Frozen Chosen

After months of lovingly coaxing our adolescent plants toward mature vitality, we have met our match. Jack Frost has come with unexpected fury to Northern California. The mulch pathway is a concrete tundra. Ice crystals encrust leaves like minuscule toxic parasites. Citrus fruit, approaching peak ripeness, is now fit only for the compost pile. Perennials that were grasping for the sun only a week ago are now a black, drooping mess of frozen protoplasm. It's discouraging. It makes me wonder if the divine feels the same way about religious communities around the world. Tended through millennia of revelations, incarnations and evolutionary progress, we still seem frigid and immature.  One Christian denomination is even sarcastically referred to as "The Frozen Chosen". It must be quite discouraging.

Part of the reason for this limp spirituality is that we have little depth. (Matthew 13:6) We get just enough spirituality or religion to inoculate us from the real thing. We get a taste of the divine, of the Essence of the Universe, and then we march on with our lives feeling quite content with ourselves, rooted in nothing deeper than our own egos.

We adore the words but don't catch the Spirit underneath them. We luxuriate in the religious rituals, but we never move on to the One to whom they point. We are like small children who are more excited by the wrapping paper than the present itself.

What's needed is a little less religion and a little more spiritual practice. As Barbara Brown Taylor writes:

“The whole purpose of the Bible, it seems to me, is to convince people to set the written word down in order to become living words in the world for God’s sake. For me, this willing conversion of ink back to blood is the full substance of faith.” Leaving Church: A Memoir of Faith

The "full substance of faith" is to make the ideas of religion concrete. Less talk. More action. Less piety. More gritty willingness to engage life as it is…with compassion. Only then will sacred ink become living blood and the Word become flesh. (John 1:14).

This cold spell will give way to warmth. Eventually Jack Frost will return north. What will we discover when the ground thaws? Those plants with sufficient depth will revive. May the Sacred Gardener discover that we too have sufficient root, flower and bear delectable fruit.

Is Lake Tahoe Good Enough?

Lake Tahoe. Lying in a hammock last week overlooking the placid waters, I wondered what could be better. Of course, my mind quickly had an answer: "The two jet skis could be silent. If only the sun would move off my face, I'd be more comfortable. I wish I had brought something out here to drink." My bliss was turning into a disappointment. Here I was lazing away an afternoon in one of the most beautiful locations on the planet, and I felt dissatisfied. How did this happen? Fortunately, I remembered something. I was at a retreat center where the theme of the week was gratitude, compassion and forgiveness. The guest facilitator was Dr. Fred Luskin, Director of Forgiveness Studies at Stanford University. (Check out his YouTube videos and his book Forgive for Good.)

Dr. Luskin's basic take on forgiveness is that it is making peace with not getting what we want. When I wasn't getting the perfect "Lake Tahoe viewed from a hammock" experience, I recalled what we had learned as the first step toward making peace with what is: gratitude.

Gratitude begins with: “I am not the center of the universe.” I can see Lake Tahoe without feeling that I own it and that it owes me something. I am part of it. It is part of me. What created that lake observes it through another part of itself (me). This is humility. When I quiet the screaming mind that always wants more, I notice what I’m already given. Then my suffering shifts to gratitude.

Our biology/neurology predisposes us to find problems in order to keep alive, but not to make us happy. We have well-developed threat monitors. For most of us, the part of us that finds good has atrophied.  We need balance. Wholeness is to appreciate the goodness without pushing away the suffering. Yes, there are real threats and suffering. Most of the time, however, in the midst of this unpredictable, dangerous world, we are ok. That in itself is reason for gratitude.

Fred Luskin shared an easy way to monitor whether we are cultivating gratitude or suffering. In any moment we can notice if we are responding to life with “Thank you!” or “It’s not good enough.”

Studies show that 75-80% of our day is consumed with “It’s not good enough.” No need for judgment. It's a biological survival mechanism. It's just not conducive for happiness. For happiness we need to balance that problem-obsession with gratitude.

Gratitude is saying “thank you”. If we are the center of the universe in our own experience, then everything must be perfect…otherwise we complain. We can even turn abundance, even Lake Tahoe, into a problem. We have so many choices, and every choice makes us count the missed opportunities of options not chosen. It’s like online dating, which creates anxiety about what is lost/missed by the innumerable choices not selected. “I deserve to get more/all”. This is the polar opposite of gratitude and "thank you".

So in that moment by Lake Tahoe, I chose to say "thank you". I inhaled appreciation for my surroundings, relaxed my tensed belly, and exhaled. I kept doing this until my self-absorbed compulsion for more/better subsided. "Thank you" was enough. (Mystic Meister Eckhart said that if "thank you" is the only prayer you ever learn, that's enough.)

