Yesterday a friend shared an experience that had been upsetting to her. She spent a weekend with two other friends – a thing they had done before and which she had happily anticipated. But one of the friends acted differently this time, becoming bossy and controlling, “taking over the whole thing.” This included preparing all kinds of delicious food, but my friend said, “it was all about her.” Apparently she left no room for the normal breathing of relationships, for other people to express what they wanted, to have a say about what was being done, to give their gifts to the group.
I reflected to my friend that I think I’ve been like that friend at times. I had ideas about what things meant and how to do things, and I thought I was being interesting and helpful to share them. On one occasion (when I was once again sharing with the other English teachers how I had approached a certain lesson) I saw a look of unmasked distaste on the face of one of the teachers. But I couldn’t fathom why, and it seemed I couldn’t stop myself from “being helpful” – sharing my experience.
After the conversation yesterday, I felt the need to pull myself back to equilibrium. Though those gaffes are well in my past, and I can mostly laugh about them, I’m not entirely removed from hurt and self-disappointment at discovering that what I meant as a gift was unwelcome; that I had been blind to the needs of others. I needed something more than to reiterate hard-learned lessons about listening, and how receiving another is often the one most needed gift. I needed the clarity of a wholly spiritual perspective.
At feeling this need, I instinctively turned to God, leaning my weight into the all-embracing presence of Spirit, letting go of my own sense of balance to sink into the equilibriating presence of Soul. I remembered that I’ve given up faith in my own ability to find a balance through the careful weighing of give and take. It’s not that I’ve become successful at achieving grace through razor-thin balancing acts. It’s that, when I achieve balance, it’s because I’m leaning on God.
Then I thought about how this law is also governing my friend, and her friend, and everyone who lives in life’s longing for love and fulfillment. It’s actually a force that is governing us more constantly than gravity, though we may think of it even less. Thinking of it more helps me relax and appreciate the glory of being. Understanding it helps me move in accord with the will of Love, and so feel empowered to bring more good into the world. But even when I haven’t understood Love’s governance, it still has shepherded me. How else can I account for the thread of joy that has held my life together, even on days when I didn’t feel it?
On my bike ride this morning I thought about the Bible passage “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above.” I realized that this supported my earlier thought: God is the giver of everything. Therefore we, as God’s reflection, can’t be tied up in knots with regard to our need to give and receive. It’s not possible for God’s reflection to feel the need to give but be confused about how to do it. It’s not possible for God’s reflection to see a proffered gift as an act of self-aggrandizement. It’s not possible to feel a mismatch – that our gifts are unwanted or that we can’t get what we need. It doesn’t take years of trying and failing to get it right until we learn how to interact in graceful give and take with others. There aren’t people who will just never get it, and I’m not such a person.
I still have a vestigial reflex, when I’m learning a lesson, to conclude that I’ve been wrong, along with everyone else who I believe holds the same approach. Feeling the governance of Spirit, holding each life in the perfect equilibrium of giving and receiving, generating joy and glory, is a sweet antidote, which replaces the bitterness of wrongness with the gratitude of being home.
Saturday, July 28, 2007
Friday, July 20, 2007
More than I can hold in my hands
At a meeting of our spiritual formation group, we were asked to page, in our thoughts, through the past few days of lives, as if we were viewing a photo album, and to notice what stood out.
I saw the image of me driving up Third Avenue at ten that morning, after talking with women in the jail. The sky was intense blue between the buildings, the green of the trees luminescent. I felt in that moment the vibrant aliveness of everything, seated in a deep gratitude.
The talks with the women, the sharing of scriptures and stories of their lives, had been satisfying. My feeling was that no stratification of society, from homeless to penthouse executive, can put anyone closer to God. It also can’t put anyone further away. That closeness to Truth is right here for any one of us. It doesn’t need us to dig out of a hole, improve ourselves, earn it. Truth is Truth because that’s what it is. Truth is Love, so everyone has that perfect place – the true nature of themselves as loved and loving.
Paging back a day, I thought of the service we had done in the jail on Sunday. The feeling of love was palpable, comfortable, as we sang together, prayed together. I noticed how different it was from my earlier days of doing services, where I had just hoped to get through with out too much disruption. How before I doubted what our humble (and long) reading had to offer to those who came to hear, and now I knew we were sharing truth as if breaking bread, and it would nourish and sustain.
Going back to earlier that morning, I remembered the moment when the attendant had opened the door to my Sunday school class to tell us it was almost time to join the congregation upstairs. “They’re kneeling now” – Sacrament Sunday, where we kneel together in silent prayer, and then pray the Lord’s prayer again, together.
