The last several years have been a time of intense personal growth and spiritual transformation. When I first started on this journey, I had this vision of being loving, patient, kind, compassionate, balanced, wise, etc. I felt as if I was supposed to embody the qualities of spiritual leaders who had come before me like Mother Theresa, Jesus, Buddha, or some other vision of divine perfection. I had this notion I was supposed to be a model of walking divinity; that everything I said and did was supposed to be a living monument of love, patience, justice, humility, and divinity. I had this notion I was supposed to be perfect all the time and was not allowed to have any human moments or feelings.
Read moreThe Rabbi's Gift
When I was a little girl, there was nothing I enjoyed more then when my parents would tell me a story. I guess I inherited that gift because today I telling stories and using them to teach important lessons. Lately I have been thinking about one of my favorite stories. It’s a simple, but powerful story called “The Rabbi’s Gift.”
There was a famous monastery, which had fallen on very hard times. Formerly its many buildings were filled with young monks and its big church resounded with the singing of the chant, but now it was deserted. People no longer came there to be nourished by prayer. A handful of old monks shuffled through the cloisters and praised their God with heavy hearts.
Read moreAttitude is everything
Quite some time ago, I gained an understanding about the importance of gratitude. It is amazing what happens to our view of the world when we acquire an attitude of gratitude and begin to look at the world through its eyes. It seems as if the more one finds to be grateful for, the more you see things for which to give thanks. It is this ever-growing experience. Being mindful of one thing for which to give thanks seems to give birth to some other thing for which to give thanks, which gives birth to something else and so on and so on.
Read moreWait!
It is no secret, to those of you who read my reflections on a regular basis, that I am a Chopped fan. I am not sure I have missed an episode since it first aired. I have learned a lot about cooking from watching the show in terms of techniques and flavor profiles and combinations. However, one of the recent episodes moved me to tears and touched me spiritually in a way that I was not expecting. It all happened with a single word. WAIT!
This episode, like a few of the others, was a redemption battle between four chefs who had come in second in their initial competitions. I remember each of them well. However, from the beginning, I had my two favorites Yohanna and Lance. I had remembered them from their initial appearances because of their humility, their grace, and their creativity.
Read moreHorton and the Who
As adults, sometimes what inspires us are things that are deep and reflective. Other times, it is something that brings us back to our childhood, something simple like a kid’s book. Recently, at our Pizza & Spirituality Chat Night, I read a Dr. Seuss book, Horton Hears A Who, to those who gathered to eat my first attempt at homemade pizza. If you have not read this book, do so or some of what is in my heart this morning may not make complete sense. There are a couple of things I love about this story. One is that Horton has this amazing capacity to love all of humanity. Horton believes “a person’s a person, no matter how small.” Another thing I have come to love about Horton is that he is an elephant of great faith. Horton is committed to protecting the people of who-ville, even though he cannot see them. However, protecting them is not as easy as it seems.
Read moreIt’s a new day!
It is funny how the universe confirms things for you. I woke up the other morning with this song by Avalon in my heart, called “New Day.” Over the next two days, the conversations between friends and I, and friends and others were all about how today is a new day. The reality is that today is a new day and each moment is a new moment. Each second is a new second. As Alice Walker once wrote, “we are never the same river twice.” Each moment in our lives is a new moment and each day is a new day. The chorus to Avalon’s song says,
It's a new day
Oh, it's a new time
And there's a new way
I'm gonna live my life
All the old has, passed away
And the new has come
Thank God, It's a brand new day
Read moreLighting the Divine Fire
A few weeks ago, I talked about Satyagraha and wrote about it in response to a question about what I believe. The reality is that the question I answered is not what I believe; it was about what I know. There is a difference between what I believe and what I know. I have been told many things in my life. Some which I have believed and some of which I have not. Sometimes I can believe that what you tell me is true for you. At the same time, I know it is not true for me.
