What a year.
I know I do not have to tell you.
What a year.
2020 will go down in the history books as something none of us can really yet describe. I still recall the enormous feeling of possibility and promise I felt as late December 2019 moved me closer and closer to an experience that I felt would be transformative, growth producing, and genuinely like no other.
And that is exactly what it has been.
What a year.
Like so many people around the world I felt like the year 2020 would be about the birthing of a new vision for humanity. I was primed to do my part by opening into an inspired vision for a world that works for all. Not theory or concept. It is not a world that works for only a privileged few. Not a top-down power-over system. A world that is working for all people equally. Where everyone matters and lives like they matter. A world that’s foundation is mutual dignity and respect. A world that is fueled by harmony, reverence, and inclusivity. That is the world that I began visioning.
And then all hell broke loose.
Literally.
What a year.
In retrospect my initial mistake was in not realizing that in order for a new global vision to become reality we had to see how we had been seeing.
That was not a typo.
We needed to see how we had been seeing what we were seeing. We needed to see the lens we were looking through. We needed to know the prescription in that lens. The way we were seeing was not in service of a world that works for all. The prescription was distorting reality in favor of a few. We were seeing way too many others as being somehow less than. We were taking sides as enemies against enemies. We were internally and so externally divided, warring against ourselves and against each other. We were killing each other, including disproportionally black and people of color. We were raping our planet and destroying our resources. We were seeing through darkness and distortion, and it was and is having tragic consequences.
And so, in the name of 2020 vision we saw what had been festering only slightly beneath the surface. The intention of our new world vision showed us things we did not really want to see. Because we have seen things that worked for some of us. We clearly saw a world that worked for some and we did not like seeing it. We screamed at others about how we perceived they saw, trying hard to not own that what we were screaming at were our own projections. We have been trapped in a trance. It is clearing. We have the potential of becoming free. But it is messy. Messy and painful and humbling if not outright humiliating.
What a year.
I just paused to reread this, and it is not at all the blog I began to write.
And it is clearly the blog I am meant to write.
I can honestly say that I have not made 2020 an enemy. I have felt from the very beginning that something was happening in the collective consciousness that is in service of a greater emergence. I have remained willing to allow what I need to see in me to arise within my individual field, knowing that as I bring a wakeful and compassionate presence to it, it will indeed be in service to the collective.
It has not been pretty.
It has not been easy, comfortable, flattering. And it has been completely necessary.
There has been so much loss. So much suffering to bear witness to. So many things unfolding that I wanted nothing more than to rant at. Scream and shout at. Throw things at. So much injustice, greed, corruption, supremacy, bigotry, meanness. So, so much.
And I needed to see it all.
And now I cannot unsee it.
And I can vision beyond it.
I can look squarely at the darkness inside myself. I can own my part on the collective problems. I can courageously own where I am like those I rail against. I can claim the log in my own eye and worry less about the splinter in yours. I can wait to do my own work before I cast stones at you. I can peel my blame off of the world and I can return repeatedly to a vision of a world that works for all.
In me. Right here. Right inside of this heart. Here in my line of sight.
What a year.
The old hymn lyric has taken on a whole new meaning. “Was blind but now I see.”
I see more clearly than ever before.
I do not like what I see but I do not have to. I just need to continue to look with as little interpretation and resistance as possible. I need to reopen my eyes every time I flinch. I turn back every time I turn away. I take another look. And another. I make the miraculous distinction between the lens prescription and what I am looking at. I know beyond a doubt I am looking at what I am looking with. Always. And knowing that leads to vision.
What a year.
2020 has been hideous and miraculous. Enervating and inspiring. Suffocating and expansive. Isolating and supremely connecting.
I have no idea what 2021 will bring, and yet I bravely say to it “bring it on.” I am more as a result of having lived through 2020. I have suffered so much loss, and I have met it with both wavering and uncompromising love. There are fewer people in my sphere, yet there is also deeper connection. Having seen what I have seen this past year I am far less afraid to take a look at what arises next. I know more than ever that my vision is transformative. I know that seeing what is not yet here is co-creative. My clear vision is bringing about that world I have so wanted to see.
What a year.
I will not live long enough to know what historians will say about the year 2020. I will not be privy to how they will report about the people who were alive, and they met these great challenges. All I can know is what I am saying about it. About how I met the year 2020. What I learned from it. How I chose to serve it. How I gleaned a new vision from the way I had been seeing.
Whatever future historians will say, I look at 2020 with clear eyes and an open heart. And I say:
What a year.
Thursday, December 31, 2020
Saturday, December 26, 2020
LIMBO
Everything is literally in limbo.
And that is a very good thing.