My two students, aged five and three, were standing on the table. It’s a heavy board table, so it wasn’t in danger, and though they had been jumping around quite a bit, my students weren’t, either. I felt a bit red-handed to have them both standing there, full of laughter and exhilaration. But I also knew it was good. In between their jumping around we’d been learning the First Commandment, talking about the words and what they mean, talking about their right to be governed by good alone, all the time. I felt that the love that was filling that room, the joy of their enjoyment of each other and their activity, was the main message of the class. Yes it was almost out of control. As I remembered the moment, I thought of the phrase, “more than I can hold in my hands.” I felt it was perhaps OK to be almost out of control just because there was so much life flowing there, so much goodness. It seemed right to me that I didn’t have to try to hold everything of life in my hands – because it there’s too much to it. Its order is not of my making, but of its own being – of God’s making. As a companion phrase, the Biblical “my cup runneth over” came to mind.
This was the image I shared with my group, though in my mind all the images contributed to the feeling. A member of the group offered a beautiful prayer for me – it mentioned increasing wonder at the presence of God’s glories, and at the miracles flowing through my hands. I desire to help my hands to remember not to grasp so much as to let the waterfall of life flow through them; not to control the flow but just to create a bubbler from which I and others may drink.
I saw the image of me driving up Third Avenue at ten that morning, after talking with women in the jail. The sky was intense blue between the buildings, the green of the trees luminescent. I felt in that moment the vibrant aliveness of everything, seated in a deep gratitude.
The talks with the women, the sharing of scriptures and stories of their lives, had been satisfying. My feeling was that no stratification of society, from homeless to penthouse executive, can put anyone closer to God. It also can’t put anyone further away. That closeness to Truth is right here for any one of us. It doesn’t need us to dig out of a hole, improve ourselves, earn it. Truth is Truth because that’s what it is. Truth is Love, so everyone has that perfect place – the true nature of themselves as loved and loving.
Paging back a day, I thought of the service we had done in the jail on Sunday. The feeling of love was palpable, comfortable, as we sang together, prayed together. I noticed how different it was from my earlier days of doing services, where I had just hoped to get through with out too much disruption. How before I doubted what our humble (and long) reading had to offer to those who came to hear, and now I knew we were sharing truth as if breaking bread, and it would nourish and sustain.
Going back to earlier that morning, I remembered the moment when the attendant had opened the door to my Sunday school class to tell us it was almost time to join the congregation upstairs. “They’re kneeling now” – Sacrament Sunday, where we kneel together in silent prayer, and then pray the Lord’s prayer again, together.
My two students, aged five and three, were standing on the table. It’s a heavy board table, so it wasn’t in danger, and though they had been jumping around quite a bit, my students weren’t, either. I felt a bit red-handed to have them both standing there, full of laughter and exhilaration. But I also knew it was good. In between their jumping around we’d been learning the First Commandment, talking about the words and what they mean, talking about their right to be governed by good alone, all the time. I felt that the love that was filling that room, the joy of their enjoyment of each other and their activity, was the main message of the class. Yes it was almost out of control. As I remembered the moment, I thought of the phrase, “more than I can hold in my hands.” I felt it was perhaps OK to be almost out of control just because there was so much life flowing there, so much goodness. It seemed right to me that I didn’t have to try to hold everything of life in my hands – because it there’s too much to it. Its order is not of my making, but of its own being – of God’s making. As a companion phrase, the Biblical “my cup runneth over” came to mind.
This was the image I shared with my group, though in my mind all the images contributed to the feeling. A member of the group offered a beautiful prayer for me – it mentioned increasing wonder at the presence of God’s glories, and at the miracles flowing through my hands. I desire to help my hands to remember not to grasp so much as to let the waterfall of life flow through them; not to control the flow but just to create a bubbler from which I and others may drink.
Another dimension
I have no personal experience with the fierce loyalty of a soldier. I haven’t had the intense feeling of being willing to die for a cause or a person. It’s a thing I’ve read about in books, a thing I’ve felt the edges of in the “yes, ma’am,” of people involved with the military. It’s not something I’ve missed – my tendency is to be suspicious of obedience, wary of the blindness of following orders. Still, I’ve felt, from time to time, a wistfulness for the fervency such an allegiance could have. A book I read recently once again hinted at its power as an ordering principle and a giver of purpose in life. It left me thinking about what it would be like to have this kind of a relationship to God.
The intense eagerness to serve God wouldn’t have the pitfall of serving a person – the inevitable human failings – or of serving a cause, with the tendency of causes to get bogged down in process and co-opted by power-hunger. I felt a kind of swift excitement when I thought of being in service to Love – of dedicating all of my life to standing for Love, living it, acting according to its impulses. Though I think of God as Principle – as the creating, controlling force governing the universe, rather than an anthropomorphic entity, I found this sense of loyalty to be everything I hoped for it – galvanizing, ordering, purpose-giving. It added a dimension to my prayer. I thought, so this is the legitimacy of that whole allegiance concept. It is a thing we are meant to feel. It’s not a seductive but misguided way of having ones life ordered, or a great thing we miss out on if we are civilians. It’s part of the nature of love – part of my nature – to want to give myself in service. And service to Life, Love, is obedience to the great first commandment. Another compelling reason to give my allegiance to God.
