loving my adversaries

Loving my Enemies

My mother and my Bubby
taught me I should love my enemies.
Have you ever tried to do that?
Have you ever tried to love someone
you really do not like?
You know that person who hurt you so deeply
and so consistently that you didn’t even want to be
in the same room as them.
Then you are told to love them unconditionally.
I still remember the moment it hit me that
I am someone’s enemy
I am someone’s adversary.
Yet despite this,
I am the one the Ultimate has forgiven and transformed.
I am the one the Ultimate showered with grace
and helped heal.
I am the one.
If this was done for me as someone else’s adversary,
then shouldn’t I want this
for my enemies.
They too are the creations of the Ultimate.
If I can be transformed,
so can they.

The power of the Ultimate
is not just about loving me
but about showering that same
transformative and healing power
on my adversaries
because they too
are worthy of that loving grace.

 
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Hide & Seek

Hide & Seek

Growing up one of my favorite games was
hide and seek.
I had a few places I could hide
and nobody would ever find me.
I had friends though who would make it so easy
to find them.
They would make sounds
when they were ready to be found.
I don’t try to hide anymore,
kind of hard to hide in my wheelchair.
Sometimes though I feel like
I try to play hide and seek with God,
but God is like my friend,
always making sounds
so I can seek them out
and learn what I need to
and then the Ultimate will hide again.
There is something about playing this game
of hide and seek
that reminds me to enjoy the journey
and to have fun in the process
of growing and evolving.
Like this morning
when I realized there are moments I do try to hide
but the Ultimate reminds me
I am always seen and heard
so I just need to play seek
because I am not good at hiding.  

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My Home

My Home

When people hear how long I have had
to shelter in place,
they express their sorrow for me.
The reasons I could not leave are another story,
but not being able to leave
changed my way of living and loving.
I had to face this pivotal moment
where this would be a jail cell
where I served time for a crime I did not commit
or it would be a space so peaceful and loving
and filled with Spirit,
that I would have no desire to leave.
So don’t feel sorry for me that I live
in a space filled with the Ultimate’s presence.
I spend my life giving thanks for this blessing
and expressing my gratitude for this gift.
Home is not just where my heart is.
Home is where I get to be
in the presence of the one
who birthed me,
developed me,
transforms me,
and loves me unconditionally.
Home is the place
I truly prefer to be.

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Present

Present

There have been a few places in my life
where I have just gone and sat
and done nothing but be present.
I had this oversized wooden rocking chair,
there was an old church space,
which rarely got used after they built the new one,
and there is my prayer and meditation garden.
I love to just sit there and be.
I would and still can sit for hours
and just be.
Why do you just sit there,
I was once asked. 
What are you thinking about?
All I could say is,
I just am.
I am present with the Ultimate and
the Ultimate is present with me
and we are present with each other.

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Searching

Searching

I woke up to someone singing
looking for love in all the wrong places.
Throughout the day it had me thinking
about how often I look for reflections of myself
in others and in the world.
What if I am searching in the wrong place?
What if I am looking for the Ultimate in all the wrong places?
What if I looked for the stranger walking their dog in me?
What if I looked for the path in me?
What if I looked for the plants in me?
What if I looked for the sky in me?
What if I looked for the earth, air, fire and wind in me?
If I remembered that everything created by the Ultimate is within me,
would I be better able to see it all in me?
Would I stop searching for the Ultimate
in places other than myself?

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Hungry

Hungry

Have you ever had that craving
In the pit of your stomach
and are so hungry
and know you really need to eat something.
I get that feeling daily,
but not for food/
I wake up hungry
for time to just be with the Ultimate.
I wake up hungry
to be fed,
to be taught,
to be nurtured,
and to just be in
it's presence.
I am hungry
for all that I absorb
nutritionally,
emotionally,
mentally,
physically,
and spiritually
when I sit with it
and allow myself to be fed.
There is a satisfaction that comes
from being with the Ultimate
that cannot be satisfied any other way.
Sometimes it is not that I am hungry,
but that what the Ultimate fed me
makes me wants more.
I am always given just enough
to leave me hungry for more.

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Being Played

Being Played

Sometimes, when you are trusting and giving person
people think you are being played by others.
Being played tends to be about being taken advantage of.
It’s when someone uses the fact that you care about them
to take advantage of you.
Saying you are being played
tends to evoke this image of
someone using and abusing you.
People are not the only things being played.
Instruments are also played
and they are done so in a way that is
filled with love, passion, and creativity.
So what if I am an instrument and
I am being played by the Ultimate.
What if I am being played
by the one I care about more than anything?
What if I am being played
like strings on a harp or
a bow on a violin?
What if I am being played
to produce the music
and beauty
that I can also create
when I am being played
by the Ultimate?
What can I do to
be played more often?
Am I selfish for wanting
to be played?

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In the Stillness

In the Stillness

So often we look for that space,
thar privileged location,
that special space,
that holy center,
as if there is a place
where we can be with the Ultimate
like we cannot be elsewhere.
The reality is that there is not one.
You are the space.
Where you are is the space.
Anything you need to know,
anything you need to see,
anything you need to experience,
can be done right where you are.
What makes a space that holy ground
is not the space,
but you and
your ability to sit
where you are
in the stillness
and be with the Ultimate.
when we learn to listen,
look,
and feel in the space
then where we are
becomes holy and
in the stillness
the holy comes to us.