A deep, in my body sense of gratitude turned an agitated moment into a happy one. Nothing had changed. Except me.

Seeing Right Through Disguises

Growing up I loved reading comic books. I could believe storylines about other dimensions, magical villains, and mutant superpowers. What I found hard to believe was the notion of secret identities, that superheroes could walk around in everyday life undetected. Why didn’t everyone notice that Clark Kent was obviously Superman? His disguise was a pair of glasses. That’s it. How was everyone so blind? All they saw was Clark, a mild-mannered reporter. I shouldn’t be too hard on comic book writers. Most of us wear disguises. We put on various masks to fit in and make ourselves look good, but they rarely fool anyone. On the other hand, our magnificent essence is often obscured by our faults and frailties.

In the Bible is a story about a blind beggar named Bartimaeus. (Mark 10:46-52; Luke 18:35-43). Like most good stories, the irony is the point. The blind man sees what no one else does. The crowd of sighted people see their latest superhero, superstar, prophet and magician. Bartimaeus sees deeper.

The crowd tries to silence Bartimeaus when he calls out to Jesus. But Bartimaeus yells out all the louder, “Son of David, have mercy on me!”...Son of David. David, that woefully imperfect king who nonetheless was said to be a man after God’s own heart. Bartimaeus sensed in Jesus that heart of God, the heart of compassion, Life Essence, the Web of care connecting all.

Jesus stands still. It takes conscious intention to stop midst the inertia of the crowd (or the inertia of our own ego), get still, check in and then act from a deeper place, from the heart of compassion.

“What do you want me to do for you?” Jesus asks him. What an odd question. Isn’t it blatantly obvious? Not really. The unfortunate truth is that most of us would rather stay in the familiar dark. Did Bartimaeus really want to see? It would come with a cost: he'd have to let go of his identity as a blind man; he'd have to find a new line of work; he'd have to let go of all reasonable excuses and entrenched story lines about his life.

Do you really want to see? To see things as they are always requires that we sacrifice cherished illusions. The excuses, blame, judgments, self-centeredness, arrogance, self-pity, apathy…they fall like scales from our eyes. We see life as it is, stripped of our familiar narratives and prejudices. It’s liberating but uncomfortable.

Bartimaeus makes his choice, “I want to see again.” Jesus replies, “Receive your sight; your faith has saved you.” Does he physically see again? Maybe. We only know a small fraction of what is possible in this surprising universe. But if all we get from the story is that a man named Jesus performed unrepeatable magic tricks 2,000 years ago and therefore must be praised and obeyed, then we've missed the mystical juice that still heals today.

Bartimaeus takes a leap of faith, which saves him. Is it possible that Bartimaeus takes that leap out of the familiar toward wholeness and finds in himself the very Life-Essence that Jesus radiates? It's interesting that Jesus doesn't say "I saved you" but rather "Your faith has saved you."

The constant choice is between a familiar, fear-based existence and greeting life as it is, with openness and kind eyes. To see life as it is requires faith because we must be willing to surrender our set story lines for an unpredictable, emerging story. If we are willing to make that leap of faith, then we will be saved in every way a person can be saved. We will see right through every disguise, including the one we see in the mirror, to the very heart of God. We'll recognize the lively sparkle in the eyes behind those glasses.

Manna Photography

"When the Israelites saw it, they said to one another, ‘What is it?’ For they did not know what it was. Moses said to them, ‘It is the bread that the Lord has given you to eat.'"  Exodus 16:15

Wandering in a desolate wilderness, the Israelites discovered a bizarre nourishment. It was a white seed similar to coriander, which they used to make flour. Mysteriously it appeared each morning, but no one new what it was. So it became known as "manna", or "What is it?" They believed it to be nourishment from the divine to sustain them on their journey.

I've been thinking about other forms of "manna" that we might experience today. An unfamiliar person or experience or place or object gives us a boost for our journey, and we wonder, "Who was that masked man?" We are nourished even though we don't know who or what it is. Sometimes the mystery is precisely what feeds us.

Being surprised and fulfilled by beauty doesn't only come by accident. We can intentionally seek it out. One way is through a practice I call "Manna Photography". I take snapshots that obscure the subject or compose the shot in such an unusual way that the image evokes a sense of wonder. Other times I am captivated by something unexpected or otherworldly that stops me in my tracks with amazement, and I capture that experience in a picture. The photo above is an example. What do you think it is? (See below for the answer.) If you look at it long enough, do you feel yourself opening to life's marvelous mysteries and possibilities? Is your sense of wonder stoked?