The intense eagerness to serve God wouldn’t have the pitfall of serving a person – the inevitable human failings – or of serving a cause, with the tendency of causes to get bogged down in process and co-opted by power-hunger. I felt a kind of swift excitement when I thought of being in service to Love – of dedicating all of my life to standing for Love, living it, acting according to its impulses. Though I think of God as Principle – as the creating, controlling force governing the universe, rather than an anthropomorphic entity, I found this sense of loyalty to be everything I hoped for it – galvanizing, ordering, purpose-giving. It added a dimension to my prayer. I thought, so this is the legitimacy of that whole allegiance concept. It is a thing we are meant to feel. It’s not a seductive but misguided way of having ones life ordered, or a great thing we miss out on if we are civilians. It’s part of the nature of love – part of my nature – to want to give myself in service. And service to Life, Love, is obedience to the great first commandment. Another compelling reason to give my allegiance to God.
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
Arc of the Covenant
My daughter and I returned to Tae Kwon Do last week, after a month off. As we were practicing spinning hook kicks, I thought of the fact that, whatever the steps we are taught in learning the movement, we have to go beyond those steps to really do it. The steps are like dots we connect, but the movement itself is a smooth arc. Though we use the dots to understand the arc, we must then let go of them so that our movement is the smooth flowing from one impulse, with no stopping along the way.
This is true in many areas of life. In my daughter’s fiddle training, she goes beyond “the dots” – the musical notation – to the actual music, which is governed by its own internal order – the natural flowing of one phrase out of another. In social interaction, we go beyond the dots of polite behavior to find grace. In seeking truth, we must go beyond the dots of religion to the graceful arc of spirituality.
Riding my bicycle up the hill, feeling the complementary circles of arms and legs, connected by the undulating s-curves through my torso, I heard in my mind, “arc of the covenant.” I know the actual Biblical phrase says “ark,” and refers to the box which symbolically carried God’s promise to His people, or alternatively, to the boat which carried the promise of continuity of life for God’s creation. But I like to think of God’s promise, instead of something carried in a box or even a boat, as the laws which hold us in harmony, which make our movements flow in a perfect arc.
I’ve thought about how waves in water reflect the motion of Love. Each molecule receives the impulse of the wave in its own moment. No one is left out, and there is no strain of the impulse hitting a molecule more than once or failing to move through it to the next one. Each one is needed; each one is touched. Each one passes the impulse on to the next. The message of Love reaches everyone. The arc of the covenant is the circle-impelled wave that must fulfill all needs, because that is the law of it.
Even the first ark story also contains an arc – the rainbow which signified the promise of God’s continuing presence. And that arc appears unfailingly as a law of light – it’s not there at the whim of God; it’s there as a sign of God’s constancy. So, too, is the presence within us of the skill which lets us go beyond the dots to the arc of grace. Our lives are, themselves, a testimony to God’s constancy.
This is true in many areas of life. In my daughter’s fiddle training, she goes beyond “the dots” – the musical notation – to the actual music, which is governed by its own internal order – the natural flowing of one phrase out of another. In social interaction, we go beyond the dots of polite behavior to find grace. In seeking truth, we must go beyond the dots of religion to the graceful arc of spirituality.
Riding my bicycle up the hill, feeling the complementary circles of arms and legs, connected by the undulating s-curves through my torso, I heard in my mind, “arc of the covenant.” I know the actual Biblical phrase says “ark,” and refers to the box which symbolically carried God’s promise to His people, or alternatively, to the boat which carried the promise of continuity of life for God’s creation. But I like to think of God’s promise, instead of something carried in a box or even a boat, as the laws which hold us in harmony, which make our movements flow in a perfect arc.
I’ve thought about how waves in water reflect the motion of Love. Each molecule receives the impulse of the wave in its own moment. No one is left out, and there is no strain of the impulse hitting a molecule more than once or failing to move through it to the next one. Each one is needed; each one is touched. Each one passes the impulse on to the next. The message of Love reaches everyone. The arc of the covenant is the circle-impelled wave that must fulfill all needs, because that is the law of it.
Even the first ark story also contains an arc – the rainbow which signified the promise of God’s continuing presence. And that arc appears unfailingly as a law of light – it’s not there at the whim of God; it’s there as a sign of God’s constancy. So, too, is the presence within us of the skill which lets us go beyond the dots to the arc of grace. Our lives are, themselves, a testimony to God’s constancy.
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