We're All Related

Traditional Russian nested dolls stack one inside another. The only distinguishing feature of each doll is its size. The beautiful thing about nested dolls it that the size of each doll is just what it needs to be to keep the whole doll intact. If one doll is missing, the whole thing will rattle around and if you put them in the wrong order the whole thing will topple over. The nested doll is a profound metaphor for the spiritual journey of growth and connections. Life has its own beautiful connectedness. The universe is a nested whole, and each individual is a nested whole within a universe of parts.

Body, mind and spirit work together like stacked dolls to create a healthy and whole person. They want to be in harmony. They are like triplets separated at birth, longing to be reunited. If you spend all your time building your body, you could be neglecting your spirit. If you spend all your time learning pieces of knowledge and don’t allow time for being, you could be neglecting your body and spirit. When you unite mind, body and spirit, your mind is clear, your body is strong and your spirit soars as every nerve and cell in your being orients and cooperates towards this end.

The dolls are also a beautiful analogy for the different parts of your “self”. A rotund Russian doll was lying on a therapist’s couch, saying to her counselor, “I get the feeling there are lots of little “mes” inside me just trying to bust out. Am I going crazy doc?” There are parts of each of us that we are still getting to know and appreciate. Maybe it’s the adventurous side of a cautious person or the creative side of a logical person. You’re not going crazy. You’re just learning to express the full genius of your humanity. Don’t resist.

All the parts of your humanity, even the seeming contradictions, are important. Just don’t imagine that any of them could ever fully define you. As you uncover the outer layers of the self with awareness, you get closer and closer to your essence as a seed of divine potential. The deeper into the nested selves you delve, the less striving and pretending there is. When you drop the need to measure up to society’s standards, a new layer is revealed. When you drop your assumptions about what you can and can’t do because of the past or your genetics or whatever excuse you come up with, a new layer is revealed. When you drop the attachment to your ideas of how the future will play out, a new layer is revealed.

There is a place beyond the surface noise that is peaceful and calm as it has nothing to prove and nothing to fear. You could say that this inner doll is God, or Ultimate Reality, or Ground of Being or Divine Abundance or pure awareness, or I am, or whatever language you use to describe stillness that has nothing to protect or defend. It just is, and is completely at one with all that arises. You know what I’m talking about, because you have experienced it, even if only for brief moments.

The analogy of the nested dolls offers an antidote to much of the drama that divides us, within and without. The great philosopher Carl Jung said, “Whatever is rejected from the self appears in the world as an event.” Jung’s last years of life where lived in the shadow of the Cold War. He spoke about unresolved inner drama playing out as conflict between the “West” and the “Communist Bloc”. Is the same shadow boxing taking place now between America and the Muslim world? Is there an inner restlessness that is disowned in the west and being projected out onto Islam? A small number of terrorists have provided an excuse to blame all Muslims for our global restlessness.

The question of whether an Islamic Center should be built near Ground Zero cuts to the heart of whether we truly accept our inner shadows and our connection to each other. Muslims didn’t attack America on 9/11, terrorists did. A small group of fanatics twisted Islam to fit their agenda the same way Hitler twisted Christianity to suit his agenda.

An Islamic center run in the true spirit of Islam would be an asset to downtown Manhattan. It would help to bring healing to a fragile neighborhood. It would increase understanding of a religion that seems obscure and foreign to many westerners. Hopefully there will be some self awareness about the resistance to the Islamic center that will heal the disowned shadow.

Then again, imagine a center on or near ground zero that crosses the boundaries that divide people along religious and political boundaries; a space that mimics the nested dolls. Imagine the healing that could take place with a space that combines a Muslim prayer room, a Christian gathering room, a Zen meditation space, a New Thought reading room and more. Each part of the space would build on the rest. The foundation of the whole thing would be a welcome entry space that includes and transcends all else that takes place. It would remind everyone that we are intimately related beyond the differences and ultimately working in the common cause of a more peaceful world.

You can now buy Democratic nested dolls. Obama is on the outside, then Clinton inside him, then Carter, Johnson and Kennedy in the centre. Not that Kennedy is God of course, but it is certainly true that each leader builds on their predecessors. In fact you could create a nested doll with each of the political leaders from all parties nested inside of each other. The evolution of party politics is interrelated. Parties are more related than we realize just as religions are more related than we admit.

Beyond all the shadows and fears, we are all one. Beyond the divisions and language barriers lies The One. It is the divine essence of all things. You know deep down in places you can barely remember that you are destined to live in divine essence. It is calling you to live in relationship to all people. Come back to it now. It will transform your life and it will begin to heal the world.

As the poet Rumi said, “Your task is not to seek love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.”

Please visit Soulseeds for resources to remind you that you are related to all being. The Spiritual but not Religious daily affirmations particularly focus on global oneness.

Give Peace a Chance

In 2002 the pastor of a Christian church in New Mexico denounced Harry Potter as “the devil” and called on his congregation to join him in a Harry Potter book burning ceremony. The pastor had never read any of the novels. The name of the church? Christ Community Church! Pastor Jones and his small Florida congregation threatened to burn Korans yesterday, and he too admitted that he has never read the Koran.

