So here’s round 2 of my attempt answer that question from my perspective and I would love it if you would join the conversation and add your point of view.

I think I’d start the exploration of answering that question with another question (tricky, right?), “What have been the benefits of your participation in other loving, committed relationships?”

I think there are “shiny” little presents that come from participating in a committed loving relationship that don’t show up in other areas of life.  I’m not just talking about the Redbook response here…you know…companionship, someone sharing your jokes…I’m talking about the benefit of participating in a committed relationship has to your spiritual growth.

I think that that participating in a committed relationship implies love.  That loving relationship then forms a kind of crucible for transformation.  In that crucible, I think we have the potential of becoming more adept at knowing what to let go of and what to hold on to — perhaps an essential knowing in growing more into who we really are as we walk in this human life — balancing attachment and non-attachment.

Another benefit is learning to balance respect for self with respect for other — learning to recognize, over and over and over the Divine within me and the Divine before me.  This kind of real balancing act becomes more nuanced in committing to love someone totally.  It becomes more nuanced in the community of intimate love.  Then, the love itself, the relationship itself becomes the wisdom teacher.  This wisdom blossoms in the field of committed love — again, what do I hold on to and what do I let go of in order to cultivate the knowledge of the Truth?  Not an easy question to answer.  Harder still in the context of committed relationships.  If not for the commitment, I don’t have to ask the question.

In a committed relationship, there’s the challenge to not lose oneself in the process, not to betray oneself — to remain true to oneself.  In some ways, I think being in a committed relationship is a commitment to discover and live in Truth – THROUGH the learning that comes from being in committed relationship.  So the commitment is a commitment to Truth and to the Self.  The relationship is the mirror.

And, let me tell you, after 30 years with the same person, sometimes that mirror needs some significant polishing!  The polishing takes the form of owning my shadow self with all its gradations and engaging deep with those parts of me that I would rather disown, deny or project out on my beloved.  He’s not so keen to be the object of my projections.  Truth told, neither am I.

Some say that this kind of commitment is a high level sadhana, spiritual practice and walk.  I’m not so sure, because that implies a greater than and a less than.  I don’t really buy into that line of thinking when it comes to sadhana.  That said, being in relationship like this, with this kind of commitment sometimes feels like graduate school at finals time!

I also think that there are layers and textures of humility, strength, love and respect that I wouldn’t be able to totally grock if not in relationship – these divine qualities expressed in humanity revealed in committed love shine as light through a mult-faceted diamond – hard won.  Just as a diamond is formed and revealed only after being subjected to pressure, a LOT of pressure – a lump of coal under pressure.  Perhaps committed love is the same.

The rough and unseen, unacknowledged and unrecognized rough edges of the ego are gradually exposed and worn away – revealing the shiny love of the Soul.  Whereas the ego reveals itself in our reactions each other,  the Soul may reveal itself in our deep acceptance of each other.

Still with me?

As for this kind of deep true acceptance, there’s the opportunity to unravel some metaphors of LIFE.  If I’m feeling challenged to fully accept something about my beloved, what’s the something?  What’s the metaphor here, what am I trying to teach myself through metaphor?  What does it really mean to accept another beyond the concretized illusion in front of me?

Another area in this playground of committed love is the jungle gym of power – relinquishing power and asserting power – more of learning to discern what to hold onto and what to let go of – that dance between our masculine and feminine natures.

In this dance, on this playground, I think that committed love has the potential of moving us past the IDEA of love to LOVE.  To love the idea of LOVE without the practical experience of getting back to LOVE frees seems to imprison one in a kind of virtuous delusion, liberated from the daily, sometimes moment by moment  struggle to fully LOVE someone – warts and all AND letting them learn to love you.

So.  LOVE becomes a territory, often without a good map.  It’s full of surprises, challenges, raw untamed beauty and raw untamed pain.  Commitment increases your capacity to love beyond what you think possible.  This kind of commitment demands you stay AWAKE and intentional.  It demands that you increase your capacity to fully see from another’s perspective.  Ken Wilber said, “The more perspectives I can see – the more I can LOVE.”

