The Best Gift Ever

Carol and Dan had a good marriage. “As good as anyone else’s” they’d say. But theirs was a case of very different personalities bound together. Carol was a high energy, party girl spirit. Dan’s, not so much. He was perfectly happy sitting home watching sports on TV. It was a bit of a stretch for him to even invite friends over to watch the game with him.

This difference caused a lot of friction at various times in the marriage. Both of them felt the other didn’t respect their wishes or needs. Neither of them felt listened to or that the other one cared all that much about what made them happy.

Neither one of them was especially good (or motivated) to see the world through the eyes of their spouse. And as always happens, the less one feels they are being fed the less inclined they are to feed the other.

So it came to Carol’s 40th birthday. Dan’s question was what to get her? For whatever reason a new light when on inside his head (and heart.) Maybe it was because Carol wasn’t all that thrilled to pass the big 4-0 line. Dan knew his wife was feeling a little “over the hill.”

In that lovely new light he asked himself – not what he wanted to get her but what would she most like? What could I do for her that would most make her feel “good?” Then he even went further and asked himself what “good” meant? In this case he decided it meant appreciated, wanted – even simply SEEN.

What he got her, after getting out of himself and seeing the world through her eyes, was a dance lesson for both of them. Carol was thrilled. Dan was thrilled that she was thrilled. The “best gift ever” she told me. – The gift of course wasn’t the dance lesson. It was that she felt she was SEEN. Which is pretty much what all of us most want I guess.

The Saddest Story of All

Life is full of sad stories. None perhaps more so than this one: A woman I’d guess in her forties approached me after a seminar I’d given. She had a pleasant, eager face, thick glasses and straight brown hair. As we talked she told me that all her life she had a running battle with her weight, food and hurtful relationships. But the biggest struggle she had she said with a face that seemed to hold the weight of the world’s sadness, was with God. She had sought God her entire life but said she felt terribly estranged from God.

I thought her problem stemmed from confusing God with religion. Many people blame God for religion. I’ve found if a person substitutes the word “love” for their religion tainted notion of “God” a lovely door opens in their consciousness. So I asked her to call to mind someone she loved without reserve, someone she loved so much it gave her goose bumps just to think about them. The woman thought for a moment. Then she said, “No one. There is no one I love like that.”

That, I thought, is the saddest story I’ve ever heard.

Intimacy is all about love. It is a tragedy beyond all telling to have no one to love. Or no one to love us in return. I believe the most important task we have as human beings is, after taking care to have our own “love bucket” full, is to go find those who don’t – and say in whatever way is most effective, – “Here, take some of my love. Because the more I give you the more comes back to me.”

Speaking of Intimacy

I like this quote. “An exceptional basketball player is said to play above the rim. Exceptional human beings plays at the deep-heart of life.
The area behind mask, pose, and the shield of protectiveness.
The realm where intimacy is both king and servant.” Professor Ronald White in “The Metaphysics of Life.”

To me it seems to speak the truth about intimacy. Intimacy has been written as, in-to-me-see. Intimacy does pass behind mask, pose and the shield of protectiveness. Life is lived in that area behind mask, pose and shields. It’s where our heart is. It’s where what matters lives and breathes.

Call to mind the last time your heart was touched. Right there is the face of and the meaning of intimacy.

Amazing Grace (part 3)

Tomorrow Sam and Tony leave on the long drive two states over to a Bible College. Well, I guess not a college. More a camp or Bible R&R place. It’s where broken people go to heal and get back on their feet.

I just spoke with Sam about ten minutes ago. He’s the one going to the camp. He’s scared out of his mind even though he has been to this camp before and found it a place of total acceptance, love and forgiveness. But he really fell hard this time. Drugs and alcohol of course. He’s an addict and when he can’t cope he tries his best to kill himself with chemicals.

When he finally reached out for help this time he hadn’t eaten for four days and had a blood alcohol count of .46. Legally drunk is .08 so his reading would kill most people. He spent five days in the hospital just to get his feet under him. He’s still a very sick man but at least he has a safe place to go.

Sam said he didn’t think he could make it to the camp on a bus so he asked Tony to drive him. Tony looks like he is made out of a steel spring. He’s a watcher. He doesn’t say much but he is always aware, always keeping his eyes busy, always paying attention to who and what is around him.

His story isn’t too different than Sam’s except that Tony had one of those knock your socks off spiritual experiences that picked him up and turned him around. Of course he had to pay his dues to KEEP turned around but his 180 degree switch was amazing.

I’m sitting now at my computer smiling (actually laughing out loud) at the picture of the ride these two marvelous men will have tomorrow on their ride to the camp. I wish I had a recording devise hidden in the car. Who would have guessed, EVER, that these two men would be bound by grace, supporting and caring for each other, leaning on each other, celebrating the power of the God of their Understanding on their long ride to the camp? No one would have. No one in a million years. Not if you saw their track record up to this point. But there they are- showing anyone with eyes to see the beautiful face of amazing grace.