Book burning has a long history. In the late 1980s, many Muslims around the world burned copies of Salman Rushdie’s Satanic Verses. In the 1940s and 1950s comic books were burned as they were believed to be corrupting American youth. In 1933 in Germany, Hitler ordered that more than 25,000 books by Karl Marx, H G Wells and Sigmund Freud be burned because they were “un German.” Back in the 16th century, Spanish priests burnt records of Mayan civilization. In the 13th century, Mongols burned the Grand Library in Baghdad. I could keep going back, and the same story is told.

Apart from the tragic loss of culture and literature, there is something far more sinister at work. Books aren’t just part of the collateral damage of war. Destroying libraries is a calculated action based in fear, ignorance and hatred. Why? Because books contain knowledge and knowledge breeds free thought and diversity. Diversity is the enemy of colonization.

Among the books burned by the Nazis was the work of a nineteenth-century German Jewish poet Heinrich Heine, who wrote in his 1820-1821 play Almansor, “Where they burn books, they will also ultimately burn people.” Is book burning a prelude to a much greater crime? Professor at the University of Hawaii, Rebecca Knuth, studied book burnings in Germany, Bosnia, Kuwait, China and Tibet. She concludes that book burnings often precede genocide. The book fires of 1933 in German cities were followed by ethnocide, in occupied countries, which ultimately destroyed 90% of Polish Jews and 70% of their books, as well as three million non-Jewish Poles and two-thirds of Poland’s books. In the 1970s, the Cultural Revolution in China claimed millions of books. The Chinese Communists’ efforts to extinguish Buddhism and impose communism in Tibet led to mass murder and the destruction of an estimated two-thirds of that country’s texts. Dare I add, the American occupation in Iraq over the past nine years also involved large scale destruction of Iraqi libraries and cultural museums.

The burning question now- Is history repeating itself? The relationship between America and the Muslim world is delicate and could ignite at any time, like dry kindling on a hot and windy day. While effigies of Pastor Jones burn in Kabul, the heat is rising on the development of a Mosque and community center in lower Manhattan and Americans are divided on the issue. This is one of the most tense 9/11 anniversaries yet.

What can we do to douse the flames of fear and ignorance? How can we help to bring a message of love and unity to a world divided?

1. Learn from Islam

The anniversary of 9/11 is a great opportunity to learn from Islam. I’m not talking about the extremist version of Islam that leads terrorists to do awful things. I’m talking about the peaceful essence of the religion. In many ways it is a more respectful of other religions than Christianity is. Why haven’t we heard about Muslims burning Bibles? Because moderate Muslims respect Christianity the way Christians should respect Islam. They respect the Bible as a holy book and they respect Jesus as a great Prophet. Not to mention the fact that Christianity and Islam share their roots as Abrahamic religions and speak of the same God. There is so much in common if we truly understand the essence and roots of the two religions. So much of the Islamophobia in America is being spread by people who have never opened a Koran and never visited a Mosque and have no knowledge of what they fear. It’s a beautiful irony that Pastor Jones and his congregation purchased a truckload of Korans that they are now not burning. Hopefully they will read them and hopefully a little knowledge will douse the flames of their fearful ignorance.

2. Learn about Islam

There is so much misinformation about Islam. In the west we have a warped view of Islam partly due to the prominence of Al Qaeda and the Taliban. Taliban, for example, is a Farsi word meaning, “student of religion”. Jihad is a word that means struggle. Jihad is described in the Koran as being two fold, lower and higher. The Lower Jihad is justified self-defense against persecution. Higher jihad, which is far more important, is the inner struggle against inner demons. The word infidel indicates ungratefulness. The mention of Infidels in the Koran is most likely a very specific reference to Meccans who were denying the rights of Muslims to free religious expression.

Islamic fanatics, like Christian fanatics, have given fundamental religious concepts a bad name.
The oppressive and fanatical group from Afghanistan have hijacked the name Taliban and warped its meaning to justify a violent agenda. Jihad is now associated with suicide bombers and terrorists and infidels are seen as anyone who is non-Muslim.

The true spirit of Muhammad and Muslims through the centuries is peace, compassion and mercy based in self awareness.

3. Stop Pointing Fingers

There are certainly parts of the Koran that are very difficult to understand and appreciate. But then again, the same is true of the Bible. While the Koran records Allah’s warning that he will cut off the heads and finger tips of all who don’t believe, the Bible is equally violent.

In Psalm 137 God pronounces a curse on the Babylonians, “Blessed is the one who takes your little children and dashes them against rocks.” In Deuteronomy 7, God calls the Israelites to destroy the Canaanites by burning their altars and culture before killing them so that they can claim Canaanite land.

When read literally, parts of both the Koran and the Bible are instruments of violence and hatred of the worst kind. They both use the image of fire as a metaphor of fear to manipulate people. They both encourage warfare and justify it on the basis that God is on your side. As Ann Lamott said, “You can safely assume you have created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you hate.”

Texts that Unite

It doesn’t have to be this way. We are now free to read the Bible with critical minds, and question ancient, pre scientific and pre enlightenment biblical perspectives. People have died in the cause of biblical scholarship, burnt at the stake to create the freedom we now enjoy.

