How To Keep From Pouting Your Way Through Life

The Pouting Boy SFGate.com ran a brief story today about an incident at the San Francisco Giants home game last evening.  Interestingly enough, that story got more press than the impressive hitting by rookie Brandon Belt who belted a two out, two run homer to break the 3-3 tie and win the game for the Giants.  The story?  A little pouting boy.  Watch this 18 second clip that has made the rounds on ESPN.com and all over YouTube.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ooHMdr8-9Ac&w=425&h=349]

Now I certainly don't blame the little boy for being disappointed about not getting the foul ball.  It is after all every kids' dream (and even most adults') to catch a ball at the park to take home as a "I was there" trophy from your favorite player.  And it was also gracious of the Giants' organization, after seeing the boy so disappointed, to make a special trip up to his section and give him a Giants' baseball.  Everyone seemed happy in the end.

But there's something about that blatant pout that speaks to me about life.  It's concerning how we deal with disappointment and unmet expectations.  How easy it is to be experiencing something in the present and then suddenly wish we had something more, allowing our disappointment to take away our joy in the moment.  Just being at your favorite team's baseball game is a pretty special experience for any kid--enjoying a father-son outing, eating hot dogs and garlic fries and a Coke or Sprite, sitting in the stands watching your favorite players on the field, cheering for your team, doing the seventh-inning stretch, singing and shouting the "Take Me Out To The Ball Game" theme song, looking at the big screen and enjoying the view, caught up with thousands of others in the joy.  It's all a pretty great experience.  That's why baseball is such an All-American past-time.

But like that little boy, we put a little pout on our faces--we allow our desire for more to dampen and sometimes even ruin our joy in the present.  We start complaining about something:

"There's too much garlic on the fries!"  "I ordered a Sprite not a Coke so why did you bring me the wrong order?"  "I was standing up ready to catch the ball--it was coming straight toward me--so why did you have to reach up and grab it instead?"  "Why doesn't the sun break out of the clouds and make it warmer for the game?  It's always so cold here!"  "Why does the guy behind me have to shout so loud?  It's annoying!"   "These seats are terrible!  Why didn't you find us better ones?"  "Why can't we make enough money to pay for better seats!"

And before we know it, we've run joy into the ditch and allowed disappointment, bitterness, resentment, complaining, even sometimes anger to take control.  We lose the beauty of the moment.

Do you know any people who live like this?  Have you ever allowed disappointment and unmet expectations to ruin your moment?

Pollyanna Wasn't Naive

Leo Baubata, in his highly popular blog "Zen Habits," recently wrote a column in which he calls this kind of mindset "a fool's game."

"Many of us do this, but if you get into the mindset of thinking about what you 'could' be doing, you’ll never be happy doing what you actually 'are' doing. You’ll compare what you’re doing with what other people (on Facebook and Twitter, perhaps?) are doing. You’ll wish your life were better. You’ll never be satisfied, because there’s 'always' something better to do.  Instead, I’ve adopted the mindset that whatever I’m doing right now is perfect."

Imagine developing that kind of mindset and how that would impact your experience of life.  What you are doing right now is perfect.  You have everything you need right now in this moment.  It's perfect.

Is this too Pollyannaish?  Interestingly enough, I was reading a book recently which talked about Pollyanna's story and how misunderstood her experience has been by so many people.  Our culture uses her name to describe a negative quality--naive, refusing to face reality, living in a fantasy land, unable to handle the truth, etc.  In fact, as her story actually describes, Pollyanna was well aware of the foibles and dysfunctions of the people that she went to live with.  She had deep insight into their struggles and keenly felt the pain from their meanness and lack of respect for her.  But she chose to look on the bright side.  She refused to allow their attitudes to negatively affect hers.  She chose to see the good instead of the bad.  She chose to step into joy for the moment by looking for and finding and reveling in the positive experiences.

The Divine Nature

I'm reminded of the Bible text describing God which says, "Man looks on the outward appearance but God looks on the heart."  The divine nature is about choosing to view people and situations from the best perspective possible.  The divine nature chooses to give people the benefit of the doubt, to focus on the inner goodness and inherent value of people and circumstances.

This isn't a choice for naivete.  Or maybe it is.  Perhaps God chooses to be, like Jesus commended to us, like little children who tend to see the good, who quickly get over the negative and jump right back into relationship, who are quick to forgive, who do so well in living in the joy of the moment, grabbing all the gusto in the present rather than living in the past or the anxiety of the unknown future.  "Right now is perfect.  I have everything I need in this moment."

God certainly acknowledges lack, failure, inadequacy.  God lives with a constant keen sense of incompleteness in the world God created to be perfect.  God know what God desires and longs for and therefore what is lacking in the present.  But the fact that the divine nature in scripture is always described in the present tense--I AM--shows that God lives in the Now, this Moment.  And this truth about God sanctifies, makes holy, every Moment, Now.

The Empowering Secret

Reflecting this perspective on the divine nature, the Apostle Paul (one of the most prolific writers in the New Testament) gave his personal testimony with the words, "I have learned how to be content with whatever I have. ¹² I know how to live on almost nothing or with everything. I have learned the secret of living in every situation, whether it is with a full stomach or empty, with plenty or little. ¹³ For I can do everything through the One who gives me strength."  (Philippians 4:11-13)

There is strength and power in focusing on the divine attribute of the Now, the I AM, the holy Present Moment.  God's presence lives in us, empowering us to capture the joy right now, to see the moment as perfect, to choose contentment by acknowledging "I have everything I need right now in this moment.  Let me enjoy this present."

It doesn't mean there isn't hardship or difficulties or pain or sorrow in our lives.  To deny that would be to short-circuit life.  Even Pollyanna, and certainly the Apostle Paul, knew their harsh realities.  But to allow unmet expectations and disappointment to run joy off the road is to live an unnecessarily unhappy life, never satisfied, never content, never at peace.  Pollyanna and Paul refused to live that way.  And their choice for joy and contentment paid them rich rewards.  They had the "secret" to strong living.

The Spiritual Practice of Now

Here's how Leo Baubata describes his spiritual practice of the Now mindset:  "I’m always happy with what I’m doing, because I don’t compare it to anything else, and instead pay close attention to the activity itself. I’m always happy with whoever I’m with, because I learn to see the perfection in every person. I’m always happy with where I am, because there’s no place on Earth that’s not a miracle.  Life will suck if you are always wishing you’re doing something else. Life will rock if you realize you’re already doing the best thing ever."

I don't want to pout my way through life.  I can easily fall into that trap--I know myself too well.  As a "maximizer," it's my tendency to always want to improve things.   That's okay.  But if I allow that to never let me step into contentment and joy in the present moment, I rob myself, and my "wanting more" robs those around me of the joy of the moment, too.  So when I saw that video clip of the little pouting boy, I was convicted to make a different choice in my life--to learn how to relish the joy of the moment--to practice saying, "This moment is perfect.  I have everything I need right now.  It's good and beautiful and I'm going to revel in it!"

And besides, who wants to get that "life sucks!" look on your face like that little kid every time something doesn't go your way?  Almost embarrassing!

Betty White, Snickers Bars, and Your Personal Identity

The Commercial Have you seen the 30 second TV commercial with actress Betty White and Snickers candy bars?  It was introduced during the 2010 Super Bowl.  It's an interesting portrayal of personal identity.  Watch it:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uA7-31Cxc2I&w=560&h=349]

The Snickers Identity Paradigm

The ad's a great example of how so often we see others by what they're doing on the outside.  Their identity is their performance.  If you're not playing football very well we see you as a Betty White (although I would have had second thoughts about playing ball against a younger Betty White--she's got the spirit!).  "Come on, man, don't be such a wuss!  Get it together and start playing like a man!"  If you're really good (which is to say, proficient, skillful, aggressive), then we see you as your "real" self.  Our culture bases everything about identity on externals.  Get that real job!  Drive that real car!  Make a real salary!  Date that real woman or man!  Buy a real house!  Wear that power suit!  Carry that real purse or wear those real shoes!  Show your stuff (whatever "stuff" is) and stop wimping around!

And if you're just not "manifesting" it rightly, then eat a Snickers bar and turn yourself back into a real man or woman!  Notice the interesting solution to being your "true self":  a candy bar (or whatever external things the advertisers are offering).

You and I are tempted every day to buy into this perspective on identity and reality.  If we can just manifest the right outside and external world, we can be satisfied that all is right with the world, we are who we're suppose to be.  So our identity is held captive to what we can or cannot manifest on the outside.

Some Drawbacks

But here are a couple of big dangers with this paradigm.  One, if you base your identity on what you can manifest in your life (the externals like people, things, circumstances), then you never have a solid foundation for your self esteem.  Your identity is dependent upon what happens on the outside.  And so your self esteem fluctuates based upon circumstances created by either you or others.  Your self esteem and personal identity are victimized by the fluctuations of whatever's happening to you or by you.  Definitely not a very secure way to live.

And two, it becomes easy to put yourself down or to put others down who aren't manifesting everything you think you or they should.  You can guilt people by saying, "If you just would get your thoughts right, you should be able to do it.  So if you're not doing it, there's something wrong with you!"

It's so subtle how our attitudes impact our sense of self and our expectations of others.

An Alternative Paradigm:  Secure Identity and Inner Peace

There's an alternative way to live that produces far more confidence, assurance, and solid peace.  Notice this statement from scripture:

"Even though on the outside it often looks like things are falling apart on us, on the inside, where God is making new life, not a day goes by without his unfolding grace."  (2 Corinthians 4:16)

Now considering the context of this statement, the significance of it increases dramatically.  The author is writing to people who have developed the insidious belief that your external world validates who you are.  The worldview was that if you were experiencing a life of success, ease, and prosperity that was a sign that you were being blessed by the divine universe.  And being blessed by God was always manifested by a life of prosperity.  They claimed that the condition of your external world indicated your personal identity and your status with the gods.

