The Process

Bubbles of deluded thinking burst

     as the handwriting on the wall becomes

          clearly legible.

Reality grieved evolves into reality embraced.

     Tears are shed but clenched fists

          slowly open.

There is acceptance, tinged with sadness.

     It is what it is.

A strenuous yet determined effort to trust in

     a Divine purpose behind it all,

          transforms hope into knowing.

All is well.  All will be well. 

Infinite Love from an Extravagant God

God is love. I memorized that scripture (1 John 4:8) in Sunday school as a child and I’m thankful that I did because to me it is the most important scripture to know.

I believe that God is actually much more than love and much more than what we could ever conceive of. The truth of who and what God really is lies outside the realm of the little box we cannot help but create with our finite human minds. “Don’t put God in a box,” we hear, and yet it is difficult not to. Sometimes it’s necessary to at least start out with a box and grow and evolve from there. But anyway, I do believe that God is infinitely loving and that He (or She) is extravagant with that love.

Extravagant is a great word for describing God. It means exceeding the limits of reason; lacking in moderation or restraint. Because we are human and don’t love to the degree that God loves, we often assume there are limitations to God’s love for us, but I don’t believe that there are any. The longer I've known God, the more aware I have become of His amazing love that surpasses knowledge. God’s love for creation exceeds the limits of our human reasoning. There is no moderation or restraint involved with God’s love and it’s edifying to try and grasp how liberally the riches of God’s love and grace are lavished upon us.

One outcome of fully embracing the extravagance of God’s love for us is that it inspires us to be more loving and accepting of others. When we’re focused on love and the one who is love, we become more and more like love ourselves. What we focus on expands in our lives and if we focus on love we see more love, we feel more love, and we become more loving.

Jesus said that the greatest commandment was to love God, to love others, and to love ourselves. Some people like to wear WWJD bracelets (what would Jesus do) as a reminder to live a Christ-like life. I also like the idea of WWLD (what would love do.) I believe that if something is in alignment with love, it is in alignment with God. This idea has been helpful to me in weeding out the diverse and sometimes contradictory messages in spirituality and religion.

If we love one another, God resides in us and His love is perfected in us. (1 John 4:12)

God is love, and the one who resides in love resides in God and God resides in him.
(1 John 4:16)

If we’re aligned with love, we’re aligned with God.

God’s love for us is extravagant; it exceeds all reasoning and is without restraint. God’s love endures forever; it’s infinite. May we experience a wholehearted revelation of this and be inspired and empowered to reflect that love to those around us. Amen.

Nick, Jon, & Me in 2004

Nick - Victorious

November 20, 2010
It’s my son Nick’s 15th birthday and as a mom I can’t help being sentimental. I think of all he has overcome - this victorious little conqueror - and I get choked-up realizing the significance of his name. Nicholas means victorious. How interesting that he was so appropriately named.

Nick was in a big hurry to make his entrance into the world. He was born five days before his due date and surprised us with a rather speedy labor and delivery experience. Born during Monday Night Football, he came to love the game that was playing on the TV set as he entered the world. He was endowed with a figurative rock star for an older brother, a charismatic soul who shines brightly in the limelight. For some kids this might have proven difficult but Nick just seemed to enjoy being Jon’s biggest fan, happy to be included in his life.

Before Nick had even turned a year old I knew that this was a child who was blessed with incredible perseverance. I could tell by the way he played with things that he was patient and focused and wouldn’t give up. This determination and resolve was to become a huge blessing in his life.

In spite of having a strong I.Q., Nick had a hard time learning to read. He was given a label by the school psychologist, which I have never uttered in front of him because I didn’t want him to label himself. I’m glad I didn’t. He overcame that issue and now scores a very high 4 out of 5 on the Florida proficiency exam in reading.

At the end of 4th grade Nick’s sensitive stomach issues developed into debilitating intestinal problems. He could never be too far from a restroom and as a result, he missed out on school field trips, church camping trips, and had to be home schooled for a year. He also had hypoglycemia and a proclivity for heat exhaustion. In the midst of all of this he broke his wrist and had a horrendous case of the stomach flu, ending up in the hospital twice on a vacation in Colorado. Because of the broken wrist he had to give up the thing he loved most at the time, which was skateboarding. He understandably got a little depressed and became a couch potato. As a result he became a bit chubby. He was anxious about going back to public school when he was well enough to return - so anxious he vomited from nervousness on his first day back. As a mother, this was excruciating.

