TRUTH OR DARE

A great source of personal suffering for me has been the innate capacity to know when people are being untruthful.

To be more honest and direct: since the time I was a child I could always tell when people were lying.

It wasn’t until I was well into my adulthood that two very pertinent perceptions came to me that unlocked the prison door to my suffering around said dishonesty.

First, I always thought that people knew that were being dishonest. I thought they were intentionally telling tales. I came to learn that very often people are coming from a place of unconsciousness and disassociation, thus unaware that what they were communicating simply wasn’t true. This was huge for me. It also deepened my own exploration of what I might think is true that really wasn’t.

Secondly, my framing was that people were lying to me.



To me. Lying to me. Doing something to me. I took that completely personally, thinking I somehow deserved the deception and dishonesty. I took it on, and I suffered. Removing energetically the words “to me” loosened the chains of my bondage and largely the shielding from my heart. People don’t lie to me. They simply lie. Mostly to themselves. Other peoples loose hold on reality meant nothing about me. Lies are fear based. We all have our fears, and we all are at times dishonest. That is simple a part of the human experience.

I vividly recall the pain of this dynamic, especially in my formative years. I remember staring at authority figures. Watching the lips move and the facial expressions set. And knowing that what I was seeing and hearing was in fact not the facts. I remember the sadness. The grief. The disconnect. Because I did not have the capacity or the maturity to call it out it got suppressed and internalized. The sadness, the grief began to fester into rage. The rage became recoil and rejection. My mode of operation was to remain silent about the lies until an eruption would occur. Relational drama then ensued, and I put people who lied to me out of my life.

People who lied to me.

Honesty is a core value of mine. And I am not always honest. I seek to be. I pray to be. I often have great justifications when I am not. I fear sometimes that my honesty will hurt others. I suspect that my silence is often an indirect form of lying and collusion. I work daily with being more direct, honest, authentic, yet also kind.

I work with daring to tell the truth.

Truth telling takes enormous courage, awareness, and internal inquiry. I stay constantly vigilant to what is unconscious dishonesty in others, and projected untruthfulness in me. I surf the waves of hurt when I fall into the temptation of making others unconsciousness about me. When I tell myself the lie that it is about me.

I work with daring to tell the truth to myself about myself.

It isn’t easy. It is often embarrassing and even humiliating. I cannot let myself off the hook and remain in my own integrity.

And I am relentless.

So, the old game of “truth or dare” has become a profound spiritual practice. There really are no winners or losers. When I dare to tell the truth I always win. And the truth continues to set me free.

HELLO DARKNESS MY OLD FRIEND

Hello darkness my old friend.

I have been experiencing rumblings in my gut as of late. Faint wafts of the old “uh-oh” have been arising. A very slight hint of dread. A bit of heaviness in my heart. Some chaos in my mind.

Something good is obviously opening.

Yes, you read that right.

I think most people would read my current symptoms and wonder what is wrong. I feel these activities and ponder what is emerging.

It wasn’t always so.

It has taken a lot of discipline, practice, and prayer to get to the point when I welcome discomfort and darkness as the friends I have learned they are.

Hello darkness my old friend.

Something is dying within me, and that always means that something is seeking to be born.

The womb of transcendence is dark. The labor pains of the law unfolding are uncomfortable. There are rumblings, dread, heaviness, and chaos. The birth canal for my higher self is not an easy path.

And I know it is for good.

If I choose to move through the temptation to deny, suppress, deaden, avoid, and blame I can say with authenticity and conviction “hello darkness my old friend.” The pain of dying need not become intense suffering. That is what my resistance will result in. I know that because of how many times I have done it.

Today I celebrate what may be unfolding within and through me. I know I will come out the other side of this as more. I know I will rise to a higher level of consciousness and expression. I trust wholeheartedly in this.

If can just be courageous enough to stay with the discomfort, chaos, and uh-oh.

Hello darkness my old friend.

REVEREND PERSON

I know that I was born to minister. I also know that in many ways I do not have the personality to do so.

I was ordained more than twenty-three years ago and have worked in full-time ministry ever since. That does not make me special. It does not make me more spiritual than anyone else. It certainly does not mean that I am better than anyone else, or perfect in any way.

