For the last few weeks, I have been reading Pema Chodron’s book Taking the Leap. It is about releasing old habits and fears. There is a section in her book when she talks about unconditional friendliness with ourselves. it is about changing the way we think about things. rather then seeing things as a burden, we need to see them as a gift. Rather then punishing ourselves for something that has happened in our lives, we can begin to focus on the lessons learned. Are we looking at the negative aspect of a situation or the positive. it is amazing how we keep ourselves living in a state of suffering and drama rather then choosing a mindset that allows us to live in a state of evolution and grace.
Her reflection on developing a deeper relationship with one’s self reminded me of an epiphany I had once while reading Don Miguel Ruiz’s book, The Four Agreements.
Read moreLove Lessons from My Father
For the last three weeks, I have been taking myself through a nine-week spiritual journaling intensive to help myself develop a deeper connection with the Creator and myself. In doing so, I came to realize that much of what I was journaling about had to do with lessons I learned from my parents about patience, love, commitment, grace, wisdom and so many other positive qualities. I miss them both dearly. My mother passed away my first semester in seminary and my father passed away my last semester in seminary. I miss them both dearly. One of the wisdoms I inherited from them was some valuable lessons about love.
A few years before I entered seminary my mother’s micro-infarct dementia began to take increased control over her life. By the time, I began seminary, I knew she had very little time left with us. One of the things I remember most was a conversation I had with my father about love. The last few years of my mother’s life were not easy. She had lost the ability to control her bowels and bladder. She no longer knew who most of us were. She didn’t remember who my father was. There were days my father struggled to get her to eat or drink
Read moreStaying Conscious
The other day, someone said “this spiritual evolution stuff is hard work. Sometimes I just want to go back to the way I was, it was so much easier.” I had to giggle because I totally agreed with her. It is so easy to just go through life and not think about what we say or do or why. I remember the days when I did not worry about what I did or said and didn’t think about what I really meant by that or the message I was giving off. Or the days when I was not thinking about what emotion was ruling my response? Or whether I was responding or reacting? But then I stop and think about how unhappy I was, how messed up my life appeared to be, how I felt as if I were on an emotional roller coaster. There were times I felt as if I was trapped on one of those revolving doors. No matter how much I said things were going to be different, I found myself doing the same thing over and over again and getting the same results. Oh wait, isn’t that what Einstein called insanityJ.
Evolving spiritually means that we cannot zone out through life. We cannot hit the snooze alarm on our lives. We have to remain awake and conscious. When we are conscious, we can listen to our intuition.
Read moreRe-Design
A few weeks ago, I reflected on Ghandi’s message to “be the change you want to see in the world” and HGTV’s slogan, “change the world, start at home.” I was reminded of these messages again when posting the Inspiritual Thought for the Day “my life is my message” by Ghandi. It got me thinking, if my life is my message, what does it look like. When someone walks into my emotional and spiritual house what do they see. Are you greeted with a sofa of fear, a loveseat of anger, and a couple of chairs of hatred or do you settle into a sofa of love, a loveseat of joy, and a couple of chairs of peace?
To borrow the name of an old show from HGTV, sometimes we need a re-design.
Read moreCourage’s friend: Compassion
If courage were a person, how would you describe them? Ruth Gendler described courage as having “roots. She sleeps on a futon on the floor and lives close to the ground. Courage looks you straight in the eye. She is not impressed with powertrippers and she knows first aid. Courage is not afraid to weep and she is not afraid to pray, even when she is not sure who she is praying to. When Courage walks it is clear that she has made the journey from loneliness to solitude. The people who told me she is stern were not lying, they just forgot to mention that she is kind.
Courage is what was hiding inside the king/queen of the forest and what lives inside each of us.
Read moreIf I were King/Queen of the Forest.
Have you ever had one of those times in your life when you get this song stuck in your head and you cannot seem to shake it? Ok, so it is not even a whole song. It is just one line from The Wizard of Oz. The Cowardly Lion sings the line when he is thinking about how different his life would be if he had courage. He starts off by singing “If I were king of the forest.” How often do we think to ourselves, if I were king of queen of the forest, I would do X in my life. I know I have played the what if version in a number of different ways in my life. If I were X, then I would do Y. If I were president, then I would do X.
