Tag: love

Year of Abundance Project Revisited; Embodied Abundance

/ Lanae / Leave a comment Featured

Time to revisit my Abundance Project, for a review of what has (or hasn’t) been going on with it the last few months!

I clearly haven’t been doing a monthly review for each month’s theme/actions. And it’s not that the project itself went by the wayside, because it didn’t, although it has taken a vastly different form than I could’ve envisioned when I crafted it. Some aspects and actions just haven’t been possible (such as June with its Social focus and all the gathering/neighborhood ideas I had!) and a certain depletion or narrowing of creative energy coupled with intense work/therapy focus meant I didn’t always come up with anything much clever to fill the gap either.

Some of the monthly themes took on such an ironic feel in their timing, considering quarantine. April – Parenting? May – Family? A fitting focus for each of those months! Little of it looked in action as it had on paper, for sure, but was determined by the needs of the moment and the needs of the moment shaped the responses. Though sometimes I felt as though I were floundering and failing, somehow it all managed to be ‘good enough’ … and sometimes, that’s what abundance looks like in weird, rough times, giving yourself and others the grace of ‘good enough’.

Yet, though the forms morphed into something so unexpected, to have the abundance framework has helped hold me up somehow – hold me up in hope, remind me of love and joy and passion (which was this month’s theme focus, Play/Passion), and remember it’s not only okay but vital in times like these to nourish our joy, to find wonder, to be playful.

I suppose one reason I felt hesitant, as if it were inappropriate to write of abundance in such of time of upheaval and uncertainty, distress and despair, when it’s so apparent so many don’t have the same chances to participate in and know abundance, and when so many other topics urgently needed attending, voicing, and engaging. To me, for a while it felt that writing anything about an abundance project seemed out of tune, that it would be misattuned and disharmonious (and attending to attunement is a key part of my deep meaning of lived integrity, my 2020 word). Whether or not that seems like an accurate interpretation of the situation and energy to others, it was something I felt moved to be respectful of and intentional about in whatever I did offer or share.

And, goodness, how is ‘abundance’ supposed to look right now? How is my abundance, your abundance supposed to look? Or perhaps more accurately, how does it and how can it look? Beyond that, how does abundance look for those grieving loss and injustice, for those suffering oppression, for those laboring for liberation right now?

How to define, refine abundance right now? How is the year 2020 a year of abundance; what abundance can be drawn from all this year has brought, broken down, cracked wide open, thrown wildly to the winds, swamped us and our world with? Those are questions that perhaps can’t be answered yet, perhaps the answers are still buried, hidden, unfolding, perhaps some answers are vividly, defiantly, beautifully present in the challenge, pain, and grief.

One thing I know – abundance itself remains as real and present, as valid and vital as ever it was. The experience of abundance, the ability to access and know and choose abundance in its many forms, a right all deserve. Abundance in the form of moments of awe and wonder, nature’s healing gifts (such as blue butterflies I saw on my recent solitary retreat). Abundance in the many forms of hope and grace, love and liberation, joy and justice, liberty and equity, solidarity and empathy, honesty and healing, humility and truth, community and collaboration, rest and restoration …

I’ve been learning of embodied activism (being connected and present in mind, spirit, and body in social justice and advocacy action, in racial justice work, and antiracism practice – and this makes perfect sense to me as a therapist and yoga teacher, considering we experience life in bodies, our bodies carry our memories and traumas, and so the work of justice and healing needs to happen intentionally through and in our bodies to be a whole work). But considering the many forms of abundance makes me think of embodied abundance … embodying abundance. Abundance present and embodied in nature, in us, in our relationships with ourselves/our bodies and in our relationships with others. Us learning to be present in our bodies and our world, to be embodied, and to embody abundance for one another in all those beautiful qualities of being and serving and advocating listed above.

So, perhaps this points to an answer to some of the questions above …

abundance can look like and be
hope and grace embodied,
love and liberation embodied,
joy and justice embodied,
liberty and equity embodied,
solidarity and empathy embodied,
honesty and healing embodied,
humility and truth embodied,
community and collaboration embodied,
rest and restoration embodied!

Anniversary and rebirth

/ Lanae / Leave a comment Featured

We human beings  have a pattern of limning our lives, our stories, with anniversary. Rituals of return and remembrance and reflection – meaning molded by and told in the language of time,  beginnings, endings, transitions, journeys, seasons and spirals, cycles and circles,  birth and death and rebirth. And anniversary seems to be an idea that encompasses and embraces all of that meaning-making and feeling.

Anniversaries are powerful and meaningful memorials.

And so it is for me. I learned a lot about anniversaries, about how they mark grief and joy and loss and invite reflection on awakening and change, in the last year.

May 23rd marked the first anniversary of my (our) divorce. Anniversary usually brings to mind wedding days, yes, not divorce days … but anniversary can mark any day of significance. And this day is significant of a new era in my life, clearly demarcated new boundaries and the erasing of other boundaries.

Many things I haven’t shared – my sense has been that it was best to cover them with grace, and so it remains. And too, it wasn’t all only my story – this marriage and this divorce and all the attendant anniversaries and meanings and feelings, were a shared experience. Windows and mirrors into my own heart and wounds and flaws – I can choose that for myself, but (when) have I the liberty to choose it for another? Liberty only within boundaries of grace.

