Forgiveness

Forgiveness is giving up all hope of having had a better past.
- Anne Lamott

A friend of mine recently posted this on her Facebook status. Anne Lamott is one of my favorite authors and coming to grips with my own past one of my greatest challenges. So this really touched me.

Forgiveness is both about me and others. I have to forgive myself and those who wrong me. As Anne Lamott points out so well, it’s about coming to terms with my unchangeable past, both my actions and the actions of others.

I’ve spent a considerable amount of time coming to terms with my actions. With letting go of the guilt and not living in regret. I did much wrong, and yet that past is filled with blessings that came out of the wrong I did. I still struggle with regret, with opportunities missed or squandered. But I can forgive myself.

I can usually forgive others. And sometimes easily, or relatively easily. Even for some pretty bad things. My problem is that I can’t forget. Being reminded just brings the hurt or anger back, and I have to go through forgiving again. Over time, it becomes easier and eventually the pain fades.

But some things don’t work like that. They always hurt, and they always will. My struggle is how to move forward, knowing that those memories will always be there and will always be painful, but knowing that I cannot change the past and that the past is not my present nor my future. It’s a challenge to not allow those feelings to continue to affect my relationships. To remind myself of forgiveness, despite the memory. It is so hard to let go of some things which hurt us, even though by doing so we only hurt ourselves over and over.

I don’t really know what to do about it. I think it’s normal. And we find ways to deal with it or we let it continue to screw up our lives. I just sometimes wish there were a way to truly forget. Forgiveness is having to remember, but let it go. To really know that the past is the past.

-David

Spring

Spring is my favorite season by far and it is well underway here. Trees are budding and flowers blooming. Bees are everywhere. Life is emerging from the gray and brown winter.

As the seasons change, I remain in the midst of transition. I am still jobless, but financially ok for some time yet. I am slowly moving toward realizing some of my own dreams for my life, trying to let go of the fears that have held me back. I am feeling my way into and through what is proving to be a remarkably complicated relationship; one intended to be totally uncomplicated. But, and I’ve known this for a long time, all relationships are complicated, at least if they are rooted in genuine care and love.

Spring reminds me of the fundamental generosity of life. Scarcity exists when we become selfish, when we focus solely on our own wants and needs rather than understanding where we fit in the beautiful unity of creation. Jealousy emerges when we fail to realize that there is an infinite source of love in each of us to give to one another.

Life is gift. This was the theme of a stewardship campaign at my former parish. It echoed a theme of my priest who often referred to God as the Generous One. God’s very being is Love and love is generous. Creation isn’t so much a work of God as it is the natural result of God’s nature. It is total gift, total generosity.

During Lent, I’ve been trying to give love with this attitude. With no regard or expectation of return. To just give. To give because there is no limit to the love within me because that love draws from the infinite spring of God’s own being. I don’t know that I’m being especially successful, but I’m trying. And that is all we can really do. Try. But we can choose to try harder or not. And surrounded by the glory of Spring, the reminder of the generosity of life itself, I know that I need to try harder.

-David

Living without Fear

A very special someone gave me a copy of Living Without Fear for Christmas, one of the books on my Amazon wish list. I’m reading it not straight through, but more like a devotional. Little bits at a time. Giving me enough to chew and think on for a while.

I realize that I live much of my life with fear. And many of my actions are taken in response to fear. Fear of being hurt. Fear of failure. Fear of not measuring up. Fear of not having enough. So very many things of which to be afraid. Rationally, I know that most such fears are baseless. Either the risk is so small it’s not worth considering, or the result so unimportant in the grander scheme it’s foolish to let it shape my life.

My life is littered with missed opportunities and with second-bests, because of fear. At the root of much of this fear is worry about what others think, about how I measure up in their eyes. In that way, I live not for myself, but for them. I let them tell me of what I should be afraid.

There is no easy way, that I know of, to simply cast out that fear. Even knowing that it is irrational does little to remove its power. I know that the more I rely on my own inner sense of worth, the less fear I feel because the less I look to others for validation. But that only works for some fears.

What if I could live without fear, what would I do? Even though I cannot eliminate fear, just thinking about that question for a few minutes is liberating and powerful. I can, for a moment, contemplate life without fear.