As a clergy person this is a busy time of year for me. Even in a time of pandemic distancing there are additional services to co-create and added attention to those who are isolated and alone. Yet the time between Christmas and New Year has the familiar feeling of limbo and uncertainty that it has long had for me. The old year is not yet passed but the new is already calling to be intended and embodied.
Everything is literally in limbo.
The longer I have walked this planet the more comfortable I have grown with uncertainty and limbo. The energies for me are pregnant with possibility. There is tension that is ripe with potential. That potential is a pathway my Soul is seeking to unfold. And so, a feeling of holiday restfulness meets a simmering of new year restlessness. A beseeching to become more fills the space where I really long to do less. The gas and the brake pedals are depressed, and the internal motor is racing. There is a part of me that wants to speed out of 2020, yet I do not know what 2021 may hold.
Everything is literally in limbo.
I have repeatedly heard the cries from countless people wanting this year of 2020 to be over. I get that. I really do. I also get that time and calendars are arbitrary markers that do not signal or cease patterns that are independent of time. The unresolved energies of 2020 will be carried right over into 2021. The ball will drop, the corks will pop, and the dramas will be there when the hangovers pass. The work we did not do in 2020 will cry to be attended to in 2021. And 2025. And so on.
And so, this limbo time is precious.
Limbo time is liminal. It is a chance to be relished, cherished, and fully utilized. Beyond the Christmas leftovers there is internal exploration to be dived into and digested. This is the time to really stop and to look closely at what has happened in and to you during the preceding year. What is energetically trapped by resistance, remorse, or resentment? What did a year of 20/20 vision reveal that needed to be seen? What projections and blame are disempowering and robbing us of co-creative potential vitality? What was denied or suppressed that is calling for insight and resolution?
When embraced limbo is incredibly fertile. It is necessary for growth, forgiveness, and transformation. It can, if we choose, be the most important time of our years. Without limbo we tend to repeat. We unconsciously stay stuck in the name of feeling safe. But we must come to own that often suffering is bred from a false sense of what is safe. Beyond safety is the broader life that is calling to be lived. That has been calling to be lived. All year. For a decade. Perhaps even for a lifetime.
And we fill the limbo for fear of the discomfort and uncertainty. And our greatest living is in the discomfort of uncertainty.
It is in the limbo.
And so I write these words as a declaration that I am wading waist high in limbo and I am loving each and every moment of it. 2020 was beyond the definition of challenging. I saw more suffering than I have ever seen. More chaos, disruption, violence, greed, dishonesty, injustice. I also saw an energetic revelation of what needed to be seen in service of what is calling to be known. To be chosen. To be vision and embodied. We cannot heal what we do not look at and directly feel.
And I have chosen to do that.
And so, with added activity still to be accomplished I am also stealing as much limbo time as I possibly can. I am praying into a greater possibility for this arbitrary turning of a calendar page. I am seeking clarity and release. I am leaning into the limbo to see what it has to show me. I open into the uncertainty with very little sense of discomfort. For limbo has become a close and reliable friend. Liminal space, by experience, has become a comfort zone of increasing possibility. I love the limbo. And it has repeatedly shown me that it loves me.
Everything is literally in limbo.
Every possibility. All potentiality. Everything unseen that is seeking to be seen. Everything unknown that is wanting to be known. It is all there. It is all here. It is all within the now.
Limbo literally is everything.
Just wait, and then see.
And that is a very good thing.
As a clergy person this is a busy time of year for me. Even in a time of pandemic distancing there are additional services to co-create and added attention to those who are isolated and alone. Yet the time between Christmas and New Year has the familiar feeling of limbo and uncertainty that it has long had for me. The old year is not yet passed but the new is already calling to be intended and embodied.
Everything is literally in limbo.
The longer I have walked this planet the more comfortable I have grown with uncertainty and limbo. The energies for me are pregnant with possibility. There is tension that is ripe with potential. That potential is a pathway my Soul is seeking to unfold. And so, a feeling of holiday restfulness meets a simmering of new year restlessness. A beseeching to become more fills the space where I really long to do less. The gas and the brake pedals are depressed, and the internal motor is racing. There is a part of me that wants to speed out of 2020, yet I do not know what 2021 may hold.
Everything is literally in limbo.
I have repeatedly heard the cries from countless people wanting this year of 2020 to be over. I get that. I really do. I also get that time and calendars are arbitrary markers that do not signal or cease patterns that are independent of time. The unresolved energies of 2020 will be carried right over into 2021. The ball will drop, the corks will pop, and the dramas will be there when the hangovers pass. The work we did not do in 2020 will cry to be attended to in 2021. And 2025. And so on.
And so, this limbo time is precious.
