April 21, 2017: When Tired, Stop, Wait, and Listen More

Knowing that those we love are hurting is most unpleasant.  There is not a lot we can say, nor is there much we can do.  Seeing their loneliness is even harder.  It breaks my heart.  I know nothing if not this: I can't fix it.  I can't make it different by being a better person, by making sure to dot all of my "i's" and cross my "t's."  I can only sit and witness, and hold them - and myself - in the Light.

Not much sleep last night.  Yesterday and last night was one of those days and nights where I needed to sleep...to simply "be" and not "do" anything.  My brain is tired.  I was nodding off around 6:30 but still continued to watch the rest of "13 Reasons Why."  Omigoodness.  Sick to my stomach over it.  I knew I would be - but I didn't know my stomach would feel this badly.  When my daughter texted at 11:30pm and asked if I was up - I was worried.  I was almost asleep, but woke myself to chat with her.  Then, I could not settle into sleep.  I tossed and turned all night.

Today, readings are about practicing meditation, and choosing the path we follow in relation to feelings.  The easy answers were "practice" and "choice" respectively.  I think what it is interesting to me is that before either of these happen for me, I have to connect to Spirit.  Yet the feelings and thinkings in this human form can function to make that connection harder to find and keep.  Such a funny thing, really...a choice to experience this human form can make it more difficult for us to connect with Spirit in which we were dwelling before we made the choice to leave and experience the human form.

And I thought of what we must experience while we are still in the womb.  Are we not connected to something much bigger than ourselves?  And to which we are connected to for sustenance?  And leaving that place - omigoodness! - is that our first true grief?  And then feeling the human touch after that physiological connection has been broken - is that our first true memory of relief?

And - are all leavings that way - moving from a place of familiarity to a place that feels strange and so different - so unconnected?  This will take more thought than what this tired, old human form can support right now.  It needs more than the 3-4 hours of sleep it received this past night.

Today, it will be doubly important to sink into the Seed of Spirit...to listen for what Spirit has to say, and lean into the leadings it offers, so that my wheels don't make ruts from their spinning.

April 20th, 2017:

One reading this morning addressed "learning how to die" - how to gracefully slip out of this vessel we call a body, and allowing our spirit to move on.  The other was about - well - respect for ourselves and others.

I ended up reading some of my former writing.  The few that I randomly chose from the many I have written since 2014 - had to do with respecting myself in this way: owning my talents, stepping into my talents - so that they are not wasted.  One of today's readings, said this: "To know what is best for someone, I have to be able to step aside from my own predjudices and preconceptions, and slip into that person's shoes...looking at life through his eyes rather than my own....When I step back again, I will have seen his needs from the inside; only then can I see clearly how to serve those needs with detachment and compassion."  (Gender issues acknowledged.  Please substitute the pronoun of your choice.)

I would posit this: that we must do this for ourselves as well.  After reading former writings, I realize that one of the best gifts I gave myself was owning the gifts that I had - that some of the criticism and lack of acknowledgement from others came from their misunderstanding of the work I was trying to do.  Until I could step aside from what I was being told, and objectively "slip" into my own shoes and examine my life with unbiased eyes - perhaps from perspective of Spirit? - my wheels would only spin in place.  

When I look back now, I am amazed at my courage and strength.   Who knew the story that was being written at the time?  But then - really - do any of us know the story when we are in the middle of the plot?  Many times, all we know is pain and confusion.  And then the choice comes to "sit" with the hurt and confusion, examine it objectively, and move through it toward what seems Spiritually accurate at the time.  

Yesterday, at the 5-year academic program review for Mercy's occupational therapy program, I realized - and deeply knew - that I have miraculously ended up where I am supposed to be.  And after reviewing some of my former posts, I can more clearly see how I got here.  It really had to do with boundaries.

We sometimes think of boundaries as something that "protects" us from others.  While this may be true, for me it was more about acknowledging, claiming, and stepping into the gifts that were "inside" my boundaries.  I had to get out of my own biased way of viewing myself, and slip into shoes that - up to that point - had remained unclaimed by some of my better pieces.  I had to - perhaps - view myself from "Spirit's" perspective, rather than my own. 

Arriving here, now, in this place, is sort of like this: Someone who has journeyed through life moving "to the beat of a different drum"  seems to have found a band.  It's not about my heart, or my inner child, or feeling "loved" by others.  It's not even about a feeling of "home."  It is about sharing the gifts I know that I am supposed to be sharing at the right time, and in the right space and place. 

Scary?  You betcha.  Lonely?  Yep, that too.  Gratifying? Yes.  Spiritually accurate?  As far as I can tell.  An arrival?  An end point?   There's no way to tell.  Only this: treating it as such - a final destination - seems inaccurate.  It has happened before, and will happen again.  Rather, it's simply one more stop along this wonderfully human-life journey.  

Pictures later.  Time to get rolling into the day.