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Loving & Serving

Loving & Serving

The thing which brings me the greatest joy
is serving others.
One of the lessons I learned early on
is to love everyone,
serve everyone
and remember God is in everyone.
When I love others,
I am loving God.
When I serve others,
I am serving God.
When I remember God,
I am remembering to look for
God in everyone.
Serving and loving others
is not always easy.
I have to do so knowing
there may be no reciprocity.
I have to do so knowing
whether others love me or not,
I am loving the God in them.
Whether others serve me or not,
I am serving the God in them.
Serving and loving everyone
it is not about them,
it is about my willingness
to love and serve the Ultimate.
It is about loving and serving
the one whose love for me
is unconditional and
loves and serves me
even in the moments
I am not.

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My First Hour

My First Hour

Recently I was asked how do you get everything done.
I am not sure how you do it all.
That question brings me back to Dr Martin Luther King, Jr.
who when asked a similar question said
“I give my first hour to God and
God gives me the rest.”
I can’t accomplish anything without
the love and support of the Ultimate.
So I begin each day with my own disciplines
and know that it is my time with the Ultimate
which enables me to do everything else.

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i Celebrate Myself

I Celebrate Myself

I celebrate myself.
There is nothing wrong
with being able to stand in a mirror
and look at myself.
and say in myself I am well pleased.
I celebrate myself.
I celebrate who I am,
what I have come through,
how I have come through things.
I celebrate my faith,
my tenacity,
my compassion,
my patience,
my endurance,
and my love.
I celebrate all of who I am
and all of who I am becoming.
I celebrate my achievements,
my experiences, and
my existence.
In doing so,
I celebrate the one who
created me,
sustains me, and
maintains me.
I celebrate the love
through which I was created,
the love that flows to me
and through me.
For so many reasons,
I celebrate myself.

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Music

Music is about healing.
it is the medicine which
can bless me,
cleanse me,
heal me,
calm me,
soothe me,
energize me,
and minister to
my soul

Music comes and ministers
to my senses.
it is not always the whole piece.
Sometimes is it a single note.
a few notes
a word
a chorus
or the way it is played.

Music can create something
sacred within me.
It can be an offering
to the eternal.
It can be a reminder of
how the universe is greater
then any single moment in time.

Music is;
it it not always describable;
it just is.

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My Playmate

One of the things I love most
about you is that you are always
there to come play with me.
You are the one who reminds me of
Melanie singing I have
a brand new pair of roller skates,
you have a brand new key.
You are my playmate.

You are the one who when I
am pausing,
is my best friend and
says lets play.
You watch cooking shows with me,
listen to music with me,
makes me laugh,
brings me joy, and
says let’s play again.

You bring out my inner child.
and remind me you like to have fun too.
You love when we say
let’s play,
let’s laugh,
let’s be silly,
and have a good time.
I am so glad you are
my playmate.

You remind me to pause,
say I have the key
do you have the roller skates.
we have swung on swings,
read books,
splashed in water,
made blueberry banana bars
and hidden under the covers
we call tents.
Thank you for being
my playmate.

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A League of My Own

I have been thinking about prayer
and what I pray about.
Then it dawned on me
that when I pray,
I am entering a
space with the Divine.
I am entering
a league of my own.

It doesn’t matter
who I am around
or with
or where.
When I open myself and
pray I am in
a league of my own
being coached by the Ultimate
and being taken
to a higher place of understanding.

I am in a league
selected just for me.
A league of my own,
hand picked and selected
by the Ultimate.
A league just for me.
A league of my own.

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Held in Your Arms

There are days
when I just need
to be held.
When I want to be
a little gurl held
in my mother’s arms

Then I close my eyes,
wrap my arms around myself
and rock myself
until I feel myself being
held in your arms.

It brings me back in time
to those moments when
I was wrapped in the
arms of love and knew
all was going to be okay.

Now when I need to be held
I wrap my arms around myself
and rock myself like my mother did
until I am held by you
and rocked in your Divine love.

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Dancing with God

Life is like a dance.
God is my partner.
God makes suggestions
and I respond
it is a conversation
between the two of us
which is all about us

God is skilled,
if I have faith
then I do not have to guess
I just have to follow.

God’s timing is perfect.
so I just have to follow,
without doubt,
without fear,
without the desire to
change the dance.

Dancing with God
is about trust.
It is about
releasing anticipation.
It is about moving with
and matching the movements.
it is about maintaining balance
in my relationship with God

It is about following the signals
which God is giving me.
It is also about knowing that
God never forces me to follow.
That choice is always up to me.

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Visible Invisibility

She was sitting in the corner
and I never even saw her
until she coughed and
then I saw her and
noticed her beauty.

The last thing to discover water
would be a fish, Confucious said
because it is so pervasive
that it is invisible.

What keeps us from seeing
what we see
when we see it,
I ask my students

Our Higher Power is
ever present
but like the woman in the corner
or the fish in the bowl
remains unseen until
she clears her throat
or someone tries to remove us
from the water
or we are decentered
in our lives
and can see what we could not see
and hear what we could not hear

May we have senses that can be
aware of your presence without
you having to clear your throat
to get us to notice you

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I Am My Sanctuary

There have been moments
Where I have needed stillness.
Where I sought a sanctuary;
A space to retreat to and
sit with you and just be

Then you showed me how
to sit and be still
and journey within
to my inner sanctuary

You bought me
to a space within me
that is quiet,
still
peaceful
and where I hear you
with the greatest of clarity

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Honoring You

Today and all I days
I just have to honor you
for being the great I am

I do not understand you,
or the way you work,
never have and never will.
All I can do is honor you.

The miracles which I have
witnessed and experienced baffle me
They are beyond my understanding
and leave me speechless and baffled.
All I can do is honor you.

Sometimes I think I have a clue,
I think I have an insight,
but your ways are not my ways
and your understandings are not mine.
So all I can do is honor you
for being the great I am.

I wish I could explain, but I can’t.
I wish I had the words, but I don’t
What I can do is sit in the fullness
of the Mystery which is you
and honor you.

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