Limbo time is liminal. It is a chance to be relished, cherished, and fully utilized. Beyond the Christmas leftovers there is internal exploration to be dived into and digested. This is the time to really stop and to look closely at what has happened in and to you during the preceding year. What is energetically trapped by resistance, remorse, or resentment? What did a year of 20/20 vision reveal that needed to be seen? What projections and blame are disempowering and robbing us of co-creative potential vitality? What was denied or suppressed that is calling for insight and resolution?
When embraced limbo is incredibly fertile. It is necessary for growth, forgiveness, and transformation. It can, if we choose, be the most important time of our years. Without limbo we tend to repeat. We unconsciously stay stuck in the name of feeling safe. But we must come to own that often suffering is bred from a false sense of what is safe. Beyond safety is the broader life that is calling to be lived. That has been calling to be lived. All year. For a decade. Perhaps even for a lifetime.
And we fill the limbo for fear of the discomfort and uncertainty. And our greatest living is in the discomfort of uncertainty.
It is in the limbo.
And so I write these words as a declaration that I am wading waist high in limbo and I am loving each and every moment of it. 2020 was beyond the definition of challenging. I saw more suffering than I have ever seen. More chaos, disruption, violence, greed, dishonesty, injustice. I also saw an energetic revelation of what needed to be seen in service of what is calling to be known. To be chosen. To be vision and embodied. We cannot heal what we do not look at and directly feel.
And I have chosen to do that.
And so, with added activity still to be accomplished I am also stealing as much limbo time as I possibly can. I am praying into a greater possibility for this arbitrary turning of a calendar page. I am seeking clarity and release. I am leaning into the limbo to see what it has to show me. I open into the uncertainty with very little sense of discomfort. For limbo has become a close and reliable friend. Liminal space, by experience, has become a comfort zone of increasing possibility. I love the limbo. And it has repeatedly shown me that it loves me.
Everything is literally in limbo.
Every possibility. All potentiality. Everything unseen that is seeking to be seen. Everything unknown that is wanting to be known. It is all there. It is all here. It is all within the now.
Limbo literally is everything.
Just wait, and then see.
Wednesday, December 16, 2020
THE BLAME GAME
The one sure way to be right about your painful life story is to blame others for it.
I have been pondering deeply what it is that I perceive to be one of the chief reasons for so much prolonged human suffering. After twenty-eight years of providing counseling and almost twenty-five years of fulltime ministering I think I have got it.
Blame.
Now, let us be real for a moment here.
We all do it.
We all think that we are experiencing discomfort and discord because of the actions, words, treatment of others. And as energetic beings that is a relative truth. People do and say unconscious things that go ouch in our energy-system. We tend to react with varying levels of recoil, payback, retaliation.
Blame.
That is not what I am pointing to. Not exactly.
The type of blame that I am speaking of is a prescription through which we see ourselves as victims to the circumstances and relationships of our lives. Now, again, in the relative there is most certainly victimization. We are all clear about that. Then there is self-inflicted victimization which is a way of showing up in life that is run by unconscious programs that we ourselves generate and perpetuate. We have strong expectations of how we are going to be treated. Those expectations are what is called in physics strange attractors. They also distort reality so that whether the expected treatment is happening or not we perceive that it is.
And then we seal the deal.
We blame.
I have watched these dynamics countless times. It creates so much unnecessary suffering. It is augmented and further perpetuated by self-sabotage. A perceptual and then behavioral set up by which the faulty core belief is sure to seem true.
For example, a core belief that I am never seen or appreciated. The prescription in the lens is strong and perceptually blinding. It becomes a manifest reality as the victim displays behaviors of not showing up or as showing up in ways that are not appreciable. Then when others react to the sabotaging behaviors they are blamed. It is their fault. They are the cause of the ensuing suffering.
Blame.
Now any of us can occasionally feel unseen or unheard or underappreciated. It does not feel good. Any of us can also not see, hear, or appreciate someone appropriately. It does happen. Yet when it is a chronic source of pain for someone than something else is going on. Something that can only be remedied by radical honesty and ruthless responsibility.
Yes. Responsibility.
The beginning of healing this chronic pain is to take responsibility for our part in our ongoing patterns. We must peel the blame off of situations and get radically honest about how we may be setting up the source of pain with our own sabotage. This all becomes possible when we realize that we are in fact the common denominator in all of our painful stories.
Ouch.
I feel compelled to share this as I know it from personal and practical experience.
I have been blessed by a few people courageous enough to tell me the truth about the patterns they saw playing out in my life. I was further blessed with the grace to not shove these truthtellers away. I listened through the wince. I looked deeply at what they were pointing to. I made a long list of situations and scenarios in which I was hurt and diminished. And I was indeed the common denominator. I saw how I had sabotaged situations so that the painful core belief through which I was seeing life would remain true. I saw how even when people tried to acknowledge and uplift me, I would not let it in. It would have been contrary to the story I was living out.