My guess is that in many of us there is some aspect of the Cowardly Lion’s personality that lives and has taken up varying degrees of residence in our minds, spirits, and souls.
Read moreIt’s pay attention time!
When I was pastoring, I always found it difficult to get people to pay attention to the announcements. I think most pastors would tend to agree with me. One day, when I was trying to read the announcements, one of the young visitors to our church stood up and told the adults it was pay attention time. Two things about that morning have stayed with me. One was the effect of those words on the congregation that morning; people actually focused their attention on the announcements that day. The other was the power of that young woman who reminded us all that we have to pay attention to everything, including the announcements.
The last several months, I have remembered how important it to pay attention to everything in my life. By paying attention to my feelings, especially my reactions, I can see where I have grown and where I still need to evolve spiritually.
Read moreIt's all about the journey!
Last week, I talked about self-love as the greatest love of all. After I wrote it, someone emailed me and said self-love is harder then I thought or made it sound. This person said they tried waking up in the morning committed to loving themselves that day, but before they got too far away from the bed, if that far, the self-judgment began to kick in. It is important to remember that self-love is something that grows stronger over time. I love myself for who I am right now. When I look back over the last year or even six months, I can see how my self-love is stronger today then it was six months ago, or a year ago. I am also mindful that a year from now my self-love will be stronger then it is at this very point in time. Self-love is something we must practice every day until we master it in the same ways we have mastered self-rejection and self-judgment.
So where do we start?
Read moreThe Greatest Love of All
I was sitting at the 2011 Miss Gay Rochester Pageant listening to Miss Kelly Valasquez Lord perform her rendition of Whitney Houston’s song The Greatest Love of All. Given all that has been happening in our country with youth on youth violence and youth suicide, I was struck by the timeliness of the message of this song. However, it was the chorus, which resonated with my spirit.
I decided long ago, never to walk in anyone's shadows
If I fail, if I succeed
At least I live as I believe
No matter what they take from me
They can't take away my dignity
Because the greatest love of all
Is happening to me
I found the greatest love of all
Inside of me
The greatest love of all
Is easy to achieve
Learning to love yourself
It is the greatest love of all
Learning to love ourselves is indeed the greatest gift of all.
Read moreComing out of the cave
The other day, I found myself led to an ancient writing by Plato known as the Allegory Of The Cave. I have to say that I can’t remember the last time I read anything by Plato. To be completely honest, I am not sure I have ever read anything by Plato. Had it not been for a reference to it in a book I am currently reading, Spiritual Partnership by Gary Zukav, I probably would never have been inspired to read it.
Plato wrote it as a way of explaining to others what philosophers do. However, for me, it spoke to me about the process of liberation and enlightenment.
Read moreWhat would you do for a Klondike bar?
Several weeks ago, while visiting with friends, we were surprised with a childhood favorite for desert – Klondike bars. All of us chuckled, giggled, and began singing the jingle “what would you do for a Klondike bar?” Since then, our taste buds restimulated, we have purchased them perhaps too many times for our own home and been singing the jingle to each other and to the friends we have shared them with.
While the ice cream was wonderful, the jingle is what has had me thinking the last few weeks. What would you do for a Klondike bar?
Read morePractice makes perfect!
I remember growing up always hearing that practice makes perfect. While I hated hearing it at the time, I do know it is true. The thing about practicing is that it does not matter what you are practicing, over time you will master it. It does not matter if it is positive or negative. It does not matter if it is a healthy or unhealthy behavior. It does not matter whether it will be beneficial or not, all that matters is that practices makes perfect.
Think about this for a moment, how much time have you spent in your life practicing anger, jealousy, lack, self doubt, suffering, worry, frustration, impatience, or denial? My guess is that if you have been practicing them long enough you have probably mastered them. A friend of mine has practiced procrastination so long she has mastered it. Practice does make perfect.