What would I do? I would be more bold, more friendly, speak out more, have more pride. I would plunge wholeheartedly and without reservation into going back to school. I would take an art class. I would dance. I would stand up for myself more.

Life without fear is pretty impossible. But stopping to think about what it might be like gives me a vision of the true potential of this one human life. Maybe, if I can remind myself of this, I can begin, bit by bit, to live into this authentic vision of who I am called to be.

-David

Chasing the Moon

When my first born daughter was just a toddler, we lived on a university campus as staff. Our apartment was in a sprawling Georgian Colonial style residence hall housing hundreds of freshmen women. The building was built with huge wings stretching off to either side, five stories high. Not only was it an imposing structure, but its length gave it huge lawn space. Our entrance was a great set of double doors in the center of the building facing away from the Quad. Only we had keys to these doors, with the result that our daughter had a huge yard to play in, all to herself, since students never came that way. As a stay-at-home dad for the first two years of her life, I loved watching her run back and forth.

When we would come in at night from being out to dinner or visiting friends, she would run ahead of us, down the sidewalk that bisected that great open space. With no trees, she had a clear view of the starry sky. On those occasions when the moon was somewhat lower in the sky she would run toward it, chasing it, never understanding fully how it always ran ahead of her. She was convinced she could catch it.

A gifted friend of mine who is a pastor recently preached about reconciliation and relationships. What is reconciliation, how we achieve it. Whether or not it’s always possible. Sometimes I feel like seeking reconciliation or pursuing relationship is like chasing the moon. You can see clearly to the goal, but try as you might, you don’t ever reach it.

I’ve had remarkable moments of reconciliation in my life. The most remarkable is that which my ex-wife and I achieved, a friendship and relationship which puzzles all those closest to us, family and friends. I’ve also known incredible relationships. The time spent caring for and conversing with my mother over the months of her cancer left me with an understanding of who she was and the depth of her love that I couldn’t have imagined.

But sometimes reconciliation seems impossible and relationships seem destined for failure. I think that it is perhaps a reflection of the unique otherness of each of us. In one sense, we will always be strangers to one another. None of us can have the same experience as another or hear the bare thoughts of another. And yet we grope toward each other in a desire to share, to feel another’s presence, to give and receive love, to be with another. It’s the way we are made.

How much of myself do I give up in seeking reconciliation or relationship? There are those who would say none. But I don’t agree. In the face of our own love and care for another, and that other’s needs, we do yield up some of what we desire in order to meet those needs. I can remain true to myself and yet find ways to live with others. How far do I go with that? I know that I will know it when I have gone too far. But what about before that? How do I know what is just selfishness on my part and not a true desire to take care of myself? I don’t think I have a good way to answer that.

I do know that I like chasing the moon. And I know that sometimes you do actually catch it.

-David

Born to love

Yesterday was Ash Wednesday. I began Lent with a bang by going to church twice. Once to my parish and once with a friend to his Roman Catholic parish. I certainly had ample opportunity to reflect on what this season might mean for me this year.

Several years ago I ended the traditional Lenten practice of giving up something. Sweets. Chocolate. Starbucks. Movies. Eating out. I’ve had friends give up all sorts of things. And while I used to do, it really didn’t  touch anything within me. I really don’t want to give up my chocolate if it isn’t going to result in spiritual growth!

I have a friend who is a pastor in Richmond. She is giving up God. Getting rid of God. Her discipline is rooted in Meister Eckhart’s prayer – God, help me to get rid of God. She wants to relinquish her notions and presuppositions and understandings of God in order to have a deeper and more authentic experience of who God really is, rather than what we make God to be. This sounds good, but to be honest, like too much work for me. That sounds lazy, and it is. But like New Year’s resolutions, it’s pointless for me to set out on a path which I know I can’t stick to for forty days.

So I know what I’m not going to do, but not what I’m going to do. Yet. I do know what I want to accomplish. Lent is a time for me to reflect on myself. Jesus spent his forty days coming to understand who he was and what his purpose was. That’s a tall order for me, and I don’t know that I want the challenge of finding my purpose, but I can take baby steps. I can seek to better understand who I am.

Probably the most recurrent theme in what I write, what I pray about, what I contemplate, is love. A friend recently posted a note on her Facebook page which talked quite a bit about love.