This was some painful self-truth telling for sure. It was not, however, as painful as continuing to live in the world of pain, blame, and sabotage. That had been a life of self-aversion and suffering. And I came to know that most of it was self-inflicted.
The only winner in the blame game is the painful self-story.
If you suspect you may be playing this blame game, I invite you to do a deep dive into the painful scenarios you see as other-inflicted. Make a list. Check it twice. Find the common denominator. Look closely for how you set yourself up by sabotaging and showing up in ways that support the damning story lines.
And then decide if you are willing to own your part, stop blaming, take responsibility, and to become free. You may not believe me, but it is a decision.
When you stop the blaming liberation is just around the corner.
You may well need to go through emotional withdrawal from the lack of habitual torment. It is chemical. It will be uncomfortable and unfamiliar. That is incredibly good news. It means something new is opening within you. It means that opening is a place where you can choose to own your experience. Self-referral is becoming available. Your back is getting stronger and your heart is getting softer.
There really is no prize and no winner in the blame game. It feels momentarily good to project out the internal pain. But putting pain out there puts it out of reach for healing. Healing can only happen in here.
Be brave. Let go the grip on blame. The impulse will still arise. It does for me. I just do not give into it very often anymore. People will still treat you unskillfully. There will still be opportunities for ouch. They just do not need to be used as evidence supporting a self-diminishing story. They instead are evidence that you have dropped the blame and stopped the painful game.
Cease the blame. Stop the sabotage. Just watch how much freer and lighter you become. It is certainly a game worth winning.
I have been pondering deeply what it is that I perceive to be one of the chief reasons for so much prolonged human suffering. After twenty-eight years of providing counseling and almost twenty-five years of fulltime ministering I think I have got it.
Blame.
Now, let us be real for a moment here.
We all do it.
We all think that we are experiencing discomfort and discord because of the actions, words, treatment of others. And as energetic beings that is a relative truth. People do and say unconscious things that go ouch in our energy-system. We tend to react with varying levels of recoil, payback, retaliation.
Blame.
That is not what I am pointing to. Not exactly.
The type of blame that I am speaking of is a prescription through which we see ourselves as victims to the circumstances and relationships of our lives. Now, again, in the relative there is most certainly victimization. We are all clear about that. Then there is self-inflicted victimization which is a way of showing up in life that is run by unconscious programs that we ourselves generate and perpetuate. We have strong expectations of how we are going to be treated. Those expectations are what is called in physics strange attractors. They also distort reality so that whether the expected treatment is happening or not we perceive that it is.
And then we seal the deal.
We blame.
I have watched these dynamics countless times. It creates so much unnecessary suffering. It is augmented and further perpetuated by self-sabotage. A perceptual and then behavioral set up by which the faulty core belief is sure to seem true.
For example, a core belief that I am never seen or appreciated. The prescription in the lens is strong and perceptually blinding. It becomes a manifest reality as the victim displays behaviors of not showing up or as showing up in ways that are not appreciable. Then when others react to the sabotaging behaviors they are blamed. It is their fault. They are the cause of the ensuing suffering.
Blame.
Now any of us can occasionally feel unseen or unheard or underappreciated. It does not feel good. Any of us can also not see, hear, or appreciate someone appropriately. It does happen. Yet when it is a chronic source of pain for someone than something else is going on. Something that can only be remedied by radical honesty and ruthless responsibility.
Yes. Responsibility.
The beginning of healing this chronic pain is to take responsibility for our part in our ongoing patterns. We must peel the blame off of situations and get radically honest about how we may be setting up the source of pain with our own sabotage. This all becomes possible when we realize that we are in fact the common denominator in all of our painful stories.
Ouch.
I feel compelled to share this as I know it from personal and practical experience.
I have been blessed by a few people courageous enough to tell me the truth about the patterns they saw playing out in my life. I was further blessed with the grace to not shove these truthtellers away. I listened through the wince. I looked deeply at what they were pointing to. I made a long list of situations and scenarios in which I was hurt and diminished. And I was indeed the common denominator. I saw how I had sabotaged situations so that the painful core belief through which I was seeing life would remain true. I saw how even when people tried to acknowledge and uplift me, I would not let it in. It would have been contrary to the story I was living out.
This was some painful self-truth telling for sure. It was not, however, as painful as continuing to live in the world of pain, blame, and sabotage. That had been a life of self-aversion and suffering. And I came to know that most of it was self-inflicted.
The only winner in the blame game is the painful self-story.