Manna Photography is just one of many ways to practice "mindful photography". Through the lens of a camera, we can observe and take informal snapshots at home, at work, in nature, around the neighborhood, in fact, anywhere we go. Reflecting on the sense of aliveness or connection that arises while taking and reviewing the photos can open us to a more mindful way of experiencing the world around us, whether or not we have a camera in hand.

Almost every experience can nourish, enthrall, evolve, and liberate. Whether or not it does depends on the quality of our attention. Even the tiniest wilderness creature can inspire awe, whether or not we know its name.

P.S. Please join us for a Mindful Photography course in June, starting Monday, June 3. For more information and to register, click here.

P.P.S. The photo is of a Red Velvet Mite (of the Trombidiidae family), which I saw in Big Bend National Park. Except for a few hours a year, it lives underground and only comes top side after a heavy rain.

Waking Up to Your Dreams

I've had a series of interesting dreams lately. In one I am back in school, ready to graduate. A friend then reads my name from a list of people who have missing assignments. In spite of my protest that I have turned in everything, I have to go to the teacher and resubmit my assignments, including one which is disfigured beyond repair. After I walk away in disgust, the teacher admits to one of my fellow students that he had actually found my original assignments. I already had an "A", but this was the only way he could get to know his students. What does a dream mean? I take my dreams as messages from within and beyond that are prodding me toward self-awareness, wholeness and actions I need to take. I have numerous ways I work with my dreams. One way is to utilize the process below, which an amalgamation of dream classes I've attended. See which of the following practices might help you interpret a dream. I call them "Ten Steps Toward Understanding Your Dreams":

1. Rewrite the dream in 1^st person, present tense: “I am walking on the beach. He says…”
2. Feelings. What feelings did you have during the dream? What feelings did you have when you awoke? What feelings do you have now that you are recalling the dream?
3. Free association. Make a list of key images and actions in your dream. Write down your associations with each word. What’s the first thing that comes to mind? Don’t try to interpret the images. This is free association. An orchid in the dream may remind you of grandma’s living room or of a trip to Japan.
4. Puns, colors and imagery. Any puns? (A bee might represent the need to just “be”.) What is the predominant color(s)? What might it symbolize? (Blue for “the blues”?) Does an image in the dream represent part of your shadow/dark side? If so, what part?
5. Key images. Notice which images have the most energy from the dream. Look up those images in a dream dictionary. Record anything that seems to resonate.
6. Title the dream. Looking over your story and your associations, give your dream a unique and catchy title that would distinguish it from any other dream.
7. Ask. “What is this dream trying to tell me about my life? What to know, change or do?” “How does this dream relate to some current circumstance in my life?” “Does this dream offer a message from the divine/Sacred/Mother Earth? If so, what do I sense that message is?”
8. Walk the dream. Walk outside for a few minutes. Set the intention as you walk that any deeper wisdom from the dream would bubble up to conscious awareness.
9. Summary of dream’s message. Review all that you’ve written and reflected on so far and complete the statement: My dream’s message seems to be…
10. Gratitude. Thank your dreams and your subconscious for the message(s) received.

There are numerous other ways to work with a dream: draw it, turn it into a poem, pretend you are  conflicting characters in the dream and talk back and forth as each character until a sense of resolution or an "aha" emerges. The multi-layered meanings of a dream may continue to offer practical applications  to your waking life for many weeks, perhaps even years after the dream occurs.

Dreams can become valuable allies when we honor those that we recall by recording them and seeking the wisdom these messengers from the deep have to offer us. Sweet dreams!

P.S. Hypnosis can be viewed as a form of wakeful dreaming in which we access the full riches of the subconscious in service of our goals and aspirations. There is still time to register for Heal Yourself Through Hypnosis, a class on how to do self-hypnosis, which begins Monday, May 6. Click here for information and to register. 

Coming Out of the Closet...Again

I have a confession to make. I've been seeing someone. It's been very intimate and private. Yes, my partner knows about it, and it's ok. Where does this happen and who is it? Early mornings in my studio I close my eyes, relax and let myself descend into a sanctuary I've created in my own imagination. In that sanctuary I sense that something other than my conscious mind takes over. There I have met with my grandparents, my parents, Buddha, Mary, and animal guides. But the most frequent visit is with Jesus Christ.

I know that for many of us spending time with Jesus sounds like a fundamentalist's relic, laden with toxic theology. But this is not the stale, suffocating, disconnected-from-real-life Jesus Christ of organized religion. It is a living, fresh encounter with a vibrant Christ. During and after these times together I feel liberated, whole, inspired, encouraged, grounded and washed over with love. I feel as if life is starting over with unlimited potential.

