our dreams, before we see land, we will see driftwood… evidence that land is just over the horizon. This is a particularly good meditation for me since I tend to get discouraged when I can’t yet see land.
Also quite useful this week was the tenet oft-proposed by the deeply wise “New Feminine Power” teaching team Katherine Woodward Thomas and Claire Zammit that the transformation of our relationship to disappointment is critical to the successful manifestation of our dreams. I’ve been practicing and I can attest that this is a much more loving, grateful and empowered way to experience life.
I can always tell how committed I am to a dream by how many times I will get back up after a fall, how much help I’m willing to ask for, and how resilient my heart remains after another piece of driftwood turns out to not yet be land.
Recently, I participated in a Presence-Based Coaching Course with the masterful Doug Silsbee, PCC. By his calm and strong example, we practiced finding our center, committing to our dream and repeatedly coming back to that grounded place within us no matter what obstacles life presents. This center is proving to be an ever-present internal compass along the rough and tumble road toward what I most yearn to create.
I think the following Rumi poem (discovered in the liner notes of the new Sugarland cd) is an apt invitation to keep going for those of us on the way towards precious dreams.
Come, come, whoever you are.
Wonderer, worshiper, lover of leaving.
It doesn’t matter.
Ours is not a caravan of despair.
Come, even if you have broken your vow
a thousand times.
Come, yet again, come, come.
