RESOLUTION

As we approach the ending of one calendar year and the beginning of another, I feel a profound call to carve out some time. I feel called to just sit and consciously be with this transition. It is such a full time of year for me and for our culture. I can feel an unusual level of busyness in my energy system. It is clear to me that it is collective, that is bigger than just me. I also feel a level of dissonance that has a similar collective quality. I feel it as a dissonant chord that is seeking resolution. It is a collective frictional tonality that wants to return to a harmonic. There is tension in the air and in the waves.

So while for many people the idea of a New Year’s resolution is an intention that is most often action based, I feel a deep need to become a resolution in terms of how I relate to the obvious chaos in a world of divisiveness and discord. 2017 has been a year of great upheaval and shadow exposure. The Field is seeking to right itself by exposing what is keeping us all from humming at our highest level. Masses are pitted against masses. Violence is widespread and pervasive. An investment in being right is the great divide. A tiny percentage of people are obscuring the advantages of the many. Greed is the current god that is governing. Disempowerment is a weapon that is erupting into war. At the relative level it needs to. Inequality is a travesty against truth. It must be exposed.

All of this is registering in our hearts, our minds, and our bodies. It is tense. It is even wrenching. And each of us must choose, at our current level of consciousness, how we are going to relate to it.

It requires courage. It requires conviction. It requires commitment. As we choose to have a wakeful relationship with all of this discomfort we have the possibility of resolving pieces of this energy. In order to do so we must be more in our bodies than in our minds. We must stay with the discordant energy without deadening or commentary. We must rely on the Great Source Conductor for the managing of our own internal orchestration. Dissonance gives way to harmonics when we stop resisting and allow for a transition within our own energy fields. Banging away at the same cacophonous chord will only bring more of it, at even greater volume. Allowing for a mindful, prayerful response will bring the chord to resolution and harmony.

And so my resolution for the New Year is to be even more resolved. To allow for a resolution of the dissonance that is occurring in me. I am allowing a restoration of harmony and even unity inside of me. The Universe is Music and so am I. It is all energy. I commit to being a space in which my non-resistance can result in peace, resolution, harmony, renewal. Being privy to the chaos doesn’t mean I become it. Being privy to the chaos means I am a part of the whole that consciously brings resolution out of dissonance and division.

Resolution is my resolution. Contribution is my result.

BEFRIENDING THE DARK

On this Solstice Day I am clearly recalling that as a child I had an unusually friendly relationship to darkness.

While many children fear the dark and what might be lurking I loved the darkness for a very specific reason. Let me explain.

In early elementary school I received a toy car dashboard for Christmas. It was designed to sit on your lap, and it had a steering wheel, a working horn, and flashing turn signals. I particularly loved those flashing turn signals. I would take my dashboard down into the basement, turn off all of the lights, and then steer my way down imaginary roads. I occasionally would honk my horn at something or someone. But I made a lot of turns, primarily so that I could use my turn signals. By going down into the dark basement, that context allowed me to clearly see the contrast of the darkness with the chosen flashing lights. My mother would ask me why I didn’t play with the car in my bedroom. I simply told her I preferred driving down in the cellar which I found to be a whole lot more fun.

As an adult I am navigating in a world of great darkness. It isn’t physical darkness per se. But a great darkness it is indeed. I do not feel fear this darkness. I wouldn’t say I prefer it by any means. But it is here and so I navigate it by making moment by moment choices for Light. I stay conscious in my steering. And I now have something the makers of my dashboard couldn’t have dreamed of.

I have a GPS.

I internally plug Divine Will into my God-Presencing-System, and then I listen and feel my way through the darkness mostly unafraid. I use the darkness as contrast for my own Light. I do not deny or seek to suppress the darkness. I simply steer by intuition, and use the Light to guide my way. I use the darkness, and it no longer uses me. And so to the darkness I say: “you have no authority over me for I am using you as a way to shine brightly in this world.”

And so on this Solstice Day I thank my little boy for teaching me not to steer clear of but to steer consciously in.

WORDS

Even as I begin to type these words I am aware that I have little to say.

As a minister preparing for one of the busiest and most profound seasons of the year, I sense a bit of weariness around finding yet another way to tell a story that is vastly beyond words.

So why am I writing this, and why am I continuing to take up space on a platform that could perhaps better be filled by someone more articulate than I?

Because the images of this season have taken root deep within my consciousness, and the shoots of embodied expression are pushing up through the ground of my humanity. Presence is seeking to be particularized. The wonder of Advent is seeking to become word and word. The luminosity of Hanukkah and of Christmas is moving in me and impelling me to shine forth in every way I can. The expression of the Light is an impulse that I cannot and will not suppress.

And so I say yes. I say yes to the feebleness of words and sermons and stories. I open to find a way to incarnate the Source Illumination that is rushing through my heart and mind and voice. I will, I must find a way to share, however inadequately, what is most important in my Soul.

I celebrate these holidays not by talking about their meaning. I celebrate these holidays by being their meaning. I bring the history into my present reality. I live from the archetypal patterns and I walk the path and I sing the songs and shine the Light.

I do so imperfectly. But I do it. I open to be it with every breath and every word and every feeble expression.

It is my devotion. It is my purpose. It is my life.

And so here are my words. Here is my expression. I hope you can feel the heart behind them.

And if you can there is truly nothing to say.