Have you ever had one of those moments when you are reading something and quite unexpectedly you find a word or a sentence, which makes you have one of those “oh my gosh yes moments.” This is what happened to me recently while reading Elizabeth Gilberts book Eat, Pray, Love. Ironically, I had my aha moment in a similar way to her, except mine was in my bedroom curled up under the covers and hers was during her time in India. It was in these respective moments, when we both came to understand we were antevasins. So my question to ponder this week is this. Are you an antevasin?
When I told my spiritual director I had finally found the word to describe where I am in life and what I currently am, she said great and that is. And I said I am an antevasin.
Read moreA Recipe for Self Love and Growth
It was a quiet Sunday morning. As usual, I arose, prepared the space and myself for our weekly Love and Inspiration gathering. I looked for the music I felt called to play to quiet people’s spirits and bring us into a space of reflection and sharing. I prayed about what reading to share and found myself drawn to one particular piece. It was different then what we normally read and discuss, but I knew it was what I was supposed to read. As we gathered, there was, as usual, a moment of informal chatting with each other. The conversations all seemed to center around food and recipes and as I listened to where people were at, I realized the reading I had been drawn to was perfect for what people were discussing. At the request of those gathered yesterday, I am sharing this recipe with all. I encourage you to gather the ingredients, follow the directions carefully and live this each day of your lives. It comes from a book by Iyanla Van Zant called Until Today.
Read more"God Is A DJ"
Over the course of my life, I have heard God referred to in a number of ways, but until this past Saturday night I had never stopped to think about God as a DJ. While I had thought quite a bit about God, I had given little thought to DJ’s. What little I know about DJ’s I can summarize in a few sentences. I know they select and play music for a diversity of audiences and in a diversity of settings. Ok, so maybe I could tell you what I know about DJ’s in one sentence. It was not until I heard Pink’s song, God is a DJ, that I began to think about whether or not I could envision God as my personal DJ.
I have to admit I had this moment when I envisioned this huge radiating heart with arms up in a booth with shades on introducing music. I wondered if anybody else had ever envisioned God as a DJ and was amazed at how many images there were of Jesus, Buddha, God, and other spiritual images as DJ’s. None quite looked like mine, but there was something comforting in knowing that others had similar images as I was having.
Read moreTo agree or not agree, that is the question.
So here is my question for this week? What are you choosing to agree to and what are you choosing not to agree to any more? I have been spending a lot of time the last several months, well maybe years now, reflecting on what I agree to and what I use to agree to and no longer do and what I don’t agree with. Perhaps what got me thinking about this recently are conversations with my students, who even at the beginning of the semester, are comparing themselves to others in the class and assuming that they are inferior to their peers.
What I have been saying, well actually typing, as this is an online class, is that you have to agree you are less and that someone else is more to feel inferior. Others may treat you as if you are inferior, but unless you agree that you are inferior, you are not. How many times in your life have others tried to make you feel inferior? Ok, now how many times have you agreed with them in your mind? How many times have you told yourself that you are not enough of something or too much of something?
Read moreSilencing the monkeys
Have you ever been to the zoo and watched the monkeys swinging from one area to another, making the sounds as they do. On the one hand, it is fascinating to watch, at the same time after a while you need to move on, well at least I do. it is hard for me to stay focused with so much distraction. Perhaps that is why so many people have trouble meditating. Our minds are like monkeys swinging from one tree to the next, moving from one idea to another, from thinking about one thing going on in our life to another. Periodically, our minds might stop, but then we are off to swinging through ideas again.
The two problems people seem to have the most is claiming the time to meditate and silencing those monkeys.
Read moreNo more erasing.
It was late last night, well maybe not so late, when I saw this commercial on television for this new erase stick (really not so new), which is supposed to erase all the “imperfections” from under and around women’s (not men’s) eyes and make women look years younger and healthier. I remember trying those “erase sticks” when I was younger and they never quite “erased” your “imperfections.” What makes them “imperfections” anyway? That is another reflection.
