Tag: faith

The Long and Winding Road

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“Your talent is God’s gift to you. What you do with it is your gift back to God.” – Leo Buscaglia

My five-year-old daughter has been saying to me lately, “I want to be a scientist so that I can keep finding bigger and bigger numbers to tell you how much I love you.” Aww, so sweet. She gets my attention and a hug every time she says it.

It makes me think of why we choose the jobs that we do – to impress others, to have enough money to feel safe, to differentiate ourselves, to do something until we figure out what we really want to do. I think back to college and why I choose to study Electrical Engineering. It had a lot to do with a man I was dating who was also an engineer and EE was the engineering major that required the most math classes and I loved math. It’s turned out to be a fine basis for what I really like to do which is to solve problems for people. There are a lot of ways to have jobs that help people but that was the route that I took and it’s worked out.

But I winnowed out a lot of other choices. I worked at an engineering firm as a receptionist one summer in college and realized I didn’t want to have a job just sitting behind a drafting table,  I worked at the expresso stand in the building that housed the architect majors and realized that the pressure of long lines wasn’t any fun. I spent enough time in the EE labs with other engineering students to realize I didn’t want to hang out with other engineers. In other words, there were a lot of “no’s” along the way.

It strikes me as I continue to wind my way through life figuring out what’s next that the “no’s” are a tool that I need to have more respect for. It reminds me of a story about Thomas Edison who as he tried to invent the light bulb tried a lot of different materials to be the filament. When asked if he got frustrated with each experiment he replied that he didn’t because each one taught him what not to use. That inspires me to both know that even though I’m in mid-life, I am not finished having choices and also to understand that what I don’t do is as important as what I do.

As for my daughter, I assume she will change her mind about what she wants to be many times. I’ll take the hug and sweetness and try to gently steer her towards discerning what is meaningful for her own God given talents.

A Thin Place

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“Nothing among human things has such power to keep our gaze fixed even more intensely upon God than friendship.” – Simone Weil

We baked cookies for our neighbor and her husband yesterday. They have been taking 24/7 care of her elderly mom for a week now since she suddenly became sick and unable to care for herself. My daughter made a card for them and we put the card with the cookies and some puzzles and set off to deliver them. My neighbor’s mom only lives around the corner. My daughter wanted to carry the basket and when she handed them over, our neighbor cried. Then I cried.

It was a holy moment, the kind of moment that Bishop Michael Curry of the Episcopal church calls a thin place where God is just that much closer. The unexpressed weariness and worry in our neighbor met the softness of a kind gesture and out leaked some tears from the River of Life.

I’m completely flummoxed by how to teach faith to my kids. I look back to the Sunday School and all the church activities from my youth and while they were fun, I just didn’t get it and neither did my siblings.  It was only life in it’s raw, humbling way that made me search for the wider current that unites us all. Now I can tell you Christian stories, practice Buddhist-inspired meditation, find God out in nature and read anything deep in order to keep life vital.

So I’ve tried Sunday School for my daughter as a base hoping that it starts the seed that will grow into whatever works for her. But yesterday, witnessing two grown-ups cry over a plate of cookies while the spark of the Divine crackled in the air taught more than 100 Sundays. Even my toddler just stood there smiling watching something he didn’t understand. It reminded me that the unplanned lessons sometimes are the best.

Waiting

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Everything will be alright in the end, and if it is not alright, it is not the end.” – Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

Monday is my son’s favorite day because it’s garbage day. In our neighborhood, that means three different trucks: garbage, yard waste and recycling. And even better, they go up the street to service the cans on the north side and then they come back to get the cans on the south side which makes for six possible garbage truck sightings so Monday’s come with a great sense of expectation.  They make me think about waiting.

My paternal grandfather, Doug, died of ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease) in 1973 so I didn’t know him. But my grandmother lived for almost 30 years after he died. When she told the story of his passing she said that when he was diagnosed three years before his death the doctor took her aside and told her every milestone of disease progression that would occur. My grandmother was a very positive and loving person so it was always a surprise that she called this doctor the cruelest man ever because she had the knowledge for what would happen next and was always watching and waiting for it.

It reminds me of when I pregnant with my second child and my obstetrician told me, “Your first child will become a nightmare for six weeks. It happens to all kids but they will come out of it.” I really liked my obstetrician and trusted her. But I wished she hadn’t told me that because I couldn’t imagine it happening to my sweet little girl and the anticipation of it possibly happening was a little too suspenseful. But my obstetrician was right – those first weeks were hard and then I was glad to know that it would only last for six weeks and she was right about that too.

But those are two examples of difficulty and sadness to come. But they make me wonder, do we ever want to know the future? Let’s say I knew that in six months that the right man was going to come into my life would it change my behavior? Would I spend more intentional time with my kids and my friends now because I’ll have less time once the mystery man appears? Would I be looking at every guy and wondering if he was going to turn out to be the one?