What do we do? Sometimes, we sit in a beautiful garden and admire nature. Sometimes we enter a chapel and soak in the luxurious silence. Sometimes we look out over the ocean and chat. Other times symbols or feelings or colors or other sacred figures appear, each with a message or healing gift. It's as if I'm meeting Jesus for the first time and discovering that he's exactly what I had hoped he would be: warm, welcoming, insightful, funny, mystical...someone who really gets me, meets me where I am and gently leads me to a more authentic expression of myself.

So, what is really happening? Is it all just my subconscious mind creating fantasies in a state of half-sleep? Am I actually on tuning in to the Spirit of Christ, whatever that means? I'm not sure, and I don't think it's relevant. I only know that I am experiencing Life as freer, truer, lighter and more trustworthy. A bit more compassion is flowing for others and for myself.  And it's a result of rekindling a relationship I had almost written off as irreconcilable with my sexuality, intellectual honesty and my affinity for other faith traditions.

I'm not sure what to call myself as I come out of the closet and claim that I regularly meet with Jesus. The only word that comes to mind is "grateful".

P.S. Please join us for classes this spring on Self-Hypnosis and Mindful Photography.

Seeds of New Life

About a week ago we planted various seeds for our first garden here in California: swiss chard, okra, bush roma beans, butter lettuce, arugula, sweet corn and leeks, to be adorned with marigolds and zinnias. Seeds are now pushing their way through the soil toward the beckoning light. I can't help but ponder the timing of these rising seeds. This is known as holy week in the Christian tradition with its theme of Christ's death and resurrection. Whether or not this is your tradition, the message is universal. Something is always dying, and this death is necessary so that something new can be born. For a seed to sprout, it must be buried and left for dead in the earth. This surrender is necessary for new life to break through.

In the Biblical stories about people encountering Jesus after his resurrection, there is a common theme. They don't recognize him. He appears to be a gardener...a traveling stranger...a beach bum. Then suddenly, their eyes are opened and they see Christ. The Christ of their expectations, the Christ they could control and predict, the Christ they could confine to one human body, had to die. Then they saw the Christ, the divine...everywhere. Their eyes were opened to a world of wonder. The seed planted within them had sprouted.

What in your life needs to die? What needs to be surrendered so that something new can emerge? Is it that tired story you retell that needs to be laid to rest so that you can birth a new narrative? Is it an outdated image of the divine so that something truer can emerge? Is it an addiction to control and perfection so that something surprising and uncontrollably alive can spring up? Is it a prejudging of a person or group that must be sacrificed so you can start to see the divine, see something sacred and precious, in more and more faces? (Of course, no aspect of us totally disappears but rather is accepted, transformed and integrated.)

Whatever needs releasing, the first and only required step is a willingness to surrender it. How does that willingness to let go actually result in letting go and then give birth to something new? That no one knows. It is a mystery called life.

P.S. If you want to let go of what no longer serves so that something new and alive can be born, join us on Tuesday nights, starting April 16, for a weekly gathering called Tuesday Night Live.

The Body Mantra

I've been noticing a number of bad equations circulating in my head. These formulas equate two things which are, in truth, not the same. But I often act and feel like these formulas are valid. Here are a few of my untrue equations:

Someone is disappointed = I've done something wrong.

Someone is pleased = I've done something right.

GLEE still = good television worth watching.

Everything got completed and was done correctly = I'm a good person.

Things did not go as planned = I screwed up.

The script of any Twilight movie = ...Wait a minute, they had scripts?!?

What untrue equations still operate in you? Often I don't even realize that I'm being run by one of these faulty formulas until I've made myself, and most likely those around me, miserable.

I have, however, found a reliable way to change my operating system so that I'm running on a truer equation that yields better results. In last week's post, I wrote about living from a place of "belovedness", from the sense that I am already and irrevocably loved, and I am eternally ok.

I'm discovering that the key to living from this belovedness is physical, not mental. I can't think my way into belovedness. Instead I rely on my body. When I have felt in my bones, down to my core, that I really am all right...in those moments I sensed a warm, vibrating, open peace. Rather than try to reason my way back there, I get still and focus on returning to that same felt sense. It's not so much the feeling that I'm going for, but the shift in perception because everything looks much different from a felt sense of "all is well".

It's much like meditating with a mantra. A mantra is a word or phrase chosen before meditation begins. When the chatty-Cathy mind inevitably starts to wander, focus returns to the mantra as a way to re-center. When I drift off into a Sea of Bad Equations, my body feels tense, closed, cold and agitated. By shifting my focus back to that space of "all is well" within me, I use my body as a mantra that resets my entire way of interacting with life. My body becomes the sacred path back to reality.

Those false equations still float around within me, but I don't have to be run by them anymore. My body tells me so.

