A piece of writing meant for this space has been resisting my efforts for nearly a week now.  I don’t think it’s being coy – shy, perhaps, not ready to show itself. 

       Last night, I chose early bedtime over another attempt at writing.  Just before lights out, I read these paragraphs at the beginning of a chapter, The Gift of Surprise, in Mark Nepo’s book, The Exquisite Risk  (pp. 114-115).

       Their discovery was a pleasant surprise for me – a reprieve – and an invitation to keep my heart open. 

       Enjoy!

The Gift of Surprise

       Our capacity for surprise is often an unused blessing.  Brother David Steindl-Rast has described surprise as another name for God.  With each appearance, it prods us to ask, Beneath our problem solving, what is life asking of us?  Beneath our ideas of happiness or suffering, what does it really mean to live?

       So often, we seek to change things, only to find that our honest engagement with experience often changes us.  In trying to make life fit our needs, our sense of need is often softened or broken until we fit life.  Humbly, this inversion of intent is, in itself, a subtle wind of miracle.  And surprise often announces that this miracle is near.

       Because of the very nature of surprise, our first challenge is to stay open to the unexpected, not to harden into the position of our initial reactions.  For this sort of stubbornness makes change a monster and makes learning next to impossible.  We can’t learn to see if we can’t keep our eyes open.  In just this way, staying open to the unexpected expands the openness of our heart.

Mark Nepo

No Promises

       While the Universe is abundant and generous, always working with us toward our highest good, it’s not at ego’s beck and call.  It’s not a cosmic vending machine, offering just the refreshment we desire at the insertion of a dollar and the push of a button. 

       When I need a grown-up dose of spiritual medicine, Pema Chodron often has just the right prescription.  Yesterday, I opened a small book of hers, The Pocket Pema Chodron, to passage 77.  Here’s what greeted me. 

There are no promises

       When we are training in the art of peace, we are not given any promises that because of our noble intentions everything will be okay.  In fact, there are no promises of fruition at all.   Instead, we are encouraged to look deeply at joy and sorrow, at laughing and crying, at hoping and fearing, at all that lives and dies.  We learn that what truly heals is gratitude and tenderness.

Pema Chodron

The Gift

It’s all

a gift

every moment

an opportunity

to learn

to grow

to deepen

an opportunity

to be

fully present

fully alive

fully in love.

It’s all

a gift

sometimes

well-disguised.

A Path to Yes!

       Last Saturday, I went for my first snowshoeing adventure of the season.  I had skied in the morning and was hankering for more immersion in that gorgeous day – with its deep blue (almost blue-violet, almost cloudless) sky and pristine-white snow piled high on pines, oak branches and downed tree trunks.   Two days previously, we had over 8 inches of new snow, giving St. Cloud a 25-inch base, with drifts up to several feet.  While not always fun to drive in, it’s been awesome to behold.

       I strapped on my snowshoes and headed across a field en route to a large, protected, wooded area at the edge of my neighborhood.   Frequently, the snow would give way and I would find myself suddenly hip deep – not exactly the immersion I had anticipated.   Each step became an exercise in mindfulness – and an aerobic workout.  I was sweating, breathing hard and very focused.

       The woods were a crisscross of deer trails – ideal paths to follow.  With trail partly broken, I only sank a foot or so into the snow as I tromped along, apparently the first human in the woods since the new snow.  It didn’t take long for the wonder of it all – the adventure, the exertion, the solitude, the beauty, the sunshine, the crisp air and the bracing breeze – to burrow somewhere deep inside.  Off and on, for much of the next hour, rhythmic with my steps, over and over, I breathed out loud: “Oh yeah!  Oh yeah!” – like a mantra. 

       I was saying Yes! – yes with an exclamation point, a full-bodied, open-hearted embrace of life in the moment.

       It’s exhilarating to feel that “Yes!” inside.  And, if I hadn’t first said “no” to my plans for work in the afternoon, I would not have arrived there.

        Developmentally, no comes before yes in a sequence that goes like this:

No!       No.       I know.       Yes.       Yes!

       As toddlers, our first no’s come out loudly.  If the loud no’s are met with respect, we naturally move toward saying no with less intensity.  Saying no allows us to know.  (No-ing leads to knowing.) Once we know, then we can say yes – and, eventually, a wholehearted, life-embracing Yes!

       If saying no is punished or not permitted, we learn to disregard ourselves – to rely on external authority rather than our own knowing.  Our deep yes doesn’t have the chance to develop.  And the yes we do say, without being grounded in knowing, comes out tentative and half-hearted – more like a “maybe” than a real yes.

       So, we have to be free to “no” (and know) before we can truly “yes”.  No-ing and knowing – a path to Yes!

A Valentine Thought

As a matter of

Self-integrity

Writers write

Teachers teach

Lovers Love

And children

Of the Universe

Play.

Have a light-hearted Valentine’s Day.

Courageous Connection

Knowing and being known

Receiving and revealing

Hearts connect.

