FACEBOOK BLUES

I’ve the Facebook-MySpace-Twitter-time blues.

Last week I celebrated somewhat sheepishly another birthday upon this planet. I did not approach this one with my usual gusto, and I curiously watched as my friends and loved ones tried to talk me out of my experience and into what they thought my attitude should be. If I heard “age is only a state of mind” one more time I, well, I don’t know what I would have done. It felt like one more rather mindless statement that pastes a New Thought happy sticker on what a more authentic response is trying to reveal. I have spent a lot of this incarnation trying to get out of the human experience and into a now-recognized kind of Disneyesque pseudo-spiritual disassociation. In my later years I have committed to myself to be my whole self from here on out. That doesn’t mean I believe the programmed stories of the surface mind. It doesn’t lead me to identifying with my rather lively emotional currents. It certainly doesn’t mean I lose touch with my authentic, essential self. I am finally and gratefully aware that I am aware, and that includes experiencing and including the totality of my being. And part of that totality didn’t relish turning fifty-five. I feel no need to make that wrong, right, or different. The ageless and eternal part of my being was quite content to watch as the aging mortal me struggled a bit with the turning of another page. No happy story needed.

A particularly curious part of this birthday was the astounding number of Facebook posts I received from people I know very well to others about which I haven’t even got a clue. Rather than the usual tertiary cyber-linking’s of this vast social network, I received warm and truly moving messages from people I don’t even know. To look at my “wall” you would think that I am a very popular fellow indeed. Not losing sight of the sweet intent behind these messages I must admit I found it rather odd. Sweet and odd, for sure. But odd none-the-less.

With the millions of people who are seemingly connected via the social networks it seems to me that there is less overall intimacy than ever. While it is at worst benign to receive a gushing tribute from someone you have never even met ( I “friend” anyone who asks) It points to the profound need within all of us to touch what is in Truth a part of us. We have a deep and driving need for connection. We need to be heard, and we need to really listen to others. We need to feel the warmth of an embrace. The heart-beat of the ones we love and who love us. We need to see ourselves reflected in the unmoving gaze of a truly attentive other. We need to hear the actual and revealing tones of voice that are often so misconstrued in our texts and e-mail society. And yet how often are people that are in the same physical space so entranced in their mobile device, seeking to connect with someone that is continents away, and thus missing the experience of the person that is feet and yet light-years away from them? I deeply appreciate the birthday salutations. I do. I also pray that they weren’t sent at the expense of the attention to some spouse, partner, sibling, parent, child, or friend. Please take back the glowing affirmations and give them to the one you have barely grunted at in days, weeks, or even months.

I use and appreciate the social media outlets. This very writing will be posted on two of them. Yet it is no substitute for being directly in your sphere. I can’t truly feel the depth of your presence in a text message or Facebook post. I want to feel your skin and smell your hair and look deeply into your eyes. There is a great gift to turning fifty-five. It is the realization that I have already lived more years than my future will contain. Please save the New Thought adage about that. Knowing that my future is shorter than my past makes our connection more important. More of a priority. It makes being directly with you more vital and precious. I know not the number of days I have left, or that you have left. So let’s not waste them on Facebook, MySpace, or Twitter. Let’s not have our final connection be via a mobile device or a cyber blurt. Come and touch me. Look into these aging eyes and see my timeless love. Hear my voice and feel my heart. Let me be with you in a way that we truly know we are one. Let’s bring down the walls rather than post upon them.

Gee, I already feel better about this birthday. I think I’ll go and call a couple of people I love. A Facebook post or e-mail just doesn’t convey what is too big for even the internet.

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A PERSONAL PASSOVER

I was born on a long ago Easter Sunday, and I have been dealing with the cross and with the tomb ever since. It has been an archetypal journey that has led me from the vast canyons of Evangelical sanctuaries to my own deserts of inner desolation. I was told several years ago that I have a Grand Cross in my astrological chart, and I remember thinking “yeah, like I didn’t already know that.” I have tried in every which way to avoid that glaring cross, until I finally decided that the only thing to do was to hang upon it for a while. In truth, I was already up there. I was already nailed to the cross of my own misperceptions and self aversion. My limiting and self-diminishing thoughts were my crown of thorns, and the habitual way in which I held myself was the repetitive sword to my side. Whether or not the religious symbols of this Passover-Easter season are ones that you identify directly with, it is a schema that we are all plugged into at the symbolic level. We all know the pain of inner bondage and slavery which is what the Egyptian experience of the Jews represents. We know the plagues of unworthiness, self-aversion, shame, and lovelessness. We have all at times been swallowed up in a sea of emotional turmoil, fearing we will never reach the promised land of inner peace and Soulful balance. We know the pain of crucifixion. Many of us know it well. We know what it feels like to be nailed to and held hostage by the forces of the world. We have known betrayal and injustice. We have been sold out and left to die. We have felt the emptiness of the tomb, and we have also felt the inner–action of the resurrecting power of One Life bringing us from the depths of despair to the heights of awakened awareness. We have each tasted the bitter wine of this passage. And we will each reap the benefit of those of who have gone from Gethsemane to Golgotha to tomb to resurrection. That journey may be made in one act of prayerful submission. I know. I have done it countless times.

Each day is Passover Day. Each day is Good Friday and Easter Sunday. Each day is Ascension Day. I invite you to take personally this journey. Welcome it. Learn from embracing it. The cross is the symbol of the axis for the horizontal and vertical levels of experience. The present moment is always the intersection point. The heart is where that axis meets. Allow the heart to be a tomb and it naturally opens into a womb. The cross is meaningless without a personal resurrection. The prayer of “thy will be done” referred not to the crucifixion but to the resurrection. There was no G-awed ordained murder. That is a projection of human self aversion. The patters of crucifixion and resurrection are psychological patterns. They are philosophical. They are energetics. Feel them as they occur. Move with them and not against them. Feel the cross of human experience, and feel the resurrection that comes from humble surrender. In this very moment, the moment that you are reading; this is your Passover moment. This is your resurrection appointment. Open to it. Let it be within you. Rise up. You are free of the cross and the tomb. You are soaring free on the wings of loving transcendence. You have made the journey your own. And now you are truly free.

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