We believe we are hurt when we don’t receive love. But that is not what hurts us. Our pain comes when we do not give love. We were born to love. …. The world has led us to believe that our well-being is dependent on other people loving us. …. The truth is our well-being is dependent on our giving love. It is not about what comes back; it is about what goes out.   --Alan Cohen

I wonder what would happen if
I treated everyone like I was in love
with them, whether I like them or not
and whether they respond or not and no matter
what they say or do to me and even if I see
things in them which are ugly twisted petty
cruel vain deceitful indifferent, just accept
all that and turn my attention to some small
weak tender hidden part and keep my eyes on
that until it shines like a beam of light
like a bonfire I can warm my hands by and trust
it to burn away all the waste which is not
never was my business to meddle with.
- Ivor Smith-Cameron, Pilgrimage, An Exploration Into God

So maybe this is where I start my Lent. In seeking to give love without return. This is maybe hardest of all. But I think Alan Cohen is right – we are born to love. Our existence comes out of unimaginable, infinite, total generosity. Our being is in the image of Love. May I learn to see myself as this – a creature with the sole purpose, the single goal, of love.

-David

Craziness

Back when I was young, in high school, as difficult an experience as that was, life made sense. There were pretty straightforward rules and everyone pretty much knew where they belonged and where they stood in the scheme of things. You knew the rules of relationship – to whom you could speak and where you could go. This didn’t change much in college, except that those years were marked with an increasing struggle for self-identity. As my life history attests, I chose to create an identity that was not authentic. But that’s another topic.

After college, as my world continued to expand, those old rules seemed to break down. Life became more fluid and confusing in a way. Freer actually. But freedom can involve fear. Rules, even if you don’t like them, are clear. Freedom is not. It was the death of my mother, far too young, in my early adulthood, that upended my understanding of the way the world worked. I found everything I believed about family, relationships, God, purpose, everything, completely challenged. And I grew a great deal during that time. I came to see things more clearly for what they were and less what the world and other people said they were. I learned to define more earnestly for myself what was important. My coming out, 14 years later, was a sort of end point of that process. Not that I don’t continue to challenge myself to authenticity, but that was a watershed moment unlike any other.

I find myself now at a point of new craziness. Someone very close to me calls it a time of things undefined. I’m happy to have resolved issues around this very significant relationship, but only to bring up others. At moments things seem so clear and at others not so much. I could do with a transfiguration moment. The bright light, shining clothes and faces, the voice from heaven. No mistaking what was going on there. I would like to know what I am looking at. But I don’t. I don’t want to get hurt, and yet there is some hurt. And honest relationship can’t exist without that risk. It involves giving a part of yourself into the keeping of another. That’s true no matter what the relationship, but especially where romantic feeling or love are concerned. I can only go forward in honesty, but at times it is hard to so expose myself. I have to trust in my own love for myself and another and know that no matter what, all will be well.

-David

I do choose

I have had one serious roller coaster of a couple of weeks. The end of a relationship which was fairly serious for me. Certainly more serious than it was for him. And there was quite a bit of hurt. But none of it intentional. I usually try to keep my emotions under control, but finally I just let everything out with him. I was fine until he said that something that implied I was acting without trust, and that sent me over the edge. It was actually a really good thing. I had been dealing with stuff myself but it was hard and slow and getting it out let us work through it together. On the other side was forgiveness and peace and a different degree of love. Life is much better.

 

In the Gospel lesson for this morning, Jesus says to a leper who has come to him demanding to be healed, “I do choose.” It’s always interesting to me what jumps out at me as I listen to the readings. It’s usually some short phrase that leaps from the air and grabs me. This morning it was “I do choose.”

I often think of God as a cosmic dispenser of infinite mercy and justice, knowing that no matter what I do, God’s love will always be there for me and that I am always in God’s care. And that is certainly true. But this morning I was reminded that though God’s nature is generosity and love, God has chosen to love. God chose to create. God chooses to be in fellowship with us. It is both God’s nature and God’s choice. One of those mystery things.

It also makes Jesus much more human to me, to hear him say that he chooses. The he isn’t just an automaton acting out the divine will. And it reminds me that each and every day, in everything I do, ever act I take, I am choosing. Whether I give conscious thought or not, I am choosing. And for each of my choices I bear responsibility. Some are good and some are bad. But none are beyond the pale of God’s grace. And I must remember that applies to the choices others make when they relate to and with me.

