A Pause…

“Every action you take is a vote for the type of person you wish to become.”

James Clear

For today, let’s take a pause and consider our vote in light of our faith - our certain way of seeing.

Be still, and know that I am God.

Psalm 46:10 NIV

Let’s pray.

Father, how often we get caught up in our own certainty; our visions and dreams of the future; our schedule and routines; our insecurities and our creature comforts. Today, in homage to you, I sit. I breathe. I pray.

May your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

May it bear fruit in my life.

Amen

The Journey

“It is good to have an end to journey toward; but it is the journey that matters, in the end.”

Ursula K. Le Guin

Almost 21 years ago we entered into this crazy adventure of starting a recovery ministry with a team of awesome people. I was ambivalent about upending our routines for this new thing but totally committed to its vision - providing a bridge for folks to travel between recovery and faith. Two decades ago it was harder, I think, to mix one’s recovery with one’s faith experience. Maybe I’m wrong but it feels like to me that this is less an issue today than it was in the 90’s.

As a pilot project it was easy to not get overly focused on goals. This was helpful. Goals can sometimes create needless pressures and even side-track us if our goal setting is unrealistic or off target. We talked about helping “one person” as a worthy goal. That’s about as far as we went. Eventually we had to give up our illusion that the pilot project was short term and would soon allow us to return to our less complicated lives.

Over the years my sense of the journey has changed. I see the bridge less clearly. That early goal was driven by the needs of the day. Today, it feels more like a path we trod through desert and deep forest, up and down hills, “on up the mountain” to quote Jakob Dylan.

There is an intuition I have today that sings a song and gently tugs at my heart. It’s less about the objectives and more about the courage to keep going, even when the way seems dark and uncertain. I look back over 21 years and recognize the naivete in daring to think that we had much understanding of the implications of starting a new thing. My life, our lives as a family and community, is better served by not getting too caught up in focusing on the end of the journey. The naive woman who dared to think she knew what the future would hold has been wrong on so many fronts that my crystal ball has been confiscated.

I like goals. They are helpful, especially for the small stuff. But goals are not as helpful as a full on commitment to the journey. As it relates to the big stuff? I think that’s often the ego chattering away in an effort to distract us from the reality of how difficult the journey was, is and will be as we keep walking, one step at a time.

It’s awesome to have a sense of how we can be a part of something bigger than ourselves. But it is wisdom that guides us to hold lightly to our convictions about the destination and take our responsibility for how we travel very seriously.

How is your journey going? Are your intentions tugging at you? Is the kind of person you want to be applying the brakes gently on your desires to succeed, excel, and influence the world around you? It is always a good use of time to self-reflect and notice where we are giving ourselves permission to behave in ways that do not really fit our desire to be a better human.

Today Will Pass...

Bravery is acknowledging your fear and doing it anyway.

Cheryl Strayed

In a recent meeting I attended a very smart psychiatrist gave a great presentation on the topic of neuro-feedback. He had graphs and a powerpoint; it was awesome. We asked him to share during our Family Education Program about the latest research in this field as it relates to treatment of substance use disorder and other mental health challenges. He believes in this practice and has years of experience. It was both a humble and informed conversation.

At the end, one of the parents said, “Do you think this would be helpful for my child?” He replied, “Well, maybe. It’s expensive and time consuming. You could try this, or she could practice mindfulness and meditation.”

I’m not sure if he meant that the two were equivalent. But he clearly believed that some of the benefits of his skill are mimicked by the practice of mindfulness and meditation - which, for the record is free and accessible to all. Heck, you can research it on google or youtube if you want to know what that entails.

Sometimes it takes practice of sitting quietly, alone with ourselves, to become aware of our thoughts and feelings and motivations behind our actions. I personally consider this a way that I daily give homage to God. It is my small, humbling way of admitting that He is God and I am not. No distractions. Just me sitting at the feet of a big God.

I appreciate the value and right we have in this country to share our opinions and even peacefully protest as a way of expressing our beliefs. But I want to suggest to us that equally important is a deep dive in search of clarity about the “why” underneath the “what” and “how”. And our “why” cannot be found in busy “behaving” or even passionate believing. It isn’t found in doctrines and certainty. It is found, uncovered, laid bare, only when we are brutally honest with ourselves about our fears and insecurities, our doubts and prejudices, our wounds and our tendency to wound others.

So in this month of political upheaval and for many, personal crisis, I offer this simple prayer of protection:

The light of God surrounds me.

The love of God enfolds me.

The power of God protects me.

The presence of God watches over me.

Whenever I am God is, and all is well.

Amen

Feel protected, surrounded, enfolded, and watched over? Awesome, now pray this over the scariest, the meanest dude you disagree with and judge the most in the world.

One of the ways to unlock our habitual ways of thinking and seeing is through shock and awe. Either something amazing happens that gives us a glimpse of the majesty and splendor of our loving God, or perhaps something so scary that we are shocked into wakefulness about ourselves. Maybe we are given a medical diagnosis that scares us to death or someone we love dies. Something happens that disrupts our unconscious ability to believe that we are immortal or that life is fair and understandable. Whatever it is, we end up completely shocked and find ourselves disoriented and confused.

I for one try to avoid discomfort and confusion at all costs. But I have learned, recently, that discomfort and confusion are necessary companions if I want to live a meaningful life. Some days, I confess, I am not interested in meaning. I just want to enjoy a good hot chocolate beside a roaring fire and read a mediocre novel about a sad story that ends up all sunshine and rainbows.