P.S. If you'd like to practice creative ways of resetting your old equations, join us on Tuesday nights, starting April 16, for a weekly gathering called Tuesday Night Live.

Stratego: A Poor Strategy for Life

My Uncle Frank came to visit my grandparents every summer when I was growing up. He and I would play games and cards hour after hour. I particularly liked Stratego, a board game in which two players pit their armies against each other. I developed a strategy that I employed every time, which almost always resulted in a win. Basically, it was a defensive posture focused on protecting my flag and setting traps in which the parts of my defenses that seemed weakest actually obscured hidden dangers.  I rarely went on the offensive, trusting that the way I set up my army usually guaranteed victory before the first move was even made. By the time my uncle figured out where my flag was, he usually did not have enough resources left to capture it.

Looking back now, I realize that I also began to employ this same strategy with life. Prepare thoroughly in advance, survey the board and plan for every possibility, control everything you can, and then trust that things will go your way because they should go your way. For the most part, this strategy worked well in school. (Isn't school essentially a prolonged board game?)

When entering the world of work, relationships and adult problems, however, this strategy simply did not work anymore. There were too many variables. No matter how hard I prepared and planned, the unexpected happened. Life turned out to be a Mystery that could be neither controlled nor understood.

Somehow this didn't seem fair. Why shouldn't life function like Stratego? If I did my part, shouldn't the world do its part and cooperate? Through all my hard work, have I not proved my worth and earned some sort of reward?

My resentful attitude reminds me of a character in a story Jesus told, which is commonly known as "The Prodigal Son". Both sons in the story are actually lost. The younger son wasted his inheritance on partying. The older son stayed behind on the farm as he thought a good boy should, yet he resented how his life was turning out. He worked hard every day, followed the rules, and was the poster child for responsibility, yet no one seemed to notice. No one even gave him a "like" on his Facebook page. Yet, his irresponsible partying brother comes home, and his father throws him a ginormous party. And the kicker: the older son stays out in the field all day working while the party is underway. No one even bothers to tell him about his brother's return and the shindig.

The father's words to him as he sulks in the unfairness of it all still resonate for me today: "All I have is yours already." This is the message the older son and I both need to hear:

By all this hard work, you are trying to earn what is already yours. You are innately worthy and beloved. No amount of strategy or work can earn what must be received as a given. Receiving your "belovedness" as a given, life starts to feel more like a gift and less like an imposition. A joyful balance of responsibility and freedom emerges. Yes, your brother needs to learn responsibility, and you need to learn freedom. Wholeness is the balance of both. And the balancing point is compassionate self-acceptance.

Life is far more mysterious, complicated and glorious than a board game. Perhaps the greatest mystery is that I am already worthy and forever ok without doing anything! Living from a sense of being irrevocably loved, that resentful sinkhole of compensating for the feeling that I'm never enough...that sinkhole starts to fill from the inside out.

I'm learning a new approach to this board game of life, and living from my "belovedness" may turn out to be the riskiest yet most rewarding strategy of all.

P.S. Beginning in mid-April, a new group will meet every Tuesday night to experience and explore together this mysterious freedom and "belovedness". For more information, go to: Tuesday Night Live.

Reflections of the Divine

Last week I attended an early morning contemplative service with hypnotic Taize-style chants. Just as mesmerizing, however, was the rainbow of reflected light emanating through the stained glass windows. As the sun rose, its rays painted an increasingly vivid palette of Monet-esque colors across its canvas of plastered walls. I feel like those walls. I see reflections of the divine scattered across my life. My partner's smile. Our cat "making biscuits" on my lap. My feet spontaneously tapping to the rhythm of a catchy new tune. A walk on the ridge near our house where I catch sight of a darting jackrabbit. I see these reflections of the divine, but I can't see the Source of those reflections.

What is that Source? A being? A presence? An energy? An evolutionary process?  I can't see through the window to know.

For many, of course, these questions are irrelevant. They savor the reflections with little thought given to their Source. While I honor and appreciate that straightforward approach to living, I've yearned for intimacy with that Source Itself. I've craved more. I've longed for more felt connection, more clarity about who/what the divine is, more of a deep sense of knowing, and, yes, more mountaintop ecstasy.

Instead what I experience are these reflections, disparate rays catching my attention, if only I am paying attention. And I'm wondering if that might be what's needed after all. Much like a committed human relationship, maybe it's not about grasping for that honeymoon or first kiss experience. Maybe it's about paying attention to and savoring the "blessed normalcy" of life together. Yes, there are peaks and valleys, but most of the relationship is marked by ordinariness that only nourishes when noticed and treasured. And in that noticing and treasuring is the connection, the intimacy and the seeing.