-David

Progress

Today my Facebook status has been “grateful” for most of the day. I do feel gratitude in my heart, though not for any particular thing. Maybe it’s just gratitude that I have life and breath, and that really is quite enough for me to be grateful about forever!

The last couple of weeks have a particular hell for me. It’s nothing unique to me. And it’s not the first time for me to have a romantic relationship end. But I’ve never had one end quite this way. In any event, I am slowly trudging through and riding the emotional roller coaster. At least I don’t feel angry anymore. I don’t really do anger well and I’m glad I’m past that. Much of the hurt is gone. But there’s sadness still. Often at the little things. Being at the store and having a memory triggered. A smell or a sound. Or someone mentioning something that makes think of something we shared. I really don’t remember any of the bad moments or the doubt or the fear. Just the good and the fun and the happy. There is that to be grateful for right now. I still have a lot of love. Love that needs to fade or change or something. I know it will, with the passage of time, but I wish I could hurry that up!

It is progress along the journey.

I have been listening a lot to a Mary Chapin Carpenter album a friend gave me. One of my favorite songs ever is on it. Jubilee. Wherever we are, that’s where we’re headed. To that place where we are known as ourselves, loved because of who we are, and where we know we belong because we belong to each other and to the one to whom all things and all lives belong. And perhaps the biggest thing we have to do while we are here is be companions to one another and help each other along the way. I could do with knowing that I’m headed to a big party!

-David

Small Things

Life could be going better for me, but things are not as bad as they were. Today is my birthday. Not really in a celebratory mood, though. But, because it is also my younger daughter’s birthday, I do have something to celebrate. Though I may not be in such a good place, I am reminded that my life is filled to overflowing by my precious daughters. No gift can ever be greater and no sorrow can ever erase what they mean.

A friend of mine recently posted a poem by an author I didn’t know, but whom I obviously need to read. Her name is Gunilla Norris and the poem is from her book, Becoming Bread.

Gathering Up Crumbs

Be careful with the crumbs.

Do not overlook them.

Be careful with the crumbs;

the little chances to love,

the tiny gestures, the morsels

that feed, the minims.

Take care of the crumbs;

a look, a laugh, a smile,

a teardrop, an open hand. Take care

of the crumbs. They are food also.

Do not let them fall.

Gather them. Cherish them.

Sometimes all you have in life are the crumbs. The little things, sometimes leftover. There is something in the ability to behold them as gifts, as valuable. To know that nothing that passes by us, nothing that circles into our lives, is without worth and value.

What is a loaf of bread, but many, many crumbs?

- David

Wings like eagles

Most Wednesdays I try to take a minute and read the Scripture readings assigned for the coming Sunday. Just a chance to get them in my mind.

One of the nice things about Scripture is that no matter where you are in life, if you read a large enough chunk, you’re likely to find something that speaks to you, where you are.

“those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.” From Isaiah. I could use some wings now. Something to let me soar, to fly, to think about nothing but sky and air and light, rather than the muck I’m stuck in. I don’t really know how to wait for the Lord, but I’ll be doing it. All I can do is wait. Wait for things to feel less raw.

From the Psalm come the words, “He heals the brokenhearted, and binds up their wounds.” This really is more where I am. And as much as I would like to lay blame, I can’t. I’m not saying there isn’t blame, but I can’t lay it. Doing it just breaks and wounds more and I think I hurt enough right now for everyone. I know my wounds will be healed and I hope my heart is restored, but for all I know it, I can’t feel it or believe it right now. I suppose that it is good that I feel, that I’m not just numb. Surely you have to feel in order to move forward.

Part of me thinks I deserve this pain. I certainly caused enough by living a lie. One reaps what one sows. Karma. But I think those concepts work when you can connect the dots. When the path from what you sow to what you reap is clear. Here, the only connection would have to be cosmic, some sort of divine justice or retribution, and I don’t buy that. God wants me to love and to be loved. To be whole and perfect and to know that and to believe that. That kind of God doesn’t visit this pain on the children of the divine.