A few things got me thinking about the difference between belief and faith. One of them was a conversation I had with a friend of mine about my meeting with the Permanent Ordination Council when I was seeking ordination. One of the questions I was asked was about how I reconciled being a lesbian and being Christian. I told them that for me, it was not a question of reconciliation, but about faith
Read moreRe-spect Yourself!
It is funny how things from different aspects of your life lead you to the same place in different ways. For example, I was looking at a friend’s facebook page and she had a link to Aretha Franklin singing respect. I was enjoying her sing this song and remembering when she first recorded it. While I could not remember any of the other lyrics, I could remember her singing RESPECT find out what it means to me. I have always thought of the word respect as it has been traditionally defined. I had been taught that when you hold someone in esteem or honor, then you are respecting him or her. Sometimes we can use the word to talk about how we show regard or consideration for someone’s rights. If I asked most people to define respect, my guess is that is how they would define or think about that term.
Read moreSatyagraha
Recently, someone told me they had read something I had written a few years ago asking people to talk or write about what they believe. They said they had never read my what I believe statement. While I have written it out before, what I believe is ever evolving as I evolve.
Over the course of my life, I have come to develop some fairly simple, but powerful beliefs that guide my life. What I believe has been influenced by what I learned while attending Hebrew School, growing up in a Jewish home, my study of scripture, and my readings. Probably most influential in my life has been the writings of a diversity of sacred texts, Ghandi, and don Miguel Ruiz.
Read moreGrowing Instructions
This past Saturday, June 18, 2011, I hosted a surprise gardening and garden party for Zoë. Those who came to help celebrate her 57th birthday each brought a plant to go in our new front yard in an attempt to give her the front yard of her dreams this year. While most of our friends gave her plants or gift certificates with which to buy plants, a few of our friends gave us seeds. One of the things I realized in the process is that each plant and package of seeds came with growing instructions. As I thought about these instructions, I came to realize they were not just about caring for the plants, but also instructions for spiritual growth and evolution.
The first step was to plant your seeds. Nothing can grow if you do not plant it.
Read moreThat’s what love is for.
There is this Amy Grant song called That’s What Love Is For. The chorus of the song goes like this
Believing in the one thing
That has gotten us this far
That's what love is for
To help us through it
That's what love is for
Nothing else can do it.
Round off the edges
Talk us down from the ledges
Give us strength to try once more
Baby, that's what love is for
Read moreCurb Appeal: The Soul – Part 2
I have never been much of a gardener. So learning from Billijo this past week has been an amazing blessing, I think for both of us. Watching her and asking her questions, I have come to realize the spiritual significance to gardening, working the dirt, and the secrets of gardening. It has been a journey that began when she first started, and has continued to reveal new secrets and spiritual lessons as the yard continues to be transformed.
While I have realized that this is her gift to us, I have wanted to do what I could to be a part of it. Billijo got me involved by having me sit next to the wheelbarrow with a sifter over it. She would bring me these clumps of grass and dirt and my job was to sift off the dirt and remove that which was not good soil.
Read moreCurb Appeal: The Soul
Zoë and I have lived in our home for about 6 years now. While we have slowly made changes to the inside of our home to make it feel more like us, our yard was another story. I have long felt like somebody should have nominated us for Curb Appeal: The Block. We definitely had the worst yard on the block. Now mind you nobody has said anything, but we knew. The original owners had had over planted and neglected the maintenance. We had continued that tradition and now things were dying because they were overcrowded. With neither of us being gardeners, we were not even sure what to do to enhance the curb appeal of our home.
Read moreGrace in Community
Those of you who know me personally know that I should have stock in some tissue company because it takes so little to bring tears to my eyes. While there have been days in my life I have cried because I was angry and days I have cried because I was sad, the past year and a half or so, I have most cried for two reasons. One is when my body has been in pain, which fortunately has not been very often. The other, is that my cup is overflowing with experiencing the Creator’s love. One of the situations which always leaves me feeling humbled is when I am blessed with the experience of grace in community.