What it does mean for me is that my very life is a dedication to all things Source. It means that the highest priority of my life is to allow this imperfect self to be used in service of what is truly and always perfect. It means that I am soaking in the frequency of Source most of the time, and then seeing life from that perspective.

After years of dedicated practice and active application there are days when I actualize that priority pretty well. There are also moments in my days when I fail pretty miserably.

Being clergy does not mean that judgment has somehow been lifted from me. Being clergy does mean that I continually question my judgments and pray to be released from them.

Being clergy does not mean that I disregard my values, or that I do not call out injustice when I see it. Being clergy does mean that I do so with an open heart and a softer gaze. I do so without hatred or malice in that heart. That is how I keep it open.

My personality self finds much of what is unfolding to be repugnant and just plain wrong. Evil and bigotry are being perpetrated, and human beings are being maligned and marginalized. My personality self wants to rail against those performing such acts.

That is the part of my personality self that is not suited for ministry.

I have learned that by surrendering my accusations they are softened. As I allow for the darkness inside of me, I can compassion it in others. As I literally give UP my passion for equality and justice the fire within me becomes a torch that lights the way through this current level of madness. As I step back from what I am railing against I gain perspective on what I am ministering for.

I am very clear that by accepting ordination I become a loving uplifter of all beings. That is not an easy process, and it is one I am committed to embody. I often do not agree with ideologies or ensuing behaviors. I vehemently disagree with increasing regularity. I do not, however, mistake ideology for a person’s inherent Divinity. I do not confuse unskillfulness with unworthiness. I do not conflate behavior with identity.

So, I watch and hear and feel people screaming and minimizing each other, often in the name of religion and what is deemed as “right.” The day that I choose to become ensconced in that battle is the day I leave the ministry.

It does not mean I do not have moments of that. I just do not allow myself the luxury of living in such blame and divisiveness.

When I find myself caught in a self-made web of perception, opinion, and criticism, I have a little game I play with myself. I imagine the person or persons I am judging showing up at the Unity I lead. They come in, sit down, and at least temporarily become a part of my congregation.

And I imagine myself ministering to them. That is the same thing as saying I imagine bringing love to them.

My personality self cannot do that. And I do not minister from my personality self.

My vocation is a constant refinement. A constant peeling away of the veils of programming and conditioning that keeps me separated from those I deem as different. From those I disagree with. From those who trigger my own unconscious patterns.

I know I was born to minister. I am a most unlikely candidate. I am so imperfect and often so unskillful.

But my commitment and dedication never waver. I arise everyday with a prayer of “how may I serve” in my heart and on my lips. I constantly question where I am coming from, and what I am contributing with my quality of attention. I live within the inquiry of how I may be used in service of something greater than myself.

It is likely I will fall today into a hole of unconsciousness. I will hear a piece of news that sends me into judgment and reactivity. And in the name of what I choose to be upon this planet I will not stay in that hole for very long. I will pause, I will breathe, and I will pray. I will choose to bring blessing to what I was cursing. I will minister to possibility and compassion current reality.

I minister because I simply must. It is not what I say. It is what and who I choose to be and how I choose to relate. I bring love to what seems so unlovable. And it is a radical and humbling way to live.

They call me reverend. I am just another person. A person who chooses to let Source work through me.

PICKING PROBLEMS

What if it is not a problem?

This is happening, and I am disturbed.

I am disturbed because I think it should not be happening.

Because I think it should not be happening, and yet it is, I make it into a problem.

Problems disturb me.

It is a problem because my resistance and framing has made it such.

If it is happening, and I choose to allow it to be an opportunity instead of a problem, I am not disturbed.

This is happening, and if I make it a problem, I am disturbed. If I do not make it a problem, I am not disturbed.

So, where is the problem and disturbance?

The out there is not really the variable. The variable is in here.

This is happening. I look at it. I feel it. I sense and embrace my initial reactivity to it. I watch the labels I apply and make the connection between those labels and my disturbance.

I am making it a problem and then reacting to it as such.

I am making my own problems and disturbances. In so doing I block the opportunity.