I was feeling especially hurt last night. And then I lashed out a bit in anger and meanness. Maybe it was appropriate and maybe it wasn’t, but I know I don’t want to be that way. I desperately want to walk in that way of love which intends and seeks good for the other. I need to do that, not for him, not for God, but for me. To be true to myself.

I didn’t earn this pain and I don’t deserve it. But he didn’t intend for me to be hurt, either. Here is where I am, and there he is. They aren’t the same place anymore and I walk alone now. I have walked alone before and doubtless shall again. Maybe in the lonely emptiness and silence I will hear a still small voice of love.

- David

Love Unrequited

Love. So much of what I think about, contemplate, wonder of, is about love. I generally desire to love more and to love better. But right now, I wish I could love less. Or even not at all.

I’ve always looked askance at the, to my mind, too strict delineation made between the kinds of love – agape, eros, phile. In one sense, for me, love is love. Different in degree and expression, but all rooted in a desire for the good and wellbeing of another. And that’s why it disturbs me when love gives pain and I find myself wanting it gone.

I’ve dated on and off, but nothing serious, until the end of last September. I was asked out by someone I had recently met. I liked him a great deal from the start. We talked all the time and seemed to share many values. I felt good. From the beginning, he seemed to feel the same. He talked quite a bit about serious, long-term issues. At those times I seemed to be reluctant, we talked about this rational part of me that constantly warns me to hold back, to be careful. But his sincerity wore away at that and eventually I just let myself enjoy what was happening. And I fell in love.

For him, however, it didn’t last. I’m not sure if he felt love as I did or just infatuation, but it faded. Or something happened. To be honest, I’m not really sure what. I haven’t even really asked, preferring to allow him to work his way through his confusion and share things with me. And then I reached a point where I couldn’t ask. It just became too painful and hurtful for me. I haven’t even told my closest friends the whole story because I don’t want to risk becoming angry and more hurt and end up replacing what I feel for him with anger.

Unrequited love is a bitch. In the worst of ways. Rationally I can say there is no reason I should be in love with this man, because it’s one way. But I can’t undo what I allowed myself to feel. I want him to be in love with me, but that’s not there. I don’t want to hate him or be angry with him and if I try too hard to end being in love, that’s what I’m afraid will happen.

To love and to be loved. That really is what we live for. And I am in such a struggle with both.

- David

Peace

I have four favorite Hebrew words and the one at the top of the list is shalom. Like so many powerful words, it encompasses so many shades of meaning. Whenever I hear the English word peace in a religious context, I think of shalom.

We often think of peace as the opposite of hostility, the end of war and fighting. And inner peace as a sense of no conflict. Shalom does mean this, but it implies more. Its root means to be perfect, complete, or whole. And that, for me, has come to be what peace is about.

It isn’t enough that there be no conflict between nations, peoples, or individuals, or within oneself. God’s call and gift of peace is more. Between people it is a regard, care, concern, recognition of and for the other. It is loving your neighbor. Within oneself, it is a sense of wholeness and an acceptance, a loving of yourself.

I know that I am beloved and that God dwells within every part of me and declares me good. Within me is the seed and bud of that which I am formed and called to be. I am whole and complete. I know that. But I struggle to believe it. I do not feel peace. I feel turmoil. I doubt myself, my goodness, my love of others and myself.  I struggle to recapture those moments when I felt intrinsically good and worthy.

That sounds perhaps more depressing than it is. Like most people, I live with ups and downs. I am naturally optimistic and positive, and so it seems to hit me worse when things aren’t going the way I hoped or desired. I see my faults so large and glaring and my shortcomings seem enormous.

I make my prayer, over and again, God grant me peace. Give me the clear vision that shows me the way to love myself and to love my neighbor. Let me see and feel that shalom which is created within me.

-David

An Inch At A Time

One of my regularly read blogs is that of the Rev. Susan Russell, from All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena. Her blog title, An Inch At A Time, comes from a quote of Sister Joan Chittister: “We are each called to go through life reclaiming the planet an inch at a time until the Garden of Eden grows green again.” It is, for me, a deeply profound reflection on the experience of life and our call from God. Baby steps. We don’t have to do everything at once. We’re just called to keep moving forward, even if only by inches.