But author Paul is trying to counter that popular paradigm by describing his own life.  When he talks about looking like things are falling apart, he's painting a pretty graphic picture of his life experience:

"You know for yourselves that we're not much to look at. We've been surrounded and battered by troubles, but we're not demoralized; we're not sure what to do, but we know that God knows what to do; we've been spiritually terrorized, but God hasn't left our side; we've been thrown down, but we haven't broken. What they did to Jesus, they do to us—trial and torture, mockery and murder; what Jesus did among them, he does in us—he lives! Our lives are at constant risk for Jesus' sake, which makes Jesus' life all the more evident in us. While we're going through the worst, you're getting in on the best!"  (2 Corinthians 4:8-12)

Notice his juxtaposition of external circumstances and internal attitude and identity.  Even though his external life would appear to be a complete failure, falling apart at the seams, his sense of identity and security with himself and with God are completely secure.  There's an internal sense of peace and certainty that pervades his mind and heart.  He is describing himself as possessing true life in its deepest and most meaningful sense, a life that God is continually creating and recreating in him.  And the more centered he finds himself in this internal life, the more grounded he finds himself in how he faces his external world.

And he ends that paragraph with a sentence describing another truism (did you notice it?):  our internal attitude does impact our external environment with others.  As Paul centered himself on inner peace that he allows God to create within him in the midst of external chaos, he blesses others with that environment of peace, too, giving them opportunity to experience inner peace for themselves.  It may not still the storms swirling all around, but it does provide inner calm and centeredness which is contagious.

Our True Miracle

That's the true miracle we all are needing.  Being able to live life with the continual unfolding of divine grace within us, where God is making a new life every day--not based upon what people think about us or even what we're tempted to think about ourselves based upon what we have or don't have, do or don't do, but based upon what God gives us inside--an nonfluctuating identity as a child of God embued with eternal value because of that stamp of love on our souls.  The ability to live in love rather than fear is the greatest miracle of all.  That should be our highest manifestation in life.  And it certainly has the power to impact others with a spirit of peace and love, too.

By today's standards based upon the Law of Attraction, Paul would be considered a real failure.  And yet Paul is completely confident in who he is, what God is doing in his life, and his courageous living of his purpose.

Marianne Williamson, author and spiritual teacher, puts it this way:  "We're not asking for something outside us to change, but for something inside us to change.  We're looking for a softer orientation to life...Everything we do is infused with the energy with which we do it.  If we're frantic, life will be frantic.  If we're peaceful, life will be peaceful.  And so our goal in any situation becomes inner peace.  Our internal state determines our experience of our lives; our experiences do not determine our internal state."  (Marianne Williamson, A Return To Love, p. 66)

So build your identity, your sense of self and esteem and worth, on a foundation that remains secure, that outside circumstances and people cannot destroy.  So whether you have much in life that you truly want or have very little, you still are rich--you are grounded on the eternal truth of your being as a child of the God of the universe and nothing can take that away.

What are the internal changes and transformations you're experiencing in your life these days?  Are you clear of your identity and what it's based upon?  Do you possess a centered and grounded sense of who you are and where your value comes from?  Do you have that "softer orientation to life" that comes from living with love instead of fear?  Do you have a peace and security regardless of what's happening in your external world?

Next time I find myself face down on the muddy football field, and others think I'm playing ball like Betty White, I think I need to stick something more substantial into my soul than a Snickers bar.

What Is Faith and How Does It Impact Your Life?

I heard of a professor of theology at Harvard Divinity School ending every class with the question, "So what's the cash value?"  His point was that theology, any discussion about God, any view of the nature of God and words and descriptions of God, theological ideas have real effects on the world, they must result in something practical and ethical for the good of the world.  There must be "cash value" from both the ideas and the conversation. So what's the cash value of faith?  How do you define faith and what difference does that faith make in living your life?  In truth, how we define faith radically shapes both how we show up in the world and what kind of life experience we enjoy.

Is the Universe Friendly?

Albert Einstein once said, "The most important question you'll ever ask is, Is the universe friendly?"  His point was that how a person views the universe impacts the way that person responds to the challenges of life and uses available resources for those challenges.  Here's how he put it:

"For if we decide that the universe is an unfriendly place, then we will use our technology, our scientific discoveries and our natural resources to achieve safety and power by creating bigger walls to keep out the unfriendliness and bigger weapons to destroy all that which is unfriendly, and I believe that we are getting to a place where technology is powerful enough that we may either completely isolate or destroy ourselves as well in this process.

"If we decide that the universe is neither friendly nor unfriendly and that God is essentially 'playing dice with the universe', then we are simply victims to the random toss of the dice and our lives have no real purpose or meaning.

"But if we decide that the universe is a friendly place, then we will use our technology, our scientific discoveries and our natural resources to create tools and models for understanding that universe [and cooperating with it]."

His point is that how we see the universe is ultimately an issue of faith.  Faith has cash value - it radically impacts the way we react and respond and behave toward ourselves, others, and our world.  It takes the form of both attitude and behavior. It impacts how we use all the resources available to us - either in love-based or fear-based ways.  Everything we think, feel, and do will follow our faith correspondingly.

God Is Love

Sounds a lot like the biblical perspective emphasized in 1 John 4:  "God is love, and all who live in love life in God, and God lives in them.  And as we live in God, our love grows more perfect.  Such love has no fear because perfect love expels all fear.  If we are afraid, it is for fear of judgment, and this shows that his love has not been perfected in us."  (verses 16-18)

Love is the central value and force in the entire universe.  Love is the very nature of God.  No wonder Jesus made the same claim by saying that all of God's commandments are summarized into two:  loving God with all your heart and loving your neighbor as yourself.  All of God's totality manifested in words are summed up by love.  Love is the operating force in the universe.

Fear is antithetical to love.  Fear judges.  Fear condemns.  Fear criticizes.  Fear chooses against the other.  Fear coerces.  Love and fear cannot operate at the same time.  Human life is comprised of making the choice to think, feel, and act in love or in fear.  Life works best, the way the Creator of the universe designed it, when it is lived in harmony and alignment and congruency with love.  Faith is believing enough to stake your life on the centrality of love, even when it seems counter-intuitive in a situation you're encountering.

What Is Faith?

Marianne Williamson, a spiritual teacher and author, in her book Return To Love, describes the cash value this way:  "To trust in the force that moves the universe is faith.  Faith isn't blind, it's visionary.  Faith is believing that the universe is on our side, and that the universe knows what it's doing.  Faith is a psychological awareness of an unfolding force for good, constantly at work in all dimensions.  Our attempts to direct this force only interferes with it.  Our willingness to relax into it allows it to work on our behalf.  Without faith, we're frantically trying to control what it is not our business to control, and fix what it is not in our power to fix.  What we're trying to control is much better off without us, and what we're trying to fix can't be fixed by us anyway.  Without faith, we're wasting time ... We learn to trust that the power that holds galaxies together can handle the circumstances of our relatively little lives."  (p. 52, 56)

Two Ways Faith Impacts Life

So what's the cash value?  Here are several implications I'm learning. One, relax.  Have you noticed how much of life is lived with anxiety, uncertainty, chaos, conflict, power struggles?  We invest an inordinate amount of personal energy in those negative energy fields.  Think of the "fights" you have with your significant other, for example?  How much energy is used up in those fights?  Over what?  Universe-altering issues?  Global-impacting concerns?  Do or die principles where life will literally come to an end if the situation doesn't resolve according to your idea?  So this implication is hugely significant.  Relax.

But what does faith have to do with my ability to relax?  If I believe that God is working for my greatest good, and I'm willing to surrender the results to God in every situation, allowing only my self to learn what I need to learn as opposed to having to teach everyone else what I think they need to learn, I can relax.  I can have a greater inner peace about stuff.  Why?  Because I'm not obsessing, anxiously trying to control and fix everyone and everything else around me according to what I think everyone needs.  I'm not desperately trying to hang on to a specific outcome.  I can relax in a trust that the Power holding the galaxies together, the Power behind even our own laws of gravity and photosynthesis and thermodynamics in our world, for example, can and is handling the convoluted and chaotic circumstances of my own inner and outer life.  I can relax because I am choosing faith, love, and surrender.

Two, cooperate.  My ability to relax is directly related to my willingness to cooperate with the universe's law of love.  If I believe that the fundamental nature of the universe is love rather than fear (as both Einstein and 1 John 4:16-18 suggested), then when I make the deliberate decision to love rather than to fear in any specific situation I am intentionally placing myself in harmony with God's universe.  I am choosing to come into alignment with God's fundamental nature and operation.  And here's what happens:

"When we love, we are automatically placing ourselves within an attitudinal and behavioral context that leads to an unfoldment of events at the highest level of good for everyone involved.  We don't always know what that unfoldment would look like, but we don't need to.  God will do God's part if we do ours.  Our only job in every situation is to merely let go of our resistance to love.  What happens then is up to God.  We've surrendered control.  We're letting God lead.  We have faith that God knows how."  (Ibid., p. 57)

Here's how this works.  Surrender, cooperation, means giving up attachment to results.  I realize that most of my personal angst in both my relationships and my life experiences are often because of I grab a hold of a specific outcome (result) and refuse to let it go at any cost.  So when it begins to appear that others aren't working for MY results, I get threatened and insecure.  I often fight back to try to ensure I get my way.  And painful conflict results instead.

But when I surrender to God (cooperate with God), I let go of my attachment to how I think things are suppose to happen on the outside and I become more concerned with what happens on the inside of me.

"The more important it is to us, the more important it is to surrender.  That which is surrendered is taken care of best.  To place something in the hands of God is to give it over, mentally, to the protection and care of the beneficence of the universe.  To keep it ourselves means to constantly grab and clutch and manipulate.  We keep opening the oven to see if the bread is baking, which only ensures that it never gets a chance to."  (Ibid., p. 58)

What's the Cash Value?

So imagine being able to live life with a more relaxed attitude toward everyone and everything.  Imagine seeing all of life, including yours, in the hands of a benevolent, loving God who loves and provides equally for us and everyone else.  Imagine experiencing a profound peace from being able to surrender everything in your life to Love and no longer having to control or manipulate or coerce or connive life to conform to your expectations.  Imagine the transformation possible from only having to look at your self and aligning your self with God and letting God take are of the rest.  Imagine a world where others are doing the same thing, where Love is the reigning, guiding force in all relationships and life experiences.  Wouldn't that be Heaven?  Not bad for cash value.