This time last year a church in North Carolina held a book burning ceremony. Among the books they burned was the Bible in every translation except the King James Version. They believe the King James Version to be the only true and inspired translation. In the 16th century, William Tyndale was burnt at the stake for translating the Bible into English, the precursor to our various translations. The work of Tyndale reminds us that people have for centuries tried to reframe the Bible in a more humane and accessible light.

I offer you Isaiah 6 this morning as a text de force, beautiful poetry that unites people from all sorts of perspectives – theist and atheist, Christian and Muslim, religious and non religious. My focus is on two images, “seeing the Lord high and lifted up, sitting upon a throne, his train filling the whole temple” and, “The whole Earth is full of His glory.” These are verses that offer some amazing wisdom, but cannot possibly be understood literally. Considering the immense dimensions of the temple, to understand them literally is absurd. Did you know that the train on Princess Diana’s wedding dress was 25 feet long? That’s impressive, but it wouldn’t fill a temple. The longest train ever worn was at a wedding in Cyprus. It was 4468 feet long. That’s almost obscene, but still wouldn’t fill a temple. Understood literally, the words lose all meaning.

However when understood poetically, the verses become an incredible prophecy of a God filled humanity. Notice that the verse says that the “whole” temple was full of God’s glory. In this metaphoric vision, the whole temple is thrown open to view like a Saturday morning open house. Even the most holy places within the temple usually seen only by the highest priest were on view for Isaiah. Isaiah was a layman. He had no right to be in the holy of holies, and yet his vision offers him access to what classical Jewish belief described as “the footstool of the almighty.” This is the inclusive spiritual good news- every part of this earth is sacred. Every person has the seed of God within them. Every part of every person has the seed of wholeness within it. That includes you, and it includes Muslims.

When understood literally, Isaiah 6 becomes yet another grandstanding text about whose God is the biggest, mightiest and smitiest. As a poem, the train of the Lord is a beautiful metaphor for the thread of connection that runs through the universe and connects all people and all things. We are all one. Look around you! The whole earth is filled with the train of God, the unity of connection. There is much poetry and story in sacred texts such as the Bible that speak of the pervasive beauty and unity of life.

This beautiful text in Isaiah comes in the midst of the call of Isaiah. It seems to come in chapter 6 rather than chapter 1 to emphasize that this calling was to bring divine presence into the harshest of human circumstances. The Assyrian Empire was closing in on Jerusalem after taking the Northern Kingdom. Isaiah’s vision was one of unity and peace that grows out of a belief that all people are related at essence. It took Isaiah a while to come to terms with his vision. Maybe he never fully processed its full impact. It was his doubt that led him to an appreciation that it was his humanity that would be his resource. He would offer divine prophecy through frail humanity like hot coals on his lips.

Inclusive Spiritual Community

Our calling is to be an inclusive spiritual community, a part of the healing of the world. One of the first steps is to heal the reputation of America around the world. I was leading a downtown church in Auckland in 2001. It was a church that welcomed many tourists from all over the world. I met many Americans who were passing through town. So on September 12, 2001 as news of the terrorist actions filtered through to New Zealand, Americans began flocking into our church seeking solace and meaning. I spent the whole day on September 12 sitting and crying with devastated Americans. As a church we decided to hang a large American flag from our altar as a sign of solidarity and support. Like most of the world, the people of New Zealand felt an enormous kinship with America in the aftermath of 9/11. The mood changed very rapidly when America invaded Afghanistan.

Within a week of 9/11 there was talk of striking Afghanistan. I immediately received requests to remove the American flag and instead hang an Afghan flag in its place. What we experienced in Auckland was a very small instance of what people around the world experienced. The solidarity with America quickly turned to confusion and then resentment for igniting a wholesale conflict with the Muslim world. The world is still coming to terms with this resentment and Pastor Jones and the resistance to the Mosque in Manhattan have now rubbed salt into this wound. The news around the world is not “One Christian crackpot wants to burn Korans” but “Americans disrespect the Koran.”

We have work to do and we CAN make a difference.

Like Isaiah, our calling arrives in the midst of doubt and global tension. You don’t have to agree with everything in the Koran just as you don’t have to agree with everything in the Bible. Just accept that these books have a context and their own cultural power. You don’t have to solve all the problems of the world or single-handedly unite the peoples of the world. Just correct misinformation where you can, live with openness and love and set about being an ambassador for peace and unity.

Like Isaiah, present yourself to the God of your understanding and prepare yourself to build your vision for the world and say “Here I am. Send me.” Send me. Let me be an agent of healing and unity. Like Isaiah, it’s going to take courage. Countering fear is not a popular calling. But counter fear we must.

To be fully human, fully yourself,
To accept all that you are, all that you envision,
This is my prayer:
Walk with me out to the brim of life, beyond security.
Here we are God. Send us to the exquisite end of courage
and release us to become all that we can be and all that the world can be. Namaste.