If I did not make it a problem my creativity and innovation would kick in and I am able to follow the flow of opportunity. The flow of possibility. I am energized rather than disturbed. I decide to respond rather than to react.

Problem or possibility? Decision or disturbance? React or respond?

What is it is not a problem?

HURTING HEART - WITHHOLDING WORDS

My heart literally hurts, and it has nothing to do with my recent surgery.

I feel as if this pain is exacerbated by the fact that I have not found a way to aptly articulate the pain in such a way that doesn’t alienate others or inadvertently offend those for whom I am hurting.

Brilliant, caring, contributing men and women are being maligned in ways that I never thought I would see again. These men and women and, yes, even children are being denigrated because they happen to be people of color. Black, brown. Whatever the term you choose to apply there is a poison being exposed and spread and it must be spoken of before it can be healed.

Some of you may want to stop reading right there. You can unsubscribe and delete, but you have already seen the sentiment I most need to convey.
During my childhood the Civil Rights movement was at its most horrific. Murders, lynching, segregation, busing; it seemed there were endless ways that our fellow human beings were being shoved to the margins and into the background solely based on their race. I remember vividly the news report telling of the murder of Rev. Dr. King. I couldn’t understand why someone would want to kill a passionate preacher of equality and non-violence. I heard my parents’ reactions to the ensuing riots and feared that it would come to the street where we lived and the rage would kill us all.

But you see, that could not have happened.

We had moved to an all-white suburb when our previous neighborhood began to “turn bad.”

And so, I had minimal direct exposure to people of different races or religions until I entered university.

People who had been images on a screen or headlines in a paper became real and tangible and vital to me. Differences evoked not fear, only fascination, appreciation, and wonder. I began to realize how privileged my race had made me, but also how cut off I had been from a huge percentage of my shared humanity. A beautiful and rich and varied percentage. A part of myself had been cut off.

I began to see and witness and deeply admire people who transcended the systemic bigotry of the culture to make enormous contributions to the world at large. I felt a fire in the belly of crusaders who would no longer be held down. I did not stop at mere admiration. I took my place beside these heroes, doing what I could to expand the confines of a contracted and toxic consciousness. I do not claim to have done much. But it helped to feel like I could do something. Anything.

With the election of our first African American president I literally wept with joy. Party affiliation had nothing to do with my exhilaration. I felt that we had finally reached a place where liberty and justice for all was being realized. An expanded possibility had opened to future generations. People were finally being seen for the value of their character and not held back by the tone of their skin.

I was wrong.

Have strides been made? Absolutely. And we are living at a time when the underbelly of our shadow racism is exploding in ways that are loud and forceful and unmistakable and wrong.

Racism is wrong.

And so, my heart literally hurts. I ache as I watch lifelong public servants minimized and diminished and shoved to the margins once again. I weep for the victims, the families and friends of all those gunned down and choked and threatened and maligned due to the pigmentation of their skin or the religion of their belief. This is not a political issue for me. It is a moral issue. It is a gaping hole in the fabric of our humanity. I hear claims that “we are better than this.” Are we? If we are then we have some major work to do.

So, I have sat with and leaned into this heart-pain. I have listened for what I am personally called to contribute. I have feared saying the wrong thing, both to the haters and those being hated. I am so wanting to contribute to the solution and not to the problem.

As a result, I have said nothing. And in saying nothing I become part of the problem. Silence is a form of collusion. I am silent no more.

This pain in my heart is nothing compared to those who live daily with the constant sting of racism. Marginalization is not foreign to me, but it is not the same I know.

This must stop.

This is not my most eloquent of writings, and it is with trepidation that I contemplate publishing it at all. I am fumbling. But I cannot remain silent. I must speak out. I must take a stand. I must do whatever I can to embody the values I hold precious.

Whatever your race or belief you are an emanation of the same Source as are all living beings. You are as precious and as important as any other. I will stand with you and for you. I will honor and respect you. I will compassion the pain. I will call out bigotry wherever I see it. I will love you. I will indeed love you. Your diversity and your humanity.

My heart is hurting yet my words are no longer withheld.