Three Lessons From Geese About Spiritual Sustainability and Endurance

INTRODUCTION Bar-headed geese are some of the most remarkable birds in nature.  It’s estimated that at least 50,000 of them winter in India.  And when summer nears, they undertake the two month 5000 mile migration back to their home in Central Asia.  What makes this trip remarkable is that the route they choose to take every year is the world’s steepest migratory flight—they fly over the highest mountain in the world, Mount Everest in the Himalayas.

Amazingly, this route is where the air is thinnest and oxygen level lowest.  What’s more, the thinner air means that less lift is generated when the birds flap their wings, thereby increasing the energy costs of flying by around 30 per cent.  And yet they still fly the same route over the highest place on earth.

Scientists now find that these geese do not make use of tailwinds or updrafts that could give them a boost up the mountain.  They choose instead to rely on several other remarkable resources:

(1) Muscle power—these geese have a denser network of capillaries that reach oxygen-carrying blood to the cells.  So their blood is capable of binding and transporting more oxygen to where it’s needed most, their wing muscles.

(2) Large lungs—they also have larger lungs for their size and breathe more heavily than other waterfowl. Unlike humans, bar-headed geese can breathe in and out very rapidly without getting dizzy or passing out.  By hyperventilating, they increase the net quantity of oxygen that they get into their blood and therefore into their muscles.

(3) Team work—geese are famous for utilizing in flight the V-formation which helps reduce individual energy consumption by up to 30%.  The whole flock gets over 70% better mileage than if each bird flew solo.  When the lead bird gets weary, it drops back and a new one takes the lead.  As the birds vigorously flap their wings, it creates lift for the bird behind.  These geese actually choose to fly over Mt. Everest at one time rather than breaking up the trip, typically a grueling eight hour marathon.  And in addition, if one of the geese gets too tired or gets injured or sick, two of the other geese shepherd the weaker one back down to the ground and stay with it until it either gets stronger or dies.  Then they rejoin the group or find another group to fly with to complete their migration.

(4) External conditions—many scientists had thought the geese were taking advantage of daytime winds that blow up and over mountaintops. But recent research showed the birds forgo the winds and choose to fly at night, when conditions tend to be relatively calmer.  They're potentially avoiding higher winds in the afternoon, which might make flights more uncomfortable or more risky.  The birds could potentially head east or west and fly around, rather than over, the mountain range, but this would add several days to their trip and would actually use up more energy.  So they go straight over the highest point on earth in an attempt to manage their energy as efficiently as possible.  It’s counter-intuitive.

So what can we learn from these geese about how to develop a strong, sustainable, enduring spirituality—the kind that can face great risks and obstacles and complete the journey well?  What does it take to enjoy spiritual sustainability?

THREE LESSONS FROM GEESE ABOUT DEVELOPING SPIRITUAL SUSTAINABILITY

Lesson One, Maximize your spiritual oxygen—breathe deeply.  Like the geese, we all have the inner capacities to develop spiritual sustainability—we have good muscles and good lungs.  But for those to be maximized, we have to breathe deeply to get the most amount of oxygen possible to our spiritual muscles.

These geese have the lung capacity to be able to hyperventilate when they need it for Mt. Everest.  When they’re at home, they certainly don’t spend all of their time hyperventilating.  But when they need it the most, facing their arduous migration, they’ve developed the capacity for it.

So how can you and I increase our lung capacity to breathe deeply and get life-giving oxygen to our spiritual muscles?  This is what spiritual practices are all about—engaging regularly in activities that involve spiritual breathing, breathing deeply of the divine Spirit, accessing the power that is greater than ourselves—Prayer, meditation, scripture/inspirational reading, journaling [for example, the direct method of communication with your Trusted Source—based upon Carl Jung’s model of active imagination], spiritual conversations, sacred rituals, sacred objects, building altars of remembrances, nature immersion.  This is about engaging in ways to “wake up” to God’s presence in you and all around you, ways to “pay attention” to That which is greater than your self, ways to “breathe in” the divine spirit.

PERSONAL APPLICATION:  What do you currently do spiritually to breathe deeply?  What sacred rituals do you intentionally engage in?  What kind of plan do you have for regular spiritual breathing?

Lesson Two, Exercise your spiritual muscles—act on faith.  I love this definition of faith:  “Faith is daring the soul to go beyond what the eyes can see.”  William Newton Clark

Spiritual teachers remind us that faith is the language of the soul.  And the soul is what both holds our life purpose and catapults us towards it.  Our egos care most about happiness, security, safety, success, status.  The soul cares about aliveness, courage, purpose, effectiveness, faith.  And faith is the language of the soul.

So, when you act on faith, when you intentionally choose to take a step forward in your spiritual quest, when you say “yes” to faith, your spiritual muscles strengthen, and new resources become available.

That’s why, in the story of the Hebrews needing to cross the flooded Jordan River in order to get over to the Promised Land, God gave instructions for the priests carrying the ark of the covenant to lead the way into the river.  And it wasn’t until they stepped into the river that the waters parted all the way across.  Those first steps were steps of faith—choices to follow God’s instructions even when their eyes couldn’t see the way.

Indiana Jones, in the movie “Temple of Doom,” had to step out in faith, putting his foot out into the nothingness, the chasm of the abyss, in order for the bridge to appear so they could cross it to the other side where the coveted Holy Grail was hidden.

The way many people live is by playing it safe, or shrinking from difficulty, or refusing to act unless all the ducks are lined up in a row or the future can be clearly seen.  It’s true, we need to be smart when we’re faced with choices.  But sometimes, the counter-intuitive smart choice is to act even when you can’t see the end.  Our paralysis of fear atrophies our spiritual muscles.  What you don’t use gets lost.  Muscles get flabby and lose their resilience and strength.

We can breathe deeply all we want, we can learn to hyperventilate and get rich oxygen to our muscles effectively all we want.  But if we never use those oxygenated muscles, none of that makes a difference.

When you act in faith, taking a step forward, new resources become available.  And that courageous act strengthens the spiritual muscles, empowering you to take the next step.  Faith is acting on the belief that you have what you need, like the geese, the necessary equipment and inner capacity, to fly over the Mt. Everests of life.  So use it!

I can honestly tell you that when I look back on the crises I’ve gone through and see where I am today, I am in awe of the inner resources I was able to call out of myself that I didn’t even know I had.  That awareness has helped me to learn not to be afraid of or to avoid the Mt. Everests because it’s only in flying over them that we can see what our spiritual muscles are truly capable of.

PERSONAL APPLICATION:  So what steps of faith are you being called to take these days?  How is your soul being dared to go beyond what your eyes can see?  What is one step forward you can take right now to exercise your spiritual muscles?

Lesson Three, Leverage the support of others—ask for help.  The genius of the geese’s V-formation flying style is the way it leverages the power of team effort.  Getting over Mt. Everest is almost impossible solo.  Drafting with others maximizes energy and productivity.

Richard Bolles is the author of history’s best-selling book about job hunting and career change, What Color Is Your Parachute.  He was interviewed once about the subject of being self-employed.  He said that self employed people can hire out just about any skill, even, to some degree, discipline; you can get someone to call you every week to help keep you on track.  But, he said, the only trait you cannot hire out and without which you’ll “die on the vine” is the willingness to ask for help.

Trying to go it alone in life is, as one author described it, like “stringing beads without tying a knot at the end.”  Without having the help of other people to secure the end, we simply keep slipping away.

Spiritual sustainability, the power to endure in the long run, requires asking for the support of others—inviting trusted people into our lives for accountability, vision, wisdom, encouragement, strength.  We have to be willing to ask for what we need and want.

I remember when I first moved here to San Francisco all by myself—after having gone through a huge personal crisis that shattered my self confidence and sent me into what I was tempted to see as a fatal tailspin—I called up three guys who had been my friends for years—they all lived in different parts of the country—and I asked each of them if they would “fly the V-formation” with me for a long while—“Would you be willing to call me every week and talk with me, encourage me, support me, and let me draft you.”  That was one of the most spiritually strategic steps of faith I could have taken during that Mt. Everest time for me.  I had to summon enough courage and initiative to ask for help.

Percy Ross authors a column called “Thanks A Million” that is syndicated in more than seven hundred newspapers around the country.  This Minneapolis millionaire is trying to dispose of the fortune it took him nearly 60 years to accumulate by working to redistribute his wealth among people who write to him with their stories of need and sometimes greed.  He gets 2000 letters a day.  Those that touch him he responds to with a check.

In an interview, he talked about the importance of asking.  He said, “Asking is in my opinion the world’s most powerful—and neglected—secret to success.  I certainly wouldn’t be where I am today if I hadn’t convinced many, many people to help me along the way.  The world is full of genies waiting to grant our wishes.  There are plenty of people who will gladly give you a hand.”

Knowing what you want is one thing—a very important thing, to be sure.  But that doesn’t really matter in the end unless you learn to ask for it.  As Richard Bolles said, the willingness to ask for help is a nonnegotiable component of successful living.  Spiritual sustainability and strength require us involving others in our lives in crucial, significant ways.  There’s no such thing as a spiritual lone ranger.  The mighty Lone Ranger had Tonto.  Even Jesus the Son of God had Peter, James & John (and nine others to follow him around).

PERSONAL APPLICATION:  Whom do you have in your life to draft with, to fly in V-formation with?  Who do you need to ask?  What do you want for your life and are you asking clearly and confidently for it, asking for help?

SUMMARY

So what does it take to develop spiritual sustainability, a spirituality that endures the long run with strength and vitality?  What lessons can we learn from the barheaded geese?  First, Maximize your spiritual oxygen—breathe deeply.  Second, Exercise your spiritual muscles—act on faith.  And third, Leverage the support of others—ask for help.

CONCLUSION

One of the Old Testament stories that provides a sort of comic relief to the serious messages of the prophets and yet offers a deeply encouraging view of the divine reality swirling around in the midst of our stories—one of the ultimate resources for spiritual endurance--is the legend of Jonah.