Obviously, this is not the only territory for transcendence, just one of the playgrounds.

The goal of this kind of love is transcendence:  trance – end – dance.

All this said, it seems to me that the big questions to ask are “What is the benefit of committing to love this person?  Are we both committed enough to awakened love, to do the hard work, to live outside the gilded cage of the idea of love to explore the unmapped territory of LOVE?”

On a lighter note, make some popcorn and rent “THE PRINCESS BRIDE.”  This fable is chock-ful of metaphors, fun, and heroism in the territory of LOVE.

OH!  And, check out my New Year’s Message Tele-Retreat!

So, what do you think?  Join the conversation and add your two cents.

In challenging my limiting beliefs about God, I find a Magnificence that cannot be captured in words…at least my words.  I understand the Truth of the Tao Te Ching teaching, “The Tao that can be spoken is not the true Tao.”  Yet, still I wander through this garden of words to play hide and seek with God.

In one moment, the devotional seeker in me listens for and attempts to follow the quiet impulses of  my heart that encourage me to see  the face of the Lord, where ever I turn, in what ever circumstance I find myself.  I seek and sometimes find the true contentment of the Presence of God in myself, in the person I’m with or even the clickety clacking of my fingers on the keyboard.  With or without devotion, it’s THAT that I seek, THAT single Consciousness that playfully hides in some infinite number of creative manifestations.

In this Game, I find the humble wisdom of Brother Lawrence to be a signpost guiding my Way.

In the early sixteen hundreds, a humble footman gazed at a simple tree, its outline stark against the winter sky.  The tree stood barren of leaves with only the promise of its summer bounty hidden within.  As Nicholas Herman of Lorraine lost himself in the contemplation of this simple tree, he found himself overcome and forever changed by Grace.  He was given a “high view of the providence and power of God.”

The sight of a dry, barren tree and the vision of its full beauty bursting forth in Spring was the catalyst of his conversion.  At the age of eighteen, he began his walk to God, throughout the rest of his life seeking only the Presence of God.  Soon following this vision, Nicholas Herman became a Carmelite monk and took the name Brother Lawrence.

Brother Lawrence was not a prolific writer, nor was he a scholar.  His was a simple Way.  His gift to us was his compassionate and concise wisdom collected in a slender book entitled, “The Practice of the Presence of God.”

Throughout the centuries his simple Way has attracted and consoled seekers from many traditions who aspire to know God.  Even today he continues to be an inspiring model for living in the awareness of the Presence of God.  He wrote, “I renounced for the love of Him everything that was not He, and I began to live as if there was none but He and I in the world.”

How completely simple, yet how completely profound was his unassuming wisdom.  Such is the way that he approached his life, from his humble work of fifty years in the monastery kitchen to his relationships with his contemporaries.  He walked through his days making room for the Presence of God in each unfolding moment.

He performed all the ordinary tasks of his daily life in the continual remembrance of the Presence of God, always “pleasing myself by doing things to please God.”  As he cooked, he cooked with an awareness that he was cooking for the Lord.  As he washed dishes, he washed dishes with the awareness that he was washing dishes for God.  As he ate, he ate with the awareness that it was God that he was feeding.

Although he lived a seemingly uncomplicated life in a remote monastery, he wrote with clarity and honesty of his sufferings and failings.  With his own body being “lame” and the difficulties accompanying such a handicap, not to mention the trials of daily life, he encouraged aspirants to persevere in the discipline of seeking out the Presence of God.

He wrote, “Think often on God, by day, by night, in your business, and even in your diversions.  Lift up your heart to Him, sometimes even at your meals, and when you are in company . . . It is not necessary for being with God to be always at church.  We may make an oratory of our heart.”

What an inspired understanding, in continually making room for the Presence of God in the present moment, I can make a temple, a house of worship, in my own heart!   The power of such simple practices; continually making room for the Presence of God in all things, all activities, all people, all circumstances, and doing all things for the love of God filled Brother Lawrence with perfect faith and unwavering devotion to God.