Susan (I don’t know her personally but after reading her for so long, I find myself always thinking of her as just Susan) recently wrote about a license plate frame she saw on a car in front of her in traffic. It said, “You suck. And that’s sad.”

It is so easy to find our own self-worth in telling ourselves that we are better than others. Sometimes it is mean or cruel, as in the license plate frame. For the religious, it can often be a celebration of our own righteousness compared to the unrighteousness of others. We know this is wrong and that Jesus taught us the exact opposite, but the temptation is great. It’s an easy path to self-esteem but one that never ends in authenticity.

Too often I allow my feelings of anger, fear, jealousy, superiority, inferiority – the list is infinite – direct my interactions with other human beings, both friends and strangers. I want to be able to look at others and see them as children of God. I want to be able to truly respect the dignity of every human being regardless of my own psychological or emotional issues of the moment.

At this particular moment in my life I need to be able to love simply and without agenda. I need to be able to lay aside my issues and feelings and love without consideration. It is so hard.

-David

Blessed

I have to admit that I’ve been having a bit of a self-pity party. For many reasons, and, to be honest, it is deserved. But it’s not terribly productive. That, combined with a comment from an acquaintance who was complaining about spiritual malaise, reminded me of a Bible study I experienced recently.

The Beatitudes occur twice in the Christian Scriptures, in Matthew’s Gospel and in Luke’s Gospel. But they aren’t quite the same. The Bible study used Matthew’s text but in the discussion following I talked about how much I like Luke. And this intersected with my self-pity party.

“Blessed are the poor in spirit,” says Matthew, but “Blessed are you who are poor,” says Luke. And I like that better. They both sound like Jesus to me, but the first one makes me feel sorry for myself and my own current crises of purpose and relationship. Luke, however, reminds me that my emotional struggle is nothing to those who have need of food, clothing, shelter, justice, freedom, and health.

When I am feeling sorry for myself, in Luke I hear Jesus telling me to get up off my butt and do something. Telling me that, yes, I might be struggling, but that I have so much more than most of God’s beloved children. As I sit in the suburbs, with my television with hundreds of channels, my wireless internet, my refrigerator which holds so much food I constantly have to throw things out, and my trash which probably contains more edible food than some families in the world see in a day, Jesus reminds me that I am already blessed. I just need to open my eyes. And if I still feel sorry for myself, I can get up and go out and serve. I can feed the hungry, tend the sick and the dying, sit with those who mourn, clothe the naked, teach those who yearn to understand and crave opportunity, fight for the rights of all people. Not only will I help to meet the needs of others, but by doing so I will turn my own spiritual poverty into blessing and abundance.

Admittedly, this won’t solve my own personal struggle or remove its importance to me, but it reminds me that in blessing we are blessed and in giving we receive. Perhaps my own angst can become a fuel to better love my neighbor as myself.

-David

Remembering Hope

I was barely a year old when the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated. My family, although not the same now, was certainly not one to mourn his death. They wouldn’t have been happy, but their genteel brand of racism would’ve acknowledged a troublesome man now gone from the scene.

In the many ways I differ from my family, this has been one of the most profound. I never shared in that bias and discrimination. That’s not to say that I’m not racist. As the Avenue Q song so correctly puts it, we’re all a little bit racist. But I always instinctively felt it was wrong. I suppose that’s a result of always knowing that I was different. Always sensing that difference and knowing that they sensed it in me.

In college, Dr. King became a hero for me. I was a freshman when the King holiday came into being. It generated plenty of discussion at my religious and conservative university. And I found myself staunchly in favor of such an overdue day of remembrance and honor for a man who fought for the things the founder of our religion advocated. The acceptance and love of all God’s children, equally and without distinction.

Dr. King’s message, his passionate call for justice, remains just as valid today. We continue to live in a society, a nation, a world, that devalues people and makes some of us second-class. He understood that the call to build consensus, to wait, to go slowly, really never results in equality.

In spite of the obstacles and set-backs, the voice of hope, the call for justice, the demand for equality continues to be heard. I often find myself losing hope that change will ever come. I despair that I will always be a second-class person, in my country and in my church. But then something happens to give me reason to remember my hope. Something pulls me into hope in the way the Eucharist mysteriously pulls me into Jesus. I am reminded that despair is the ultimate sin, the act of forgetting that God is God.