God calls him to go to the fierce people of Ninevah—the most feared enemies of his Jewish people—and preach a message of impending divine judgment.  Now preaching judgment to anyone is uncomfortable.  But to the Ninevahites?  Considering that these fierce warriors skinned their enemies alive, I can understand Jonah’s immediate hesitancy to accept this calling.  He doesn’t just say No to God, he jumps on a ship that is sailing in the opposite direction from Ninevah to try to outrun both God and his mission.

No one ever promised there would be no risk in following our spiritual destiny.  In fact, truth is, there is always fear involved in flying over Mt. Everest.  Our temptation is to capitulate and cave in to the paralysis of status quo.

On the way to far away, Jonah falls asleep in the bowels of the boat.  A fierce storm comes up.  The captain finds Jonah and wakes him up.  “Better come on deck with the rest of us—we’re trying to decide our fate.”  The sailors cast lots to see who among them is bringing on this wrath of the gods.  That’s when Jonah speaks up with his story of fear and failure, saying, “I’m the one at fault here.  Throw me over board and that’ll solve your storm problem.”

He’s thinking that he’s not even safe from God and his calling on a ship going in the opposite direction from Ninevah.  If he’s thrown overboard, at least he’ll drown and never have to worry again about facing God or the Ninevahites.

But when he’s sinking to the depths of sea, God sends a huge fish to swallow him to keep him alive and save him for his mission.  “Thanks, God!”  In the belly of the fish, though, Jonah recognizes what God is calling him to do, accepts God’s promise to empower him with courage and strength, and repents of his cowardice and fear.  “If this cup cannot pass from me, Your will not mine be done,” he utters.

After three days and three nights, the fish spits him out onto the beach nearest Ninevah, wouldn’t you know it.  And he marches into the city and ends up causing a massive revival among those enemy people who end up treating him like a hero who has saved their lives from judgment.

Spiritual sustainability, spiritual strength and endurance, take place not just from us breathing deeply, acting in faith or even in fear, and asking for help from others—but also from a Divine Presence that swirls and blows and moves in the midst of our stories, a Divine Presence that believes in our destiny even more than we do, who believes in us even when we’ve given up.  That Sacred Spirit breathes into our lives hope and courage, engaging other players on our behalf, turning failure into fertilizer, redeeming our cowardice for courage, staying with us until we fulfill our holy destiny.  It’s the Wind beneath our wings, the Oxygen streaming into our muscles, that empowers us over Mt. Everest safely to our promised land.

Now that’s a Resource to keep holding on to!

New Blog: Part 2-Four Secrets About Spiritual Health & Growth That Rivers Tell Us. http://tinyurl.com/3rymkvm

Four Secrets Rivers Tell Us About Spiritual Health, Part 2

In my last post, I introduced the concept about rivers being viewed by spiritual and religious traditions as metaphors and symbols for the spiritual life.  I described the basic journey of the river, beginning in the mountains and ultimately emptying into the sea. Rivers and Spiritual Growth

So what does the river’s journey tell us about spiritual growth? Let me suggest four secrets.

First, The Source of life is Sacred, which makes all of life Sacred.  The flow of life is Sacred.  There is a holy purpose to our lives, to our journey.  Everything we have done and do has a Sacred dimension to it.

That’s why for so many spiritual traditions the process of spirituality is awakening, paying attention to life as Sacred, learning how to encounter and embrace the Divine in every experience of life.  St. Augustine once wrote, “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in you.”  Life is about connecting, reconnecting with—acknowledging, honoring—our Sacred Source.

Second, All individuals are from the same Source, which makes everyone Sacred.  A River is a combining of individual streams into one flow.  So if the Source is Sacred, then every individual is Sacred, too.  Which means that healthy spirituality is about recognizing the Sacredness of every person we encounter.

That’s what giving the Blessing is all about—remember we’ve talked about that spiritual practice before?  Giving the Blessing to another is acknowledging the divine goodness in that person, no matter who he or she is, and calling it out of that person by affirming it and honoring it.  That’s what the Hindu greeting “Namaste” means—“The divine goodness in me honors and greets the divine goodness in you.”

Spirituality cannot be healthy and grow without this significant recognition and embrace.  That’s why healthy spirituality must involve an outward focus, not just an inward one.  We have the divine joy of looking at others and calling out, honoring their Sacredness.  Life is about helping others embrace their own divine goodness.  Imagine what the world would be like if everyone looked at others in this light, instead of constantly judging or criticizing or labeling or condemning.

That’s why the Bible ends with the beautiful picture of one God, one City, one River that nourishes one People—everyone being vitalized and revitalized by the same Source forever!

Third, Spirituality is not a straight line, it has twists and turns.  It’s amazing how often we label the twists and turns of our lives as bad, harmful, negative, detours, even “not God’s will.”  Right?

The reality is that no river runs straight.  Every river has twists and turns.  And here’s what really impresses me: according to the experts, “The twists and turns are Nature's way of keeping Her life-giving Waters healthy:  they create the eddies that aerate the Water which is so vital to the nourishment and preservation of all the people, animals and vegetation which rely on the River for sustenance.”

The very things that we think damage us and therefore should be avoided at all costs in fact can keep us healthy—they aerate our lives—bring more oxygen into our system which actually revitalizes us.

What would it be like to approach what you consider to be a “twist and turn” in your life and ask yourself, “How can this experience aerate—that is, bring more life into—my spirituality?  What can I learn about myself through this?  How will I allow this to expand my life rather than diminish it?”

It’s interesting when it comes to rivers—there are those enthusiasts, like kayakers and rafters, who live for the mad and bellowing, raging rapids.  I took a trip years ago, a rafting trip, right through the famed Hells Canyon on the Snake River.  Wow, I gotta tell you—I certainly wouldn’t have considered myself anywhere close to a hard-core rafter—but that trip was high adrenaline and amazingly enlivening, to put it mildly.  We went through one chute, our guide manning the rudder or back end of our raft, all of us paddling for our lives, and slammed head on into a huge boulder.  One of the guys in the raft got thrown out.  I about had a heart attack!  But we finally got through and ultimately to quieter water.  The guy who had been spit out of the dragon’s mouth beat us to the finish line, fortunately unhurt but emerging from the water shaking from head to toe.

There are people who love that stuff and go for class 6 whitewater rapids all the time!  The twists and turns and rapids have a way of focusing you pretty quickly.  You emerge on an adrenaline high from sheer gratitude that you made it!  Colors look a lot deeper.

I read this statement recently from Gregg Levoy’s book Callings.  He’s quoting philosopher and psychotherapist Karlfried Graf Durkheim.  “Only to the extent that we expose ourselves over and over again to annihilation can that which is indestructible arise within us.  In this lies the dignity of daring.  We must have the courage to face life, to encounter all that is most perilous in the world.”  (p. 258)

Every myth or legend has a hero or heroine who ends up facing some kind of a dragon or monster that represents what they deeply fear.  They have to face it and fight it before they can fulfill their destiny.  The fight is always brutal and fierce.  They don’t know if they’ll come out victorious but they fight on.  We wouldn’t watch movies or read books if the stories didn’t have these twists and plots, right?

The author is referring to the importance of facing our fears and risks associated with following our purpose in life.  When you are able to face your fear, which often involves a fear of failing or, as the philosopher put it, the feeling like you’re going to be “annihilated"--the fear of losing yourself and being forgotten--you allow the courage inside you to emerge.  You find out that you are in fact bold.  You can face life and encounter what you didn’t think you had it in you to survive.  That’s not only focusing, it’s empowering!  Not only does facing this fear cause you to not lose yourself, you actually end up finding your true self.

Levoy says that “Fear is a signal that you’re close to something vital and that your calling is worthy of you.” (p. 257)

The twists and turns and rapids of life produce fear which informs us of what’s truly important to us.  And they give us opportunity to do something about what’s important to us—to act on what is vital to us.

Healthy spirituality is about being willing to embrace every stage of and section of our Life River—to learn more deeply about ourselves and the nature of life from the quiet times, from the broad, open expanses like lakes, as well as from the twists and turns and swirling eddies.  Spirituality involves all of those sections and times and stages.  Just like with rivers, life without all these diverse experiences keep our spirituality from stagnating (as opposed to the river ending in a pond with no outlet).  Our health demands all this diversity for growth.

And four, Spirituality is learning the art of effective change management.  Have you ever stood on a bridge over a river and looked down at the flowing water?  It’s almost mesmerizing, isn’t it.  Has a kind of hypnotic effect.  One thing you can’t help but notice is that you never see the same water twice.  That’s where we get the euphemism from:  “It’s all water under the bridge.”  In other words, everything changes so let it go.

Heraclitus of Ephesus, the 5^th century BC Greek philosopher, famous for his doctrine of change being central to the Universe, wrote:  "You can never step into the same river; for new waters are always flowing on to you."

Change is inherent in life and spirituality.  Healthy spirituality is about learning how to steward change effectively.  It involves two vital choices.  One, letting the old go.  And two, embracing the new.  Just like we do when we watch a river—we see water go, and we see new water come.  We really don’t have any control over that flow.  We simply accept what it is and choose our response to it.

This is why many of the effective spiritual practitioners tell their adherents to do their spiritual practices by the river—so they can observe this flow and learn the art of acceptance.  Like we have to do with our thoughts during meditation—we observe them and then let them go, without paying undue attention by focusing on them and obsessing on them.  Letting them go peacefully and respectfully.  It’s all water under the bridge; nothing you can do about it; let it go.

Isn't this what the Serenity Prayer is all about?  Those in recovery have learned to repeat this prayer regularly, sometimes even hourly and even minute by minute to stay focused:  "God grant me the SERENITY to accept the things I cannot change; COURAGE to change the things I can; and WISDOM to know the difference.”

APPLICATION

So to build a healthy, vital, growing spirituality, we learn to ask ourselves some very important questions:

• What do I learn about myself through my responses to the different ups and downs of my life?
• What are the stories I tell myself about loss and grief and pain that end up shaping my responses to them?
• What does my fear tell me about what in that situation is important to me?
• How can I allow these “whitewater rapids” to produce greater spiritual health in me, to aerate my life?