But this memory feels right to share …

May 23rd one year ago was a cloudy day – and a coldly formal, somber courtroom too, the air itself seeming as gray as the day outside. After the long wait between the filing and the crisp, detached pronouncement from the judge, the fifteen minutes of the hearing seemed abrupt and anticlimactic. A few words was all it took …

But isn’t that the way it has often been, a few words – so many of our social structures, our plans, our hopes, our feelings, our relationships, made of stories, and all it takes is a few words to create or uncreate or recreate the story, to weave or unweave or reweave the meanings.

But you know, it isn’t words that are most memorable from that day. It isn’t words. It’s the man who wiped tears from his eyes when I answered ‘yes’ to the question of whether I believed the marriage was irretrievably broken, and when the judge pronounced the marriage dissolved … From I pronounce you man and wife to  I pronounce you no longer man and wife …

The judge’s words weren’t the hard thing though there was something surreal present. In my heart was peace but with the peace the pang of pain for the open pain of the man at the other courtroom table – the one who was now my ex-husband.

Later, someone texted me – congratulations … I think? And no, the last thing I felt was celebratory. I felt solemn, a deep sigh cleaving the marrow of my soul. It was a funeral moment, not a party moment. A time of death, death of marriage – or the official time of death, anyway. Death – and yes, a beginning.

I walked down the courthouse steps, feeling freshly, vulnerably born into a wholly different life, same feet but a different path, taking steps into the mist of a brave new world, unknown waters to navigate. Like inhabiting new skin, a new way of being in my skin, uncharted self to learn …

One year on, I’ve navigated those waters, inhabited that new skin, learned more about that uncharted self. It’s been a powerful, beautiful, confounding, challenging year … both glorious and inglorious, messy and marvelous.

I’m grateful for the grace between my ex-husband and I, the spirit that makes it possible for us to co-parent in peace. That we can make decisions together for the kids, that we can share meals and holidays, like Thanksgiving and Christmas, together. That we can do acts of kindness and service for another. That we can share friendly conversation, communicate and compromise. That the kids have this witness and this security. It’s like a transformed relationship, love in a different form – and perhaps a healthier, more right form for us!

And for me, a love informed by respectful compassion, informed by the indelible image and understanding left imprinted on my soul from that courtroom.

And my relationship with myself is continuously new, perhaps more informed than ever by that same compassion and respect – although I have certainly struggled with grace and patience with myself and my singlehood/sole financial responsibility/work-life-school-parenting-community involvement balance/efficient time management (yes, that’s a mouthful, and yes, I am busier and wear more hats than I ever fathomed I would) learning curve! But you know what? I am a perseverer and a persister … and I’ve persevered and persisted, and learned my power.

Oh, I’ve learned my power … and I’ve become more comfortable with my power. Comfortable wearing it, comfortable with it as my new skin, part of my new natural self and way of being in this world, in my life as it is now. I’ve gained a pride – (hopefully) not ego-pride, but the pride of confident authenticity, bold assertiveness, mindful acceptance of gifts graced to me by Spirit, and a deeper willingness to be evermore generous in my service and presence.

And as for the uncharted self? That new way of being in my skin, exploring new ways of being, throwing off old ways of being like graveclothes, shifting, evolving, moving beyond fixed forms of identity or sexuality or gender conceptualization. (These stories are for another time perhaps – but a simple clarification is, I no longer use the word gay to describe my sexuality, but queer – because its wide meaning encompasses much more of the nuances and texture of my sexuality and the undefinable fluidity I am increasingly comfortable with).

First redefining, then undefining, flowing toward being comfortable with no longer needing so many definitions, but being awake with my own is-ness as it is in whatever moment.  Being less attached, whether that is to ideas, self-definitions, life plans, or relationships.

It’s such a human thing to need and want definition and naming in order to apply meaning and understanding – and uncharted, uncomfortable territory to move beyond that, where Love itself is the meaning and the truth and the way.

But for now, on this anniversary of my divorce,  I celebrate rebirth and awakening and remember with respect the death that first had to be.

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As has been my habit, this post was long … But change is coming! My plan move toward shorter reflections or seed-thought pieces, more in line with what I actually have time to produce/post in this season of life – and maybe I could post more often than every 3 months or so 😉

My hope is simplification and revival!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Awake

/ Lanae / Leave a comment Featured

Every year, my church holds an Easter vigil, beginning on Good Friday evening and extending through Easter Sunday morning. I’ve discovered I quite love the midnight to 4 a.m. hours – how quiet the church is at those hours! The little chapel area becomes a place set apart in space and time, with darkness and stillness of the night draped around …. a cocoon of calm.

