The Way of the Water

I am conflicted and torn.  I’m torn between knowing what it means to live in the moment and knowing when something is worth waiting for.  I am torn between being present to the now and holding space for what I truly desire to manifest in my life.  I am torn between long term happiness and momentary satisfaction, gratification in this present moment.

I didn’t think this would be easy.  I don’t know how I could.   To walk away from the ease of convenient half-love and hold out hope for future whole love, complete love, pure love.  The tension is inherent.  How could it not be?  How can I be in the midst of it all? What does it mean to just be here, to just sit in the tension?  Have I even considered sitting with the tension an option?  Is choosing doing?  Isn’t every action and non-action a choice of some kind?

At times I feel like my heart is fickle.  It betrays me in the presence of the sincerest offer of the incomplete.  It is tantalized by the invitation to settle.  Exposed is its longing to be loved, to be held, to be close, to be connected, to be respected, to be delighted in.  Concealed are the answers it wants to questions the mind parades in front of it, taunting it.  Can you do this?  Can you really do this?  Can you wait?  Is it worth waiting for?  Is it worth waiting for the uncertainty when the certain half-assed alternative bangs at the door, throwing itself at your feet?  Water flows downstream, doesn’t it?  It finds the path of least resistance?  Be the water.

What would the water do?  It returns to its Source, ultimately, I am told.  It flows through life taking each twist and turn as it comes.  It doesn’t stop.  It keeps moving and accomplishes its work as it passes along its way.  It doesn’t think about the next move, the next twist, the next turn.  It responds smoothly, easily, gently and quietly to every obstacle it encounters.  It transcends each one – not in triumph, but in gentle, fluid, instant adjustments to what it finds along its path.  And when it’s divided, it seeks its own and is quickly reunified just beyond what caused the separation.  It flows from height to depth, only to ascend again.  Only to ascend again.  To ascend again and begin its journey along its next way.

Can I learn from the water?  Can I flow without resistance?  Can I allow the way to unfold before me without creating my own obstacles?  Can I know the course, know the desired end and not be unsettled by the means which takes me there?  Can I be present to all I feel in the descent  without obstructing it, without clinging to the obstacle along the way for momentary half-safety?  Does the heart know the way of the water? Does the heart know the way?

Remembering

It troubles me that Memorial Day is practically, except generally for those directly affected, reduced to a celebration to kick off summer.  I know most Americans don’t pay much attention to patriotic holidays as a rule, but forgetting what Memorial Day is about when your country is at war is unacceptable to me.

Bodies are flown in daily.  The maimed arrive about 15 miles from my house, daily.  We are at war.  Right now, this minute and have been since October 7, 2001 and March 20, 2003 in Afghanistan and Iraq, respectively.  Our country has been at war non-stop for 8 years,  6 on two fronts and I really don’t think most Americans even notice.  I think what we enjoy most, sadly,  is the luxury of not having war fought on our own soil.

We see no bombs dropped, hear no air-raid sirens, see nor smell any carnage.  We don’t see the walking wounded, don’t see (or want to see) the coffins as they come off of the planes which bring our fallen back to be buried.  We experience practically no civilian casualties compared to our “enemies”, nor the raping of our women and girls.  The average American isn’t even aware of the death toll. It’s 4,300 in Iraq and 687 in Afghanistan (57% of the 1202 casualties among Coalition forces are American servicemen and women).  So, 4,987 Americans are dead in these two wars, more dying daily and we’re all about summertime!

I’m not angry about this but I am disheartened.  I love summer and 3 day weekends as much as anybody, but today is a day to remember.  Today, for me, is a day to think about what I can do to help make the world a place where war is not a foregone conclusion.

I can’t say that I qualify as a full-blown pacifist, but I aspire to be.   And as long as war is a reality, I honor those men and women who choose to risk life and limb for the freedom I enjoy in these United States.  I am not always sure they are defending against any real threat to that freedom but, that aside, the choice is not theirs anyway.  I am grateful.