I would invite you to spend some alone time, reflecting on these questions.  Perhaps even journal your responses.  It helps to bring thoughtful intentionality to your spiritual path.

CONCLUSION

I love the story in the Hebrew Bible of Namaan, the commander of the Syrian army.  Israel and Syria are bitter enemies, both fighting to exterminate the threat of the other.  Both fighting to prove their God is the stronger god.  Life in those days is all about the battle of the Gods.

Namaan ends up getting leprosy, a horrible skin disease with no cure.  He’s horrified and ashamed and fearful.  The little servant girl in his home is and Israelite girl who sees his condition and tells her mistress that Namaan should go see her prophet Elisha who could heal him.

So he swallows his pride and ends up going.  The Hebrew prophet tells him to go to the Jordan River and wash himself seven times and he would be healed.  Namaan is infuriated!  “What??  Who does this Jew think he is, asking me to go to the Jew’s sacred river, a dirty river at that, when we have our own more beautiful, more sacred rivers than theirs!!!  “I don’t care if he is a holy man!  Forget this business!  I’m going home!”

But his officers reason with him, saying, “Come on, sir, how hard can it be to do this simple thing?  If the prophet had asked you do a great thing, you’d have happily done it.  You should go to the Jordan River!”

So Namaan again swallows his pride and goes.  He stands there watching the dirty water flow by.  He’s angry inside.  His ego is strong.  He says, “This is not the water I want!  But it’s what I have.  Here I am.  So I will step into the flow of this river, trusting in the Sacred Invitation, this Sacred moment right here, right now, and immerse myself in it, and then I’ll leave.”

“So Naaman went down to the Jordan River and dipped himself seven times, as the man of God has instructed him.  And his flesh became as healthy as a young child’s, and he was healed!”  (2 Kings 5:14)

The very thing that Namaan was repulsed by, the very thing that represented something he didn’t want any part of, something he thought would humiliate him, that which seemed the most humbling thing for him to do, was the instrument of healing and transformation for him.  The Sacred River of life.

The River of Spirituality is about laying down our egos, embracing that which often we cannot understand or have a difficulty accepting, and with courage choosing to step into Its flow and immerse ourselves in that Water.  Who knows what kind of healing and transformation might result?  Acknowledge the Sacredness of life, honor the Sacred in all others, accept the twists and turns as tools for growth, and choose to step into the flow of Now with peace, courage, wisdom, and hope.

What do you think?

Four Secrets About Spiritual Growth Rivers Whisper To Us, Part 1

Have you ever watched the Disney animated movie "Pocahontas"?  It's a delightful recounting of the famous historical legend involving Captain John Smith and the native Americans who helped him establish one of the first English settlements in America.  In the movie, Pocahontas, the chief's daughter, sings a song titled "Just Around the Riverbend."  It's a profound picture of the challenge surrounding change and choices we face in life, using the river as a powerful symbol.  Here's the clip. [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89U_vyP3To0]

INTRODUCTION

Most spiritual traditions see the river as a metaphor for spirituality.  For example, the Judaeo-Christian scriptures (in Genesis) begin earth history in a Garden as the first product of God’s creative work.  In the middle of the Garden is a river, flowing between two trees—the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  The river flows from the Garden, watering it, and then as it leaves the Garden it divides into four branches that flow into the four points of the compass—a symbol of the river as a source of life and vitality for the whole world.

These same scriptures (in Revelation) end in a City—the City of God—at the heart of which is God’s throne.  Flowing from that throne is a river whose water is the water of life, pure, clear as crystal.  The river courses down the center of the main street.  On each side of the river grows a tree of life, each bearing 12 crops of fruit, a fresh crop every month.  And the leaves of those trees are used as medicine to heal the nations.  There’s no splitting or dividing of the river this time because all of the world is now encompassed by the City of God, with the residents along the banks of this river enjoying constant access to its life-giving energy.

So in Scripture, these Rivers are powerful symbols of the divine life, the energy and power of God to nourish all of life.  And in-between these beginning and ending stories, every time rivers are mentioned, there is always spiritual significance.  Rivers have great meaning for spirituality, growth, health and vitality.

THE JOURNEY OF THE RIVER

So as we think about the spiritual metaphor of rivers, let’s first notice the complete journey of a river.  It begins as a spring of water high up in the mountains.  In all kinds of mythologies, legends, and religious stories mountains symbolize the higher realms of consciousness.  They are the home of Gods and Wisdom, between the realms of Heaven and Earth.

For example, in the Bible, there ‘s a Hebrew poem (Psalm 121) which begins, “I will lift up my eyes to the mountains; does my help come from there?  My help comes from the LORD who made heaven and earth.”  The poet, echoing the religious traditions of his contemporary cultures, recognizes the sacred nature of the mountaintop, the home of the gods.  But unlike his religious competitors, he sees his God, Yahweh, ruling the mountaintops—Yahweh, Creator of heaven and earth.

The highest mountain in the Holy Land is Mt. Hermon, about 9200 ft. All of the region’s religions viewed Mt. Hermon as a sacred mountain.  Because of its height it captures a great deal of precipitation in a very dry area of the world.  Mount Hermon has seasonal winter and spring snow falls which cover all three of its peaks for most of the year. Melt water from the snow-covered western and southern slopes seeps into the rock channels and pores, feeding springs at the base of the mountain, which form streams and rivers. These merge to become the Jordan River, in which many sacred activities took place.

Mount Hermon is most likely the site of the Transfiguration, where Jesus, according to the New Testament, took three of his disciples, Peter, James, and John, up on a high mountain for prayer during which he became radiantly white with divine glory and was spoken to by God and conversed with Moses and Elijah who had appeared beside him.

So mountaintops have been seen as sacred places, the home of the gods.  And rivers find their source in those places.  This high mountain spring of water is water which has been filtered and cleansed by way of a multi-year (and perhaps, multi-century) journey through the womb of Mother Earth. When this water finally emerges from Mother Earth it is Sacred, Pure and Life-Giving (as the many spiritual traditions believe).

After leaving its mountain spring, these waters join with other waters from other mountain springs to eventually form a river.  A river does not flow in a straight line, it has many twists and turns. There are periods when the river experiences turbulent, chaotic and disturbing times (rapids); there are periods when it experiences twists, turns and pauses; and then there are periods when the river flows peacefully, smoothly and calmly; there are sections where the river expands into lakes with an inlet and an outlet and then passes on.  Significantly enough, the twists and turns are Nature's way of keeping her life-giving waters healthy:  they create the eddies that aerate the water which is so vital to the nourishment and preservation of all the people, animals and vegetation which rely on the river for sustenance.

Think of all the diverse kinds of eco-systems that flourish along the miles and miles of River banks:  water fowl, birds, fish, animals, trees, plants, flowers, human beings in cities and villages.  Almost every life form imaginable.  And with the ebb and flow of the river goes the ebb and flow of these lives.

Once the river has completed all of the twists and turns of its long journey it finally empties into the sea.  The point at which the river enters the sea is called it's delta.  The delta is a triangular area which forms at the mouth of the river.  The word delta is derived from a Greek symbol, also in the shape of a triangle, which means "Change.”  Upon passing through its delta the river "changes.”  Its individuality comes to an end as it merges with all of the other rivers which have also ended their long journeys, to become part of the one great sea.

With such a rich and diverse path, is it any wonder that the river has become a deep metaphor for the spiritual life.  In my next post, I'll suggest four secrets the river whispers to us about what it means to experience a healthy spirituality.  Stay tuned.

Spirituality Is About Awakening To Your Identity

Sleepwalking Did you see this Coca Cola commercial that aired during the 2010 Super Bowl?  It's titled "Sleepwalking."

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TkHA2pf1gvc]

Have you ever sleepwalked?  Maybe not literally—but perhaps you weren’t fully present in a situation or time of your life?

I remember years ago when my kids were very young visiting San Francisco and staying one night in a motel right down town.  We were awakened in the middle of the night by the sound of the door being opened.  I looked up to see my daughter trying to pull the door open but the chain was keeping it from opening all the way.  I called to her but she didn't respond.  I got up and pulled her from the door--still no response.  She was sleepwalking.  And I my heart started pounding with fear at the thought of what could have happened had she been able to open the door and sleepwalk outside!

There are two sides of the same coin of sleepwalking:  the potential of danger (the guy in the commercial walked through all kinds of situations with dangerous animals and didn’t even know it) and missing out on life (he was missing the beauty of the African Savannah).  Both sides of the coin are sad and unnecessary.

Sleepwalking is a metaphor that mirrors so much of what happens in our culture.  We are constantly being bombarded by ideas and concepts that burrow themselves into our brains and result in thought patterns, narratives, and stories we end up telling ourselves and then subconsciously acting upon.  Right?  Those paradigms and stories end up becoming second nature with us to the point of not even evaluating them anymore.  We simply drift through life without thought.  Analyze our culture’s evangelism:  wear this, look like this, drive this, act like this, own this, be like this … and if you do, you’ll be happy or powerful or popular or fulfilled or successful.  And the messages are endless of what is being promised to us to make us who we or "they" want us to be.

Ultimately we should be evaluating these messages:  Are they true?  Is this real?  Am I what I wear or possess or accomplish, or is there something more fundamental and foundational and true about who I am?  Or are they illusions, just dreams that I fantasize are true?  Am I asleep or am I awake in this reality?

Awakening

In fact, the concept of dreaming and waking have been used in spiritual traditions for thousands of years as a metaphor for spiritual consciousness and enlightenment. For example, the name “Buddha” translates as “the awakened one."  And what was Buddha awakened to?  He began to see with clarity what the causes of human suffering were.  His awareness led him to develop a path of enlightenment--the way to waking up--to being present in the world in such a way that one sees the truth about self, about others, about life and what it is that brings contentment and happiness.

In the Gnostic “Hymn of the Pearl” from the Acts of Thomas, the son of a King is sent on a mission to retrieve a treasure, but falls asleep and forgets who he is. His father sends a letter to remind him:

“Awake and arise from your sleep,

       and hear the words of our letter.