So, I am going to try an experiment. When I notice "reflections", I'm going to stay with them just a tad longer to appreciate them and let their sacred ordinariness be enough. I'm also going to honor my longing for more and notice if in that longing itself, I feel more connected to Source. The longing is sacred; it's the addiction to its fulfillment feeling or looking a certain way that causes me such angst.

And, if and when I catch a glimpse of Source Itself, of the divine, of God, I'll value that experience as no more sacred than moments spent admiring the violet-blossomed, amazingly fragrant orchid on the mantle above our fireplace. For in any moment of openness and awe, the seer and the Light and the reflections are all intimately one.

Swimming Upstream

At Muir Woods National Monument I recently watched the endangered Coho salmon prepare to spawn, which is shown in the video below as a male and female make a redd for their offspring. (A redd is a gravel depression salmon create with their tails and into which the eggs are laid and fertilized.) Coho salmon are making a comeback in the Redwood Creek that flows through Muir Woods here in Marin County, California. Each December after the first heavy rain, the sandbar at Muir Beach breaks. The seam allows salmon to leave the ocean and swim upstream to the creek where they hatched about three years before.

The parents undergo dramatic physical changes on this final journey. Their jaws and teeth become hooked. Their skin blushes with hues of red and pink. With immense effort, they make their way upstream. Finding a shallow spot for a redd, they create their nest, lay and fertilize their eggs, all the while maintaining their resistance against the incessant current. Having completed this final phase of the life cycle, they die having given their lives so that life may continue.

The final lines of The Prayer of St. Francis of Assisi capture the spirit of the salmon's life cycle:

"It is in giving that we receive...It is in dying that we are born to eternal life."

Of course, their behavior is driven by instinct, a genetic imperative that lacks our tendency toward prolonged self-reflection and angst. It simply is the way of things. The salmon just keep working their way through the water.

I, however, am not as zen as the salmon. I want to know why the current is against me, how to control it, and what's the meaning of it all. I gripe about how wrong it is that I must swim upstream when life should be so much easier.

The salmon school me in living. They inspire me to swim with my whole body, heart and soul, whether the current is with me or against me. They invite me to remain open to the inevitable changes that will occur in life. They remind me that, ultimately, this existence is not really all about me. My individual life serves the greater cause of Life itself, of which I am part.

The salmon don't pause to ponder what the meaning of it all is. They embody their purpose. They live who and what they are with every ounce of energetic verve in their being. That's all they do, and it's enough...for them and for us. As Joseph Campbell said:

"People say that what we're all seeking is a meaning for life. I don't think that's what we're really seeking. I think what we're seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonance within our own innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive. That's what it's all finally about." 

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When You Can't See the Forest for the Trees

This past weekend my partner and I went to Muir Woods National Monument in search of Coho salmon, which are starting to work their way from the ocean into fresh water in order to spawn. Because of the heavy rains, the water was too muddy to see anything. While strolling through the skyscraping redwoods, I noticed an interesting phenomenon, "tree rain". While the skies were almost clear, the trees were so saturated with moisture that it felt like a steady rain was falling under the canopy. The unexpected precipitation was made all the more magical by the sun's radiant beams bursting through the dense foliage.

Sometimes it takes a broader view to see reality. When all that's visible is water descending from above, the obvious conclusion is that the storm still rages. A more panoramic view, however, reveals a truer picture in which sunny clarity beams above and at times through the drizzling darkness.

When all we sense is gloom and pain, a more expansive container for our experience is available. Whether we call that our Inner Wisdom, the Web of Life, God, or Higher Power, the invitation is to take a step or two back, look up and around and within.  Yes, we are getting wet and it's unpleasant, and there is also more going on that gives context and hope for our dampened spirit.

Brother David Steindl-Rast said that hope is the willingness to be surprised. In the midst of your obvious difficulty, is something surprising also starting to shine through? How can you get enough distance to be able to see it?

Spirituality is just a pious term for the intentional practice of welcoming surprise. It is letting go of our allegiance to what we think is going on until what is currently beyond our field of vision becomes visible. That view usually comes as a surprise, a gift, but the preceding willingness to release our narrow viewpoint is a choice. To have hope and notice life-giving Spirit everywhere is not a miracle reserved for saints or the lucky. It flows from the intention to open the aperture of the soul from narrow to panoramic.

Have You Outgrown Your Image of God?