9/11 and the Illusion of Security

Natalie Goldberg, the American author and teacher of the therapeutic power of writing, wrote about the illusion of security. “Life is not orderly. No matter how we try to make life so, right in the middle of it we die, lose a leg, fall in love, drop a jar of applesauce.” To live is to risk. Even writing is a risk. You put the words down in print and then they have a life of their own.

There are few things in life we desire more than security, and yet it is often like chasing the wind. Just when you think you’ve caught it, another gust comes up from behind and knocks you down. Security has an elusive charm that keeps you searching but can leave you vulnerable to surprise attacks and missed opportunity.

It’s true personally. You stay in a job because it feels secure and in the process miss the chance of a lifetime. You stay in a relationship that feels familiar but run the risk of destroying each other with resentment.

It’s also true as a society. Security is tightened at major national airports, leaving the gate open for someone to enter the system in one of the smaller, less secure, airports. It’s like double dead bolting your front door, but leaving the side French Windows wide open. There are gaps in the border walls to Mexico. There are loopholes to laws and tax systems. In short there is no perfect security system.

The anniversary of 9/11 is a good time to reflect on security and abundance. How can our lives honor the awful loss of life? Will we cave to the impossible demands of security, or live with appreciation and passion?

I flew out of American early this year. It was the same day that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab strapped explosives to his underwear and attempted to blow up a plane over Detroit airport. As a result, we passed through the tightest air travel security regimen that the world has ever seen. Countless hours and dollars were poured into patting down 7 year old girls wheeling Dora the Explorer backpacks full of Christmas toys and crayons. (I never did trust Dora with her evil side-kick Boots and that cunning talking map.)

If you take a larger perspective on air travel, you find that in the past decade there have been three terrorist related incidents on US airplanes. Most of them failed or were foiled by other passengers. In the same period of time, according to the Bureau of Transport Statistics, there have been 99,320,309 commercial airline departures that either originated or landed within the United States. That means that there has been one terrorist incident for every 33 million departures. If you look at the total number of passengers on planes in the last decade, the odds of being on a flight with a terrorist incident is 1 in 10 million. By contrast, the odds of being struck by lightning in a given year are 1 in 500,000. You are more likely to die from falling out of bed than as the victim of a terrorist on a plane.

Do you feel safer on a plane knowing that there is a rigorous security regimen?
Maybe. But at what cost? While so much focus is on air travel, what other security threats are being ignored? Are you prepared to sacrifice liberty for security? To paraphrase a text from the Bible, “what does it profit you to gain a whole world of security and lose your life?” What’s the point of security if you are so paralyzed by fear that you can’t truly live?

So how do you respond to the reality of life’s uncertainties? Do you give up flying altogether? Do you avoid tall buildings in big cities? Do you boycott underground railway systems in London? Do you close your heart to love and create a niche for your remains under the desk at your current job? No! That is not living. It is missing the adventure of truly living your boldest dreams.

Where Does The Desire Come From?
We create the illusion of security to cope with pain and fear. It is a defense mechanism. It gives us the feeling that we are safe. You’ve got to love that inner protector. It wants you to be well and out of harm’s way. But without balancing voices such as trust and adventure, the protector can close you down. Remind your protector about the difference between security and safety. You appreciate warning signals around being safe, but you don’t need to be kept secure. There is too much life to enjoy to fall for that myth.

Safety is taking a cell phone and GPS on a long car trip. Security is not leaving your home. Safety is researching all your available employment opportunities. Security is never taking a financial risk. Safety is wise. Security is oppressive because it leaves no room to move.

It’s far better to own your feelings of pain and fear and liberate them from the inside out, than project them out onto the world around you. What is your fear revealing? Are you looking for some unchanging identity or status? Are you dieting because you are afraid you are unlovable as you are? Skinny might not give you the security you were hoping for if you don’t learn to appreciate who you are to begin with.

Put your fears at ease. Remind them that you are whole and lovable, abundant and brilliant to begin with and this essence doesn’t need to be protected. Shine a light on your fear and it will be revealed for what it is. Break the vicious cycle of fear that creates an attachment to security that is not serving you. You have done everything you can do to keep yourself safe for now, and it’s time to move towards your dreams without distraction.

As Glenn Close’s character says to a group of acting students in her recent film Heights, “For Christ’s sake, take a risk sometime this weekend.” Here is a great way to honor lost lives on 9/11. Take a risk. Take a chance, if for no other reason than to remind yourself that you are alive and you are open to the adventure of what’s unfolding. Take a risk to remind yourself that the beauty of life is that it offers no certainties. It is open and dynamic. Open your heart to love. Make a decisive career move. Book flights. Drop the applesauce.

We live in a world that offers no certainties. The fearful have just as much risk of tragedy as the bold. Be safe by all means. But don’t forget to truly live while you are alive.

Please visit Soulseeds for resources that build self confidence and peace in the world

Your Humanity is Divine

The sound of the organ trails off into the hollow spaces of the church. The preacher trudges to the pulpit as if he is walking death row. His mind is elsewhere. He is going through the motions. In the front row there is a whistling sound as an older man turns up his hearing aid. He’s not sure it’s worth the effort. A couple entices their young child to sit quietly with crayons and scrap paper. When the child makes a sound, they say in unison, “Hush! We’re in church.” In the row behind them, the CEO of the local bank leafs aimlessly through his hymnal as he wonders what will be left of his branch after the financial storm. Twice in the last month he has contemplated suicide.