Remember that you are a son of kings,

       consider the slavery you are serving.”

The spiritual process of waking up is remembering who you are--being clear about your true identity as a son or daughter of royalty.  And then using that identity to measure all other messages and stories we're told by others or ourselves.

Jesus’ name means “Jehovah saves.”  And during his life Jesus was called “The Word”—the revelation of God, God’s voice in human flesh.  God saves us from ourselves by the inception of a new thought and idea lived out in his life—that we belong to God, God loves us with an eternal love no matter what, we are children of the King.  Jesus comes to wake us up to this truth and reality because we tend to sleepwalk and dream, becoming confused into thinking that our dream is reality.  So we’re not as aware and fully present as we could be in this life, always running after the wrong dreams.

It's significant to me that central to Jesus' life mission was the clarity he had of his identity.  God’s voice and message to him were very real--“This is my beloved son; I am pleased and proud of him.”  The Dark Side’s primary goal was to try to call into question that identity and Jesus’ awakened consciousness of it.  The Shadow’s continual temptation was to get Jesus to think his identity was a dream—that he wasn’t who he said he was—to keep him from being fully present.

Unenlightened consciousness is indeed very much like dreaming. Our stories we tell ourselves and others, our personal narratives, are often based upon untruth.  “I am what I wear or do or have or how others think of me.”  “I am my failures or my successes.”

We become entranced with the little details of our lives and the stories unfolding around us. We forget and become unconscious to a larger context around us. We forget our connection to our highest self and become attached to the particulars. Many enlightened teachers have confirmed that the process of enlightenment is like waking up from a deep and not very nice dream.

Our Truth

So the journey of spirituality is the process of waking up to our true reality about who we are.  We are daughters and sons of the King; we are containers of the Divine Presence, covered all over with the Divine Fingerprints on our souls, hearts, minds, and bodies.  We belong to a Higher Power.  We are called to a Higher Purpose.

Truth is, God is continually in us whether we’re awake to it or not.  God is continually working all around whether we’re awake to it or not.  That’s reality.  But how much more effective and transforming our lives become when we awaken to that truth—to be able to embrace it, accept it, know it, see it, be enveloped by it, bathe and bask in it is to really live life fully.

No wonder the Bible says, “As a person thinks in his heart, so is he.”  Our thinking, what we consider to be true and real, radically impacts our lives.

Parker Palmer once wrote:  “Vocation does not mean a goal that I pursue.  It means a calling that I hear.  Before I can tell my life what I want to do with it, I must listen to my life telling me who I am.”

Do you know who you really are?  Are you living the truth about you?  Would you consider yourself a fully awake person?  What tools do you have to help you remember your identity?

Spirituality is about awakening to the truth about who we are, who we belong to.  It’s becoming grounded in the Center of our Being by embracing who we are in God.  And from that grounding and centeredness, we live as awakened, enlightened, aware, fully present people boldly living out our identity as God's children.  We move from sleepwalking to awakening.

The King's Speech, Part 4: Needing Allies To Unlock and Release Your True Voice

"When God couldn't save the King, the Queen turned to someone who could."  What???  Stay tuned. Remember The King's Speech story?  With England on the brink of war and in desperate need of a leader, King George VI's wife, Elizabeth, the future Queen Mother, arranges for her husband to see an eccentric speech therapist, Lionel Logue. After a rough start, the two delve into an unorthodox course of treatment and eventually form an unbreakable bond. With the support of Logue, his family, his government and Winston Churchill, the King has to face himself, his insecurities, his lack of confidence, his painful speech impediments, and claim his true voice in order to deliver a radio-address that will need to inspire the people of his empire and unite them in battle.

This is the true story of one man’s quest to find his voice and those closest to him who help him find it.

So when the King finally stands in front of the microphone to broadcast the most important speech he’s ever delivered and the nation has ever heard, his therapist and friend Lionel says, “Forget everything else … and just say it … to me.”

One of the powerful themes in this story is that what ultimately empowers the King to get to that place of “just saying it” are the last two words in that statement, “to me.”  Lionel Logue has become a safe place for the King to courageously explore himself and get to know his true self.  Lionel has helped facilitate a profoundly supportive relationship in which Bertie is encouraged to start truly believing in himself.  This friendship becomes transformational.  Lionel’s confidence in his own voice and his ability to help the King is extremely empowering to Bertie.  The King is able to not only discover what to say but also that he is capable of saying it and expressing it authentically because he says it to his safe and supportive friend, Lionel Logue.

And what's more, he has a loving and supportive spouse who believes in him and goes to great lengths to help him unlock his potential and find his Voice.  This is one of the beautiful descriptions of what a genuine, Spirit-filled love relationship is--two people working with all their strength and loving support to help unlock and release the true Voice within the other.  Imagine how transformational our close relationships would be if each person unselfishly committed everything to helping the other find and speak their true voice.

Do you notice the tag line at the top of the movie poster at the right for The King's Speech?  "When God couldn't save the King, the Queen turned to someone who could."  This isn't meant to be an indictment on God.  But it is a profound reflection on how God most often chooses to operate in our lives--through other people who believe in us and who will go to any lengths to support us and empower us to be our best God-designed self.

I am so fortunate to have a wife like this.  She absolutely believes in me more than any other person on the planet.  She not only supports me in my sense of destiny and calling, but she actively empowers me and acts to help me be my very best.  She works along side me to help me overcome any obstacles keeping me from fulfilling and speaking my truth.  And I want to be as committed to doing this for her as she does for me.  Mutual intimate allies, on the same team, working to unlock and release each other's true voice.

We all need safe places in which to discover and explore ourselves, to find out who we really are, and how to express that authentically.  We need our closest allies to not be threatened by our true voice.  We need those closest to us to believe in our unique voice enough to help facilitate and support our expression.  And we have to be so committed to each other that when the going gets tough, when complications arise from what sometimes appear to be conflicting voices in each other, we stay with it and find creative ways to empower each other through it all so that there's a win-win result.

PERSONAL REFLECTION:  What are your safe places – those supportive relationships – in your life that help you live out your Voice and speak your truth?  What might you do to empower those people in your life – to give them permission to empower you?  Who are the people in your life that you are helping to find their Voice?  How are you doing with that?  Are you truly supportive, empowering, safe?

I'd love to hear what you think about the importance of this theme in your life.

The King's Speech, Part 3: How To Find Your Voice

“The King’s Speech” is the powerful, Oscar-winning true story of one man’s quest to find his voice and of those closest to him who help him find it.  For a description of the story, read my post. As the red light in King George VI’s broadcast room begins blinking to signal the momentous moment for the royal global broadcast, his speech therapist and friend Lional Logue, knowing how nervous the King is, says to the King, “Forget everything else and just say it to me.”

So I've been unpacking the three parts of that statement--what they say about discovering your unique, personal significance (your voice) and how can you use your voice to put your unique stamp on the world.  My last post described the importance of not letting the past define your present and future.  Now for the second part of Lionel's statement to the King.

And just say it …

This too is a challenge.  One of the problems is, as our internet-based society is showing us, there is no lack of voices shouting stuff all the time.  Much of the time it's just noise.  People think that because the web gives an instant global platform, all they have to do is shout out and the world listens.  Not true.  We have to know what we’re trying to say; and to say it so that people truly listen, it has to come from inside us and express who we are so that there's genuine alignment; which means we have to know ourselves, to believe ourselves, to have confidence in who we are.

This is a 3-step process and journey:  self-awareness that must be followed by self possession that produces authentic self expression.

I like the way Stephen Covey, in his powerful book The 8^th Habit, defines Voice:  “Voice is unique personal significance--significance that is revealed as we face our greatest challenges and which makes us equal to them.” (p. 5)

Here’s how he describes finding this Voice.  Voice lies at the nexus between four areas of our lives:  Talent; Passion; Need; and Conscience.

Talent – your natural gifts and strengths; Passion – those things that naturally energize, excite, motivate, and inspire you; Need – a problem in the world that speaks to you and that you can effectively help solve, including what the world needs enough to pay you for; and Conscience – that still, small voice within that assures you of what is right, truth for you, and that prompts you to actually do it.

“When you engage in things that tap your talent and fuel your passion – that rises out of a great need in the world that you feel drawn by conscience to help meet – therein lies your voice, your calling, your soul’s code.” (p. 5)

Here’s the truth:  there is a deep, innate, almost inexpressible yearning within each one of us to find our voice in life.  King George VI (Bertie) felt that yearning.  The reason he acted out in such anger and rage often was because he couldn’t understand his Voice – he didn’t think he had a Voice or certainly wasn’t worthy of a Voice or simply wasn’t capable of expressing his Voice if he had one – he was stumped, paralyzed by the many impediments in his life, speech being only one of them.  But the longing was there.  He had a conscience that was prompting him.  He began to develop a passion.  He certainly was aware of the need in his Empire that the King was called to meet.  And little by little he developed and embraced his talents, his unique strengths and gifts.  Until finally he expressed what ended up being a very powerful Voice not only in his Empire but also in the world.

Jesus, who was called the Word, spoke with such power because he spoke with his true voice, the voice that came from his personal truth, his identity as the true expression of God.  The New Testament writers referred to him as the Word of God.  And when Jesus spoke, people were drawn to him, they listened, they were moved, inspired, and transformed.  He wasn't just making noise.  He had captured his voice and spoke it with authority because it came from his core identity.  "I am the truth, the way, and the life," he said.  He not only spoke his voice, he lived his voice.  His voice found its highest expression in action.  The two were perfectly aligned.  And people followed, finding their own voice along the way, too.

So I have to enter into self-awareness – to look at these four areas to see what my unique truth is – what the expression of my core self truly is.  Have you ever noticed like I have that the closer we get to this truth, the more our conscience begins to activate – I start feeling strongly in my inner spirit about expressing this truth.  I feel dis-ease unless I'm expressing this truth.  That’s conscience – that’s the spirit in me that is tapping into the Divine Spirit and Fingerprint within me.  That Spirit is calling out to be expressed in my personal, unique way.  And when that conscience speaks and pushes strongly enough, I have to do something about it.  I have to act.