Truth: seen and told.

Danger remembered:

Risk of revealing

Risk of receiving.

Fear dances with longing.

Make space.

Befriend both dancers.

Know neither is love.

Choose love.

Knowing

Being known

Receiving

Revealing.

Present, embodied

Intimate within

Intimate with life

Courageous connection.

Relational Economics

       I’d like to share a hodgepodge of thoughts on the economics of relationship. 

       A prosperous relationship is one with an abundant flow of giving and receiving – both of which are crucial to the vitality of relational life.  When we give freely, without expectations, we are enriched.  When we receive freely, without hesitation, we are equally enriched.  In a prosperous, generous relationship, distinctions between giving and receiving dissolve.  It’s all part of one flow.

       When a relationship is in economic recession, the flow of giving and receiving is clogged.  We get stingy with each other and withhold giving.  Withholding can be a way of life - or a way of attempting control in a relationship.  Some of us watch carefully to make sure we don’t give more than we get.  Sometimes, we give in order to get.  In that case, our gift is really a form of taking.

       I find myself, at times, following the golden rule.  I give unto others what I’d like them to give unto me – often a good strategy, but not always.  Skillful giving requires me to appreciate the other person’s language of love, to know the kind of gift that speaks deeply to him/her, to embrace the stretching of self that relationship requires.

       We can also clog up the flow of relational life by not permitting ourselves the fullness of receiving.  Perhaps, stuck in scarcity thinking, we see a gift to us as a loss for the other.  Perhaps we feel unworthy or suspicious or reluctant to incur a debt. 

       The economic model of abundance starts with receiving – daring to open ourselves to the energy flow of an extravagant universe.  If only we allow it, this energy comes to us in myriad ways:  from the sparkle of sunshine on freshly fallen snow, to the smiling eyes of a dear friend, to the vast quiet of a morning meditation.   

       In the economic model of abundance, giving freely – from a place of connection with ourselves and with the energy of life flowing through us – does not deplete us.   Pushing ourselves to give from a place of obligation, disconnected from the natural flow of life, does deplete.  And, as we are mindful of depletion, we are invited to re-connect and let ourselves be guided by that re-connection.

       There’s an old saying:  The grass is not greener on the other side of the fence – it’s greener where we water it.  As we water the grass of our life energy and the grass of our important relationships, we create a pasture of plenty.

       How good can we stand it?

First Step

       Here’s something I recently wrote to a friend who is going through a rough patch.

       When I’m in pain or turmoil, overwhelmed by life, my first impulse is to fix me or my situation.  Self-acceptance and self-compassion are hard to come by in those moments.  And yet, I believe, they constitute – precisely - the first step that needs to be taken.

       This poem by Courtney Walsh arrived from my good friend Dan at a perfect time.  The inner judge was having a field day – harping on my imperfections, resurrecting old unworthiness stories.  It was a mercy and a healing to encounter this refreshing take on the human condition.  

Dear Human

Dear Human:  You’ve got it all wrong.

You didn’t come here to master unconditional love.

That is where you came from and where you’ll return.

You came here to learn personal love.

Universal love.  Messy love.  Sweaty love.

Crazy love.  Broken love.  Whole love.

Infused with divinity.  Lived through the grace of stumbling.

Demonstrated through the beauty of… messing up.  Often.

You didn’t come here to be perfect.  You already are.

You came here to be gorgeously human.  Flawed and fabulous.

And then to rise again into remembering.

But unconditional love?  Stop telling that story.

Love, in truth, doesn’t need ANY other adjectives.

It doesn’t require modifiers.

It doesn’t require the conditions of perfection.

It only asks that you show up.  And do your best.

That you stay present and feel fully.

That you shine and fly and laugh and cry

and hurt and heal and fall and get back up

and play and work and live and die as YOU.

It’s enough.  It’s Plenty.

             Courtney A. Walsh

Trying Easy

        On Christmas Eve, my dear friend, Marika Blades, sent around this quote from Paul Boynton, author of Begin with Yes.  “The holidays are filled with so many expectations and we are tempted to put our energy into making a storybook happen for ourselves and people around us.  This year let’s not try so hard to make it happen.  Let’s relax, open our hearts and arms and quietly see what happens.” 

       Old habits of struggling and trying hard can be tenacious and energy draining.   As the new year begins, I wonder about a different path – the path of trying easy.  I wonder about moving gently with the flow of life within and around me.  I imagine greeting each moment with eyes and heart open – receiving it, responding to it, releasing it – relaxed and ready to greet what comes next.   

       After devoting years to the practice of trying hard, I’m ready to experiment with trying easy.

      P.S.  I had decided on “trying easy” as the title and theme for this new year’s posting several days before Marika’s email arrived.  Once again, I’m struck by life’s synchronicity – its offer to support us with its energy and propel us with its currents. 

       We are not alone, and we really don’t have to work so hard.

       Happy New Year!