But here is the good news. After being told by an M.D. that he would basically be sick for the rest of his life, Nick willingly and without complaint went to several alternative health doctors and as a result is totally healthy today. On his own, he lost all of the excess weight he gained. After that, he joined the high school football team and endured getting up at 6:30 a.m. all summer long to run the track and workout with the other football players. The training in the Florida heat was grueling but he almost seemed to revel in it, basking in his own stamina. I was in disbelief that the child who at one time so easily succumbed to heat exhaustion could do this. There’s no more anxiety, he does well in school and has an active social life.

Nick is resourceful and hardworking. I’ve had two of his teachers actually tear-up when they talked about him with me because they were so impressed with his enthusiasm and his ability to figure out ways to do things. One called him “a teacher’s dream student.”

Here’s an example of Nick’s resourcefulness: recently he went to his friend Tyler’s house and discovered that Tyler’s Xbox wasn’t working. After looking over the Xbox, Dr. Nick diagnosed the ailment, went on youtube, and found a tutorial about how to fix the problem. It was no simple thing. He had to take the Xbox apart, scrape something that had melted onto the motherboard off, go to Radio Shack, buy the necessary parts, do some other stuff to it and put it all back together. The Xbox is fixed and is still working today. Both Tyler and his mom are thrilled.

I’m so proud of Nick I don’t know whether to laugh or to cry.

Nick, my amazing little overcomer, you have earned the name that you bear. Victorious.

I love you.

Happy Birthday!

Grappling With Grey Matters

It seems the older I get, the more grey I see…and no, I’m not talking about my hair. In the past I’ve tended to embrace a style of thinking that saw certain things in black and white. I am changing and moving past that but it feels like my progress has been at a snail’s pace.

According to experts in brain function there’s a good explanation for that. Once someone has embraced an absolutist way of viewing things, there are physiological changes in the brain that can make it difficult (but not impossible) to break free from it. The brain waves can actually get stuck in a certain frequency, which means we can literally get stuck in our opinions or ideologies.

This might explain the incredible polarization in politics where people seem to grab on to a position and not budge from it. Fundamentalist religion is another example that is often given when it comes to rigid thinking but what I’m talking about is not something that’s strictly reserved for religion and politics. There’s a potential inner-fundamentalist in everyone, encompassing many different areas. When someone claims that their way is the only right way to view life, they are thinking in terms of absolutes and are often not open to modification. Some atheists and scientists I’ve met or read about seem to be the most unyielding in their opinions. Also, I was once amused to hear a yoga teacher say that he’s never met more judgmental people than in his yoga classes. You would think that those who strive for physical flexibility would naturally be flexible in their attitudes but apparently that’s not always the case.

There is this proclivity in people to embrace an idea with strong emotional conviction and rule out the possibility of alternative choices. There are reasons why this has potential for being problematic. My favorite example of this is Galileo, who today is called the “Father of Modern Science.” In the 1600’s he understood that the earth was not the center of the universe. The church and the scientific community at the time believed that it was. Because of his belief that the sun was at the center of the universe he was tried by the Roman inquisition and sentenced to house arrest. Today this seems ridiculous, especially since we know he was right. But in his day he was controversial because his ideas did not conform to the established beliefs of his time, which ruled out that his theory was even possible.

Another well-known example is when the nineteenth-century doctor by the name of Semmelweis figured out that women who gave birth in hospitals rather than at home had a much higher mortality rate because the doctors were not washing their hands in between patients. Today the idea of doctors washing their hands between patients seems like a no-brainer. But, Dr. Semmelweis was scoffed at and threatened with professional disgrace for thinking outside of the medical community’s acceptable box. There were theories that were embraced as orthodox and Dr. Semmelweis’s did not fit.

In the ‘80’s and ‘90’s, I worked for doctors who refused to acknowledge what today are commonly known illnesses - the Epstein-Barr Virus and Fibromyalgia. Today these conditions are recognized by the CDC, the Mayo Clinic, and the general medical community. As much as I liked the doctors I worked for, I was perplexed by their refusal to be open-minded and their disdain for others who were.