I feel a fondness for that chapel – it has often been a retreat place for me, even in the midst of busy days, to come and find a bit of respite, to re-center. Not only to pray or meditate, but to think, to write, even to engage in an activity as mundane (and non-sacred seeming!) as work documentation – or to play the piano (which is one way I re-center). For me, it is a ‘thin place’ – places infused with the sense of the sacred, places that offer an invitation into reverence and renewal, places where the veil that often lies between everyday existence and Ultimate reality lifts or even dissolves …

The saying ‘thin place’ comes from Celtic wisdom tradition, where it is said that heaven and earth are only three feet apart, but in thin places that distance narrows. The boundaries between heaven and earth collapse, dissolve … or, perhaps more accurately, our sense of those boundaries collapses, dissolves. Our perceptions change, deepen – or we see beyond our usual perceptions, see beyond our illusions …

It seems to me that not only are there ‘thin places’, there are ‘thin people’ (no, I don’t mean physically thin!), ‘thin friendships’ – people and relationships that are like spiritual conduits, that help us come closer to the sacred, that invite us to go deeper in our spiritual journeys, that support and enrich, challenge and teach us.

And … ‘thin times’. Those midnight hours seem like ‘thin times’ to me … hours where I can let go of time, hours that become timeless, because the rush of the world is stilled. Hours where the sacred feels wide open to me and I feel wide open to it, hours where the boundaries and barriers fall away, and this world/Ultimate reality blend together. (Not that they don’t anyway, but there are times and places it’s more discernable or we’re more open and prepared to discern it).

So the midnight vigil hours in the chapel are the profoundly holy convergence of a ‘thin time’ with a ‘thin place’!

For my vigil time, I brought along with me my old ‘spiritual journal’ (which has received little attention from my pen for a long time) in case the Spirit brought me words. And as I played the piano, words indeed came … “May we not be afraid to be awake … May I not be afraid to be awake”

I have always loved the times when I sat down to write and the words wrote themselves … coming to my hand not from my mind but from somewhere deeper, from the soul, and coming into my soul from a yet deeper Source.

I share these words here just as they came to me then at 4 a.m., without revision, these words that are truly not mine. And whatever they might mean to you is yours!

May we not be afraid to be awake

                awake to ourselves, our pain, our need

                awake to one another

                awake to our own suffering

                             to others’ suffering

May we not be afraid to be awake

                to see the crosses that are present

                                                                in the world

                            the crosses of suffering

                            the crosses of injustice

May we not be afraid to see

                to see the crosses we bear

                the crosses others bear

                the crosses we have given others to bear

May we not be afraid to take

                to take up our crosses and walk

                to take away our crosses and walk

                to take away the crosses of injustice

                                           the crosses we have given others

                take away these crosses so that others

                                           may walk

                              We may walk together

May we not be afraid to see the suffering

                to be with the suffering

                to be awake to the suffering

                                            to be there

                                            present

                                            awake

                                            seeing

May we not be afraid to feel

                to feel the pain

                                our own pain

                to feel the pain

                                our neighbors often feel

                the pain of their crosses

May we not be afraid to be

                to be there

                to be with ourselves in our own Gethsemane

                to be with others in their Gethsemane

 

May we not be afraid to bear a cross of love

 

May we not be afraid

                to be there

                where there are crosses

May we not be afraid to be love

                where there are crosses

So that only love, only Love

                may be where there have been crosses

It’s so powerfully real to me that we must be willing to be with the pain, our own and others, in order to move through it and heal the suffering.

This thought, I think, has broad applicability, across many personal situations and relationships, across many societal issues.

Do we want healing? Justice? If so, are we invested in what the process means?

Because it does mean being willing to be awake, wide awake, to the pain of others – to say, the grief from relationship loss, the distress of poverty, the pain from accumulated wounds of racial injustices – before we can begin to understand better the suffering others have endured. To not be afraid to be feel the pain and discomfort that the awakening of deeper understanding and compassion can bring. To not be afraid to feel, to see, to be – to be humble, to be love.

To be wide awake to the pain, suffering, brokenness in the world is also to be wide awake to Love, to belovedness. Love is also in the world … but Love needs us to be awake to it so that we can embody it in the world.

May we not be afraid to be awake, to be wide awake in love to Love!

On becoming forty: Surrendered vows, divergent paths, transformed topography

/ Lanae / 2 Comments Featured

Sometime ago, in my wayback files, I found a forgotten collection of poems from my late twenties.

Seventy-seven glimpses into who I was at 29, windows and mirrors in time. Early days of motherhood, word snapshots of my first son as a baby, the changing seasons, world events, prayers, dreams, life lessons, my heart and soul.

And then, this poem. Reading it from the vantage point of 40 now felt so strikingly poignant and invited reflection… since the journey between 29 and 40 unfolded in ways unforeseen and unfathomed by 29-year-old me!

Becoming twenty-nine

And now –
I am twenty-nine
forty seems closer
more real
than it did at twenty
at fifteen
At fifteen –
I imagined twenty-four
but I think I could not
stretch my imagination more
and think of myself
who I would be beyond
Twenty-four came, twenty-four went
every year since
as though journeying into
a realm unimagined
And it seems to me
my true youth has fled
not that I feel old
but here – at this juncture of time
the limitless, or the illusion,
of limitless possibilities
has narrowed to a single road –
not even one I ever dreamed
I would walk down –
(the aisle as bride)
The future lies ahead now
with the simple choice
of living with the choices
that have closed doors
and opened but one –
ah, but let’s see how far the road
beyond it will go
and what waits along the way

Oh, what waited along the way!

That single straight road became a spiraling one with several forks in it, surprising crossroads where divergent paths met … and many new doors opened onto new paths, views, opportunities, possibilities.

