Off the path or On?

“…it is the path off the path that brings us to God.” -- Mark Nepo

I could hear the fear in her voice – tangible, palpable, present. She was grasping for someone –in this case, a Christian counselor – who could bring her fractured family back together. Our conversation was brief since the role of mediator had already been filled. Still, her terror has stayed with me. I wholly connect with the panic for her family, but it is not this fear I ponder today.

To be clear, let me say this is someone I know and for who I have great respect. In this context, she’d visited my website and noticed the impact of Julia Cameron’s Artist’s Way on my life. Unlike others who have watched my personal transformation over the last several years, she feared for my salvation. I had “opened myself up” to broader horizons and in her God-fearing mind that isn’t a good thing. Again, her fear was palpable and it is that I ponder. What follows are my morning pages (thanks, Julia):

Fear is a powerful weapon. Fear is evil. It may even be what the Bible speaks of. If God is love, it would make sense that fear is evil or Satan or the serpent or whatever you want to call it. Fear is the seducer. The one that keeps us from God. From love. Fear is power…Fear moves me away from God. Fear moves me away from love.

And as I wrote those words, I realize fear is also what ultimately moved me toward God. Broken, desperate, panicked – my family reached for something that could bring our fractured family back together. In our case, we ended up in a fishing village in Mexico – a boarding school as our hope. I sat alone by a pool, focusing on an assignment to meditate on the 11th step of AA. I "opened myself," and in “unorthodox” prayer, God met me on the page. I wrote like a fiend and a near-stranger heard my words and introduced me to the Artist’s Way. The rest they say is history. My world as I knew it was broken wide open and stepping through my fear I began to receive the world in new ways. I began to look fully into the face of both love and fear.

Big topics here, I know. I wonder where or if these words resonate for you. Is God love? And what of fear? Today, on this sacred Sunday, I offer gratitude for my God who is big enough to journey with me off the path and I humbly offer the following prayer:

Let me live in my house by the side of the road,
where all manner of folk go by.
They are good, they are bad, they are weak, they are strong,
wise, foolish – so am I.
Then why should I sit in the scorner’s seat
or hurl the cynic’s ban?
Let me live in my house by the side of the road
and be the friend I can. – Sam Walter Foss from Celtic Daily Prayer

girl on beach© 2.6.10
point defiance© 9.09

Party of the Heart

“We have to create and discover the parties of the heart, the place where we know we can enjoy what is, and that we have indeed survived and even flourished another day of our one and only life. Just make sure you are somewhere, and always, definitively in love! Then you'll see rightly, because only when we are in love can we accept the mystery that almost everything is.” --Richard Rohr

Listening to: Dance me to the End of Love by Leonard Cohen

A glorious few days. A party of the heart. Working. Loving. Laughing. Creating. Watching the rain fall. Listening to music fall into place. Working alongside Bill. Walking with friends. Chatting with my sister. Picking silly songs. Writing. Collaging. Meeting Norah. Finding compassion for myself and others. Life is indeed a party of the heart if we allow the music in.

Life is full these days. My transitions of the past have opened the doors to my future. My now. These are the words I have today. Fullness is here and now. More awaits outside my door and through my window. The eyes of my heart long to put feet on my faith. Wishing you a blessed day.

"God is not a being. God is being itself." --Richard Rohr

wage love

Saturday night I had the privilege of attending Sabbath dinner at a friend’s house. He is a man who has struggled with his anger and not being able to connect with others in a loving way. The focus of the evening was to put away politics, the market, and other worries that keep us from finding delight in who we are. We began the evening with the lighting of candles and listening to a beautiful song by Kate Wolf called “Give Yourself to Love.” We then broke bread and shared wine in an act of communion as we began the shared meal.

The purpose of this post was not to write the details of this Sabbath evening, but to recall several moments that I have encountered during the last few days. Our host shared with us a picture of him at less than one year of age. He was being held in the arms of a loving aunt. As he shared this photo, he recalled that her arms had been a place of safety, trust and love for him while growing up in a household devoid of affection. As he spoke, my own mind turned to my beloved kindergarten teacher and I could feel her warm embrace and my own sense of safety and love when I was wrapped in her enveloping bosom. Being in her arms was a beautiful and pure experience of unconditional love—much as I imagine my host received from his aunt.

Yesterday, I listened to another story from a woman of a different culture. She is one of several daughters in a family that values boys most highly. She had been raised to believe that she was nothing. She spoke of many years of emotional abuse--first at the hands of her parents and then for 30 years with a self-centered husband. Somewhere deep inside this woman, however, there was a spark that kept her alive and reaching for the love she knows is available, but does not believe she has yet found.

