The spiral of life...

Life is a dance of dichotomies.  The pairing of love and loss, challenge and triumph, joy and pain accompanies us all along the journey. As long as we take time to reflect and seek the divine lessons in our challenges, then we are on the right path. When we step back and see this magical system for what it is, we can then find gratitude for all of the bliss and suffering of life.

Don't try to read between the lines...

Sometimes the message is not between the lines, but among the lines.

And sometimes, the messages you need to receive find magical ways to reach you.

This was the message I received today.

Open yourself and forgive.

Don't forget Eman Al-Obeidy

Eman Al-Obeidy is a woman in Lybia who was detained and gang raped by 15 of Gaddafi's men.  Her face and her story represents the stories of countless other women whose names and faces we will never know.  If you do not know about Eman, please circulate this and make it a point to educate yourself.  Eman fears for her life and rightfully so.  She asks us not to forget her.  

Please do not forget Eman.

Keep praying, keep praying....

None of it has gone away.  None of it has gotten better.  None of us are immune.

Japan, Haiti, Gaddafi, Eman Al-Obeidy, Lebanon, war, famine, fear, pain and inequity - it is all over the world.  It's all still happening.  As you struggle with your own pain, fear and disappointments, remember at least for this moment that there are millions and millions of us living in horror and desperation.

Please don't forget.  But please don't dwell in the sadness.  There is power in our emotions.  Our job, if we have the strength (and every single one of us should have at least that), is to send love and hope and prayer to all who suffer in the world and to do what we can to end suffering in any way possible.  Whatever it may be.  Wherever it may be.  We are all one and we grow closer every day.  We are closer to the Japanese than we were one month ago when the earthquake hit, even if we have forgotten amidst the busyness of our daily lives.

Keep praying.  Keep giving.  Keep loving.

Knowing it to be true...

Have you ever had a gut instinct that proved to be right?  A feeling about someone or about a situation that was exactly what you thought when the truth came out?  Have you ever felt that you were inexplicably familiar with someone despite only just having met them?

These are all examples of the Spirit being alive in us and actively working with us... and evidence that we are fully present in our lives.  When we are open to our own Spirit (or God), this kind of knowing happens for us.  I've learned that when I feel most alive, most comfortable and most in the flow in my own life with someone or something, it is a sure sign that I am connected to a deeper knowing within myself.

There's a terrible affliction in humankind - one that keeps us trapped, living life in our heads all the time, trying to make sense of things, or worse, trying to make the world fit into our understanding of it. Too often too many of us forget to let go and let life happen.  And more often than not, people don't even realize that this is happening - that they are living life through their thoughts.  We've created our routines, our sense of right and wrong and our ways of seeing the world but they leave little room for seeing the world anew day after day.  There's so much beyond what we thing we know and see each day but it is so easy to miss it.  We forget, in a way, to get out of our own way.

Being open and letting life happen shows us a much more beautiful reality than one we could have written for ourselves in the first place.

I've practiced this openness to life and awareness of my own intuition for years but it's very easy to fall off the wagon.  Fear of loss, worries about the future, shocking information - it all throws us off balance in an instant.  That delicate and hard won balance is worth paying attention to and maintaining because it allows us to experience life in greater dimension.  It's a combination of living in the moment, listening to (and for) our own intuition, and believing that we are each a unique part of a larger story and that our role is critical to that story's success.  No one else can live our lives for us - we are here to live them fully and intentionally in the starring role.

Apathy toward your own life creates disappointment, lost opportunities, sadness, loss, regret - all terribly undesirable things!  So why not be engaged fully in your own story and fully open to all the story lines and walk-on characters that show up?  Only you can experience and share all those wonderful moments in the story of YOU.  And in that story of you, you are the superstar, the director and the producer - fitting indeed since only YOU can know all there is to know... and know it to be true.

You gotta have faith (ah-faith-ah-faith)...

No, not for the reasons George Michael sang about (though that's good too), but for the purpose of getting through.  It seems that we spend so much of our lives getting through something.  An interview, a breakup, a project, a period of change....  We spend very little time in the static space that must exist between one thing and another.  Between achieving/winning/surviving/overcoming one thing before another pops up in our lives.  That between time is as rare as the half of a day when all of your laundry is clean and there is none in the laundry basket.  It's a small moment, it's there, but it's always quickly replaced by a new and growing pile of laundry to be done.  Again.

Unlike the ever-present chore of doing laundry which is mundane, mindless and entirely nonthreatening (save for the part of you that just doesn't want to do it), our ongoing process of getting through something in life just seems to keep coming in surprising ways.  Sometimes we find ourselves getting through something that crept up on us, completely unexpected.  Sometimes it comes as a shock.  Sometimes it's welcome and lovely and you don't mind it at all.  But life is always a series of one thing after another that we are going through.  Or, as you might say, one thing after another that we are living.