Free from the distractions of the world that might lead him astray in his love of the Presence of God, he revealed a clear and simple path through the maze of daily life.  Although I live the life of a householder, rather than a monk, I can still learn from his sublime example and perhaps gradually free myself from the distractions that lead me away from recognizing and welcoming the all-pervasive Presence in ordinary circumstances.

In welcoming this Presence in each moment, in making room for this Presence in each moment, I experience a stream of Love flowing steadily from my heart.  It is that same Love that is the Presence.  What a mysterious paradox is this play!  Looking into the lives of great beings such as Brother Lawrence, I stumble across practices and wisdom that lead me to the experience of the all-pervasive Presence of God.

~ Shams of Tabriz

Does the mystical Divine subscribe to a particular pronoun?

I tend to think not.  That may explain my ruthless abandonment of rules when I write about, speak to, consider “GOD.”  Sometimes, He, sometimes She, sometimes It … out in that field.  That field free of rules, that’s where I meet the Mystic.

As you might have discerned by now, I’m interested in exploring the sublime Knowledge of the Truth as described by saints and seekers across a wide variety of spiritual traditions and in my own experience.  In sharing this exploration, I’m first devoting space to the consideration of what various scriptures and sacred writings say about who or what God is . . . to me.

Here’s where I’m landing today (and for the last several years now).  In the feelings of inner peace, delight and love – that’s where I most feel the connection to Holy (see how I mix it up?  What is God’s true Name after all?).

I think of God as that all-pervasive Consciousness that permeates all that is.  I am THAT.  So are you.  So is every thread that comes together to weave this tapestry we are all creating together.  To tune into that awareness and align with the Vibration of Consciousness takes practice, attention, awareness, mindfulness and willingness.  I’m talking about willingness to drop our limited understanding, concepts and ideas, willingness to open to the presence of Grace in this unfolding moment.

For me, it gets rather simple.  If I’m feeling good, I’m feeling God.  If not, it’s up to me to restore my state to a more LIFE affirming stance . . . not through denial, through acceptance and transcendence.  I’ll get to that later

After all, God’s right here.  If I’m not there?  Where am I?

My golden key is in the embrace of the inherent power of taking full responsibility for myself while abandoning that sometimes not so unconscious wish and waiting for rescue from any of my own destructive tendencies.  By destructive here, I am referring to that old definition of “sin.”  Sin derived from the archer’s term of “sinning” – when one misses the mark.

This is not your mother’s “sin.”  If my mark is SELF-realization (recognizing with steadfast cognizance, I am THAT”), sin is anything that is not in alignment with recognition of the Truth.  Because that TRUTH is right here, right now as near as my next breath, as intimate as my own heartbeat.  My glorious responsibility in this play of Consciousness is to drop into the ever-available peace, love and/or joy in this moment.

The really good news is that it’s not that tough.  These days there are numerous tools and technologies at our fingertips to transcend our own limited state and return to the Garden.

Later, I’ll share more about how I return to the Garden.  For now, try this – re-read the poem at the beginning of this post.  Now, take a deep breath and read it again.  One more time, this time out loud (if you can without your neighbors calling the men in white coats).  What did you discover?

Like a hiker who has come to a magnificent vista as she rounds a curve on a trail, pause, take a breath, look up at the sky.  Even if you are inside, you close your eyes and remember the vista of the vast sky.  Breathe in and allow room for that mystical Presence hidden within the  the poem.  Give that Presence room and time to peek out at you and present itself.

It may also be useful for you to know my own thinking in regards to how to best play with this blog.  First, you might want to print it out, or set it as your home page so you can read and re-read.  I imagine that some of what I write may challenge you.  That’s ok with me.  I hope it’s ok with you.  Share your comments on the blog.

As you can tell by now, I’m not a scholar, I’m not a theologian.  My sole credential is that I love God, God of my understanding.  I yearn to love Him even more deeply and know Her completely.  And, I’m ok with the Mystery.