My thinking often strays into the future. I think that’s probably a necessary part of planning, to imagine what life is going to be like when school is out in two weeks and then arrange for the summer schedule accordingly. But when I spend too much time in the future, I find it impacting my sense of “now” because it overlays a sense of anticipation or dread onto today. I am slowly learning to differentiate between intention and waiting. I can intend to stretch my muscles every day so that I can become a more flexible person and that is quite different than waiting until I’m flexible before I sign up for a class.

When I was going through my divorce, my meditation teacher once quoted the line from the Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, “Everything will be alright in the end, and if it is not alright, it is not the end.” It turned out to be the best mantra for getting me through. It had a sense of the future without promising anything specific. And that turned out to be all that I needed to know. Then I could set my intention to do the best and trust that somehow, it’ll be alright.  Anything more than that and I start waiting on pins and needles.

Yesterday, I l happened to look out my office window to see my mom and my son sitting perfectly still and poised waiting for the garbage truck. Watching them, I realized how much faith is involved in waiting patiently. We only sit still when we trust that what we are looking for is going to come our way. For me that is how it should be – let God know the future and all I have to do is simply trust that it’ll be alright in the end.  

This Sacred Journey

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“We are not human beings having a spiritual experience, we are spiritual beings having a human experience.” – Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

I was struck by this line in Listening to Your Life, a meditation book by Frederick Buechner. He was describing his ordination as a minister:


“As I knelt there in the chancel with the hands of the assembled ministers and elders heavy on my skull, I had no doubts, if I ever had before, that it was a risky as well as a holy trade that I had chosen.”

It reminded me of the many things we take on in our lives – being a parent, caring for family as they age, becoming a friend/partner, adopting a pet, planting a garden. Wouldn’t it be great if we had a ceremony to help us be intentional and remind us of the holiness for all the caretaking roles we take on in life?

Walking Boldly into Truth

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“Everything you have ever wanted is on the other side of fear.” – George Adair

Last year a friend of mine realized that she was gay at 50 years of age. In the 6 months that followed her discovery, she came out to everyone significant in her life. She didn’t have a girlfriend or any other forcing function to do it, she just walked boldly into her Truth. I know that some of those conversations, especially with the older generation were hard but when I asked her about how she did it she told me she was ready to find love and hiding who she realized she was would only hinder her path.

As someone who is walking a less traditional path by having kids as a single person at age 46 and 50, I am so inspired and in awe of my friend. I remember being five months pregnant and feeling really glad I wasn’t showing because then I’d have to tell people what I was doing. (Yeah, that wasn’t going to stay hidden forever. 😊) I had told everyone close to me, but for strangers and acquaintances, I was sure they’d think I was some loser that couldn’t find a partner. Over the years it has gotten so much easier but I really had to work hard to be able to say it without fear.

I told a lifelong friend this the other day and she was surprised. “What?” she said “we just always assumed you were some super-empowered woman.” Ha, ha. If it were that easy, there wouldn’t be a whole genre of stories about heroes who spend the entirety of the middle act wandering around trying to do everything they could to pursue their path without being vulnerable. I can say with complete certainty that if the constriction around my heart hadn’t been so tight and getting tighter every time I thought of having a family and time hadn’t been running on out my ability to have or adopt children, I would still be wandering around trying to find the right husband with which to have children. Anything so as not to have to face the vulnerability of saying, “This is what I was certain I had to do even though the circumstances at that time of my life meant doing it alone. I didn’t want to rush finding the right man and in doing so, make a mess of it.”

In Harry Potter, the young witches and wizards learn to run into the brick wall between platforms 9 and 10 to get to the Hogwarts Express train leaving from platform 9 3/4. We reach thresholds in our lives and need to change something — a job, a place we live, a relationship, a way of thinking or being, or something we just have to do — and they feel a lot like that brick wall. It is terrifying to consider running into, always looks easier when someone else does it, and once across, it is the place that transports to the magic life beyond. It’s only a perception that we don’t want to stand out that keeps us from walking into our Truths. When we do, we break that constriction around our hearts and can feel the full power of the vital heartbeat of life.

The postscript here is that with one year of my friend coming out, she has found her person and they’ve bought a house together. She crossed her threshhold and is living in the fullness of her life and it’s a joy and inspiration to watch!

Hoarding

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“When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent left and could say, I used everything you gave me.” – Erma Bombeck

Once I heard a riff that comedian Paula Poundstone did about buying fruit. She said she never risked it because it was so unpredictable. “What am I going to do, wake my kids up in the middle of the night because the cantaloupe is finally ripe?”