But on days when that doesn’t happen, on most days, this kind of sugar rush and spiritual numbness is not fulfilling. So what’s a girl to do? If we are going to rise above our temptation to numb, ignore, or rationalize away the reality of life lived on life’s terms, how do we manage the pain and discombobulation that is inherent in such a life?

Here’s a quote that helps me:

This is not how your story ends. It’s simply where it takes a turn you didn’t expect.

Cheryl Strayed

I appreciate the discipline of knowing that today will pass. Shock inevitably gives way to other emotions, but eventually we find a new equilibrium. What I am suggesting is this - if we can find a way to calm our initial freak out over the shaking of our foundation with the knowledge that our journey continues and the world is not coming to an end, then we may be able to stay with the suffering long enough for it to do its work in us, rousing us to more maturity.

Consider it a sheer gift, friends, when tests and challenges come at you from all sides. You know that under pressure, your faith-life is forced into the open and shows its true colors. So don’t try to get out of anything prematurely. Let it do its work so you become mature and well-developed, not deficient in any way.

James 1:2-4 The Message

It is a good thing to know our true colors. It is a requirement in order for us to not judge the true colors of everyone else.

Learning New Tricks

You will learn a lot from yourself if you stretch in the direction of goodness, of bigness, of kindness, of forgiveness, of emotional bravery. Be a warrior for love. Cheryl Strayed

I appreciate this idea that our actions should be guided by our intentions. Most people I know want to stretch in the direction of goodness. They do. I’m lucky that way. But that does not mean that we all agree on how that should look. This is not a problem UNLESS we unconsciously shift away from our intentions and forget who we want to grow up to be - good, kind, forgiving, brave, a warrior of love. ALL of these characteristics are easier to manifest if we start and end all conversations with asking and answering the following question, “Where do we agree? Where is our common ground?”

What would happen if we stopped judging and calling names and instead got serious about listening to one another? What would happen if we stopped thinking, “What a bunch of _______ !” (Insert what bad names you use when you judge another.) INSTEAD, what if we said, “Man, I understand. I feel disenfranchised and marginalized too. How can we fix this?”

My kids have led our family in finding the art of loving, gentle, reasonable, heartfelt conversations about topics that we all land in various places on. My son Michael in particular is a passionate guy and I know he has strong, strong feelings about any topic that he is invested in understanding. But he rarely condescends and if on occasion a little hot sauce is sprinkled over his words, he immediately apologizes and explains why he feels so passionately that his words come out fast and intense. He is one of the safest people I know to be curious with on a hot topic. I do not know how he became this man. We did not teach this because we did not know how to practice this skill. But I think it serves as an encouragement - we can learn new tricks, even us old dogs. Sometimes the mentor is the youngest member of the family. Sometimes it is the oldest. If we as families could learn how to do this, maybe that would spread out into our communities and ultimately our country as well? Don’t you think it is worth a try?

In Christ’s family there can be no division into Jew and non-Jew, slave and free, male and female. Among us you are all equal. This is, we are all in the common relationship with Jesus Christ. Also, since you are Christ’s family, then you are Abraham’s famous “descendant,” heirs according to the covenant promises. Galatians 3:28-29 The Message

Responsibility to Others...

Be about ten times more magnanimous than you believe yourself capable of being. Your life will be a hundred times better for it.

Cheryl Strayed

I do not know if you are up on the news, but we are about to transition from one political party in the White House from the other. It has not been an easy transition. I need to talk about this. I hope you will be kind and gracious to me. First off, I am struck by how winners and losers say the exact same thing but from the opposite perspective. I remember when the BLM protests and riots were going on last summer and many folks said that many of the protesters were peaceful and some were not. On Wednesday January 6th, when the protests and riots were going on over the election of Joe Biden, many folks said that many of the protesters were peaceful and some were not. When we feel passionately FOR something, we tend to think that “our side” behaves righteously and the “other side” are violent thugs. Theories are posited so that we can hold onto our certainty of our righteousness. Both sides. Both sides doing the exact same thing, just from an opposite perspective. Both sides. (Just to be clear, I do not think there is a moral equivalency between protests and insurrection, I’m just saying that both sides have a tendency to demonize the other. In situations like this, there is always more diversity in those who attend than we are able to acknowledge in our certainty.)

It is at times like this that I wish for a magic wand so that I can sprinkle it over us all. I wish everyone practiced the 12-steps so rigorously that it would no longer be in our DNA or behavior to point fingers at others BUT instead we would have a deeply ingrained propensity to reflect deeply about our own self-righteousness and certainty. When my wand arrives from Amazon, I am going to sprinkle the s*&* out of that thing, but alas, it is lost in transit. Friends, this is not right. I know I am only responsible FOR myself, but I am also responsible TO others. I do not want to talk about such things, but I feel that I need to be clear about my perspective. Here is what I want us to do, with our ordinary, daily life:

1. Love one another, especially those who differ from us.

2. It would be so amazingly cool if we stopped sharing our opinions and instead spent our time curious about the places where our opinions, perception of fact, etc., might be off base. This is not a rejection of our freedom, it is a repudiation of license to share our certainty in favor of exercising the liberty and responsibility to love one another. Humility should always question our sense of righteous indignation.

3. If we share our opinion, for God’s sake, can we please stop using social media and ONLY do it one-to-one where dialogue can be part of the conversation? PLEASE?!?

I so wish we as a community would consider this.