April 19th, 2017: Slow Down

Today's readings: one about the hurry, hurry, hurry culture that we have, and the other about how those small instances where God shows itself leave us hungering for more.

What came to mind was a "song message" I received at the close of meeting at Friend's General Conference.  

"I'm leaving home to journey home; 
I will take you with me 
        wherever I may roam. 
Unfettered love...abounding grace; 
I will take it forward 
        when I leave this place." 


I am so aware that I have not been singing.  And, when I try to sing, it is hard to get to that spiritual place that used to come so easy.  When I hike, it's later in my walk that music finally comes.  

As I write this, what comes to me is that I have not taken the time to "listen" for the music that - perhaps - wants to come through me.  And as I sit with that, what comes is that I have not found a set of "peeps" here where that gift can be shared. 

And is conversation and living with Spirit much more than a "habit?"  All readings point to regular meditation growing a desire for more of the same. Will that happen again with my music?  And I notice that I write "my music."  

And I am tired.  One night of staying later at work has thrown off all of the good "juju" that I built this past weekend with my two days of 10,000 steps plus.  

Ha! I look at what I have written, and I see almost 6 different topics.  How about a 7th?  I am aware of a deep longing in my throat, sitting right on top of the place where my clavicles meet my sternum - my sternal notch?  Or is that simply the spot where the grief in my heart is getting stuck?  And I am tired.  I need a vacation where I can cry until I can't anymore.  

And the thing that makes me the saddest right now?  I think - "Omigod - sister Evangeline is dead."  That feisty old nun on "Call the Midwife" has left a hole that is bigger than my heart can hold - I think because her death is only a reminder that all life passes.  All - and who - I know and and love will pass - some of it and them before me, and some of it and them long after I am already gone.  And what touches me most of that episode is how those remaining kept her with them - even after she was gone. 

And I start to cry, and then I yawn...and I giggle.  My body

does not seem to know whether to cry, yawn - or laugh!  Is my body so tired that it can't support a good cry - but yawns instead?  How weird is that?  

I miss my peeps - and when I say that, I am thinking about NYM.  And I'm not sure that I miss the people, as I do the "space."  And that

sort of brings me full circle to where I started, I think - with Quakers, and leaving home to journey home.  So, perhaps, all of those other ramblings were just a way to slow down (remember the first reading?) and help me try to grow a little deeper into this grief. 



Finding a home here won't assuage the grief - and still, perhaps it's time to settle in here, where my Spirit can
recognize something familiar and feel at home - even if invisible - among others.

I have left my home, to journey to a place that - perhaps - is supposed to be my home but does not yet feel like it.  That does not mean that I have to leave what my "home" has given me.  I can take it forward - from my familiar place, to this new one.  

And I am smiling...the only way to "break through" is to "sit in."  Another case of seeming opposites that must be held next and close to each other in my hands at the same time. 

The Buddha might say that I must let go of my attachment to these feelings to be free.    


What if I don't want to be free of them?  What if I am in love with the physical manifestation of my spirit here on this planet, and I am already grieving its loss before it's gone?  What if longing and heartache are simply a few reminders of how beautifully human we are, and what a joy it is to be on this planet at this time?  

And while I could easily be pulled into a discussion about how and when we leave this place, I won't...at least right now.  Better to stay smack in the middle of "holding" and "being" in a fused dichotomy.

It really is all one.

April 18, 2017: Shine - and On Guard at Fb Detours

Well...that's how easy it is.  Open the computer and there is Fb.  Find that there are two Quaker Friends who would like to be friends....and then, I'm looking at photos from a friend who is walking the AT...seeing other bits and pieces of people's lives...skimming over pesky advertisements...and time has gone.  

Even though I read my readings for my new habit, I can see that writing about them has to happen immediately...nothing else until I've written about the readings.  

I liked a piece of one of the readings today.  It made me think of Mary Oliver's poem about trees..."and you, too, have come into the world to do this - to go easy, to be filled with light, and to shine."  Today's reading talked about getting centered with Spirit first, "...so that all of the faculties and resources which have been hidden in us can come into our lives to the great benefit of those around us."

A friend at dinner the other evening said, "It's surprising to end up in the place were you are supposed to be."

Yes, indeedy.

Shine. 

April 17th, 2017: Morning Habit, Take 2.

This morning, the two readings seemed to relate: The first was about training the mind for meditation, and the second was about attention.  So, what about worship.....with attention to "worship?"  

My mind is so busy.  I imagine it as a stove with many, many burners - at least 18 if not more.  Though something may not be in front of my nose, it may still be on a back burner.  One day, as I was singing with my guitar, I became aware that my body was playing the guitar and singing, but my mind was somewhere else...my mouth was singing, words were coming out and no one would have known that I was thinking about something else.