And the first action is the courage of self possession of that truth.  I must embrace myself with confidence.  I accept myself for who I truly am.  I begin to see clearly my uniqueness and I start falling in love with it.

So much so that then I compelled to the next action - authentic self expression – I have to do something tangible about it.  I know--I speak--I act.

The Hebrew prophet named Jeremiah described this undying urge to express his Voice.  He was a prophet with an almost impossible task:  speak truth to people who had lost their voice and their identity and had wandered far from God.  His challenge:  they didn't want to hear him speak truth.  So they persecuted him, laughed at him, ridiculed him, refused to listen to him, and ultimately killed him.  He faced the temptation regularly to give up, to stop speaking his voice from God, and take an early retirement.  But whenever he was tempted, here's what happened to him:

9 Sometimes I say to myself,

"Forget it! No more God-Messages from me!"

But then the Words becomes like a burning fire inside me,

deep within my bones.

I get tired of trying to hold it inside of me,

and finally, I cannot hold it in.”  Jeremiah 20:9

Once I find my voice, my true voice that comes from deep inside me and reflects my personal truth and identity, I am compelled to speak it, even at great cost.  That's my conscience working, nudging me to speak, empowering me to confidence and courage.  And that conscience won't stop until you and I speak and live our voice, just like Jeremiah, just like Jesus, and even like King George VI.

PERSONAL REFLECTION:  Take some time to define and flesh out what each of those four areas Covey refers to would look like in your life.  Where do they all converge for you?  How does that describe your Voice – your unique personal significance?

Next post, we'll look at the last part of The King's Speech:  what do we need in place to be empowered to speak our voice courageously?

The King's Speech and the Importance of Finding Your Voice, Part 2: Not Being Chained By Your Past

"The King's Speech" is the powerful, Oscar-winning true story of one man’s quest to find his voice and of those closest to him who help him find it.  For a description of the story, read my last blog post. As the red light in King George VI's broadcast room begins blinking to signal the momentous moment for the royal global broadcast, his speech therapist and friend Lional Logue, knowing how nervous the King is, says to the King, "Forget everything else and just say it to me."

In the next 3 posts, I want to unpack the three parts of that statement.  What do they say about discovering your unique, personal significance (your voice) and how can you use your voice to put your unique stamp on the world.

1.  "Forget everything else."

This first part of Lionel's statement might be the toughest for some of us--“forget everything else."  In this context, it’s forgetting all the obstacles and challenges that tend to intimidate you into silence or timidity or hesitation or staying with the status quo, taking the easiest route ahead.

For King George VI it was the huge audience of millions around the globe; it was the fear of not being able to speak, to have his words choke in his throat and not come out; the fear of failure; the fear of not being enough; fear of now having anything of substance to offer his people.  These are HUGE obstacles for the King.

Salon’s review of the King's history put it in perspective:  “For all the pomp and privilege of his upbringing, Bertie was essentially an abused child, tormented by nannies, plagued by childhood ailments and raised in isolation from the outside world. He barely knew his parents (Michael Gambon plays King George V, his father), had no real friends, wore painful leg braces and suffered from early childhood from a chronic stammer that made his public appearances painful for everyone. Perhaps the last monarch reared in the old aristocratic style, with a father who ruled at least nominally over one-fourth of the globe's population, Bertie was literally a man trapped between worlds. As Firth plays him, the prickly prince (who spent his early career as a naval officer and teacher) is eager to take offense yet painfully shy, fully aware that the monarchy has become a defanged symbolic contrivance in an age of radio and motorcars, yet halfway convinced that divine right is still involved somewhere.”

He's a man of ambivalence and conflict--unsure of who he really is and unsure of what his real role as King is suppose to be in this new era, and definitely unsure of whether he can fulfill it or not.  He's a man with a painful past that's still destructively shaping his present.

So when King George VI finally stands in front of the mike to deliver the most important speech he’s ever delivered and the nation has ever heard, his therapist and friend says, “Forget everything else.”

The Christian scriptures echo Lionel Logue with this significant perspective:  “12 I don’t mean to say that I have already achieved these things or that I have already reached perfection. But I press on to possess that perfection for which God has shaped me. 13 No, dear brothers and sisters, I have not achieved it, but I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, 14 I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God is calling us.” Philippians 3:12-14

Considering the author of these words, this counsel is particularly apropos.  St. Paul had quite a colorful past on both sides of the scale.  He had achieved great religious significance in his Jewish community--PhD in theology, schooled in the most prestigious schools of religion, impeccable family tree, considered at the top of the religious pyramid.  He was so zealous for the Church's religious cause that he was point person for the persecution, arrest, and even in some cases, execution of heretics and dissenters of the Jewish faith.  Until he had a dramatic conversion experience and suddenly was convicted that he needed to join the very team he was trying to exterminate.  A dramatic turn around, to say the least!

So when he writes about the importance of forgetting the past (both successes and failures), not getting locked in the past, in order the speak his voice in the present with authenticity and truth, he knows what he's talking about.

Forgetting the past isn't about denying it.  It's not about pretending it never happened.  It's actually about being willing to honor your past, to embrace its reality, to learn from it, to grow from it, to acknowledge that it's forever a part of your story and your journey.  It's about letting that past inform you and seeing how it has shaped you.  And then it's about letting it go enough to keep it from holding you back in guilt or pride, and moving boldly and confidently into your future by finding your true voice and speaking it.

This is my story, too.  I have to let go of the chains of the past in order to courageously step into my truth, in order to stand in the power of my unique authority and show up boldly in the world.

There is no one else on this planet who has my voice, who has my unique experiences from the past and present, who has my individual truth learned from those experiences, and therefore who can speak just like I can.  Right?  If I don't find my true voice and speak it courageously, the world loses out.   And if I can't let go of the chains of the past enough to step into my freedom and personal authority, I deprive myself and the world of important truth.  The same goes for you, too.

PERSONAL REFLECTION:  What are the obstacles or challenges that tend to hold you back from standing in confidence of who you are and giving voice to your truth and convictions?  What tends to keep you from living and speaking with YOUR voice?

Any thoughts about your own journey of "forgetting the past" and what that process has been like for you?

In the next post, I'll talk about what it takes to find your individual unique voice.

The King's Speech and the Importance of Finding Your Voice, Part 1: The Story

My wife and I recently watched the Academy Award-winning "The King's Speech."  It was research for the March series we're doing in our spiritual community Second Wind ("Looking at Life Through the Oscar Stories" in which we're using four of the Oscar-winning movies to  talk about life, spirituality, and transformation).  The King's Speech was one of the most inspiring movies I've seen in a long time.  I laughed, cried, cringed, hoped, committed - all in one movie.  I was pleased that it won four Academy Awards for Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, and Best Screenplay.  Well deserved!  If you haven't seen it yet, by all means do.  The implications from the story are profound. "The King's Speech" tells the story of a man compelled to speak to the world when he doesn’t feel like he’s ever found his voice his entire life – when he feels he doesn’t have anything worthwhile to say and whenever he does say something the words choke in his throat and emerge at times with a stammer.  To face a radio microphone and know the British Empire is listening must be terrifying. At the time of the speech mentioned in this title, a quarter of the Earth's population is in the Empire, and of course much of North America, Europe, Africa and Asia would be listening — and with particular attention, Germany with its charismatic and powerful speech maker Adolf Hitler.

The king is George VI (Colin Firth). The year is 1939. Britain is finally entering into war with Germany. His subjects long for reassurance and hope.  They require firmness, clarity and resolve, not stammers punctuated with tortured silences. This is a man who never wanted to be king. After the death of his father, the throne was to pass to his older brother Edward (Guy Pierce). But Edward ends up renouncing the throne in order to marry the woman he loves. The weight and duty of the royal throne suddenly fall on the lagging shoulders of Prince Albert, Bertie as his family calls him, who has struggled with his self-esteem and speech from an early age.

With England on the brink of war and in desperate need of a leader, the King’s wife, Elizabeth (Helena Bonham Carter), the future Queen Mother, arranges for her husband to see an eccentric speech therapist, Lionel Logue (Geoffrey Rush). After a rough start, the two delve into an unorthodox course of treatment and eventually form an unbreakable bond. With the support of Logue, his family, his government and Winston Churchill (Timothy Spall), the King has to face himself, his insecurities, his lack of confidence, his painful speech impediments, and claim his true voice in order to deliver a radio-address that will need to inspire the people of his empire and unite them in battle.

This is the true story of one man’s quest to find his voice and of those closest to him who help him find it.

As the red light in the King's broadcast room begins blinking to signal the momentous moment for the royal global broadcast, Lional notices how nervous the King is and  says to him,  "Forget everything else and just say it to me."

Over the next three posts, I'd like to unpack that statement in terms of the process of both finding your individual unique voice and expressing that voice with courage and effectiveness.

Coca Cola And A New Humanity: Drawing Circles Instead of Lines

Did you see this Coca Cola advertisement during the Super Bowl this year? It was definitely one of my favorites! "Coca Cola Border" tells the story of two soldiers from rival nations who are able to put aside their differences and, for the briefest of moments, see each other as individuals as they share an ice-cold bottle of Coke. Check it out. [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-STkFCCrus]

The primary intent of the ad obviously is to promote Coke as a great tool to "open happiness" as the ending tag line says. Drink and share Coke to bring people together. I love the sentiment, even though I'm not a super Coke fan.

But the part of the ad that visually depicts the strongest message, in my opinion, is when the one soldier is trying to find a way to give an extra Coke bottle to his thirsty enemy without crossing the boundary between them. It appears that there's just no way to bridge this boundary without violating their national military and political rules and causing an international incident. Until the soldier, in a moment of creative desire to cross the gap, puts the bottle of Coke on the ground next to the boundary, takes his sword and redraws the line to encompass the Coke bottle within his enemy's territory. Mission accomplished. Cokes can now be enjoyed by both parties.