Years before, I thought my life had narrowed to a single road and my path was set only to find myself drawn down an unexpected path.

Since I had felt moved to be in ministry work at 15, I had envisioned my life spent in that calling, a lifetime vow. But Spirit taught me to surrender that vision and vow … and at the time, it was painful to surrender what seemed my truest calling.

I had never dreamed I would walk down the aisle as a bride – no, I hadn’t.  Marriage hadn’t seemed a calling meant for me. But, much to my surprise, Spirit led me there, so I believed that’s where I would stay, always.

I never dreamed I would reverse that walk down the aisle; love bid me stay. But Spirit led me there, too; love bid me go.

And the profession vows I made in the fellowship I grew up in, I only thought then but what those would be for life. I dared not think otherwise … “My vows I have made, I cannot now go back.” I never fathomed leaving; love bid me stay. But Spirit led me there, too; love bid me go.

And never did I think I would be free to accept and embrace my sexuality, my identity, fully and openly … there I had made a vow of silence and self-denial, what seemed a necessary sacrifice (though I was sacrificing my wholeness and well-being, a costly sacrifice indeed, because it affected all those in relationship with me, too). Self-denial that requires denying the essence of who you are isn’t healthy self-denial, but soul-warping self-denial.

But Spirit showed me I was beloved and free, and that loving the essence of who I am and living the truth set me free.

My 29-year-old self believed there would always be a familiar and safe topography along the road ahead: same vows, same faith, same church, same community, same friends, same marriage.

And the same inner landscape with its long angst-y dark night of the soul that I believed would always be a constant in my spiritual and emotional topography, no matter what unfolded on the path.

But then the spiraling road brought me the gift of belovedness.

And living in this belovedness and liberty transformed my inner landscape, then the entire topography of my life, opening up paths, perspectives, possibilities divergent from the familiarity of the known and expected road.

I embarked on a coming-out path and surrendered that vow of deep silence regarding my sexuality. For the good of my soul I vowed to walk and live in wholeness and truthfulness; Spirit opened that vision and vow to me.

For a while, I thought the outward familiarity of the well-travelled road might mostly continue as it was … that I could walk that old path and keep other vows in a new way, as a whole person.

Yes, I expected significant changes. Yet somehow I didn’t see some of them unfolding how or as soon as they’ve unfolded … I didn’t wish for the whole path and all its familiar safe topography to change so much so soon.

But as I continued to make choices aligned with the truth of my sexuality and my spirituality, those divergent paths, those crossroads, kept meeting me at every turn. And at every turn, Spirit, yes, Spirit, kept directing me down the less familiar path, into places and paths of surrender.

My spiritual topography kept evolving; my path kept diverging.

I laid aside belief in any ‘one true way’ teachings and yet found the Way that transcends all religious traditions, creeds, and doctrines, and is the essence of true religion: Love, the universal thread of truth and life.

I parted with dear friends, friends I loved. Left a church community I loved. Spirit bid me leave, but love remains.

Ended a marriage that even in its trying times was precious to me …. worth all of the 13+ years. No regrets, no bitterness. All is gift. Spirit bid me leave, but love remains.

Some might question how it’s of love to surrender a marriage vow; a good question.

But what if the vows come to cause the hurt of your own soul … and surrendering them for the good of your soul?  What if keeping the vows causes the hurt of others, of their souls … and surrendering them for the highest good, for all?

Then surrendering them is love. Surrendering such vows, if it must be done, is best done in Love, because of love.

I surrendered none of these vows without intense contemplation to know its rightness or without profound grief for the accompanying losses.  Because of love.

Not only for my own losses, but also for the losses some near to me felt keenly. For just as my earlier lack of wholeness affected my relationships, following a path of wholeness affected my relationships. To some, I seemed no longer to be someone they recognized or knew; the changes I experienced as good for my soul, they didn’t.

And so I know there was loss and grief for others because of the divergent paths I followed, and I knew (I know) the pang of it in my own heart. Because of love.

So now, my path and my life landscape, inside and out, looks so different than my 29-year-old self could have fathomed, indeed!

For all I’ve lost, I’ve found much, much has found me. I’ve found my wholeness, my mind and soul, spiritual abundance, liberty, Belovedness! New spiritual communities, connections, capabilities. Rich relationships, deeper perspectives, purpose. And realized: I never left ministry, it only returned to me in a new form!

I see more clearly now: there have always been divergent paths. There has always been surrender on the journey. Love in each choice. Surrender and love always interwoven.

Such a divergent path it has been and become and will be, always! And Belovedness now the constant in the entire topography of my life and my journey, always.

So, here’s a new ending, on becoming forty, and beyond:

The future lies ahead now – no,
is Now
with the simple choice
of living with the choices
that have closed doors
but also opened many –
A single path, yes,
but with boundless possibility
limit itself the illusion
and abundance the truth
Ah, now let’s see how far and where the road
beyond it will go
and what is present in the way
Now

Adventures in letting go, following the flow

/ Lanae / Leave a comment Featured

Today I followed the Spirit and went for a drive, to nowhere in particular for no reason other than to go for a drive. I had not planned on going for a drive, but I left the church and thought, I think I’d like to go to the park and sit by the water for a little while. So I went there and watched the sunlight dance on the water, little sparkles of sun flitting across the water as the wind rippled both water and light …

And then I decided I might sit somewhere else so the sun would be at my back, but when I stood up, I realized, Oh, I’m done here. Whatever I needed there, I had found – or it had found me – and so it was time to move on. But to where? Home? I didn’t know … yet.