Tonight I'm focused on having faith for the getting through.  I'm not talking about the kind of faith that we call upon when we find ourselves in sudden and desperate communion with God.  Not the impetuous kind of begging for the strength to get through something that happens when we are in crisis or hurt or in survival mode. Rather, the kind of faith we have that allows us to move from one phase of life to another.  From letting go of and moving beyond something we know well and moving into the great unknown of the future - having faith along the way that all will be well and banking on it being better than we can imagine in the present moment.

That kind of faith that we humans manage to have in the getting through-ness of life is the kind of faith that is an intimate conversation between ourselves and the higher power that allows us to get through anything. And I do mean anything.  And as humans, across the great span of human history, we have gotten through so much and most of the time we have done it not realizing just how strong we were while we were going through it.

So here's to having faith... and getting through.

Look for the light in one another & open to your own power...

File this one under "Love and learn from one another - especially the ones you can't imagine loving."

As life gets harder and seems to challenge us more, it seems that for many people, a natural reaction is to turn to a very primal response:  To fight.  So many people, it seems, when they are frightened or confused or feel overwhelmed, look for someone to blame.  Some even simply ascribe the pain they are feeling to someone else.  Yes, someone may be involved in a situation that causes you pain, or someone may oppress you in someway.  Yes, there is pain and fear associated with the things in your life that challenge you.  But when you choose to focus your energy on blame, hatred, drama - or if you even just focus all of your energy on trying to figure out another person's motives or reasoning for doing/being/reacting as they have - you lose your own power.  To choose to be fully in your power, despite the involvement of someone who pushes your buttons, allows you to come into your own strength to deal with and learn from the situation.

I strongly believe that the circumstances that happen in our lives are all opportunities for growth.  And a big divine hint for us all is to notice when the same feelings or similar situations seem to happen "to" us over and over. In fact, they aren't happing to us at all.  They are part of the greater intelligence that is guiding us through our own personal growth and learning.  When we consider that all people in our lives serve as teachers for us, and all events and circumstances are part of a divine curriculum of sorts, then we can see that we are simply being guided through the opportunities to learn just who we are and determine for ourselves how we would like to grow and change.  Everything changes.  All the time.  We, too, are part of that universal law of change but too often we fight it or get distracted by the personalities involved in our stories.

So step back.  Quietly thank those individuals for showing you the opportunity to learn and grow and then focus only on yourself.  Those people involved have illuminated a very important part of your path.  Now it's up to you to recognize that light and use your own to head down the path a little further to a place you have not been.  After all, you and only you are here to live the unique lifetime that is and always will be your own.

When God closes a door...

He really does open a window.  Or another door.  Or eight new doors.  Or sometimes, even, an entirely new building.

I realized recently that I had been looking closely for something in one place for quite sometime.  After years of looking, expecting and hoping for it, I finally accepted that it was never going to happen.  So I let go and gave up the desire for it.  Only after I let it go did something else completely unexpected happen in an entirely new place with entirely new people.

Yes, I'm being vague.  It doesn't matter what it was for me, rather, the important thing is that we all begin to learn the lesson that looking for something is far different from allowing yourself to be open to something.  There are many wise spiritual leaders, metaphysical gurus and none-too-few books that talk about how we attract things to us.  And I've learned, after much studying, reading and listening that they all have pretty much the same thing to say:  We are constantly attracting to us all sorts of things but what the universe (or God) has in store for us is always exactly what we need, be it an opportunity to learn, to grow or to experience something important.  The universe contains such incredible power and works in so many ways we can't possibly measure or understand.  The problem is that we get so attached to what we want (or worse, what we think we need) that we often miss those opened windows, additional doors and brand new opportunities that pop up around us all the time.

Have the courage to stop looking for something in particular and open yourself to all of the wonderful things that life is bringing to you.  They are coming all the time whether you notice them or not.  And don't get attached to what you think the outcome should be.  The actual outcome, once it has come to pass, will be far greater than you could have imagined yourself.  I know, I've witnessed what is behind my own newly opened window after I finally stopped trying to get back into that closed door...

The look of love...

I've been to more weddings than I can count.  I've loved each one even more than I thought I would.  Being surrounded by so much love is contagious, you know.  Last night was no exception.

Meghan & Rob

Being witness to a promise made by two people to each other is quite a beautiful thing.  I've witnessed many broken promises and broken hearts in my life and they can be the kind of thing that leads some people to become despondent, pessimistic and give up on love all together.  But sharing in someone else's love story and being surrounded by so many others who love and support one couple's love story can fill a heart with faith in love and even - in my opinion - help to heal a broken heart and help some find faith again.  Thankfully, and despite a broken heart or two of my own, I've always had that faith.