The possibilities in life are endless so we may want to question our unbending convictions and consider expanding our consciousness by remaining open to alternative possibilities. I love black and white photography, but I find it interesting that even though it’s called that, it’s not really just black and white. There are many shades of grey that add to the dimension and beauty of those photographs. I have come to believe that it’s beneficial to view life the same way by acknowledging the grey matters.

However, having said all of that and at the risk of contradicting myself, if I want to consider all of the possibilities in life and embrace a paradigm of true openness I have to allow others to see things in black and white if that’s what they choose to do and consider the possibility that they are on track. If I proclaim that everything is grey and there are no absolutes, I am thinking in terms of absolutes myself. Beyond that I want to see the value in the black and white thinkers and not merely tolerate them. I don’t want to insist that I am right because I see the grey, and they are wrong because they see black and white.

I love diversity…or at least I want to love diversity. Grey photographs would be bland without the contrast of black and white. Black and white photographs would lack dimension without the shades of grey. Similarly, the world is rich with the beauty of all types of thinking. Maybe it’s all good…at least I’m open to that possibility.

The Omnipresence of God

I love the omnipresence of God. I’ve been contemplating this a lot lately and have come to revel in my awareness that God is everywhere, all of the time. This belief in the omnipresence of God is a common thread running through almost all of the major religions and if you’ve had any kind of religious training you’ve probably come across this teaching. I enjoy the fact that most of us can agree upon this. When different belief systems and religions agree upon something, I take notice and find it to be very interesting and also rather comforting.

Years ago, even though I had been taught about the omnipresence of God, I somehow got the impression that God was only with certain people - the super-spiritual, hyper-religious folks in particular, or those who had performed the required formulaic steps for receiving God. I am relieved now to understand and grasp the belief that God doesn’t pick and choose where S/he is present based on any performance on our part. God is a God of extravagant grace and S/he doesn’t play favorites. Omnipresence means everywhere, so regardless of who we are or whether we know it or not or admit it or not, God is with us.

Perhaps you are familiar with the Christmas carol, “O Come, O Come, Emanuel.” Emanuel means “God with us.” I wrote a poem about this.

Emmanuel, God with us, around us and above,
we’re continually abiding in your radiant love.

Thank you for your presence and the richness that it brings,
Your kingdom is within us and when remembered our heart sings.

Perfect infinite love – so amazing, so divine,
Your never-ending goodness is with us all the time.

Knowing that the infinite love and ever-present goodness of God is always with us is very empowering. The more we realize this the more we benefit from it. Social scientists, biologists and physicists have discovered that whatever we focus on expands. Focusing on junk will manifest more junk, focusing on good will manifest more good. Increasing our awareness of the reality that we are dwelling in the goodness of God will manifest even more of the goodness of God in our lives. Denying it or simply not knowing about it doesn’t negate the presence of God in a person’s life. But knowing it and choosing to continually remind ourselves of it is very edifying to our spirit and it activates and increases that Power within us and around us.

Does this mean then that if we do this we will never have challenges? Of course not, but what it does mean is that God’s presence is with us during those challenging times and S/he provides us with strength, wisdom and whatever else it may be that we need to grow and advance through them. I don’t believe that God is separate from us nor do I believe S/he is an entity that manipulates our lives as though we were pawns on a chessboard. I believe that we abide in God and God abides in us and when we choose to focus on this our faith grows and our inner-knowing of the Divine Presence expands. Ultimately we are transformed.

Jesus said that the kingdom of heaven (or the kingdom of God) is within us. He also quoted the Old Testament (also called the Hebrew Bible) scripture that says “ye are gods” (meaning us).* I know people who are uncomfortable with this scripture. They think that it’s blasphemous to call a person a god. I think what Jesus was talking about here was this concept that the kingdom of God is within us. God is omnipresent and dwells in us, and at the same time we dwell in God. We have God’s Spirit in us. Because of this we are divine beings and thus the quote, “ye are gods.”

Think of the ramifications of this. God who is Love, Wisdom, Intelligence, Goodness, Joy, Peace, Kindness, and Creativity is within us and around us. God, with all of these attributes, lives in you and me and chooses to express through us. That, my friend, is an awesome and wonderful truth to behold. I hope you’ll be uplifted and encouraged by this and allow it to really soak into your consciousness. As I said in my poem, remember this often and your heart will sing.

*These are the scriptures I am referring to: Luke 17:21, John 10:34 and Psalm 82:6.