If you suspect you may be playing this blame game, I invite you to do a deep dive into the painful scenarios you see as other-inflicted. Make a list. Check it twice. Find the common denominator. Look closely for how you set yourself up by sabotaging and showing up in ways that support the damning story lines.
And then decide if you are willing to own your part, stop blaming, take responsibility, and to become free. You may not believe me, but it is a decision.
When you stop the blaming liberation is just around the corner.
You may well need to go through emotional withdrawal from the lack of habitual torment. It is chemical. It will be uncomfortable and unfamiliar. That is incredibly good news. It means something new is opening within you. It means that opening is a place where you can choose to own your experience. Self-referral is becoming available. Your back is getting stronger and your heart is getting softer.
There really is no prize and no winner in the blame game. It feels momentarily good to project out the internal pain. But putting pain out there puts it out of reach for healing. Healing can only happen in here.
Be brave. Let go the grip on blame. The impulse will still arise. It does for me. I just do not give into it very often anymore. People will still treat you unskillfully. There will still be opportunities for ouch. They just do not need to be used as evidence supporting a self-diminishing story. They instead are evidence that you have dropped the blame and stopped the painful game.
Cease the blame. Stop the sabotage. Just watch how much freer and lighter you become. It is certainly a game worth winning.
Wednesday, December 9, 2020
POSTCARDS FROM A PANDEMIC
This has undoubtedly been the oddest year of my entire life.
And this has been the most revelatory year of my entire life.
I am not alone in that. Yet it is only from my personal perspective that I can comment on what 2020 has truly been like. I was pondering this morning what it would be like if I could send postcards to someone who knew nothing of this Covid-19 experience. What would I say? How would I begin to describe the seemingly endless waves I have surfed inside of my own interior? How could I capture in words what it is like to stay mostly locked inside of your home, watching incredible levels of disturbance, disease, death, and despair all around you? Could anyone outside of this current dilemma understand my reporting that in order to go anywhere you need to wear a protective face mask, keep a several feet distance from other human beings, and repeatedly wash and sanitize your hands? How would they comprehend the notion that the primary way of connection and intimacy is occurring on a screen we call Zoom?
Wouldn’t the recipient concur that this is indeed the oddest year of my life, or of any life?
Would they think me mad? Would they suspect that I had been kidnapped by aliens and whisked off to a planet governed by science fiction and distorted fantasy?
What if I were to elaborate that the reality behind the masks and distancing and sanitizing were for the protection of myself and others? And that a goodly portion of individuals were refusing to follow the measures that were put in place to protect humanity? That countless lives were ending due to the lack of simple compliance and cooperation.
Would they believe me?
I still have trouble believing it all. And yet it goes on and on and on.
So, if I were to send myself postcards from a pandemic what would I say?
Dear Self: This is sure not how I thought I would spend 2020. I had such a feeling of potential and possibility when this new decade was beginning. I had vision. Inspired vision. As the years of my life roll by, I am increasingly cognizant that a new decade could be my final decade. I approached 2020 with enthusiasm and zeal. I asked that I be guided into the highest vision for myself and for the world. Wow. This sure was not what I thought I would see. And yet, I know I am seeing exactly what I need to see in order that a higher reality may be birthed within me. Even if it proves to be my final decade, I will be rebirthing myself day after day, for the duration. So self, I am having one hell of a ride here in 2020!
Dear Self: You would not believe how clarifying and prioritizing living through a pandemic can be! What I once thought was important has lost almost all of its luster. What pre-pandemic seemed almost meaningless has claimed centerstage within my being. Now that travel consists of heading only to my backyard the vistas, sights, sounds, simplicity is beyond what I could describe! Every leaf, bird, blossom, cloud appear as masterpieces in an ever-evolving wonderland of magnificent creation. To think that there were times I took this for granted! To think that I saw it only as a backyard that needed to be kept and most often ignored. Such magic! The moon plays peek-a-boo, and the clouds tease me with endless shapeshifting. The mockingbirds scoff when I fall into seriousness, and the butterflies wake me from the delusion that isolation results in loss. My God is a God of grandeur, and it is all right here beckoning me to join in. Where else need I go?
Dear Self: I have long suspected that prayer, meditation, contemplation of the sacred are the greatest joys in my life. This time apart has confirmed and solidified that priority. It is my passion. It is my central purpose. It is my reason for being. It is my contribution. It is what I am called to gift life with during this strange time of distancing and isolation. It is the context from which I spend my pandemic days. I know now that the Truth of Oneness is no mere concept. It is Reality. All is One. All has always been One. This is a time when that Truth is seeking realization, actualization. It is happening within me. Not theoretical. Actual. Intimate. All is One is my opportunity to pray and to stream grace, blessing with all other living beings. My quality of attending is why I am here at this time. We IS One, and so my presence impacts all that is. Knowing this, my days and nights are more meaningful, purposeful than ever before. 2020 has brought into being what I always sought to become. Imperfectly, admittedly. Yet relentlessly becoming. Radically focused. Undeterred by error. My conviction leads me to start again and again.