I leave you with words of memorial from a time when war was fought on our soil, when we did see and did notice and appreciate the price of freedom.

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate — we can not consecrate — we can not hallow — this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Abraham Lincoln
Gettysburg, Pennsylvania
November 19, 1863

3 Year Lent (cross-posting)

This post was originally posted on my blog, Unpacking Faith, where I write about where my spiritual journey takes me.  Enjoy.

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In 2006 I gave up Church and my Christian beliefs for Lent.  I had become completely disillusioned with and cynical towards the belief system in which I was raised.  A system I had fully embraced — to the point of serving as an assistant pastor in a congregation.   For Lent that year, I embarked on the most significant journey of my lifetime to date.  I lay aside my religious beliefs in order to pursue an objective, unbiased assessment of my faith’s assertions, how they resonated with me personally, what really mattered to me, and what others believed about God, Life, Spirit, Love and Light.

Almost immediately, I became fascinated — like a kid in the candy store — exploring the vast variance within Christianity.  Who knew?!  I certainly had no idea that there were so many Christian perspectives (although opposing groups might nullify the Christian identity claims of each other) on things like, nature and origin of man, sin, heaven and hell, afterlife, salvation, authority of Scripture, deity of Christ and the list goes on.  Who knew!?  I absolutely did not.  Though I was very well versed in opposing sides of certain arguments, the concept of essential Christian doctrine was well ingrained.  I thought, for sure, that nearly all Christians agreed about 85% on those – with a few nuances.  Much to my surprise — there are those who identify as Christians (and in my book are Christians – because who the hell am I to say otherwise) who differ vastly on these so-called essentials.

That realization got the wheels to turning.  The book A Generous Orthodoxy was key to helping me see the variance and begin to feel safe asking broader questions – like, what validity, resonance, or, dare I say it — truth would I find, should I pan out further — beyond what the variance in Christian thought.  What conclusions have other cultures drawn about Life and God and the Universe and why we’re all here in the first place?

It wasn’t long before I began to see the world’s religions as 5 blind people with their hands on different parts of a elephant, searching for words to describe what they noticed through the senses available to them.  It was then that I respected and stood in awe of the many, many ways humans have tried for millennia to describe the Great Mystery that is instantly diminished with the first word.

As I began to study the sacred texts of eastern philosophies and try out some of the spiritual practices of the East — yoga, meditation, mindfulness — I reconnected with a familiar voice.  My own.  That still quite voice within that has always guided me, always sounded like me (only wiser and more loving than I imagined myself to be) has had many names. I called it the voice of God, my Inner Voice, my higher self.  No matter then name, it’s the same voice I’ve always known.  It’s the same voice that I write in in my journals when answers to my questions come flooding into my soul.

But I had become disconnected from this voice.  You see, there were countless times, when I called “the voice within” God, that the voice said things I had trouble believing that the God-I-Knew (through church) would say or — better than “said” things — guided me down paths inconsistent with what I had conceived to be God’s ways.  “God wouldn’t say that’s OK, the Bible says it’s not!”  These moments happened more and more frequently and I, as a result, shut down that voice.  I disbelieved, mistrusted, and dismissed it as “just me”.

As I practiced stillness and quiet, the voice began to speak to me again.  I embraced it.  I listened and was encouraged in my journey.  I was encouraged to open my eyes wide and to expect surprises, to expect to have my questions answered, to expect find what I was looking for.

I have been surprised and delighted along this journey.  One surprising delight was a soul I encountered through this blog.  He encouraged me in my journey, availed himself to me to ask questions and to provide guidance.  More than anything, he encouraged me to seek my truth, to hold on to what is true for me and to remember what I already know.  He also introduced me to another book, Conversations with God.

I bought the book weeks, I think, before I ever read it.  When I opened it to start reading, I read about how the book came to be.  It was a conversation one man had with one he calls God over several years.  He asked questions, answers came to him, he wrote them down.  I was familiar with this process.  I knew it well.  I suspect many writers know it well.  I valued the process, without having a clue about the content.  After getting through the Forward and the Introduction, I got to the dialog.  I read.  Maybe 2 pages.  I slammed the book shut and tears streamed down my face.  Tears turned to sobs.  I knew this voice.  I knew it well.  This was the voice I’d shut down.  The one that told me things I couldn’t imagine coming from God.  The God-voice in CwG was what I’ve always known, who I’ve always known God to be.

