Author Archive
A Puzzle
Posted by: | CommentsToday is Palm Sunday in the western Christian world. Last night I saw a movie: Oh My God which asked the question “Who/what is God?” to hundreds of people of various religions and no religion in many countries around the world. It was a fascinating exploration of the teachings, feelings and thoughts of the concept of God in our world. Jerusalem was one of the places where many people were asked this question.
Although there were a few radical examples of ‘my way or the highway’ from each of the three major religions that claim Jerusalem as their Holy City, most of the faithful wanted peace and a sharing of this Holy place. This surprised the film maker, and the audience! Could peace actually break out if it was left to the common person? Could there be common accord and sharing around this sacred site?
During the service today, I started to think about the strangeness of having a Holy place claimed by Jews, Christians and Muslims alike – in fact fought over by these three great religions that are all based on the same commandments! What was God thinking???
Maybe the answer is in that question; maybe this is one of the Great Teachings of all time. If each of these three religions were to actually follow the ten Commandments as they are, there would be love, sharing, tolerance, and peace would indeed break out. Maybe the reason there is one common Holy Place for all three is to have this be a teaching of how we can all get along and share the very things that are sacred to us all!
This amazing journey on Planet Earth includes paths for each and every one of us, all different in content, all the same in desire and ultimate outcome; all sacred. We all want want a full heart, a smile on our faces, a deep sense of doing life well; we want to know we are safe, and supported with love; we want to feel all the power of gratitude and joy in our lives. Is it possible that ultimately the Highest Good is served and we are all uplifted when we are given the hardest lessons and still get through them with our heart intact?
Facing Change
Posted by: | CommentsWhen I was growing up I used to hear: “There are two things you can be certain of: Death and Taxes.” I gotta change that expression~ change being the operative word. Yes, there are always “taxes”. Call it tithing, and remember it is impossible to run a community, a town, a state, a government without (hopefully) equal and equitable support from all of us. That said, currently taxes as we think of them are as uncertain as the weather around the Great Lakes.
What of Death? The discussions are endless including the potential of taking it all with you. What ever you think will be the next step after shedding the body, if you shed it, are endless as well. The one true thing: Change.
If there was one thing Grandmother knew, it was when change was coming. Sometimes it was simply a change in the weather – forecast by the clouds or the way the chickens acted. Sometimes it was adjusting and changing with the seasons. Sometimes it was listening, sensing and feeling change on the wind. Sometimes it was packing light and moving on.
I have been observing my own flow with life lately and observing the differences in how I am doing things. Looking at the most recent holidays there has been a huge break with tradition. Christmas was celebrated with sacredness and joy, community and food just as always. However there was no emphasis on presents, decorations, or shopping. How freeing is that!
My recent birthday was another example of this change. Parties? Yes!! Presents, cards, phone calls, and any number of other ‘have-to’s’ were gone! In fact I didn’t even think about the “lack” until a week or so later. Some of this was due to good old email and facebook where I received so many wonderful birthday wishes from here and there and every where! So there was no sense of being forgotten, rather there was a hightened sense of being celebrated.
It seems time to loosen our schedules and rituals to include more possibility of change and diversity. It is time to release things that weigh us down and deaden us inside. The burden of these things is too great during such a time of change. It’s time to create what is new and alive. Hardest of all, it is time to allow ourselves to lay fallow, not anticipate the coming crops, and wait for Spring.
The Universe is in a state of constant change and becoming. We would do well to emulate this in our own lives as there is nothing more painful to our Spirit than to hold on tightly to what is passing away. To end with a conundrum, a paradox: Everything changes; everything is the same.
Childhood Revisited
Posted by: | CommentsI had a big birthday this year, my 65th in fact. Deciding to return to my roots in New York State, I contacted an old high school friend to see if she could come to a party in Brooklyn at my daughter’s home. Instead she suggested returning to the small farming town in upstate New York where we had met, to see who was still around. This core idea grew wings, word spread on the grapevine, and more than a dozen of us decided to have a potluck Saturday night.
I didn’t know what to expect since I hadn’t seen any of these childhood friends for almost 50 years! (How time flies…) So I began to dream about it. All of us would be around 65 years old, give or take a few; would I know anybody? Would they seem old? Would anyone even remember me? I had been to other reunions at another ‘city’ school where I attended for my last two years of high school. At the 40th reunion, I noticed that although many of the women were blooming and reinventing themselves, many of the men were ready to retire and were winding their lives down for the final curtain call. Current friends warned me not to be surprised if my childhood buddies might look and act old.
Saturday night arrives and much to my delight this is a wonderful group of old friends that have just reached middle age! They look fabulous and shine with aliveness. The stories start emerging as we are reminded of things, people, events no one has thought of in decades! It is a lively, loud and exuberant group, excited about life, full of good humor, and glad to be with each other again. Apparently I have changed the most (maybe), and this surprises me. How? I was shy, retiring, and quiet back then. I held myself back to try to fit in. Hardly shy anymore! It is I who has come alive!
As we talk, I realize that life itself has rubbed off the shyness. There was no time or energy to maintain that persona in my life as all the various trials of men and children and family and making my way by the seat of my pants came into play over the years. My true self was forced to emerge to survive. All the extraneous pretense was shed like a tight skin and I am so much better for it!
More stories will come out of this wonderful evening. I can feel them forming and emerging in the dark fertile corners of my psyche and I will share them with you as they do. More than anything else I have again felt the strong, vital root of my childhood in my life – in my soul – and I am healed in ways that astonish me. I feel full of the deep strength of my heritage in the rolling hills of my childhood, connected to the people who grew there with me. Thank you, everyone of you, for welcoming me home!