But when I got in the van, it came to me – I know, I’ll go for a drive! And it was just me, and nowhere else I needed to be, and nowhere I was needed to be, so why not? (And how many moments like this are there for a mom of four with a full life … so if the opportunity opens up, follow it! 🙂 )

So I headed south out of town and down a county road, and just let the miles roll under my wheels. My window open and the soft, spring-smelling wind rushing in and ruffling my hair. The sunlight making the corn stubble gleam gold. The valleys and the turns in the road. Another world, it seemed to be. The sun and the wind and me.

It felt like one of those journeys you don’t know you need to be on until you are on it … and sometimes miss because you resist the whisper-nudge in your mind and soul that says, let go and just follow the flow of life, and see where you might go, just today, just for now. Let go and see where you go!

Sometimes, it is okay to go where you know not, to go without knowing yet where you are going, to let plans go and just go, to follow wherever your heart, your soul, follows the Spirit. A free-spirited following of the Spirit, a free flow …

Aimless? Reckless? My little adventure might seem a bit of both, but really, it was neither … it was an intuitive letting go, and it ended up filled with purpose and purifying peace.

It was like a driving meditation, instead of a sitting meditation or a walking meditation!

Because I found a rich stillness, a worshipfulness, and an exuberant liberty I could not have found, and the Spirit spoke to me in ways I could not have felt or heard if I had stayed where I thought I ‘ought’ to stay.

If I had resisted the simple impulse that said to me, Go, let go, just go? Then I would have missed the gift of the simple, pure freedom of just being, and just being with the Spirit as it was being with me … I would have missed what my heart, mind, and soul needed, today. I would have missed the lessons and the answers waiting for me on that journey …

To summarize them simply:

If it is a question of letting go, the answer is … let go!

Surrender to the flow of spirit in your life … wherever it may lead, follow with trust. It’s okay to let go of the need for certainty and control, to accept not knowing fully, and to follow without knowing. Find the comfort that there can be in uncertainty and impermanence.

If it is a question of loving, the answer is … Love!

Love hard, love deep, love whole-heartedly in a whole-souled way, love fiercely and fully … and if heartbreak or soul-ache comes from it, do not fear to grieve the same way. Be willing to grieve as deeply and fiercely as you’ve loved. Better the grief that might come from loving and losing, than the grief that comes from not letting go of fear and just loving …

If it is a question of being, the answer is …. BE!

Be free, be truthful, be love, be grace, be courage, be compassion, be peace! Do not so much act or advocate for change, as BE change. From the right being, the right doing will follow, the right change will follow.

 

 

 

Election reflections: thoughts on change, stillness, and the pressure of light

/ Lanae / 7 Comments Featured

Initially, I felt purposed not to publish my deeper reactions to the election outcome.

I wanted simply, only, to point people to the light, to grace … to implore people to remember kindness and compassion toward others, toward both those elated over election results and those disheartened by them, those rejoicing and those grieving.

But something shifted me toward sharing more, come of it what may.

I’ve never felt this sort of visceral reaction to any previous election, so I find it telling:

Election night, a nameless, depthless dismay welled up inside. I glimpsed a sense of powerful forces and movements of spirit afoot, which were (are) far too big and deep for me to even put words to …

The following day, a fire burned in my chest, throat, forehead. No matter how my mind said to me, look, the sun still came up; the world is still beautiful; don’t make catastrophic assumptions … the fire burned.

And all day long, I practiced deep, cooling breaths, trying to quell the heat and flame. In the midst of this, though, I tried to listen to what my body seemed to understand about the gravity of the situation.

A wise friend, whose profound perspectives I respect deeply, shared a lovely thought with me that has helped me process things.

She spoke of the pressure of light, of how she believes there’s actually more light in the world now, but paradoxically, it’s that very light to which people are reacting in such intense ways. Some people are being provoked to love, others to anger, to fear. The light is provoking transparency, causing hidden things, some of which are painful, to rise to consciousness …

I think she’s right, that there IS more light. Oh, I think there’s always been light, but it’s breaking forth more brilliantly, fiercely! Yes, I know it’s so hard to believe, with all of the fear, anger, and anguish present, with the apparent resurgence of dark, nasty roots of bigotry and basest prejudices of all kinds, with the shadows of hatefulness and evil that seem to loom.

Yet, I suspect perhaps these things are happening because of the work of the light, because the light is driving them into the open, where they should be!

The pressure of the light is breaking through into places of darkness and making the seeds and roots that hid there visible … biases, wounds, ancient, unhealed traumas of oppression, violence, and injustice that we all bear stains or scars of, harmful beliefs that collectively or individually burden us. Deeply embedded patterns of perception, communication, and relationship that desperately need transformation …

And the pressure of the light is painful, isn’t it … to see, to feel what it reveals hurts.