Dear Self: How could I have ever suspected that it would take medically enforced disconnection to teach me what deep connection is really all about? I have said my final goodbyes to several who did not survive the pandemic from which I write postcards. Indeed., my dearest, best friend did not survive this pandemic, How could I possibly report about that? Let me say to the self that I am writing to; love like you have never loved before! Risk it all. Open despite the fear. Take off the armor. Stripe away the defenses. Drop the dramas, the offences. Every interaction could be the last interaction. The words I speak could be the final words. The postcard I write could be the final missive. Humanity is running out of time. Decide how and with whom and at what level you will connect because ultimately connection is not an option. We are all, always connected. It is what we do with it that is variable. It is while we are apart that we can alter how we will come back together. There is one shared humanity. We are always contributing something to it. I am choosing to contribute love. This pandemic has taught me that I am here to contribute love at deeper and deeper levels.
And perhaps that is the only postcard from a pandemic that I need to write. That I need to send to myself.
Love.
This has undoubtedly been the oddest and most revelatory year of my life.
If I could send myself a postcard from this pandemic I would say, Dear Self: Love. Love now. Love yourself. Love the other. Love all of creation. And love every moment while you are still here.
Love.
And if perchance I forget to apply the postage on these postcards from a pandemic, a return to sender will still direct the messages to their intended recipient.
Me.
Oh, I forgot to sign.
Love, me.
And this has been the most revelatory year of my entire life.
I am not alone in that. Yet it is only from my personal perspective that I can comment on what 2020 has truly been like. I was pondering this morning what it would be like if I could send postcards to someone who knew nothing of this Covid-19 experience. What would I say? How would I begin to describe the seemingly endless waves I have surfed inside of my own interior? How could I capture in words what it is like to stay mostly locked inside of your home, watching incredible levels of disturbance, disease, death, and despair all around you? Could anyone outside of this current dilemma understand my reporting that in order to go anywhere you need to wear a protective face mask, keep a several feet distance from other human beings, and repeatedly wash and sanitize your hands? How would they comprehend the notion that the primary way of connection and intimacy is occurring on a screen we call Zoom?
Wouldn’t the recipient concur that this is indeed the oddest year of my life, or of any life?
Would they think me mad? Would they suspect that I had been kidnapped by aliens and whisked off to a planet governed by science fiction and distorted fantasy?
What if I were to elaborate that the reality behind the masks and distancing and sanitizing were for the protection of myself and others? And that a goodly portion of individuals were refusing to follow the measures that were put in place to protect humanity? That countless lives were ending due to the lack of simple compliance and cooperation.
Would they believe me?
I still have trouble believing it all. And yet it goes on and on and on.
So, if I were to send myself postcards from a pandemic what would I say?
Dear Self: This is sure not how I thought I would spend 2020. I had such a feeling of potential and possibility when this new decade was beginning. I had vision. Inspired vision. As the years of my life roll by, I am increasingly cognizant that a new decade could be my final decade. I approached 2020 with enthusiasm and zeal. I asked that I be guided into the highest vision for myself and for the world. Wow. This sure was not what I thought I would see. And yet, I know I am seeing exactly what I need to see in order that a higher reality may be birthed within me. Even if it proves to be my final decade, I will be rebirthing myself day after day, for the duration. So self, I am having one hell of a ride here in 2020!
Dear Self: You would not believe how clarifying and prioritizing living through a pandemic can be! What I once thought was important has lost almost all of its luster. What pre-pandemic seemed almost meaningless has claimed centerstage within my being. Now that travel consists of heading only to my backyard the vistas, sights, sounds, simplicity is beyond what I could describe! Every leaf, bird, blossom, cloud appear as masterpieces in an ever-evolving wonderland of magnificent creation. To think that there were times I took this for granted! To think that I saw it only as a backyard that needed to be kept and most often ignored. Such magic! The moon plays peek-a-boo, and the clouds tease me with endless shapeshifting. The mockingbirds scoff when I fall into seriousness, and the butterflies wake me from the delusion that isolation results in loss. My God is a God of grandeur, and it is all right here beckoning me to join in. Where else need I go?