The tradition I witnessed, as such, was full of the kind of ceremony and moments that one comes to expect at an American wedding.  The pledging of love, the kisses on command, the first dance and the reminder of long-standing love amongst the oldest and longest-married couples in the room.  It feels new and tender in this space if you open your heart to it, just like falling in love feels new and full of wonder - even after a broken heart or two.  There are some who have given up and closed themselves to knowing and witnessing what I did last night and to those people I say be open, forgive and believe in second (or third, or fourth) chances for love.

Love doesn't feel like or look like it does on a wedding day forever and some people, while they claim to know this, still seek moments in life that look or feel like the excitement of love at first sight or first kiss.  Far too many walk away prematurely when the honeymoon phase wears off because they prefer excitement and newness to the mundaneness of life.  Some hold on too long, suffering through something they should not and some (the couples who get to remain dancing the longest during that traditional married couples dance) have enough faith to hold on through the rough times that prove to be the cement of their foundation.  No love story looks like another and sometimes love is not promised forever.  But every opportunity for love teaches you something about yourself and gives you an opportunity to love someone in a way that can fill you with so much more than can be imagined or dreamt about.

So what does love look like?  I'm no expert but I've learned a thing or two...

Love requires work but it is generous in its giving.  Love does not exist on the surface of anything - not in the look of a person, an occasion or an interaction.  Sometimes even the most fumbling and awkward initial interaction can lead to the greatest love.  There is no perfect.  There is no script and there is no recognizable path.  The moment loves seems like it is something you have seen before, somewhere else, it is not love but rather someone else's story that's already been told (that includes your own).  Love is surprising and always shows you something you hadn't before seen - about the world, about life, about yourself.

So relax your gaze, open your heart and take a fresh look - no matter how many times you've tried before.  Perhaps what you are seeking will open to you when you change your own perspective and look in a new way rather than looking for something at all.

Love is a dance worth dancing - don't sit it out.

The moment before serendipity happens...

What does it look like?  

What does it sound like?  

Does the world get brighter?  

Do your ears buzz a little bit?  

Do you get hints?

I'm left asking myself all of these questions today.  Serendipity happened last night.  Divine intervention happened last night.  I was sent to a place to meet a person I'd never met who was sent to give me some very important information.

Where and what don't matter here.  But because I am human - and you are too, and because humans are curious and need context for a story to take root, I'll give you a bit of the story.  I will tell you though that what I am truly in awe of is how and why it happened as it did.

Yesterday afternoon's much awaited sun beckoned me to go for a drive - a drive which took me to one of my favorite places on the planet.  I wound up at my friend Corey Tevan's art studio - a lovely, imaginative human being who, when I'm in his presence, always brings me a sense of love and magic - and who opens a part of me I didn't realize needed opening.  Upon entering his gallery, he poured me a glass of wine and we began to talk.

I thought nothing and everything of the things of which we spoke - our conversations are always esoteric and like a dance without choreography but with a rhythm all their own.  This was mentioned, that was mentioned.  A person I'd never heard of was mentioned - and as such, I thought nothing of it.

My friend Corey Tevan and his art.

That person I'd never heard of and who my friend mentioned off-handedly, just happened to be the person I was meant to meet last night.  I drove an hour to have a poignant and incredibly serendipitous conversation with someone I never knew existed.  Someone who, most significantly, had no reason to show up unexpected as he did.  In fact, he had reason not to appear on this day and time as he did.  The list of evidence that shows that we were meant to meet is astounding - and terribly personal so I'm going to have to leave it at that for now.  But this person I'd never met is a messenger and a man of God - and he had a very important message for me - a message I had been seeking with great intent in recent weeks.

So you can imagine that I'm now asking myself what happened - what existed in the moments leading up to this providence that I can recount?  Is there something palpable in that space that I can use to be more aware of an impending kismet moment in the future?  Or is serendipity so magical precisely because we never know when it is going to happen?  Or can there be both?

Thinking back on my drive North, my mind was full of questions and my body was full of emotion.  I felt as though I was shedding something I no longer needed - but in order to do that, I needed it to all bubble to the surface.  Every song on the radio spoke to me.  The ride seemed both longer and shorter than usual.  My mind was elsewhere - I don't know where it was but it was not freely open to the unknown as it might have otherwise been on a random afternoon drive.  It was processing something and I now think that it was processing and working through things that needed to be brought to a level of consciousness as I grew closer and closer to my fateful encounter.

Somewhere between my divine thought of "Hey, it's so nice out today, let's go for a drive" and the moment my answer arrived in the form of Reverend Joe in his big black coat... somewhere in that divinely choreographed afternoon was a moment of "before" my serendipity and I am beyond curious to find it and recognize it for future use.   I am wise enough, though, to know that the mysteries of the universe are far greater than my linear, organizing mind is capable of understanding, so I am comfortable with the the reality that I may never be able to satisfy my curiosity.  But there's something to be said for being aware of the wonder that comes from a glimpse of divine magic when it happens.  It is that which I revel in at this moment.

My messenger, Rev. Joe.