But what we can see and know, we can heal! And therein is the hope … but also the urgency. The urgent need of holding on to the light, being the good, watering seeds of peace, seeking stillness in the chaotic swirls of societal and personal emotion …

Yes, stillness is needed, now. You and I, we need stillness, to be able to sit with all the powerful emotions swirling up, to hold space for them. To sit with anger and fear and learn to bring the fruit of loving change and genuine justice from it.

You and I, we need stillness, so that we can then rise up and be the good, be the love, be the light, that is needed now.

Out of the stillness is born the deepest living and the purest action.

Out of the stillness, the brightest light shines.

And in the stillness, we can bear the pressure of the light, and respond with love and grace, to even the hardest and most painful, devastating things.

I’m not naïve to the presence and power of evil, but I believe whole-heartedly, whole-soulfully, that goodness is strong, is strengthening, is the strongest force in the world. Everywhere, I see a surging of fierce grace, fierce pleadings for grace and light. People expressing powerful intentions to bring the pressure of light to bear against hate and injustice … and powerful intentions to be willing for the pressure of light within, to let it reveal, heal, and transform.

I am willing for the pressure of the light. Willing to let it provoke unbounding, unconditional love in me. What about you? What will the pressure of light provoke in you?

May it provoke belovedness.

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One other reflection: We are in the midst of a massive societal transformation, a change in consciousness, and it won’t be stopped. Regardless of who won the election, it was/is happening, anyway. Some experience this as beautiful and good, but others as painful and terrible.

Rather like an intense grief reaction, because there’s loss involved, the loss of the familiar/status quo … but for some, a way of life is dying. It’s hard to see the goodness in that dying, and they’re grieving. And anger is a part of grief. Fear, resistance, a part of it. It’s important to try to understand that, to allow compassion toward it, whether we see it in others or in ourselves.

I’ve read so many reactions and reflections the last few days, people pouring their hearts out, lifting their voices. Pain from all sides, pleas to be heard. It awakens a question: as we’re seeking to be heard, are we also listening? Are we in a space to listen; can we find it?

Listening with belovedness, to the hurts and the hearts of those who voted differently than we, as well as to those who share similar views? Listening inclusively?

Listening leads to understanding; understanding to compassion. Then, to loving, to healing.

If we’re wondering how we got to this point in our world, perhaps one reason is because we have been raising our own voices to speak our truths, yet not listening to others’ truths, not listening for or hearing the hurts and the hearts of those with whose choices or voices or truths we disagree …

Make no mistake, hatefulness and injustice MUST be spoken against, lived against, and love must be lived into, even if it costs us the dearest friendships or asks us to let go of privileges we’re attached to. Yet let’s not be so quick to assume hate is the truth of a heart and soul without first listening deeply to hurts there!

What a beautiful thing if this pressure of light would also provoke us all to listen more to one another … if it would provoke the awakening of stillness so that we could listen in belovedness.

And a little child led me: parenting in belovedness

/ Lanae / Leave a comment

Today I want to share a deeply personal story about finding and living the echoes of belovedness in parenting!

This is a story about what became a holy interaction between my youngest daughter, D, and I, though it surely didn’t start out with that promise in it at all! In fact, it felt pretty messy. Nowhere near a beautiful mess … just a mess.

It was Easter morning and the girls and I were getting ready to go to brunch at church before service.

Now, D is a delightful child (after all, that’s what the D stands for 😉 ), sparkly, spunky, spirited, strong-willed, sweet and spicy both. I love her spiritedness; it’s one of my very favorite things about her. I love her fierce strength, and even her stubbornness … oh, so much like mine!

And this was a stubborn moment … not just hers, but mine, too!

There are times she decides, and at the most inconvenient moment (that is, the last five minutes before it’s time to leave, for school or whatever; and do these things ever happen at a ‘convenient’ moment, anyway?!), that she isn’t wearing these shoes after all, only those shoes will do, but those are the shoes her sister is wearing (or the coat her sister is wearing) and no, I won’t wear any other shoes. Or, no, you get these shoes for me and you put them on for me … and then, NO, don’t put my shoes on for me, I want to … Which is wonderful, except then, she doesn’t want to anymore in the next moment! Oh my!

So, Easter morning we had a variation on this theme.  I attempted to handle it in the method that has, after much trial and even more error, revealed itself to be generally effective at calmly de-escalating or defusing these situations. This method usually involves a combination of offering a choice and counting to a certain number, making the options clear and giving her time and space to make a choice before the choice becomes mine. It works well – when I remain calm, mindful, and patient!

But it was spectacularly bombing this morning … or rather, I was, really. I felt oddly disoriented and drained after being up in the middle of night (2:00-4:00) for the Easter vigil and I just was failing at the ‘patience and not sounding like a drill sergeant thing!’ Besides, I hadn’t eaten any breakfast yet and I just wanted to get to the brunch and have time to eat!  I was most definitely not in calm, mindful mom mode … D was in meltdown mode, and I felt about ready to join her.

But then I felt my own stubborn anxiousness suddenly give way and I said, oh, honey, I just want to get there because I’m so hungry and so tired, and besides, I think I’m just about to cry!

And she quietly said, with a sigh and a sob, me too!