Dear Self: I have long suspected that prayer, meditation, contemplation of the sacred are the greatest joys in my life. This time apart has confirmed and solidified that priority. It is my passion. It is my central purpose. It is my reason for being. It is my contribution. It is what I am called to gift life with during this strange time of distancing and isolation. It is the context from which I spend my pandemic days. I know now that the Truth of Oneness is no mere concept. It is Reality. All is One. All has always been One. This is a time when that Truth is seeking realization, actualization. It is happening within me. Not theoretical. Actual. Intimate. All is One is my opportunity to pray and to stream grace, blessing with all other living beings. My quality of attending is why I am here at this time. We IS One, and so my presence impacts all that is. Knowing this, my days and nights are more meaningful, purposeful than ever before. 2020 has brought into being what I always sought to become. Imperfectly, admittedly. Yet relentlessly becoming. Radically focused. Undeterred by error. My conviction leads me to start again and again.
Dear Self: How could I have ever suspected that it would take medically enforced disconnection to teach me what deep connection is really all about? I have said my final goodbyes to several who did not survive the pandemic from which I write postcards. Indeed., my dearest, best friend did not survive this pandemic, How could I possibly report about that? Let me say to the self that I am writing to; love like you have never loved before! Risk it all. Open despite the fear. Take off the armor. Stripe away the defenses. Drop the dramas, the offences. Every interaction could be the last interaction. The words I speak could be the final words. The postcard I write could be the final missive. Humanity is running out of time. Decide how and with whom and at what level you will connect because ultimately connection is not an option. We are all, always connected. It is what we do with it that is variable. It is while we are apart that we can alter how we will come back together. There is one shared humanity. We are always contributing something to it. I am choosing to contribute love. This pandemic has taught me that I am here to contribute love at deeper and deeper levels.
And perhaps that is the only postcard from a pandemic that I need to write. That I need to send to myself.
Love.
This has undoubtedly been the oddest and most revelatory year of my life.
If I could send myself a postcard from this pandemic I would say, Dear Self: Love. Love now. Love yourself. Love the other. Love all of creation. And love every moment while you are still here.
Love.
And if perchance I forget to apply the postage on these postcards from a pandemic, a return to sender will still direct the messages to their intended recipient.
Me.
Oh, I forgot to sign.
Love, me.
Thursday, December 3, 2020
META ME
There is always something greater than just me.
It is that knowing that finally set me free.
I have spent most of this time of pandemic distancing becoming clear about the power of conscious connection. Mine has always been a path of introversion and autonomy. One of my primary lessons to learn in this lifetime is to be self-determining. As a child this capacity was not cultivated or encouraged. In fact, it was punished. Though there was always a strong streak of independence inside of me that capacity was beaten down every time it arose. I am long past being a victim to this relative annihilation. I deeply know that it was and is a necessary part of my Soul-emergence. This broader perspective contributed to my sense that something greater was always happening as the context of my life.
In mid-March it was determined that the Unity congregation I am blessed to lead could no longer safely or responsibly continue to meet in person. I knew, and I knew that I knew, that the macro-pandemic and the micro-response were and are in service of something greater than just the surface appearances. And so, I immediately began to explore what that would mean for my internal experience and my external expression.
There is always something greater than just me.
I instinctually knew that this effectual pandemic was the revelation of something collective and causal. It was and is the outpicturing of something that we all need to see. While I believe this to be cosmic in scope there is only one place that I can effect any contributory change: inside of me. And so, I began that exploration as soon as distancing began. I started immediately to apply my life-long lessons of self-determination and autonomy to how I would show up during this time. I became more and more committed to being an awakened change-agent for whatever the duration of this distressing time would be.
Wow.
Months later I am still in the process of applying and reapplying the lessons. I have done deep dives into my own consciousness to see what I need to uncover and forgive. Though I have worked fulltime throughout I have also spent swaths of time asking Truth what it is I need to see in me that might prove to be liberating to the whole. This has been especially true in terms of relationships. I have been vitally invested in seeing how my ways of relating have been contagious in detrimental ways. I have sought to heal the ways in which my autonomy has not allowed for a deeper intimacy. I have explored the ways in which my self-determination has not been inclusive of the whole.
In short, I have become clearer and cleared that there is always something greater than just me.
And I am in fact responsible to that something greater.
This pandemic has global reach and consequences. There have been suggestions, invitations, and even mandates about how we could respond to lessen the effects of what is globally viral. It is a shared experience, though at varying levels of effect. There are places in the world that have policed the mandates. There are places in the world, the USA as an example, that have been far less rigid in its approach.
We are seeing the consequences of these distinct and disparate approaches.
The land of the free is not always the home of the brave.
I have never been clearer that my choices have consequences for more than just me. I am a part of the whole of humanity, and the whole of all living beings. Every single choice I make, conscious or unconscious, affects the whole. This is not conceptual for me. I have made decisions from it. I have applied it in very practical ways. I have based my Covid experience on the fact that my choices are contagious. That if I risk my health based on my choices it will impact others. Not it may impact others. It will.