Cracks me up – probably because I resemble that story. I buy the fruit but then I like to just keep it on hand because then I can feel like I have an adequate supply of fresh fruit. Way too often I cut open the watermelon and realize that I “saved” it too long. Good grief! And it’s not just fruit I do it with. I’ll think of a great idea to write about, something that really represents something meaningful in my life — and then not write about it because I’m saving it. I know, dear reader, that you are asking “saving it for what?” Exactly, right! Who knows? With all due respect to proper planning and being prudent, sometimes my type of saving can be the enemy of now!

When I dig deep, I realize that I’m working towards some false sense of safety. If I have things on hand, whether they be fruit or ideas, then maybe, just maybe I can feel that I have enough, that I am enough. The flip side of this isn’t emptiness, it’s lack of faith. I want to have a great idea in my back pocket because just in case I’m called upon, I won’t be without something great to say.

I’ve cut open enough fruit past its prime to start understanding this basic truth of my life. If I’m ever called upon, it will be for an occasion for which I destined for. I’m not arguing the theology of predestination but just generally speaking about the paths that are lives take and while they seem like such a surprise to us, when looking back there is a crazy, logical narrative that can’t be an accident. So, if I’m called upon, I must have faith that what I’ve done leading up to that moment is all the preparation I need.

Often when I feel disconnected from life, it’s when I’m hoarding. I’m safely to the side, practicing for when life calls on me. And whenever I clue in and return to this moment, the one I’m starring in right now, I think of Paula Poundstone and then go get some fruit from the pantry and celebrate with the thunk of the knife announcing the moment at hand.

You Should Say “Thank You”

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“Wear gratitude like a cloak and it will feed every corner of your life.” – Rumi

My 5-year-old got a new bike from her grandmother. We intentionally got it bigger because she’s growing so fast but it means she can’t touch the ground while sitting on the seat. So the way she was starting by pushing off with her feet and stopping while sitting on the seat wasn’t working. To help her practice, I was helping her start on the sidewalk out front of our house and then running about 200 feet to the corner and helping her stop. The standard parenting job for kids learning to ride bikes. We were doing it for about a half an hour, I was dripping with sweat when on one of our runs she says over her shoulder, “You should thank me.” And I huffed out the question as I ran, “For what?” She replies “For slowing down so you could catch up.”

If I could have belly laughed while running and out of breath, I would have. But it also rang an interior bell for me – how many times in life have I felt pretty smug for what I was doing and completely missed the big picture of what God was doing?

It reminds me of the time about a year and a half ago when I invited a family I didn’t know to live with me for three months. I wrote about it in my post Power Stance. I was feeling pretty gracious for being willing to open my house when I had a newborn and 4-year-old. But yesterday as I sat talking late into the night with the mom of that family who came this weekend for a quick visit, I realized that it was completely analogous to my daughter on the bike. While I was feeling so self-satisfied, God had been working to give me a lifelong deep friendship with a kind and thoughtful woman who affirms my spiritual nature. Now there’s something I should say “thank you” for!

I assume that it’s a little like riding a bike. Once we learn to balance on two wheels and get some momentum, we gain a whole lot of confidence and freedom. But every once in a while we skid on a patch of gravel and remember to say, “thank you!”  

Day of Rest

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“We are not human beings having a spiritual experience, we are spiritual beings having a human experience.” – Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

Twenty years ago at this time of year I trekked to Everest Base Camp with a couple of my friends who were attempting an Everest summit. It’s a thirty mile trek through beautiful country, crossing over raging rivers on precarious bridges, stopping at little Nepalese villages, staying near Buddhists monasteries with everything (trees, people, commerce) getting sparser and sparser the higher you go. Our rhythm would be to trek one day and rest the next because the climbers needed to let their bodies acclimatize to the thin air.

It was interesting to see what everyone chose to do on the rest day – lie in tents and listen to music or read, try to wash clothes or take a shower if you could find facilities, hike around the local area, go into a little village if one was nearby, play cards, or sit around a tea house table telling stories. It was a day that we weren’t on the move so there was no schedule. I usually would chose some alone time and then some time listening to stories. Amongst mountain guides, especially the ones I was with that trip, the ability to tell stories is nearly as good as their ability to climb.

Thinking back on that trek, I think of not only the amazing adventure and incredible views but the practice of the day of rest. Because we all need that day of rest to restore our spirits and bodies before we can climb again. But at home, the choices are too many and the pace too hectic that I often forget to celebrate the day of rest. So I’m inspired by my choices on that trip – spend a little time alone meditating and then swapping stories with others, even if this time it’s on a blog.