A college sophomore, home for the weekend and dragged to church by her parents, sits with her chin in her hands wondering how she will endure the next 30 minutes. A teenage girl runs her hand over her pregnant stomach and gazes at the organ pipes. No one yet knows that she’s full of new life. A middle aged man, who has been waiting for his old-school father to die before coming out about his sexuality, stares blankly at his program then places it under his knee. After settling into the pulpit, the preacher begins shuffling through his notes like a deck of cards. He peers over his bifocals at his sleepy congregation. They look as absent as he feels. He wonders if there’s any point. He inhales, sighs deeply, and begins anyway.

Church is often far removed from the reality of human existence. It is like an out of body experience. You put on your church face; leave your human face at home. You leave your body at home. You leave your humanity in the car. You leave your questions at the door. You leave your deepest desires and fears on the rack with your coat. This is backwards. Church should be a place where you celebrate all of your humanity. Your humanity is God’s child, learning and growing and realizing all your wondrous connections. It is part of the spiritual journey, and not to be minimized. Your humanity is one of the ways that God stays anonymous in the world.

There is a church signboard that reads, “Lying in bed shouting Oh God doesn’t constitute going to church”. It’s intended to guilt people into going to church. I think that’s bass ackwards. If going to church led people to shout “O God, life is such joy. O God humanity is beautiful. O God it’s good to be alive” more often, then you wouldn’t be able to keep people away from church.

Life is amazing, and you have the awesome privilege of participating. Your humanity is not just a good and beautiful thing. It is part of your experience of God, or Spirit, or the Unseen Order or whatever words you use to describe the mysterious beauty that sources your life. Embrace your humanity. Forgive your imperfections. Honor your sexuality. Celebrate your relationships. Appreciate your body. All of your humanity is a gateway to your experience of divine beauty. Dive into life, and offer your unique humanity in service of the Great Love that fills the universe.

Ps. In response to regular requests for support from people who feel they are in "recovery" from religion, I have created a packet of Soulseeds Affirmations called "Spiritual Freedom". Please check it out. Its hot off the press.

Blues Clues about Pain and Suffering

When I woke up this morning, I had an incredible vision of multitudes of people finding strength of spirit that overcomes obstacles and transcends pain and suffering. I imagined people finding the liberating power of perseverance and discovering a strength they didn’t know they had.

Each August I spend time looking at issues of wellness, and it seems that at this time I always have some quirky injury just in time for me to speak from personal experience. It’s my labor of love. This year is no exception. I took the family to an indoor water park up in Boyne a few weeks back. I forgot my age and went indoor surfing. I made such a spectacle of myself, tumbling all over the place that they had to stop the water to get me off. I then had to take the walk of shame through the crowd of snickering 12 year old boys and pretend I was fine. Once I was clear of view, I surrendered to the pain of my left foot that had been twisted in the fall.

Two days later, and back home, I took myself off to the Emergency Room to make sure I hadn’t broken anything in my foot. As I waited in one cubicle with my sore foot a woman was wheeled in next to me amidst high drama. She was traumatized and barely coherent as she told nurses and police her story. She had been abused and drugged by her husband, rescued by a friend and brought to the ER. It was a heartbreaking story, and in the context of this poor woman’s situation my sore foot started to feel quite trivial. I felt like quietly leaving and saying, “Give this woman all your attention. Don’t worry. I’ll be fine. I have another foot.”

Pain and suffering is so relative isn’t it? It’s like the saying, “I used to complain because I had flat feet until I met a man with no feet.” As I reflect on the various aches and pains in my arms and legs, I think about the Australian man (Nick Vujicic) who was born without arms or legs. He travels the world motivating young people to live with gratitude and passion and to transcend any physical limitations. He finds humor and inspiration in his situation. The world needs more of his attitude.

You will be glad to know that there is nothing broken in my foot, but I have prepared these thoughts on pain through gritted teeth. Of course my small pain is nothing compared to what many people experience chronically and on a daily basis. I want to offer some inspiration to those with chronic pain, and those with occasional pain to honestly express your pain but not to let it own you.

Here is my thought. We’ve been given a bum steer when it comes to pain and suffering. We find ourselves caught in the middle between a religion that overemphasizes suffering, and a society that is in denial about pain. Let me explain.

Christianity- No Pain, No Gain

Many of us grew up with a version of Christianity that taught that without Jesus’ suffering, we would never be saved from the judgment of God. We were told, “It should have been us.” It’s an oppressive thought isn’t it? This view of Jesus’ death led to a worldview that said, “Someone has to pay” and “No pain no gain.” It’s the basis of the Protestant work ethic. Suffer for Jesus. The more pain you experience in this world, the more reward you will get in the next world.

See if this scenario resonates for some of you. I’m at my chiropractor with a bad back. I’ve been adjusted and pressure points have been applied. I stand up after the session and feel great. I begin to stretch and twist. I turn one way and then the other. I lean forward and lean back. The chiropractor says to me, “What are you doing?” I say, “I’m looking for the pain.”