However, watching the commercial made me think about how so often when we want to evolve spiritually and transform our lives, we are looking for the “erase stick,” which we can run over those aspects of our life and somehow make them invisible and make us appear as if we are spiritually healthier then we really are.
Read moreWriting Your Own Prescription
The other day I was at the grocery store and this older woman, well older then me, offered to help me reach a package and then proceeded to tell me how awful my life must be and how seeing people like me made her feel so much better about her life. I was not quite sure how to respond, so I thanked her for her assistance and told her that I prayed God would continue to fill her day with opportunities to feel better about her life.
Her comment to me got me questioning how we describe our lives. Do you describe your life by talking about how hard it is, or as I heard one person say once, “life sucks and then you die.” Or are you more on the attitude of life is good.
Read moreIt’s Your Birthday!
No, I did not get that wrong and no, I did not get it twisted. Today is each of our birthdays, as is tomorrow, as is the day after that and the day after that. Every day is a new day and a fresh birth into our lives.
None of is exactly the same person biologically, emotionally, mentally, or spiritually then we were they day before. As Alice Walker once wrote, “It’s never the same river twice.” Our lives are this constant state of evolution and change. Caterpillars spin cocoons, go through a transformation process, and then emerge as butterflies.
Read moreIt is not all about me.
So a many of you know Zoë and I legally were married this past Saturday after having been together for 10 years. Thank you to the State of New York for the great anniversary present. I love being with my wife. I also love being mother to my son Nicholas and all the others who have adopted me as a parent figure in their lives. I know all these relationships are part of who I was created to be and what I was created to do in this world.
However, there are moments when I am not in love with any of these roles and there are even moments when I am not too pleased with life either.
Read moreHow big are your margins?
In what is thought to be one of the busiest seasons of the year, I want to challenge each of us think about this question. If your life was a piece of paper, how big would your margins be? Would you have one-inch margins all around your paper? Inch and a half? Two inches? Or is your life so overflowing with stuff that you HAVE to do that you are not even sure you have any margins. If you do, then maybe they are like 1/100 of an inch.
As I have learned the hard way in my own life, some of us have gotten so used to living life without margins, we do not even know what they are.
Read morePOJSU and Turnips
Right about now, you might be scratching your head wondering if POJSU is a new product from Kikkoman and what does that have to do with turnips. So, let me answer that question. No, it is not. I was rereading a few pieces others had written that I have found inspirational and one of them reminded me of a sermon I had written a few years ago called No more buts. At the end of the sermon, I wrote
“I want to leave you with some things to put in your spiritual garden to replace the buts which I am encouraging you to remove. They are peas, squash, lettuce, and turnips.
Read moreA & E
When I was in seminary, one of the things Dr Ricutti taught us in Intro to Preaching was to have a title that would catch people’s interest. My guess is when you saw the title you thought about the A & E television station (Arts and Entertainment). I wish I could say this is what I have been thinking about this week. In some respects, I have. However, the A and E I have been spending a good part of my time thinking about are two things we tend to do easily in our lives: assumptions and expectations. It is amazing how much drama, trauma, and suffering we can eliminate from our lives when we practice living an A & E free life. Today, I just want to focus on the E, and maybe next time I will focus on the A.
I remember the first time I read the idea of living and loving with no expectations in Don Miguel Ruiz’s book The Mastery of Love
Read moreAn Attitude of Gratitude
We all go through times in our journey which if given the choice, we might choose to avoid. It is at times like this when I tend to hear my Bubby’s voice reminding me that when you can see the good in a bad situation, then you know you are going to be ok. I have done this with Zoë’s cancer diagnosis, during the times my son has struggled (like last night), during my struggle with Liftline, etc. As I have made a list of the blessings in each situation, the way I see them, what I choose to believe about them shifts from an Eeyore attitude to an attitude of gratitude. The more I focus on what I have to be grateful for, the more I realize how much I have to be grateful for. It is as if gratefulness begets gratefulness begets gratefulness.
Read moreHave we got it twisted?