Tomorrow, as Barack Hussein Obama becomes President of the United States, I will see a part of that hope come to fruition, and feel more confidence that one day all of that hope shall come to pass and justice shall indeed be for all.

-David

Trust

Someone I know recently wrote about thin spaces in relationship to an experience he once had. Thin places are a significant part of my Anglican spiritual tradition, coming from the Celtic Christians whose gifts infused the early English Church. Earlier this week, I listened to a bible study on the Baptism of Jesus. In that story, the heavens are torn open and the Spirit descends and God’s voice is heard. The word used for torn is the same word used in the Crucifixion story, where the curtain of the Temple is torn.

This reminded me of thin places, where the veil between the divine and the creation is stretched so thinly we sense the presence of the divine. Those are the places where we hear and feel and experience the great mystery in a unique way. They give us our glimpses into God’s soul, as it were.

 

In the midst of a personal relationship struggle, or perhaps it’s a full-fledged crisis, I’ve thought about this idea of thin places. About how difficult, impossible even, it is to experience such a thin place between two human beings. How impossible it is to really see into the soul of another. When we cannot see the deep truth of another, cannot know what the other is thinking and feeling for ourselves, we are left to trust. I strive and struggle to trust. But it is so difficult. For so many reasons. I hate the doubt within myself but I understand it. It is my nature to trust, and I hate when I find myself questioning that trust.

My goal is to live a life of sincerity and honest, of openness and authenticity. I think I’ve done that. When it comes down to it, it’s all I can do. To be who I am called to be, to live a life of love that is given without condition.

-David

Resolution

I seriously failed in my attempt to keep writing regularly. I’ve kept meaning to come back, but like sending an email to a friend, I feel that it has to be just right in order to post it, and nothing has been just right to post. Well, there’s nothing like New Year’s to inspire changed behavior, so I’m back.

 

A lot has happened. I’ve been dating someone for a little more than 3 months. I am finally no longer working for the corporation I was working for (victim of yet another force reduction – but fortunately one of the last to receive a generous severance package). I spent much of the fall meeting and traveling as I serve on my parish’s search committee. Life has been busy, and a bit intense. Among it all, I’ve taken regrettably little time to sit and reflect on what it all means.

Obviously losing my job has had the most intense immediate impact. But I am glad to be gone. It had become an unpleasant place to be and several friends commented that they had sensed for months that I was unhappy with work. Now, I really am fully reinventing myself, in the middle of my life! I think I’ve settled on a course of action, though I’m still mulling it about. I think I’m going to follow my college desire and go back to school to certify to teach. High school science. Teaching/training was the one part of my old job that I always loved and the one skill that almost everyone I know affirms in me. So I think that following a heartfelt, deep desire is what’s called for!

 

I’ve been reading Anne Lamott’s “Grace (Eventually)” which I received as a Christmas gift. What a great title! It certainly sums up much of my life experience. In any event, she ends one chapter saying that she hopes her gravestone says that she was a helper and that she danced. I think that sums up what Jesus has called us to do. The experience of love and the call to love impel us to serve others. To reach out and give that love to all around us, because only by giving the gift do we receive the gift.

But I also think that the experience of that love calls us to dance. To whirl about with abandon at times. At others to move in ways that are stately and ordered. But always to move in time to a beat which is not our own. It’s not a metaphor I instinctively like, as I have no sense of rhythm myself. And yet, like others who lack that ability, I long to dance. Seeing people dance can move me by their grace, their celebration. I hope that my life is lived like that. A sense of something calling me to follow and my own willingness to follow. And looking around to see that, in our own ways, we are all following that same music.

 

Maybe this is all the purpose I need. I wish I had that almost biblical sense of a vision, of a calling. That vivid dream or clear voice or angel scaring the bejeebers out of me and telling me what I should do.

Sometimes I think love is the only real miracle. That we can find ourselves able to love each other is amazing. Definitely miraculous. So while I would like God to tell me what to do, and telling me how would be a greatly appreciated bonus, I don’t think it really happens like that. I think that what I do get is to look around and experience this miracle of love and to join in the dance. To help and to dance. Maybe I’ll do that by teaching. Maybe not. But, God help me, I plan to help and to dance.