I am in relationship with the whole. And I am responsible to that relationship.
I honestly believe that relationship-responsibility is one of the lessons we are collectively meant to learn from this pandemic experience. We ultimately cannot choose that we are connected. We can only choose how we connect. If we connect is only relative. We are inextricably bound by virtue of our connection. I can ignore you, yet I remain atone with you. That can be an excruciating lesson to learn. It most often is.
I distance because I am atone with you. I distance to remain in service to you. I distance because I know I am contagious, in consciousness and in physicality. I distance because I am responsible for and to our connection. If I claim relationship to you then I am accountable to my choices. And I choose to be in relationship with you.
There is always something greater than just me.
That something greater is we.
The meta-me is the connected we. How I show up during this time is my contribution to the whole. I am autonomous, and I am atone. I am self-determining, and I use that to make decisions that benefit all.
There is something greater than just me. The something greater is we.
Knowing this has set me free.
It is that knowing that finally set me free.
I have spent most of this time of pandemic distancing becoming clear about the power of conscious connection. Mine has always been a path of introversion and autonomy. One of my primary lessons to learn in this lifetime is to be self-determining. As a child this capacity was not cultivated or encouraged. In fact, it was punished. Though there was always a strong streak of independence inside of me that capacity was beaten down every time it arose. I am long past being a victim to this relative annihilation. I deeply know that it was and is a necessary part of my Soul-emergence. This broader perspective contributed to my sense that something greater was always happening as the context of my life.
In mid-March it was determined that the Unity congregation I am blessed to lead could no longer safely or responsibly continue to meet in person. I knew, and I knew that I knew, that the macro-pandemic and the micro-response were and are in service of something greater than just the surface appearances. And so, I immediately began to explore what that would mean for my internal experience and my external expression.
There is always something greater than just me.
I instinctually knew that this effectual pandemic was the revelation of something collective and causal. It was and is the outpicturing of something that we all need to see. While I believe this to be cosmic in scope there is only one place that I can effect any contributory change: inside of me. And so, I began that exploration as soon as distancing began. I started immediately to apply my life-long lessons of self-determination and autonomy to how I would show up during this time. I became more and more committed to being an awakened change-agent for whatever the duration of this distressing time would be.
Wow.
Months later I am still in the process of applying and reapplying the lessons. I have done deep dives into my own consciousness to see what I need to uncover and forgive. Though I have worked fulltime throughout I have also spent swaths of time asking Truth what it is I need to see in me that might prove to be liberating to the whole. This has been especially true in terms of relationships. I have been vitally invested in seeing how my ways of relating have been contagious in detrimental ways. I have sought to heal the ways in which my autonomy has not allowed for a deeper intimacy. I have explored the ways in which my self-determination has not been inclusive of the whole.
In short, I have become clearer and cleared that there is always something greater than just me.
And I am in fact responsible to that something greater.
This pandemic has global reach and consequences. There have been suggestions, invitations, and even mandates about how we could respond to lessen the effects of what is globally viral. It is a shared experience, though at varying levels of effect. There are places in the world that have policed the mandates. There are places in the world, the USA as an example, that have been far less rigid in its approach.
We are seeing the consequences of these distinct and disparate approaches.
The land of the free is not always the home of the brave.
I have never been clearer that my choices have consequences for more than just me. I am a part of the whole of humanity, and the whole of all living beings. Every single choice I make, conscious or unconscious, affects the whole. This is not conceptual for me. I have made decisions from it. I have applied it in very practical ways. I have based my Covid experience on the fact that my choices are contagious. That if I risk my health based on my choices it will impact others. Not it may impact others. It will.
I am in relationship with the whole. And I am responsible to that relationship.
I honestly believe that relationship-responsibility is one of the lessons we are collectively meant to learn from this pandemic experience. We ultimately cannot choose that we are connected. We can only choose how we connect. If we connect is only relative. We are inextricably bound by virtue of our connection. I can ignore you, yet I remain atone with you. That can be an excruciating lesson to learn. It most often is.
I distance because I am atone with you. I distance to remain in service to you. I distance because I know I am contagious, in consciousness and in physicality. I distance because I am responsible for and to our connection. If I claim relationship to you then I am accountable to my choices. And I choose to be in relationship with you.
There is always something greater than just me.
That something greater is we.
The meta-me is the connected we. How I show up during this time is my contribution to the whole. I am autonomous, and I am atone. I am self-determining, and I use that to make decisions that benefit all.
There is something greater than just me. The something greater is we.
Knowing this has set me free.
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