Looking for the pain? I twist myself into a pretzel shape in search of a pain that has just been removed. Do I need pain to feel truly alive? Do I need to suffer to purge myself of guilt for not being perfect?

We are told that only one who is perfect can pay the price. The cross becomes a symbol of innocent suffering to satisfy the impossible demands of a judging sky God. If I’m not suffering enough, I will go out and search for pain to remind myself that I am guilty and rotten to the core. It’s a philosophy that says, “I limp therefore I am.”

There’s another way, and in my opinion it’s a more empowering way to live. Let this thought sink deep into your psyche because you have to combat many years of “no pain no gain” thinking. Every beautiful thing in the world, every meaningful moment, every act of kindness, every gratitude, every expression of love- you helped to create all of it. You are a part of God, a co-creator of life. You search for pain and drama because you’ve forgotten who you are, and it’s no wonder when for so long you have been told that you are separate from God.

You don’t have to suffer to appease God. You don’t need to be forgiven. You just need to remember who you are. You don’t have to suffer to find the embrace of the God of your understanding. This God is as close as your next breath, as you breathe in joy and breathe out peace. This was always the case. You just forget from time to time. This is not to say that suffering and pain don’t serve a purpose in your life. They most certainly do. It’s just that suffering and pain are not preconditions of grace. You are alive. Your life is an original blessing. You are accepted as you are.

Masking Pain

While the traditional religious response encourages an unhealthy attachment to pain, our modern culture has created the very opposite problem. While our religious traditions continue to teach the necessity of pain, modern science is busy masking pain. Whether it’s a head ache, a heart ache or a foot ache, we have created a way to mask pain so that we can live in denial. When it comes to pain, we have a new mantra, “If you can afford it, you can deny it.”

There a new drug in development that will attempt to eradicate all pain. It is using research gained from people who “suffer” the rare condition of being unable to feel pain. I say suffer because what seems like a blessing is in reality a life threatening condition. One child with this condition died on his birthday when he jumped off the roof of his house showing off to his friends. Another child had a broken jaw and no one knew until she developed a fever from the infection. So I’m curious to know where a wonder pill that eradicates pain would leave us without the essential warning signs of pain.

This is a trivial example, but this past Monday my foot was really sore. I hadn’t taken any pain medication or anti inflammatories at this point. I was suffering silently for Jesus- well fairly silently (just ask my family). I thought I could keep working as long as I had my foot elevated. The pain kept getting worse until I could no longer ignore it. I surrendered to pain’s wisdom, stopped work and completely rested.

Pain is part of your body’s sacred wisdom. Listen to her. She could be telling you to take it easy, or slow down or maybe to seek professional help. These are some of pain’s immediate messages. Pain also offers important spiritual lessons about perspective. Pain teaches you about change and impermanence and reminds you not to take your health for granted. Pain reminds you that at certain points in life you simply have to surrender to the great unknown, let go and let yourself heal.

Pain is important. It’s not necessary to suffer to prove anything, but pain is an important teacher. So a healthy response to pain is somewhere in between religion’s overemphasis on pain and modern society’s denial of pain. Pain is not a problem to be solved as much as it’s an experience to be explored.

Blues Clues

Lets turn to the blues for some more clues. The lesson from blues music is that it’s better to express it than suppress it. If you’re feeling it, turn it into a song or a poem or a nameless groan. Did you know that blues music is biblical? There are loads of examples in the Hebrew Psalms of people singing the blues. Then there is the classic blues lines of all time from Jesus on the cross – “My God my God why have you forsaken me?”

The point of expressing misery is not to wallow in self pity but to liberate the pain. There’s something therapeutic about telling it how it is, letting it all out. There’s an amazing release from expressing emotions. It’s as if you are creating a tolerable distance between yourself and the pain. You hold it apart from yourself, as if to say “this pain is not going to own me. I am not a victim of pain. I can manage pain and learn from it and it will NOT break me.” Once you have separated the pain from yourself, even for a time, you can take a larger perspective and remind yourself that you have survived times like this before and you will do it again. Claim your own strength.

When you sing the blues, you gain the perspective that pain is a relative experience. You remind yourself that you can have other experiences and emotions alongside pain. Pain doesn’t control you. There is a big difference between pain and suffering. When you suffer you are always in pain. When you are in pain, you aren’t necessarily suffering. You can manage pain without adding to the drama by catastrophizing or comparing your fortunes. So much suffering comes from wishing reality were different. Singing the blues helps you to accept what is, learn from it, and liberate it.

Pain and Growth

There is a classic old Jewish story called the Sorrow Tree. The world became filled with complaints and moaning. People began comparing their misery and sadness. They became convinced that their pain was undeserved and more traumatic than anyone else’s pain. Each person was trying to sing the blues louder than everyone else. It was desperate and woeful. So God created a Sorrow Tree. People were invited to come to the Sorrow Tree and exchange their woes. Each person packed up their troubles in an old kit bag and hung them on a branch of the Sorrow Tree. They then took someone else’s bag of troubles- one that looked lighter and more manageable. At first this seemed like a great idea. But over time each person ended up going back to their own troubles. Better the sorrow you know. It turned out to be almost impossible to deal with someone else’s pain. Their pain was for them, and yours is for you.