It is that kind of moment like January 1, 2000. It seemed like that day everyone was in love with each other.
Read moreRemoving the ASS before U and ME.
Growing up I remember hearing my parents and other adults say “When you assume, you make an ASS out of U and ME.” For the last 18 months, I have been working on no longer making assumptions in my life. I am not even sure that in the beginning I realized how often I made assumptions. I knew that I like so many people made assumptions. However, it was not until I consciously began to work on not making them that I realized how often I did. I began to realize how many times I made assumptions about the little things in people’s lives.
It really hit me one day when I was having coffee with a few of my students and they began talking about a couple at a table near us and creating this whole life about them just by looking at them.
Read moreLiving in the How
Last week, I wrote about the importance of leaning in. This Sunday, I was blessed with an opportunity to practice what I teach. It was one of those times, and maybe you have been there, where you are invited to an event you really do not want to go to. It is not that you cannot physically go. It is that you do not want to go. As a friend of mine said, it was one of those awkward times like when you are invited to your ex’s wedding. You are happy they have moved on and found someone who makes them happy, you wish them well, but you do not need to go to the wedding. It was that kind of thing.
So this Sunday morning was one of those moments for me. I knew the minute I saw the invitation I was not going to go.
Read moreWhich way are you leaning?
Several decades ago, a 5-year-old boy named Mikey taught me a very important lesson about emotions. It is one of those lessons, which keeps being brought back to me. I have been reminded of it a number of books that I have read and then again today as I was reading my selection in Denise Linn’s Soul Coaching. The lesson is to lean into the experience, not lean away from it.
See all too often when we are going through a challenging time, or a situation that is difficult or causing us discomfort, we tend to lean away from our feelings and emotions. We try to move away from what we are feeling. We try to move away from the pain, the anger, the fear, the discomfort. So rather then feel these emotions, we try to move away from them into a place of constructed neutrality and calm
Read moreBeing a Sacred Observer
Yesterday, I was challenged to do something I had not done in a while and that was to be mindful of what I said and what I thought. Denise Linn calls this being a sacred observer. Miguel don Ruiz uses a similar exercise in which he has you write down all those thoughts that float through your head. So often, we are not aware of the language of our thoughts. Even when we do not speak language that is disempowering, we may think it. It is a humbling experience when you observe your speech and thought patterns.
One of the things I wrote about in my process journal about being a sacred observer yesterday was how even others conversations can bring up disempowering and negative thoughts in our minds, especially when they trigger unhealed wounds.
Read moreWhy I love Pat Parker
Pat Parker was an African American lesbian poet who died in 1989. While Pat and I never met, her poetry has been this powerful influence in my life. like so many poets she wrote about the world around her. However, it was through her poetry that she found the place to give voice to her life and her realities as an African American lesbian feminist. She wrote about things that were personal and political. She wrote truth in her poems in a way that touched peoples lives and continues to touch people’s lives today. Perhaps the poem that has made the most significant impact on my life is called “For the white person who wants to know how to be my friend.” While I can appreciate the entire poem, it is the first two lines that continue to resonate with me today and I can continue to use in my teaching. She wrote: “the first thing you do is to forget that i'm Black. Second, you must never forget that i'm Black.”
Read moreYour Tire Is On How?
One of the things I suggest people do is to maintain a gratitude journal. It is something I do on a daily basis. I write down five things every day that I am grateful for and they can not be the same things I was grateful for the day before. Sometimes I write them down throughout the day as I find myself being grateful and other times, like today, they come at the end of the day when I have time to just sit and reflect. Usually, they are things that I am aware of. Things that I know the Creator has done in my life. Like a friend who calls just when you need to hear their voice or the way you can feel loved when your cat curls up on your shoulder and purrs.
But sometimes, I am reminded of how the Creator is working in my life when I am not even aware of it
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