Most of us walk in blindness to the experience of the great Truth, despite the abundance of sacred and mundane writings pointing us clearly and directly to the Presence all around us and within us.  In this blindness, I not only accept but embrace the challenge of cultivating disciplined (read playful) self-responsibility and engaging self-effort to shift my identification from my small ego self to my True SELF . . . all the while LOVING that small ego self.

This challenging and playful dance reminds me of my worthiness to live in the steady awareness of God, allowing me to touch Love, experience Peace and delight in Joy.  Such rigorous assumption of self-responsibility jogs my memory of the Truth of who I am (and you are) creating heaven on earth ~ my personal paradise.

One of my mentors, Dick Olney, told me one time that he daily said out loud, “I give heartfelt thanks for help unknown already on it’s way to me!”

Now, Dick had a giant booming voice and a bit of flare for drama.  I like to imagine Dick standing with his arms wide booming out to the world, “I GIVE HEARTFELT THANKS TO HELP UNKNOWN ALREADY ON IT’S WAY TO ME!”

Me too, Dick.  Me too.

So, join the party y’all.  How ’bout some heartfelt thanks?  Don’t be shy.

Gratitude is the Master Key

By the way, if any y’all know how to insert a video into a post, clue me in.

photo by Hannah Patterson

“Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all the others.”

~ Marcus Tullius Cicero

Expressing authentic appreciation in our relationships is perhaps the single factor that can open the way for those we care about to understand how truly valued they are.  While the absence of appreciation can become fertile ground for growing toxicity within a relationship.

Whether it is a parent/child, husband/wife, friend/friend, brother/sister, employee/boss ~ regardless of the nature of the relationship, the expression of appreciation is like water to a thirsty plant.

Like plants, some of us need more appreciation than others.  Most people need a daily dose.  However, the key word here is authentic appreciation.

Here’s an invitation for you.  Just for a week, everyday express authentic appreciation for those with whom you share your life.  Get in touch with how grateful you are something you truly appreciate that your person did for you and then tell them “thank you.”

Look them in the eyes and let the fullness of your genuine, heartfelt gratitude flow from you to them.  “Thank you . . . when you did . . . it filled my need for . . . or . . . I felt . . . Thank you.”  Experiment with how you express your gratitude and what really lands with the other person.

Have a little adventure with expressions of gratitude, expressions of appreciation and see what happens.  Post a comment by clicking on the comments section above and share what’s happening for you with the expression of appreciation.

I’m grateful.  I’m happy.  I wish you all well.

In celebration of my birthday, I recorded a mini-metta-meditation as a gift for all you interested folks on the interwebs.

Thank you for being part of my life.  Download the file and share your experience with me.

Click here for the download.  I hope you enjoy.

May your life be filled with great love, great peace and great joy!

OH!  One more thing, I’m going to be teaching a class on Meditation in Maryville, TN.  If you are interested, you can find out more information here.

2.  My dog, Huxley, did not lunge aggressively at the three large standard poodles we encountered on our walk today.  Huxley is still a pup and has lately been lunging aggressively at other dogs on our walks.  Like the rest of us, he can be a little full of himself sometimes.

3.  My husband just brought me a piece of dove dark chocolate.

I’m thinking that I might enjoy an experiment like this.  Maybe I’ll write about 3 good things that happen.  More likely, I’ll write about 3 moments of Presence, or maybe 3 things for which I’m grateful.  The idea I seem to be rallying behind here is the notion of goodness and noticing goodness.

I think that noticing 3 good things might just make for a happy heart.  Maybe attending to goodness might just make an already great life even better.  Here goes, the goodness I’m noticing and celebrating in my life today.

1.  Iya, my mother-in-law, came through a medical procedure with flying colors.  Yayyy.

2.  I had yet another great massage and PT session.  My body is happy.

3.  An old friend, one I have not talked with in at least 17 years, called me today.  She played a big role in my life.  She believed in me when I didn’t believe in myself.  We lost touch when I moved and both of our lives were turning inside out.  Thanks for calling Jae.

Anyone out there on the interwebs wanna play 3 Good Things?