I picked her up, set her on the counter, hugged her tight, and said around the swelling in my throat, Oh, D, I love you … I’m so sorry I haven’t been patient. I’m so sorry this has been so hard for you and me too …

We cried a bit together … and then amazingly, how much better it all became, like a brand new morning! The shoes went on and we left, still in decent time, but even better, with peace in our hearts.

Oh, I certainly felt emptied, poured out, undone as I drove there … but also filled up with reverent gratefulness, for the healing of love, for me and for her.

Gratefulness for the resurrecting and transforming power of love!

Gratefulness that a simple bit of honesty and vulnerability had the power to heal, cleanse, and redeem that painful interaction … to infuse it instead with belovedness.

Oh, I long so much for my parenting to echo with belovedness! For my children to hear belovedness in the way I speak to them, to feel belovedness in the way I interact with them, the way I am present with them, the way I discipline them. That even my disciplining would echo with belovedness …

And that costs me vulnerability, honesty, humility. To be willing to let my children see that in me, to give them that gift of belovedness … and to believe that even when I’ve messed up, the gift of belovedness is still there, for them and for me.

To let them see I am a flawed human being. To let them see me own that, with self-compassion.

To let them hear me acknowledge my mistakes and apologize.

To not be afraid to apologize to them when I was unjust or unfair, when my impatience or irritation toward them had more to do with me, my pride and my unmindfulness than with them.

To respect them enough to be honest with them.

To be real with them. Real enough to let them see my tears and to cry with them.

To be unafraid and unashamed to be an imperfect mother who is still learning … an imperfect mother who also loves fiercely, deeply, vulnerably, whose deepest intention is to become ever more mindful of this love moving in all my interactions with my children, in all my parenting efforts …

To remember more to let go …

of stubbornness, pride, expectations, attachments to what I think my parenting and my children ought to be like …

and to let Love lead,

just as a little child led me Easter morning!

Radical inclusion

/ Lanae / Leave a comment

Thoughts about the concepts of radical inclusion and inclusiveness have been brewing in my brain for a while!

I’ve been part of a few conversations recently about how desirable a quality inclusiveness is in a person, in a leader, or in an institution, such as a church or government … and the circles grow wider out into society, into the world.

I’ve loved these conversations about inclusiveness, about radical inclusion, and I love that these ideas and practices seem so important to so many. I’ve observed also though that there seem to be varied ideas about what being inclusive or engaging in radical inclusion means to people. Different definitions, different visions, different expectations …

It seems like a good, deep conversation is needed to clarify just what we’re meaning if/when we talk about inclusiveness, about radical inclusion. But first perhaps some good, deep personal reflection is necessary, to be still and consider what those concepts mean to us, how we define them, how we would be willing to be inclusive or to practice a radical inclusion in our lives, the circles we’re a part of … workplace, family, church, organizations …

Just how inclusive is our inclusiveness? Just how ‘radical’ is our radical inclusion? Whom would we include?  And in what spirit would we include them?

I can’t answer those questions or define radical inclusion for anyone else but I want to share what it means to me, how I define it, what my vision of it is, how I want to live it …

First, there’s that word ‘radical.’ It sounds, well, radical, doesn’t it! It can seem militant, extreme, suspicious, drastic … but it also means profound, far-reaching, awe-inspiring, fundamental, essential. These are powerful words, aren’t they? Powerful words with depth. Words used to describe something powerful, transformational, revolutionary.

And that’s what radical inclusion is, what it offers in practice … something powerful, transformational, revolutionary.

Something powerfully inviting and compassionate. Radical inclusion as a compassionate invitation … a universal and universally compassionate invitation, into conversation and connection, into belonging.

In my vision, there are other ‘radical’ things that are part of the foundation of radical inclusion: self-acceptance, grace, compassion. Profound, far-reaching, awesome, fundamental, essential things. Things that are powerful, transformational, and revolutionary in themselves … but what makes them all those things, what makes grace radical, what makes compassion radical, is the depth and breadth and width to which they are expressed and lived.

That they aren’t just words or concepts or even practices … but lived Truths.

And self-acceptance …  radical in a spiritually transformational way! Because what it involves is meeting yourself where you are, as you are in the here and now, showing compassion and kindness toward yourself where you are, recognizing the imperfections and the suffering in yourself and loving yourself nonetheless, laying aside destructive self-judgments … an act of radical inclusion that begins with yourself, your soul!

A powerfully compassionate invitation to yourself … to love yourself as your own neighbor.

Where does, where can, this act of personal radical inclusion lead? It can lead into a place of healing, change, and growth, where you have the strength to let go of attachments you may need to let go of in order to heal and to love wholly …

It can lead into a deeper compassion and empathy, a broader understanding of grace, a wider view of acceptance, the ability to love wholly ….

It becomes the foundation of an ever-widening radical inclusion … to love every person as your neighbor, as you have learned to love yourself.

And so this vision of radical inclusion: Whom does it include? Who is, who should be, invited into the circle of radical inclusion?

Everyone! All of humanity. For who is not my neighbor? And are there any whom I should not love?