Read moreBreathe
A few weeks ago, I wrote a blog called No More Poison! Here I wrote about the need for us to refuse to internalize any message from others that is not of love or to present a message to others that is not of love. When we do this, we are eating or serving emotional, mental, and spiritual poison to others.
I have been thinking a lot about the effect of the global poison of fear, which presents itself in so many different ways in our world. One of the ways this poison presents itself amongst our youth is through bullying and hatred. The news has been filled lately with stories of at least ten young lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered youth who had ingested so much poison from their peers and their society that they were no longer able to see hope or joy in life.
Read moreMastering Love
This month, I have been doing a lot of reflecting on love. In part, because of where I am in my own journey. In part, because of my discussions with people about don Miguel Ruiz’s book "The Mastery of Love." For those who have not read it, I strongly encourage you to do so. While he provides you with ideas and concepts, he also provides you with some realistic ways in which one can overcome the parasites of our socialization process and transcend to a reality where emotional pain, suffering, guilt, shame, fear, jealousy, and all the other tools of civilization no longer have power over us. He strips away the "blame game" and tells us we are each responsible for our emotional suffering. Mom is not responsible. Dad is not responsible. The jerk that just cut us off on the highway is not responsible. We inherited suffering through our "civilization" process and learned to fear instead of love.
Read moreNo more whips!
One of my readers emailed me last week to let me know how last weeks blog (No More Poison!) had caused him to think about things differently. He jokingly (I think) asked me what I was going to challenge him to give up this week. As I was thinking about this and listening to some people around me this week, I realized that one of the other things we need to get rid of in our lives are our whips. If I asked most people if they enjoyed being whipped, most people would say no. If I asked them if they would voluntarily whip themselves, most people would still say no. Yet why is it that we are good at whipping ourselves.
Read moreNo more poison!
So if I asked if you would voluntarily eat or serve poison to someone what would you say? When I asked about two dozen people, I got all kinds of responses. The majority of them said no, NO, or #$@ NO! A few people asked me if I was okay. One person said maybe under extreme circumstances and of course, one person had to ask me if I was only asking about future, not past efforts. One person did confess to feeding someone dog food, but nobody said they would voluntarily eat poison or serve it someone else.
I promised all those that I asked that it would all make sense when they read this blog. I hope that it will.
Read moreGifts through fear.
During Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s first inaugural address, we made a statement that many people still remember today. He said, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” It would be nice if I could say that one could go through one’s life without ever experiencing fear. However, that would not be realistic. What is important to remember is that we can use fear as a way of evolving.
Read moreFree your mind and the rest will follow.
There is a song from my past, and perhaps some of yours, called Free Yourself by En Vogue. One of the lines in the chorus says – Free your mind and the rest will follow. Their song challenges the listeners to free themselves from the stereotypes they may hold about black women. It reminds me of a poem by Pat Parker, who wrote a poem called “To the white woman who wants to be my friend.” Both of them challenge us to free ourselves from the stereotypes and prejudices that interfere with our ability to form deep and meaningful relationships with people. These stereotypes and prejudices can enslave us. Often times these ideologies are so engrained in what we believe that we are not even aware that we are enslaved to them.
Read moreAnd Then I Stumbled
I was once asked what inspires me and the answer is everything. For me there is something spiritual in everyday life. Even the mundane act of taking out the trash can be spiritual. For the last few days, however, I have been thinking about stumbling and what a powerful spiritual experience that was for me. There is probably not anyone who has not physically stumbled at one point or time in his or her life, especially as a child. We stumble, and sometimes we fall and for the most part we get back up again. Sometimes when we stumble, it is easier to get back up again then others. Sometimes we stumble and we feel the impact of that stumble for days, sometimes weeks.
Read moreIt is all about the journey!
A woman I knew back in the early 90’s once said to me, “it takes a long time to grow an old friend.” Those who have journeyed with you for a while have this ability to be able to reflect back to you that which you cannot see for yourself. The other day, for example, I was talking with my spiritual sister, Rev Angel Sullivan, who reflected back to me about how much she has seen me evolve spiritually in the last year.
Spiritual evolution is not always easy. One reason it is difficult is that we have to let go of that which keeps us from evolving into our spiritual greatness.
Read more