I once did a year-long internship in New York on Long Island. On days off I would take the Long Island Railroad into the city. Years after the internship was over I still pined for New York, particularly the energy of Manhattan. I returned about once a year to visit the wonderful people I had met and to immerse myself in familiar favorites (MOMA, Broadway shows, Central Park, and The Cloisters) as well as seeking out new experiences. Several years ago I decided to explore moving to New York. Rather than live as a tourist, I decided to live like a resident. What would it be like to bring groceries home on foot from the nearest store, which was four blocks away? What would it be like to walk through the snow to and from the laundromat in February?   How would I thrive week after week, month after month in weather that was far too cold for my comfort level? How would I feel living in a fifth-floor, 350 square foot, walkup flat?

I quickly realized that I was not so much in love with the idea of living in New York City. I was in love with the idea of being on a permanent vacation in Manhattan. What seemed like magical perfection in my 20's now seemed like far too much discomfort, frenzy, noise and effort with not nearly enough connection to nature. I had outgrown my image of the perfect place for me to live.

Just as I had outgrown that image of where to live, I realized I had also outgrown my image of God. The God who sent all non-Christians to hell or who condemned homosexuals or who wanted women to keep their mouths shut in deference to men, that God no longer resonated with me. I could no longer relate to a God more petty than I knew myself to be. My image of God was too small.

Have you outgrown your image of God? Is even the term "God" insufficient for your experience of the Divine, of the Essence of Life? One way to tell is by the fruits of your divine image. If your experience of the divine makes you more open-minded, open-hearted, fully alive and willing to serve your neighbors and even have compassion for your enemies, then that image is congruent for you. If, however, your image of the divine leads to judgment, fear, self-loathing, restricted living, and spiritual highs with no genuine concern or action for those at the bottom of life's barrel, then that image of the divine is too small.

The spiritual path is one of surrender, embrace and surrender. We surrender and release an old image of the divine with gratitude for how it served us to this point. We embrace the new life-giving experience of the divine that is emerging for us, knowing that it too must be surrendered some day if we are to keep evolving.

The journey never ends. You can never experience the fullness of the divine. The Mystery is inexhaustible. Therefore, our images of the sacred are always incomplete. That is not meant to discourage but to excite us. Whatever our experience, emotion, dream, woe, latent potential or growing edge, the divine is already there ready to meet us with more life-giving possibility than we can imagine.

I read once that if you started at one tip of Manhattan and ate breakfast, lunch and dinner at a different place for every meal, it would take over 80 years to reach the other end of Manhattan. And, of course, by then new restaurants would have arisen, not to mention all of the non-eating stops along the way that are worth savoring. If it is impossible to experience all that a 3-mile strip of land has to offer, then how limitless are the adventures within the entire sacred universe. That exploration is one thing we can never outgrow.

P.S. Join us for a day retreat on Saturday, December 1 and explore what the divine is for you now and update how you relate to the sacred so that it is meaningful and life-giving for you today. For more information and to register, visit the Classes page.

The Frustrating Silence of God

God has really been irritating me lately. I need clear direction and answers for some important questions about work, career, and income. I've tried prayer, meditation, sitting in silence, journaling, nature walks, talking to friends, guided visualization....The absolute silence is galling. I appreciate lovely notions about "The Cloud of Unknowing", Mystery, and letting go of certainty over and over again. Great. Beautiful. . . Now how about some answers!

• Which option should I choose when pros and cons clash like hyper-partisans in Congress with no clear sign of what is for the highest good of myself, much less the rest of humanity?
• While I'm at it God, how about answering for drought, AIDS, and violence perpetrated in your name?
• For that matter, why not just lay out clearly the meaning and purpose of our existence in a way that can be understood and accepted by all cultures, races and religions?
• And above all, please explain the popularity of the Kardashians.

Of course, one possibility is that there is no God, and that I'm just talking to myself. Perhaps, at most, there might be some sort of evolutionary force moving the universe forward. But there are no answers to be found there, only an impersonal sense of participation in a grander story than my own. While that has a modern poetic vibe, it does nothing for my deep yearning to connect with Something alive and tangible. How can I find guidance or be intimate with an ineffable cloud of mystery that seems like a paler version of "The Force" as presented in Star Wars?

And herein lies the dilemma. I want the answers to my questions, and I would abhor any God who would tell me what to think and do. I've already experienced that fundamentalist version of the divine. It was toxic, soul-numbing and asphyxiating. Yet I want God to function like a Ouija board: answers appear, and I can either follow them wholeheartedly as genuine spiritual guidance, or I can laugh the whole thing off as a meaningless parlor game.

It feels like a spiritual version of teenage angst. I want an external source of wisdom ("Help me Obi Wan Kenobi!") to clearly say what life is about and what is the right thing to do, and I also want complete freedom to make up my own answers. ("Luminous beings are we. Not this crude matter. You must feel The Force around you." Yoda)

Irenaeus said that the glory of God is a human fully alive. Perhaps the divine, whatever it might be, is not so interested in giving me answers but in me growing up so that I know myself, connect with LIfe within and around me, and generate my own answers. In that creative process I think God also comes fully alive.