Living in the moment…

Living in the moment is almost always associated with joy. It’s about being “in the moment” because there are blessings to be found there. Who wants to be “in the moment” if all that’s waiting there is a punch in the nose.
But sometimes it takes that punch in the nose to slow us down and make us aware that there even are “moments’ in our lives. In fact that’s all life can ever be – a long series of moments all strung together like pearls on a string. Sometimes those punches in the nose are the start, maybe even a necessary part, of finding the joy in the here and now.
Ellen was telling me not long ago about just how this works. She didn’t know she was of course, but that is what her story taught me – and her.
Ellen has three teenage sons. Teenage people aren’t famous for thinking of others. Ellen said she was “running late” which was pretty much her M.O. The power had gone out at their house just as she was starting to blow dry her hair. She had a funeral to get to and the best she could think of was to hop in the car and drive to one of those fancy gas stations that does everything but shine your shoes. Her oldest son had the car the previous night. Just as she pulled out of the drive way she heard a sharp dinging. It was her gas gauge telling her she was running on fumes.
“So there I was” she said. “Wet hair hanging down, blow dryer in the seat next to me, late for getting to the funeral – and my car screaming at me that I was out of gas.”
She said she could have strangled her son for bringing the car back empty. But it turned out well, she told me. She said her situation was so bizarre all she could do was laugh. As it turned out she made it to the gas station, got her hair dried and made it to the funeral on time.
“What about your son?” I asked. She said she still could have strangled him and would have some words with him about responsibility and respect for others in the house. But she said all in all, “He is a good kid. He does a lot more right than he does wrong. I’m blessed to have him in my life for as long as he is home.”
The funeral Ellen was going to was a friend of her’s who is also a mother and whose son had been killed in a car crash some years before..
Sometimes it takes a punch in the nose.

Living in the Moment

Living in the moment is closely tied to an attitude of gratitude. The more a person focuses on what they do have as opposed to what they don’t have (and are often convinced they need) the more blessings they see. Drawing close to those blessings of course are what make living in the moment beneficial.

Sometimes our blessings shine brightest when we see what others don’t have. Like the woman at the book signing.

It had rained hard that day and was still pouring down by the time the evening book signing was scheduled to start. Maybe that’s why I mostly sat at the author’s table by myself. (Or maybe no one especially liked the book?) At any rate I was glad when it was time to leave.

Just as I was getting up to go a woman in her 40’s I’d say slowly came up to me. She looked shy. It looked like she was having a tough time asking what she wanted to ask. Finally she told me she no longer believed in God and felt bad about it.

My experience is that often when people say they no longer believe in God they are talking about no longer believing in religion, or at least their particular religion or church. (I saw a sign on a church lawn not long ago that said, DON’T BLAME GOD FOR RELIGION. I thought that was pretty good.)

My response to this woman was along the line of don’t confuse God with your religious experiences. I asked her to think of someone she loved with all her heart. Then transfer that sense to herself as being loved by God. If God is love then love is God. My suggestion was that she would get as close to the nature of God as any of us are likely to get by going to the deepest love she had for another.

She looked scared or sad as she thought about it. I asked her, “So when you think of someone you love all the way down who comes to your mind?” A moment later she said, “No one. I guess there is no one I really love.”

I prayed for that woman that night. Then I thought of all the people I love and who have gifted me by loving me. It was a good moment to be living in.

HOW IT WORKS

Everyone I’d guess would say world peace would be a fine thing.  Or an end to poverty or homelessness or starvation.  Everyone winces at the pictures of starving children in China, Africa or wherever such misery exists.  But wanting something and making it happen are two different things.  How would such wonderful things happen?  What would it take?

I saw how it works, (or would work, or could work) the other day.  In a way it was just a small gesture.  In another way it told the whole story – kind of like an acorn tells the whole story of the mighty oak.

Mia and Karen are in the same woman’s group.  Mia has been around longer and is well grounded in her spiritual walk.  She’s doing fine. Karen is struggling right now.  Karen is locked in the victim’s mentality of, “No one cares about me, I don’t have a friend in the world, I am and always have been an outsider.”

Mia let her vent awhile but then asked Karen, “What do you do for fun?”  Karen had no idea.  She’d never thought about fun I guess.  And since “no one cared about her” there was no one to have fun with, whatever that was.  The best she could come up with was sometimes she liked to plant things and watch them grow.

Here is where the wonder, the magic and the miracle of a loving heart broke through.  Mia reached out her hand to Karen.  She reached out.  She didn’t just talk the talk, she walked the walk.  She didn’t just say a prayer, she WAS the prayer.  Mia said, “After the meeting you and I are going to the market to buy some plants.  Then we are going to your house and plant them.”

After the meeting, off they went.