One day at about 15,000 feet of elevation we were trekking to our next camp site when we came across this football sized flat space where rock cairns had been created for people who had died on the mountain. I’m at a loss to explain the intensity of how sacred that place felt. It was, to say the least, an impressive reminder that we will all meet our ultimate resting place and until then, we would be well served to celebrate this sacred life with a day of rest from time to time.

Miracles

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“There are two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.” – Albert Einstein

Back when I was engaged to the man who is now my ex-husband, there was one memorable hike that we went on with my parents and we discussed miracles. This conversation happened almost twenty years ago but to the best of my recollection, my soon-to-be husband wanted my dad’s professional opinion as a Presbyterian pastor on why God didn’t do miracles any more. He was sure he’d believe in God if He did some grand gesture. And from what I remember, my dad mostly asked questions like what country would this miracle appear in? And would it have to be certified as a miracle by a recognized authority like the Pope? And what was a gesture that was big enough?

There are so many conversations that I wish I could have with my dad in the six years since he died but recently I’ve been thinking about that one. Because two things have happened recently that I think of as miracles. First is that my refrigerator was leaking water about every 4 days. I looked it up on the internet and came to the conclusion that my defrost evaporation tray was overflowing. The how-to article suggested that I might make sure that the default vent wasn’t covered. I moved some things around, never quite identified where that vent was and it still was leaking. And then it stopped. Miracle, right?

And then my car was leaking oil. It’s 14 -years-old but relatively low mileage. I’ve kept up the maintenance pretty well so I’ve had very few problems with it. But recently a ball rolled under the car and when I fished it out, it had oil on it. So I took the car to the shop where I’d last had the oil changed and they said it was just leftover from the last oil change because someone didn’t wipe it down – until I told them my last oil change was 9 months ago. Then they were confounded. I was never quite convinced that the friendly guy helping me knew how to solve it but he changed out my oil filter for free(!) and not very confidently said that would fix it. It leaked for about a week more. Then it stopped. Miracle, right?

I can suggest more miracles. The birth of my two children. The fact that a COVID vaccination was developed in less than a year. That my clients sometimes pay early just when I need them too. And just overall that as I look back on my life, I’m certain that I get exactly what I need (not what I want which is whole other thing) but just what I need. And of course, even that I can reach out to you, dear reader, over space and time, and talk heart to heart.

I have a guess what my dad would say. That belief doesn’t require proof. He’d acknowledge, as do I, that all of those things have plausible explanations but that miracles are a matter of one’s heart not one’s head. He probably said some version of that almost twenty years ago and I didn’t quite understand it. But I do now and that is a miracle!

Believing In Myself

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“Success is going from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm.” – Winston Churchill

After five years of trying to get something published in a traditional magazine or newspaper and sending out 99 query letters, I finally received a “yes” yesterday. You know what I find harder than writing? Believing in myself. Believing that I have something worth saying. Because sending out 99 query letters has very little to do with writing and everything to do with believing in myself or at the very least believing that it is something I am called to do. If you do the math of 99 letters over five years, it becomes clear it is something that I do periodically. I have a full-time job and I also have 2 young children, one of whom was born in the middle of those five years. My attention has wandered, my internal urgency to get this done has flickered, my discipline to research editors and publications has waxed and waned. In the course of those five years, I’ve gotten a couple of maybes and other nibbles and surviving those when they didn’t work out might have been the most difficult of all.

Writing started for me about 8 years ago when I had the inspiration to record my dad’s story. My wonderful father was so good at supporting other people that it was hard to get him to talk about himself. He was 78 years old at the time and in great health so there was no urgency but I got him to sit down with me most Saturdays so that I could ask questions and record his stories. It was so fun and it brought a new intimacy to our relationship. Then about a year into my project, he went out for a neighborhood bike ride one day, hit a car and died. It felt as if the grief for this amazing man was taking up so much room in my heart that there wasn’t enough space for my lungs to breathe. So I started writing out his story as a way to process how much I loved him. I listened to those recordings and was so comforted by his voice and so grateful that I had them. I got a writing coach and the first thing I said to her was, “Listen, I am not a writer but…” She still teases me about that.

In the last few months when I have been blogging regularly, I realize it has given me the opportunity to practice believing that my stories are worthwhile. The regular act of clicking “publish” is building a muscle of submission, both to the faith that it’s safe to put my words out into the world and to the acceptance that I am called to keep writing.

That is what has ultimately led me to be able to submit 99 query letters — knowing that I am compelled to do this by something bigger than myself. Understanding that to be true means it isn’t just belief in myself but belief that the Universe can speak through my words when I bow to that ultimate power. Even saying that sounds far too grandiose for my sense of what I write and have to say. I don’t believe that me, as a person, has anything to unique to add to all the words in the world. However, I have come to see that it is all a work in progress by a force bigger than myself and what I have to do is listen and believe.