All of these stories led me to wonder about what it is that keeps us searching for love. What are the moments that give us hope in the midst of chaos and hurt? What is the impact of a simple hug or cradling in the arms? What is the power that lets us know love exists?

The woman of this story believes she is searching for God’s love. She knows it is there. She believes it to be true. She wants to believe it in human form so that she can believe it to be true of God. Again I wonder…can the two be separated? Is that not what being incarnational means? Jesus was God incarnate. Is it not our greatest mission in life to love God and love our neighbors as ourselves? Do we not share incarnational love when we give ourselves unconditionally to another?

So, that’s what is on my mind this morning. Yesterday, Abbey of the Arts offered a beautiful post called, Wage Peace. My challenge to you (& me) today is to Wage Love. You never know when you might be someone’s spark that keeps the hope of love and life alive.

“Give yourself to love if love is what you’re after.
Open up your heart to tears and laughter.” --Kate Wolf

photos from st. severin church & musee d'orsay -- paris 2.08

What if Love is IT?

In my recent post, I mentioned that I have not spent a lot of time in the scriptures of late. However, while reading “Lectio Divina” I find that I am drawn to read more from the Bible and I am really o.k. with it. (Shudder shudder…I hear as I imagine some of my readers thinking ‘ how could you NOT be ok with it?) I shall explain just a bit here ☺. For those of you who do not know me well or may be new to this site, I will mention that Christianity is the source of my introduction to God. What a statement?!?!? “The source of my introduction to God.” While I do not want to attempt a discourse on my religious path at this specific time, suffice it to say that having been brought up and then married into a predominantly “fundamental” environment and subsequently adopting a more “broad view” of life, I continue my personal journey of discovery and wrestling with what does it mean to love God?

So, where am I going with this? Pondering why I have stayed away from Scripture, I came to realize that the exclusionary voices of fire and brimstone are associated with the Bible of my past and really like to creep into the present! “If you don’t believe in Jesus you are going to hell! Jesus is the ONLY way! You must confess your sins or die!” These words speak of harsh judgment. Judgment breeds judgment. I get Jesus and I don’t. I get heaven and I don’t. I want rest and peace and love for the world. I believe that Jesus is love. So, what if that is true? What if Jesus and God and Buddha and fill in your own personal favorite are LOVE? Period. Love. That’s it. Wouldn’t that be enough to change the world? What if LOVE is the ONLY way?

If we could truly come from a place of love instead of fear, would it be enough to change the world? What if we bring ourselves and do our best each day. Accepting rather than expecting—not in a wishy-washy, no responsibility kind of way. What if we take responsibility for ourselves and call each other to a higher place in love—pure love, not fear-based love. Not the condemning, you have to do this or that or you’re going to hell kind of “love”. What if Jesus is love? Period. What if “the thing for which I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus” is love? That “thing” could change the world.

So, that’s where my heart is right now. It may sound simplistic or sacrilegious or like I have lost my mind, but I challenge you to give this a try: See what happens when you insert the word Love in place of “Christ & it.” What if LOVE is it?

“Not that I have already obtained it, or have already become perfect, but I press on in order that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus.” Philippians 3:12

what goes with me...

The excitement is building as the hours fly swiftly by. I still need to get some Euros, fine tune my packing, go to work for a few hours and BREATHE! While looking for a quote to kick off my Paris trip, I found this lovely gem by Picasso.

“Each second we live is a new and unique moment of the universe, a moment that will never be again. And what do we teach our children? We teach them that two and two make four, and that Paris is the capital of France. When will we also teach them what they are? We should say to each of them: Do you know what you are? You are a marvel. You are unique. In all the years that have passed, there has never been another child like you. Your legs, your arms, your clever fingers, the way you move. You may become a Shakespeare, a Michelangelo, a Beethoven. You have the capacity for anything. Yes, you are a marvel. And when you grow up, can you then harm another who is, like you, a marvel? You must work, we must all work, to make the world worthy of its children."

I realize the quote has very little to do with Paris specifically, but it has everything to do with the world as a whole. (And even though Paris calls my name today, I know it is in the world that I choose to live.)

Yesterday, a new reader (well actually a reader who self-admittedly had been "lurking" around my site for a while) offered me this wonderful aspirational quote:

"Everyone I meet is in love with me. I just don't expect them to realize it yet."

Both quotes ring loud and clear to me today as I embark on this journey that fills me with excitement and a healthy dose of fear. I feel I am stepping into the great unknown and yet I know that I am ready to do this. I will take BOTH of these affirmations with me as I leave Seattle early tomorrow morning and fly east toward Paris. I will take them with me today as I enter into the world around me.

How about you? Do you realize what a marvel you are? Can you believe that everyone is in love with you?...they are just waiting to discover it. Au revoir!

painting by Pablo Picasso