A Bridge to Somewhere

The late Senator Ted (the Internet is a "series of tubes") Stevens once tried to push a bill through Congress that would have built a $398 million bridge in his home state of Alaska between the towns of Ketchikan (population 14,000) and Gravina Island (population 50) because the existing ferry service was considered inadequate. It became known as "The Bridge to Nowhere". Recently I listened to an Easter sermon by Dr. Jim Rigby in which he said that the Easter resurrection story only makes sense when we see ourselves as an evolutionary bridge between the life that came before us and the life that will come after and through us. In other words, the deeper message of Easter is that we are an evolutionary "bridge to somewhere".

A bridge is not the destination. My life goes into a tailspin faster than Herman Cain's presidential campaign when I forget this truth: The unfolding story of the universe is not about me. It is about the universe, about Life itself. If my molecules, my kindness, my work, my relationships in this brief lifetime bless some form of life beyond myself, then my body is, in a very real sense, resurrected.

A central failing of American Christianity (and of most spiritual practice in this country) is that we don't care very deeply about anyone or anything beyond ourselves. We talk about heaven and the afterlife but show little concern for those going through hell here and now. We get our inner bliss on by meditating, aligning chakras, and pretzeling our bodies like yogis until we become oblivious to the pain in dilapidated apartment complexes across town. We worship superstar spiritual teachers but lack the humility to learn from a wise African-American cleaning woman we see every day. Such a religion/spirituality will always be characterized by fearful, narcissistic grasping. It is a self-centered bridge to nowhere.

Whatever our beliefs are about the afterlife, we can experience a bridge of connection that spans our differences and links us with life everywhere. Such a universal connection would include:

• Placing our individual lives in the context of the ongoing story of Life itself. Otherwise, talk of the afterlife is simply a glorified ego trip.
• Revolutionary, evolutionary practices done individually and in supportive communities where we break the trance of myopic navel-gazing and get real with each other.
• A mindful awareness about how our daily choices affect the people we live and work with, cashiers and waiters that serve us, impoverished women in Latin America who make our clothes, children yet unborn in Asia, and species in the Pacific Ocean yet to emerge.

In this kind of spirituality, anxious grasping for the afterlife transforms into a conscious connection with the Spirit of LIfe here and now. The isolating hell of "me, myself and I" becomes a resurrection in which I find myself by losing myself in something grander than myself.  The tragedy of my finite existence becomes a celebration of my unique chapter in life's everlasting story. A bridge to nowhere becomes a bridge to somewhere.

Thank you for reading this post. If you would like to explore together (either online or in person) what a down to earth, LIfe-serving spirituality will look like in the 21st century, please provide your feedback and also sign up below for email notification of future posts. Let's get the conversation started. Thank you!

Religion for Grown Ups

Religion has become a dirty word. Pope vs. condoms, misogyny, Pat Robertson, homophobia, radical jihadists, Buddhists vs. Hindus vs. Muslims vs. Christians vs. Jews. I keep waiting for a Jerry Springer episode on religion: "On today's show a paternity test on all the people who claim God as Father." Many have jettisoned the whole proposition. Some of us have opted for the uber-popular moniker “spiritual but not religious”. Sounds good. But how do we live that? Meditation? Energy work? Crystals? An ungrounded, isolated spirituality easily slides down the slippery slope into a woo-woo path that makes us feel better but does little to transform us or the world.

What if there is a choice other than anachronistic religion, woo-woo, or giving up on the matter altogether? What if we’ve missed the point of religion? According to Cicero, religion is derived from the Latin relegere, which means “to go through again, read again”. Others claim that it derives from the Latin religare, which means “to bind”, in the sense of binding together a people and a deity.

Is it possible to take a "new read" on how we can bond with each other and with that vast Soup of Existence in which we live, move and have our being? Can we redefine "religion" to mean the conscious choice to explore again and again without judgment or dogma what it means to be a human being in a universe far more vast, interconnected, mysterious and wonderful than we ever imagined?

What if that exploration done individually and in community yielded something other than demonized groups, guilt, or chakra-obsessed chai drinkers whom you can’t possibly relate to? What if religion could actually open minds, upgrade perceptions, laugh at itself, evolve us, transmute our foibles, energize our latent potential, and propel us into radically loving, creative responses to the challenges of our planet?

If so, we might finally have a religion for grown ups.

How would you describe a religion/spirituality for grown ups? What would it look like? What affect might it have?