Think of your life as a tree. Your tree is made up of all your unique life experience, including the joys and sorrows. You can’t live anyone else life, and no one can lives yours. If you cut off the pain and pretend it’s not part of the tree, you might damage the whole tree. Your life is one piece. It has its seasons, leaves rise and fall. Honor it all and wear it all loosely for it is all changing all the time. In every one of your sadness’s and pains lies the seed of new possibility.

If you are living with chronic pain, as hard it is, express it and let it be one part (but not all) of the fabric of your life. It gives you your determination in so many other areas of life. It unlocks incredible creativity and strength. If you living with the pain of loss, as heart wrenching as it is, it is now part of the fabric of who you are. You are stronger for the experience and you have new compassion for suffering. Your pain is preparing you for some greater work in the world.

Beyond comparisons and perceived injustice, your life has its own beautiful seasons. Your experience has made you who you are, and your pain has given you a strength and compassion that you didn’t know you had. You cannot be broken.

So what are the blues clues in your life? What is pain preparing you for in the world?

I honor your unique and specific journey. I honor your sadness and your joys. I respect the growth, the courage, and the strength that is growing in you in every moment and through every experience.

From the place in me that can overcome any obstacle, from a limp to a loss, I honor the place in you which is stronger than pain, and greater than any sadness. Namaste.

Resources
Broken Open: How Difficult Times Can Help Us Grow by Elizabeth Lesser

The Air in There

How much is air worth? I ran a church in downtown Auckland, New Zealand, that discovered an answer to this question. Local law allowed one building to sell its air space to another building that wanted to grow upwards. (Transferable Development Rights) This was curious enough, but it got even curiouser when we started to value the air. Air became low hanging fruit for over eager city terrace owners and churches with heritage restrictions. The more people who tried to sell their air, the less it was worth. As soon as air became a commodity, its value decreased. By the time we sold some of our last parcels of air, it was worth virtually nothing.

The truth is that air is priceless. How do you put a price on the source of life? The average person inhales 3,000 gallons of air each day. The air you breathe is a major factor in your wellbeing. The second leading cause of death for children under the age of four is air pollution. According to recent studies, breathing issues such as asthma increase the risk of suicide and the suicide rate in the general population increases when air pollution worsens.

On the positive side, air and breath have healing qualities. Studies of people suffering from painful conditions such as Fibromyalgia show that slow breathing reduces pain as well as lessening anxiety and nervous tension. Slow and deep breathing increases the capacity to feel emotions other than pain; it reduces the fight/flight response, and allows us to move from powerlessness to proactive choices.

Air is life force and breathing is a deeply spiritual act. Your breath is your source of life, and it also connects you to the Source of all life. Most ancient cultures use the same word for air, breath, life and spirit. The creation story in Genesis says that the world was created with words, and the essence of words is breath. Genesis says that "God took the dust of the earth and formed the human body, and breathed into human nostrils the Breath of Life, and humans became living souls."

The Hebrew word for air is “ruach.” It a breathy word, and sounds like what it is. The word ruach means breath, as in what we inhale and exhale, but it is also the atmosphere. It's the source or breath of life, and it's the quality of life. The ancient Greek word for spirit or breath is “pneuma”, as in pneumatic, and it expresses spirit, the breath of God. The German word “Atman” describes the life giving Source within breath. The energy of life within breath is also called chi or prana.

People who have spent time in meditation and other breathing exercises (from all traditions and no particular tradition) report that breathing is both ordinary and also miraculous. As the Sufi Master Hazrat Inayat Kahn writes: "The healing power of Christ, the miraculous power of Moses, the charm of Krishna, and the inspiration of the Buddha--all these were attained by breath."

With your breath, you connect to an energy that is infinite and inspirational. When you pay attention and notice that breath continues without your help, you learn to surrender to the grace of life. When you add mindfulness to this miracle, you participate in your own healing with the Source of life. I began a daily breathing practice a year ago, and now it doesn’t feel like my day has even begun without some breathing routines. The regular practice of conscious breathing reduces stress, and lowers blood pressure and cholesterol levels. It aides in the healing of emotional blocks, and any number of unconscious fears and anxieties. When every one of your body’s 75 trillion cells breathes slowly and harmoniously, you live with incredible wellbeing.

The original life force that sustained your body in the womb is still available to you. It wants to restore your body right now. All you need to do is give it permission to heal and begin breathing consciously.

Breath is a unifying force, both within and around you. The breath that is in you today was in another yesterday. You are breathing the same atoms and molecules that your ancestors breathed many centuries ago. Feel the flow of inspiration. Breath reminds you that you don’t have to seek peace, you just have to surrender to it. Your life has the ease and freedom of breath itself. Your breath is the gateway to your essence as a spiritual being who co-creates reality.

Breathe in and say, “The power of life is within me.” Breathe out and say, “The grace of life surrounds me.”