And, when that third component became available - i.e., the awareness that there were two things going on at once in my mind - well - "baby makes three" or so the adage goes.  However, while there were 3 layers in my mind, there was only one of me.  So, where was the attention?  I could worship with my singing, but my attention was......where?  The writing compared teaching our minds to attend to attending primary school.  At first, it will be all we can do to keep our minds on the school grounds.  After some time spent, we will begin to be able - little by little - to attend to the many lessons throughout the day. 



The other reading was about attending to relationships, with the idea proposed that training our attention to focus on a relationship over time is what will sustain it.  His story described Romeo losing his attention to Juliet, and turning it, instead, to Juliet's cousin. While modern day advice might say "follow your bliss," the writer's argument was that it was clearly better to refocus attention on Juliet.  I don't "buy" the second story, given that some relationships - no

matter how much attention - are not good for the people in them.  The learning for each individual may lead them out of the relationship and onto another path.  It seems, then, that attention to worship - attention to Spirit - must come first.  And once we dwell within "that," then attention can be given elsewhere.


Perhaps I need to "locate" my entire 18+ burner stove in Spirit, first, and then do all of the cooking and simmering within that sphere.

See that banyan tree?  Today I am going to imagine that my  stove is right in it's middle.

April 15th, 2017: Trying to Create the Morning Habit

So...this morning's readings...nothing really catchy...one addressed finding the quiet in mediation, and pointed out

that, when we do that, we are finding the silence from whence the world was born - from whence we were born.  And in that silence, we can find Spirit - the "Big Breath" - the "Universal Om."


The other reading re-framed "desires."  For example, we think, "I want an ice cream sundae," even though we are on a diet and/or are diabetic and/or allergic

to dairy - or whatever.  Once we eat it, we find out that it really didn't "hit the spot" the way we imagined that it would - and might wonder "why did I go and do that?"  The reading suggests that the "desire for ice cream" is thinking me, rather than the other way around, i.e., me thinking I want the ice cream.

 The problem lies in not driving the choice, but in the choice driving us.  

 Well.  OK.  Intellectually I "get" both of these.  And neither strikes a chord with me  like the readings did yesterday morning.  Except...hmmm...I am feeling the tuggings of the silence.  Something that will give me that...focus...and I am so much better at "silence" when I am "doing."  Last week's "hill reclaiming" was good medicine for me. 

Hiking is good medicine for me.  






Music is good medicine for me - and today I have this ticket to listen to a friend's concert being given in the Met's

Cloisters - a museum where there is silence - and less doing, I must admit.  (And believe it or not, the picture is actually her group singing in the place where the concert is today.)



If someone were to ask me - no - if I were to ask myself, "What do you really want to do today?" I would probably answer them this: I want to dig in the dirt...purchase plants...start a garden in pots...find and drive to a nursery where someone can tell me what to plant on my hill that the deer won't eat.  Then, I want someone to cook dinner for me, and eat it outside on the small red table that looks up at the hill - where I would be able to see all of my day's work laid out like the food on the table.

In a weird way, this relates back to the first reading.  It suggested that once we have been sitting in that space of silence, in the space of Spirit, we will want more and more of it.  For me, right now, digging in the dirt, and then taking time to see what's been done, is - in a way - existing in that silence.

And yet the adventure - of finding The Cloisters, walking, breathing, perhaps doing some of my own singing, eating with friends and then dancing at my "home dance," - has its own appeal as well.  I will be in my own silence, while being surrounded by beauty.  Alone for the train ride in, for my walk in the museum, and during the music - even though I will be around others.  

Perhaps this is what it means to "Worship, with Attention to..."

"Sunset Waltz" by Phyllis Kapp...

   

April 14th, 2017 - Post #2: Worship, With Attention To...

"'Do you mean we should remember the Lord even in the give-and-take of business?'  'Yes, of course," the rabbi replies.  'If we can rember business matters in the hour of prayer, shouldn't we be able to remember God in the transactions of our business?'" (from the book "Words to Live By" by Eknath Easwaran, p. 112)

 This first made me giggle - tit for tat.  My next thought was "of course."  The concept of "center first, attach yourself to Spirit first, and then act" was made concrete for me as I learned about Quaker business meetings.  They are named this: Worship, with Attention to Business.

First: Worship
Second: Attention to Business

Almost as an afterthought - but not really.  

What would happen if I approached my life this way?

• Worship, with attention to email.

• Worship, with attention to my supervisee.

• Worship, with attention to self-care.

• Worship, with attention to my co-workers.

• Worship, with attention to my written work.

And what would happen if our leaders did the same?

• Worship, with attention to Immigration Policies

• Worship, with attention to providing for the poor

• Worship, with attention to the budget

• Worship, with attention to humanity 

  
And the other reading addressed loving the potential in another person, and "shoo-ing away the bats" to find the "doves."  Perhaps Worship - with attention to loving.  

Worship. 

Spirit, today may I be a Banyan Tree - ever growing toward the Light, and always dropping more roots down into the Earth...spreading wider, ever farther, going about the business of growing, and ever seeking the Light - yet seeking "grounding" in the same.