A day or so later I got this e-mail from Mia, “Just a follow up about Karen. We planted her flowers then we went downtown and had lunch.  Then we walked around and did some window-shopping.  (Neither of us bought anything but it was fun looking.) Then we came back to my house, washed her car and Karen then took a nap.  Later we cooked dinner and then took another walk.  It was a full day and a FUN day.”

That’s how it works.  One person loving and showing up for another.  It works by people taking care of each other.  It works by caring and loving and doing. 

Makes you wonder if “the world” will ever learn?

Stronger than Hate

Sometimes I know it’s hard to believe that good things can happen to us. Sometimes of course we are the ones who block those good things from coming our way because of all the “old lies” we allow to live in our minds and bodies. But blessings ARE possible. Miracles surround us. The trick is to open our inner, spiritual eyes to their presence. Like the man at church ….

A part of the church service I go to (The First Community Recovery Church) is called “prayer time.” What that means to us is anyone who wants comes forward and joins a circle around the altar for prayer. Well, not a circle exactly. The group that gathers around the altar in our church is layered. By that I mean it is more like a tight knot with people standing in front of, behind, on the side of each of us.

We touch. Sometimes it is holding hands and sometimes it is about reaching out and putting a hand on the shoulder of the person in front of you – or someone will reach out and put their hand on your shoulder. Often little sub groups of folks who have gone through the fire of recovering from addiction together or been to court for each other or stood with them through a crises have their arms around each other. We believe it is not right to say a prayer if we are not willing to BE prayers for each other.

Last week during prayer time I noticed the back of a hand on a shoulder in front of me. That’s all I saw. It was a man’s hand but I couldn’t see whom it belonged to because other people were crowded around between me and the man the hand belonged to. But I saw what it said. Across each finger was tattooed the letters H A T E.

When the prayer ended and we broke up I found the man who belonged to the hand. He was a handsome fellow in his 30’s. There was a lot of gratitude and peace in his face. His tattoo told me that was not always the case. I said, “Love is the only thing stronger than hate, isn’t it.” He looked me in the eye and said, “Ain’t it the truth.”

Change is possible. Change is a choice. Miracles abound proving this is so. All that’s waiting for one of those miracles being OUR MIRACLE is reaching out and claiming it. Why not claim it now?

JUDY

Judy is in her early 50s. She and her husband have two grown children and everyone seemed in good health. They had the time and resources to travel a bit if they wanted. No one’s life is perfect but Judy pretty much had everything she ever wanted in life. But then she was blindsided.

Practicing self-care she decided it was time to have a colonoscopy. She felt fine and expected to come through the procedure with flying colors. It didn’t work out that way.

Judy was diagnosed with level 3 cancer and all the distasteful treatments began immediately. This included, hopefully on a temporary basis, a colostomy bag she had to learn to care for and live with. Everyone is as positive as possible but, to be honest, this type of cancer and the stage it is in does not cast a kind shadow.

Judy has been a member of a church her whole life. She has donated thousands of hours to service of others both in the church and without. Many people in Judy’s situation though, at best, question the presence of a supposedly loving God. And at worst sever any relationship with a God who would allow such a terrible thing to befall someone whose life had been spent in service to others.

Here is a quote from an e-mail I recently received from Judy. “Yes, I was mad at God when I first received my diagnosis. But I’ve changed that. Instead I’ve come to accept that my God is with me through this ordeal whatever might come. I now believe that dealing with my cancer will give me new lessons to learn and more love to give.”

Nothing can defeat the spirit of someone who stays connected with their fellows and the God of their Understanding.

The Human Spirit

If a person pays attention to life, both their own and the lives of others being played out around them, it becomes apparent that nothing is stronger than the human spirit. No matter what disaster might befall a person or how awful and “unthinkable” their situation might be, there are those among us who find a way to rise above their situation and – somehow – be better people for it. They are like lights on a mountaintop showing us what is possible. At least they are for me.

What got me going on this line of thinking was a letter I just received from a man whom I consider a friend who is doing life in prison. He committed his crime when he was only 18 years old. That was 24 years ago. Obviously he has spent more of his life in prison than he has out. Although there is the possibility for parole in his case he has no idea if or how many more years that may take. I’d call his situation, “unthinkable.”

Yet every time I see him he appears at peace. His presence is mellow. Sure, he’d like to be on the outside, but he seems to have completely accepted his situation in life. At our last visit I asked him how he was able to maintain so much serenity. He said he would think about my question and answer me later. Today I got his answer in the letter.

He said he reckoned how he keeps “in balance” (his term) is that he made a pact with God a long time ago. The pact was this – if God would take care of his spirit he said he would do everything in his power to help the inmates who got out to be better men than when they came in. His tactic was a commitment to live for others and trust that God would take care of his inner-self.

The more life teaches me the more convinced I am that there is nothing stronger in all this world than the human spirit acting in concert with the God of our understanding.