Henri Nouwen, in his book Living a Sacred Life in a Secular World, talks about how we have somehow managed to get our hearing and listening skills twisted. When someone says something negative, disparaging, or disaffirming to us we accept it as if it is the “gospel.” We rarely question the intent or the truthfulness of what they said to us. On the other hand, when someone pays us a compliment, our critical thinking skills seem to kick in, and we wonder what that person wants, why did they say that, why are they lying to me and cross-examination their affirmation as if it were a hostile witness being cross examined. What if we reversed this pattern in our life? What would happen if we graciously accepted and internalized that which was served to us with love and suspiciously eyed that which was not before choosing to throw it in the trashcan.
Sometimes it seems as if we do this with other aspects of our life as well. So often, I hear people focusing on lack, rather then abundance.
Read moreWhile you are in the meantime.
Yesterday I received an email that asked me what are you supposed to do while you are in the meantime. So here are a few suggestions of what you can do while you are in the meantime.
While you are in the meantime, help somebody. A poet once wrote, “I sought my soul, but my soul I could not see. I sought my God, but my God eluded me. I sought my brother, and I found all three.” Sometimes when we are feeling empty, we benefit immeasurably by serving people in need. As their strength is renewed, our cups overflow. Stop waiting for an invitation to get involved. Go help somebody. As John F Kennedy once said, don’t ask what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.
Read moreIn the Meantime
Have you ever been in a relationship where you were not quite sure whether you wanted to leave or how you wanted to leave? Have you ever had a conflict with someone and not been quite sure what to say or how to mend those fences? Have you ever had a vision of something you want to do, but not known when or how to do it? If you have, then you were in the meantime.
In the meantime is what happens or what you do while something else is happening or until something else happens. It is that season in our lives where we might feel like we are living our lives in limbo.
Read moreComing off autopilot
Driving these days is so different than it was when I was first learning to drive. I am not talking about the people on the road, or the amount of traffic, or any of those things. I am talking about the consciousness with which we drive. I know it has been a few years since I have been physically able to drive. However, I can remember a number of times I managed to drive from point A to point B and was not sure how I got there. It was as if I was driving on autopilot. One of the features several of my friends have on their cars is cruise control. They can just set the speed at which they want to travel and the car will automatically speed up or slow down accordingly.
Read moreThe F word
My guess is when you hear somebody mention the F word; you assume they are using a word, which rhymes with duck, tuck, truck, and a whole other list of words, which end with _uck. So if you think this is going to be about that F word, I hate to disappoint you. It isn’t. Well, not directly. Although there have been moments in my life when I have experienced something which has made me want to use that particular F word. What helped me move away from that F word was another F word – forgiveness.
Some recent conversations with friends, clients, acquaintances, and even strangers at the grocery store have brought me to a place where I realize many of us choose not to forgive, have different motives for forgiving, or have not thought about how we benefit when we forgive.
Read moreAll you need is love
Funny how sometimes it is one of those old songs that bring you to a different space. Who knows why, but I was sitting here thinking about what to write about and all of a sudden I found myself humming an old Beatles song, All you need is love.” When you stop for a moment and think about it, isn’t that what we all seek in life, to be loved and understood. The Beatles sang that to us decades ago. This should not be such a difficult thing. After all, God is love and we were created in the image of love, by love, so we are love. So if we are love and others are love, then you would think that it would be so easy for us to love one another unconditionally.
Sometimes, though we get the L words confused. We confuse love, which is what we need, with like and lust.
Read moreStop faking the funk
Don Miguel Ruiz recently posted on his website “Love and accept yourself just the way you are. You are what you are; you don't need to pretend to be something else. When you pretend to be what you are not, you are going to fail.” Some of us have been faking the funk for so long; we no longer realize we are still in character. It is as though in many respects the world has tamed us, domesticated us, and taught us how to conform to the ways of the world. We do so many things without even thinking about them, just because that is how we have been taught to do them. We work at becoming a part of the whole because we all want to be accepted. We learn how to conform to the ways of our family, our community, our city, our country and our world. Over time, we learn how to conform to the rules of society, the dominant beliefs in our country and the laws. We learn how to celebrate holidays, how to behave in school, how to behave at social events. We learn how to conform to the ways of the world.
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