Maybe one vision sees a Jesus-like notion of radical inclusion that looks outward and sees the need to welcome the outcast, the homeless, the poor, the disenfranchised, the oppressed …

Maybe that vision extends to a progressive radical inclusion that is multi-ethnic, multi-cultural, that includes those of many races. Or respecting and honoring other faith traditions; an interfaith inclusion. Or welcoming and loving those of diverse sexual or gender identities, those who have been stigmatized, misunderstood, even reviled or shunned …

It seems that sometimes though a view of radical inclusion might form that actually includes a clause of exclusion, if you will – that those we’ve judged as having wrong views or values, we might exclude from our vision of inclusion. We might see them as not being worthy of welcoming, of radical inclusion … of love.

Radical inclusion includes letting go of those clauses of exclusion!

For who else does radical inclusion include? It includes those with whom we disagree, those who have differing views … it means letting go of attachments to political affiliations and religious ideologies. Not compromising soul-deep convictions and values, but yet loving our neighbor far above loving our own ideas and perspectives, and making such love a highest value!

And who is my neighbor? You are my neighbor. I am your neighbor. No matter our differences in any sense, no matter how different your life journey has been than mine, you are my neighbor and I am called to love you.

No matter how different your perspective on life, no matter how different your perceptions of the Ultimate truths about life, spirituality and sacredness, or your experience (or not) of the divine, you are my neighbor. And I am called to learn from you and to love you.

We meet where we are, as who we are, and listen to and love one another.

This is my definition, my vision, of radical inclusion. This is where I see so much hope of healing, of reconciliation, of unity!

We will always be different and diverse. But we can have diversity in unity; unity in diversity. And Love, belovedness, binding it together, bringing wholeness …

Let us extend that compassionate invitation into conversation and connection to all, to one another!

And through that powerful, transformational, revolutionary act of radical inclusion become one people!

 

Offer a counterpoint of love

/ Lanae / Leave a comment

I had some different post ideas in mind, but the Brussels events reminded me of something I wrote (and shared on Facebook) back in November after the Paris attacks. It feels right to resurrect that post along with its accompanying poem, and share it again below in its entirety, as it seems sadly and unfortunately relevant all over again … it seems that all I might really need to do differently is to substitute “Brussels” for “Paris.”

My heart hurts. My soul sighs.

Let the people of Brussels say, we are not afraid. Let the people of Europe say, we are not afraid. Let the people of the world say, we are not afraid. No, let us not be afraid.

Let us lift our hearts in love; let us not be bowed by fear.

Where there is hatred, let us sow love … not sow in fear, but in love. Offer to acts of violence not violence in return, whether in actions, in words, in thoughts, or in judgments, but offer to acts of violence instead acts of love, compassion, prayer, meditation. Offer a counterpoint of love!

There is nothing soft, simplistic, or passive in such a response. Rather, it seems one of the most radical, profound, and powerful – even bold and daring! – ways to oppose the extremism, violence, prejudice, intolerance, hate – and apathy – present in our world. One of the most radical, profound, and powerful ways to face and to answer fear, to face and to answer anger – whether it is our own, that of others around us, or even of a broader societal nature.

To offer a counterpoint of love is to offer something radically transformative to yourself, to others, to the world. To be a counterpoint of love is to be a radically transformative presence in your family, your community, the world.

To offer, and to be, a counterpoint of love is something significant, even sacred …

I ask you – what does that mean to you? How could you offer, or be, that counterpoint of love? For yourself, your family, your community, your world; for those who suffer … and for those who act in violence and cause the suffering also?

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I wrote this poem several weeks ago, to help myself deal with a deep fear I was experiencing at the time, related to a challenging personal experience. It somehow feels right to share it now, because it also expresses thoughts of my heart regarding the fear, suffering, violence, hate, and anger that seems as though it is filling up our world right now.

The people of Paris say, We are not afraid. No, let us not be afraid. Let us be neither afraid of fear, nor ruled by it! Let us remember that belovedness is greater than fear, and even in the midst of fear, of sorrow, suffering, let us respond to those things with love, with the grace of equanimity. Respond to a suffering, broken world in love, respond to those things in others with love, and respond to those things in ourselves with love.

Reacting with fear opens the door to further suffering and violence. Responding with love opens the door to grace and healing and hope, as well as a truer, more effective justice.

No matter how relentless and ruthless the evil and the violence may be, or how achingly burdensome the sorrow and the suffering, remember that these things are impermanent. But, as my heart and soul have learned, one thing is permanent: love, belovedness.

As hard as it may seem to hold in heart and mind next to all the knowledge of suffering and evil that exists, much goodness is also present in the world, because much love is present in the world, if we but lift our eyes up to see it!

Let Belovedness triumph over fear!

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belovedness

I said to fear, my fear
Come in, come here
sit beside me, sit with me
in silence let us sit
together
I said to fear,
You are my friend
I accept you
I accept your presence
here
I hear you, honor you
I love you
I said to fear
But remember this,
you must remember this
if you wish to walk
with me:
I am beloved
and so are you
We will sit
we will walk
we will live
in belovedness
Because belovedness
is greater than fear
is greater
than you and I
together
Because we belong
to belovedness
Because all belongs
to belovedness,
to belovedness
we belong
We belong to one another
in belovedness
Let us step out of the boat
and walk upon the living water
of the spirit
of belovedness
Let us walk and live and be
In belovedness
be living, believing, be loving, beloved