This powerful ad painfully reminds us how real life is filled with many boundaries that separate people, boundaries that keep people afraid of or wary of or angry with others and deprived of mutual blessings. These boundaries produce a kind of "I'm better than you" attitude or "You're not as good as me" belief or "You might contaminate me if I let you into my world" paradigm" or "I need to teach you what I know so you can be as spiritual and holy as I am" philosophy or "Giving to you might diminish me" fear. We draw lots of different kinds of boundaries to make sure the world is easy to define for us - there's an inside and an outside that helps us label people and behaviors and morals. It produces a check list religion so that we can chart our and other people's progress more easily, aids to making quick judgments about ourselves and others, ways to compartmentalize life so we can understand it more clearly.  And so, as the ad depicts, by George, if some of your trash floats into my space, I'm obligated to hurl it right back at you where it belongs!  I don't want your mess messing up my world!

But the sad truth is that living life by drawing clear lines in the sand separates us from others. It often keeps us from sharing what we have with others in life-giving ways. It denies our common humanity.  We can end up spending our whole lives like these two soldiers, walking back and forth beside the boundary between each other, guarding our side and never even acknowledging the other person meaningfully. Their only identity to us is "enemy."

Until one person finally gets the courage to change the "rules." The soldier stops his marching because he's thirsty. He starts drinking his Coke. And then he feels the gaze of the enemy on him, looks up, and notices the expression of extreme thirst and desire on his counterpart's face. So he takes courageous action by finding a way to share what he's enjoying with the Other. How? By drawing new lines that include rather than exclude.

I'm reminded of the powerful poem by Edwin Markham: "He drew a circle that shut me out, Heretic, rebel, a thing to flout; But love and I had the wit to win; We drew a circle that took him in."

True spirituality is about drawing circles of inclusion rather than exclusion. That was Jesus' approach, wasn't it? He courageously chose to confront the religious and political systems of his day by speaking and practicing a radical mission of inclusion into the Kingdom of God. Those who had been deemed "outsiders" (unholy sinners not worthy of equal life within the religious community; the poor and disadvantaged left behind by an empire of power and riches) Jesus deliberately encircled and blessed as special to God. Jesus redrew the lines, broke the accepted rules, turned the pyramid of righteousness upside down, and gave drinks of the water of Life to all who were thirsty.

Paul, the author of many of the books in the Christian testament, codified this radical theology by writing, "Messiah has erased the line that was used to designate insiders and outsiders and made us all one. He tore down the wall we used to keep each other at a distance. He started over. Instead of continuing with two groups of people separated by centuries of animosity and suspicion, he created a new kind of human being, a fresh start for everybody." (Ephesians 2:14-15)

A new kind of humanity where we first and foremost embrace and acknowledge our common humanity with all others.  And then we use our differences to enhance our experience of each other rather than to separate and divide.

So what are the lines and boundaries you tend to use to separate people from your acceptance? What labels for people who are different from you do you use to keep them at a safe distance? Do you have the courage to draw circles instead of lines, circles of inclusion rather than lines of separation?

Sadly, the "Coca Cola Border" ad ends once the soldiers have enjoyed a short Coke reprieve together by the soldiers redrawing the original lines and going on with life as usual.  Jesus calls us to a higher standard of love than that.  After all, once you've had a Coke together, you can't go back to the way it's always been!  We must keep drawing the lines into bigger and bigger circles until everyone is included on the inside.

I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Freeing the Unique Song in Our Souls

Twentieth century Afrikaner author and political advisor Laurens Van der Post tells the story of two brothers who lived in South Africa.  The older brother was strong, tall, handsome, intelligent, an excellent athlete.  His parents sent him away to an exclusive private school where he soon became an admired leader of the student body. His younger brother, six years younger, was neither good looking nor capable, and was also a hunchback.  But he had one great gift.  He had a magnificent singing voice.

Eventually the younger brother joined the older at the same boarding school.  They were so different from each other no one knew they were related.  One day in a cruel outbreak of mob psychology, a group of students ganged up on the younger brother, started making fun of him, tore off his shirt to reveal his hunchback, and then taunted, jeered and laughed at him.

The older brother, as it turns out, was in the chemistry lab trying to complete an assignment when he heard the commotion outside and went to the window to see what was happening.  He saw the ugly scene with his brother in the middle of the gang being humiliated by those sadistic students.  He made a painful decision – afraid of losing his popularity with the student body, he chose to not go out and face the crowd and acknowledge that the strange hunchback was his brother to put an end to the whole sorry mess.  Staying in the lab and going back to his assignment, he left his brother to the mob and out of fear betrayed him by what he failed to do.

The younger brother was never the same again.  He returned home to his parents’ farm where he kept to himself and refused to sing, his humiliation and embarrassment locking the song in his soul .  After graduating, the older brother became a soldier in WWII, stationed in Palestine where every night his painful betrayal ate away at his heart.

One night, lying outdoors in the middle of Palestine in the midst of the war, and gazing up into the starlit sky, the older brother thought about his younger brother, how defeated and pained he had been when he went back home, and how he had refused to sing again – his heart and soul had been betrayed.  The older brother lay there night after night imagining the pain and suffering of his brother that he had caused.  He began to feel that hurt keenly.  And his heart told him that he would never have peace until he went home and asked his brother’s forgiveness.  And so he made the incredibly difficult, dangerous wartime journey from Palestine to South Africa.

The brothers talked long into the night, the older one confessing his guilt and remorse.  They cried together, embraced, and the breach between them began to heal.

Late that night, after the older brother had fallen asleep, he was startled awake by a sound.  He went to the window, and there out on the open lawn was his brother, face lifted toward the stars, singing again, the beautiful song soaring into the night sky.  An act of compassion had set the song in his younger brother’s soul free again and had unlocked his own soul, too.

Spirituality is the journey of being set free - free to sing the God-given, unique and personalized song that is often trapped in our souls, free to learn how to truly sing that song again unabashedly, shamelessly, courageously, truthfully, authentically.

And what tragic consequences, as the story reminds us, when we live in fear or judgment of others.  The song we have always been meant to sing to the world becomes trapped inside.

It continues to amaze me how much influence you and I have over each other in our journeys, for good or for ill, for freedom or for bondage, for expression or for suppression.  I'm in awe of the power of compassion, forgiveness, acceptance to free our songs.  It impresses me how people in my life have related to me in a way that has empowered me to sing my song in a way that's truly me and in a way that no one else on earth can sing just like me.  It hasn't been their criticism and judgment of me that has set my song free.  It has been their tender compassion, acceptance, and encouragement that have made the difference.  It has been their nonanxious presence to hold space for me in a spirit of unconditional support.  It has been their undying belief in me as a worthy human being and their confidence in my calling and purpose in the world.  These gifts have set my song free again and again.  And I've been empowered to sing with joy, courage, and more and more abandon.  And when I sing my song authentically, others are empowered and emboldened to sing their song, too.  The cycle of life.

I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Self Care Isn't Selfish

"Self care is never a selfish act - it is simply good stewardship of the only gift I have, the gift I was put on earth to offer to others. Anytime we can listen to true self and give it the care it requires, we do so not only for ourselves but for the many others whose lives we touch."  -  Parker J. Palmer, Let Your Life Speak

It’s interesting how often people feel tinges of guilt when they take time for themselves away from what they feel are their “more important” life responsibilities like family, work, church, civic duties.  It’s interesting how some people think that devoting time to understanding themselves more deeply, processing their internal issues and responses to various life situations, evaluating themselves is a waste of time or at best “naval gazing” which implies that it’s an activity that produces nothing of value other than a narcissistic endeavor.

Do you ever struggle with those paradigms?

I am by nature a self-reflective person (an NF in the Myers Briggs sorter, a Type 4 in the Enneagram).  I get energized by going through the process of understanding my self with increasing clarity.  I could be considered by some a self-assessment and personal growth junky.  Well, maybe that’s overstating it a bit.  But I do put a premium on this process and journey.  Does that make me or others like me narcissistic?  Hmmm.  Depends.

Our use of the word narcissism comes from the Greek mythological figure Narcissus.  As the legend goes, Narcissus was a rugged hunter renowned for his beauty.  He was exceptionally proud, in that he disdained those who loved him.  As a divine punishment, he fell in love with his own reflection in a pool of water, not realizing it was merely his own image.  And he wasted away to death, not being able to leave the beauty of his own reflection.

This Greek myth has been immortalized in literature, poetry, art, music, and even psychology.  It tends to refer to the negative human obsession with self, to get caught up in self-absorption, to be filled with vanity and pride at the expense of others.  Narcissus is never a hero, always a warning.

Psychology has labeled narcissism as one of the personality disorders that some people suffer from.  French writer Marie-Henri Beyle (who used the pen name Stendhal), in his novel Le Rouge et le Noir (1830), described the classic narcissist in the character of Mathilde:

“She looks at herself instead of looking at you, and so doesn't know you. During the two or three little outbursts of passion she has allowed herself in your favor, she has, by a great effort of imagination, seen in you the hero of her dreams, and not yourself as you really are.”

Many of us know people like Mathilde.  When we’re around them we never feel truly “seen” or “known” because life is always about them.  They seem incapable of moving past themselves to paying attention to others.  Narcissism.

But gazing into the pool of your personal reflection (looking into the mirror) is by itself not narcissism.  We need to have those authentic, honest times of healthy self reflection.  Dr. Parker Palmer refers to this important aspect of self care as “good stewardship of the only gift I have,” the gift of my self to the world.  If I’m not willing to spend time caring for my self, understanding my self, helping to bring more wholeness to my self, working to remove negative obstacles to my true self, than I won’t be able to give my best gift of self to the world.  I will wound others rather than lift them up.  I won’t be able to truly “see” them (like Mathilde) because I’ll be caught up in my own ego with all its insecurities (I admittedly have a lot to work on here).  The touch I bring to others will be hurtful rather than helpful.  And the world loses out.  And so do I.

So what are you doing for your self care?  Do you ever feel guilty when you take time for your self? How would you rate your stewardship of self?  Do you have an intentional self care plan you’re working this year? How are you showing up in the world these days?  Giving your best self?  I'd love to hear your thoughts.