To say that the God-voice in CwG goes against the grain is an understatement — but it resonated with me like nothing I’ve ever read in my life.  Many concepts I found difficult to understand or even buy — but more of it encouraged me that I was on the right path.  That I was finding my truth. That my journey, this process would be worthwhile — and, in fact, is what it’s all been about all along.

My studies and explorations have led me to encounter many kindred spirits.  One of the sweetest is that of my yoga teacher who teaches class in the sanctuary of a Christian church.  The irony, the sweet serendipity in those two spaces colliding began to melt my cynicism about Christianity.  In that sacred, holy space — I connected with that which was most sacred and holy — myself.  I began to experience me as part of All that Is.  I began to understand what Christ meant when he said that he and his Father were one — just like you and I are one.  Just like we are All one.

And the lines blurred.  There were fewer and fewer contradictions and points of conflicts among belief systems for me.  More and more I could see how many different ways man has been trying to say the same thing and be understood albeit in different languages.  I became an interpreter unto myself – translating the language of the Tao te Ching into the language of the New Testament into the language of Yoga Sutras of the Patanjali. And I encountered other interpreters as well, like Thich Nhat Hanh and his Living Buddha, Living Christ.

In January, I set the intention to find community among like minds.  Within a week I found my local Unitarian Universalist congregation.  I have been attending services when I can since the beginning of the year.  In this space, no one asks you what you believe, but rather members are encouraged to courageously pursue truth and understanding.  There are earth-honoring services and activities, Buddhist meditations, drumming circles, and yes, even Easter and Passover observances.  The sacred text is the body of world literature.  It is the creed-less faith, but the principles resonate with that which matters most to me in this world — with all that matters anyway — Love.

This past Sunday, the congregation reflected on its commitment to social justice.  After recounting the denomination’s historical commitment to human rights, service, community education and organizing, advocacy and the like, the lay speaker outlined this local body’ commitment to social action. And then the question was posed to the congregation — What are you passionate about?  What matters to you?

You never could have convinced me before I left home that I’d be doing what I found myself doing in the following moments.  I raised my hand and took the mic.  I introduced myself and talked about how, as an assistant pastor of a small non-denominational church, I was confronted with woeful reality of the prevalence of violence against women and the faith community’s silence, supporting doctrines, and perpetration of it.  I told them that I became committed to anti-violence against women’s work and have made it my profession and the volunteer work to which I lend my hand.  I also told them of the ways the church’s anti-homosexual teachings and practices have harmed me personally as I watched them harm people I love, and why I am the staunch ally to the GLBT community that I am.

Others spoke after me about the causes that mattered most to them.  And then Matt stood up.  Matt is a gay man and father of a son whom he raises with his partner.  He spoke of the challenges his family faces and said that nothing touches him more deeply than for a straight person to take a stand and say, this is wrong.  Matt hugged and thanked me after service — and I thanked him.  I thanked him for the opportunity to love and be loved.  It’s what this is all about.

In 2006, I gave up church for Lent.  This year, I will be ending my 3 year Lenten fast by attending service on Easter Sunday.  I will be observing Easter and Passover with a group of people who don’t necessarily identify with the faiths either of these observances represent — but who recognize the value of the message of them.  I am finally able to look at Christianity with new eyes — eyes that don’t see and criticize what I find problematic.  I am finally able to afford Christians the same liberty I afford all other religions — the freedom to answer life’s questions in their own way.

I wouldn’t say that I’ve come full circle.  I will say that I have evolved.  I can embrace the Christ and that in me.  I can embrace the Buddha and that in me.  I can embrace the Spring and that in me.  I can embrace the Light and that in me.  And All of That — All That Is — in You.

Namaste.