Repeat often, “I am filled with healing power.”

Soulseeds has created an amazing breathing resource. Our Mindful Breathing e-Packet is a series of inspirational affirmations that include breathing practices put together by a yoga instructor. They are practical and can be used by people with no experience and people with great experience. Check it out. Go down to E-Packets and select Mindful Breathing from the drop down menu.

Parenting and Letting Go

I find myself reflective as I prepare to farewell my 15 year old son. He leaves today for a two week adventure to Vietnam to visit his uncle and work in a disabled orphanage. I’m a lot more nervous than he is apparently. How do you say goodbye to your own flesh and blood and send them to the other side of the planet? Maybe this is practice for sending him off to college or to war or to something even larger and more frightening.

My mind wanders through sixteen years of intimate connection. No wonder it’s hard to let go.

I took my minor role in his birth very seriously. Not sure exactly what I could do to help the situation, I whispered calm thoughts about breathing until Meg reached out and pulled me close in a headlock. She squeezed tight and didn’t let go for 12 hours. I could neither breathe, nor speak. That seemed better for both of us. Two weeks later in the chiropractor’s office, I reflected on the experience. Expectant fathers, it is my best advice that you should never make any reference to pain or light headedness while in the delivery room. Suck it up, and keep quiet. Your role is that of a sponge or a cushion or punching bag as the case my be. Maybe I will play a similar role at the airport today.

I had the honor of cutting the cord. Now that was a heart stopping thing to do. It was hard to believe the nurse who said that it wouldn’t hurt either mother or child. I mean it was part of both of them. How could it not hurt? It made me a little squeamish. I asked if we could just leave them attached. It seemed safer, and would certainly make trips to Vietnam much less likely. From the moment that cord was cut, I began learning the delicate balance between holding on and letting go.

Words can’t accurately describe the elation of partnering the creation of new life. It gave me some small insight into some of the mysteries of life including a profound appreciation for the Source of Life, by any name. It also began preparing me for today among many other days as a giant stride towards independence for father and son.

Now I reflect on the single cell I contributed to the miracle of new life, a cell so small that it can’t be seen with the naked eye, and the nucleus in the center of the cell that contained the DNA even smaller. And yet when unraveled the DNA of this single cell, unwound and uncoiled, would stretch to over six feet long. Now as I look eye to six foot high eye with my son, I am looking eye to eye with the miracle of life. In my case, I’m looking at a six foot bundle of creative potential with the world at his feet. Or else I lower my gaze to my second, and I see a five foot bundle of gentle compassion who holds the world in his heart. Then I lower my gaze still further to my four foot miracle of sweetness with my heart wrapped around her finger.

If I took all the DNA from all the 50 trillion cells in my son’s body, and unraveled and uncoiled it, it would stretch to the moon and back multiple times. It’s no accident that this is also the amount that I love him. To the moon and back…. multiple times and well beyond Vietnam.

I am connected to my son at a cellular level and that puts everything in perspective. I can let go for two weeks knowing that neither distance nor time can change the bond we have. I am related at the most intimate level, and letting go will always be relative. We are connected no matter what.

In the words of Ecclesiastes, ‘A three-fold cord is not easily broken.” A single cord is easily broken. A double cord is strong. A threefold cord is hard to break. If you look closely at an image of DNA, it looks like twisted, looping cords. It’s a long intertwined cord that connects you to life, to your children, to your ancestors, at a cellular level. How incredible! I am connected to my son to the smallest detail and out to the largest perspective.

As I practice letting go of my son, I learn something profound about the nature of life. It’s a constant push and pull with attachment. It’s also true of my spirituality. Long ago I cut the cord that tied me to any religious beliefs that keep my dependent on an angry, judging God. I released myself from needing to conform to the expectations of any creed or church and opted instead for the liberated journey of authenticity. I craft my own spiritual path and cut the ties to any beliefs that weaken or suppress me. I am a spiritual being immersed in a human adventure and so is my son. I have nothing to prove and nothing to fear and nor does he.

As spirit fills my life from the inside out, I learn more and more every day about letting go. You know what I’m talking about. Your five year old son wants to use the restroom by himself for the first time. You stand at the door talking to him the whole time. Your thirteen year old daughter wants to go on her first date alone with a boy. She’s getting embarrassed about being seen in public with her parents. You are torn between her desire for independence and your understanding of sixteen year old boys. So you send her off with a cell phone GPS tracker and wait by the front door in a rocking chair. Your eighteen year old son wants to join the military. Your twenty year old daughter wants to get married. Your adult children want to move across the other side of the world, taking your grandchildren with them. Now you see why you need to practice this whole letting go business. You have to prepare yourself for life’s big surrenders.

It’s hard, but the alternative is much harder. The freedom of letting go is that you feel lighter, you move more easily, you have less baggage and you discover that most of what you let go comes back to you in some other form anyway if you are open. I will let go of my son today and he will come back in two weeks a different person. He continues his journey towards independence, and so do I. Now wish me luck as I head to the aiport.

Ps, Please stop by Soulseeds where I do most of my blogging and post many affirmations, parenting and inner peace resources.