Perfect Imperfection

I like to think of myself as being fairly competent, but underneath this calm exterior there are many, many cracks. As a home handyman, for example, I make a great philosopher. The very word “Ikea” makes me break out in a cold sweat. I don’t understand restaurants where you have to cook your own food and I don’t appreciate furniture stores where they send you out with a box full of wood, a wingnut and a prayer. Our home is full of reminders of my imperfection. We once bought an Ikea bed. It was called the BLAARKEN which is Swedish for “best of luck, you sucker”. After 6 hours trying to put together this Swedish puzzle, we gave up and decided to use it as a bookcase.

Another time, I was trying to assemble a cabinet and got trapped inside of it. I had to call technical support to help me get out. Once I tried to put together a bed side table for Meg. Apart from the drawers not opening and needing a block of wood under one corner, it works just fine. The coffee table in our living room has two massive cracks in it where I failed to properly install the storage compartment. Every time we look at the cracks in our coffee table, we are reminded of my glorious imperfection. This is why Leonard Cohen’s anthem is my personal theme song, “Forget your perfect offering. There is a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in.” Or as Groucho Marx said, “Blessed are the cracked, for they shall let in the light.”

The perfection of imperfection is comforting. It reminds me that what’s on the inside is perfect even if the outside leaves a little to be desired. The Bible used its own first century handiwork analogy for the perfection of imperfection-treasures in clay jars. The outer form, the container, is fragile but what it holds…now that is incredible. Don’t judge yourself, or others, for outer frailty and instead celebrate treasures that lie beneath the surface. These treasures come in the form of wisdom and experience and strength of character.

The Japanese Kimono gown is a beautiful symbol of this truth. Some Kimonos have very plain outer designs but immaculate and exquisite decoration on the inside of the gown. Some of them are even intentionally imperfect on the outside. The purpose is to remind the person wearing the gown that beauty ultimately resides within. Those who see the imperfections of the outer gown are reminded to appreciate the variety of the outer and look to the magnificence that lies beneath the surface.

It’s not that we just tolerate the outer while glorifying the inner. The imperfect outer form is where the light gets in. The perfection of imperfection reminds me that even on the outside I am becoming what I need to be. It makes me smile and drop a few attachments. As I watch my hair gray in funny looking patches and my gut hang like an awning over the toy store, I am reminded that everything is so changeable. My own body is a reminder of the wisdom of holding loosely to opinions and perspectives. Beauty and joy are so often experienced in the cracks of life, where the light gets in. Jack Kornfield tells the story of a Buddhist statue in his book The Wise Heart-

In a large temple in Thailand’s capital, Sukotai, there was an enormous clay Buddha. It had survived over five hundred years. At one point, however, the monks who tended the temple noticed that the statue had begun to crack and would soon be in need of repair and repainting. After a stretch of particularly hot, dry weather, one of the cracks became so wide that a curious monk took his flashlight and peered inside. What shone back at him was a flash of brilliant gold! Inside this plain old statue, the temple residents discovered one of the largest and most luminous gold images of Buddha ever created in Southeast Asia. The golden Buddha now draws masses of devoted pilgrims from all over Thailand. The monks believe that this shining work of art had been covered in plaster and clay to protect it during times of conflict and unrest.

If you are feeling frail or insecure in any way, let me remind you that you are exactly where you need to be and becoming exactly who you need to be in each moment. Start with a little self compassion. It’s like a flight attendant who gives instructions to fit your own oxygen mask first before helping others. It’s only when you learn to accept yourself that you can be of assistance to others. Forgive yourself for any mistakes, and accept yourself despite any limitations. You are the person you are with 24/7, so make sure its quality time with plenty of love and acceptance. Moments of insecurity are breeding some new truth in you if you can stay awake, stay open, listen, learn, and grow. Let a little light in, and don’t be afraid to let the rest of us see your glorious cracks.

Please visit Soulseeds where I post regular blogs, as does Meg. We also offer various mindfulness and affirmation resources.

Love Lessons From Nature

Barbara Kingsolver’s book “Small Wonder” opens with an amazing, true story about a missing child in the forest in Iran. The parents frantically search for 3 days to find their 16 month old baby. Without a single clue to guide them, and close to giving up hope, some members of the search party hear a cry from inside a cave 6 miles from where the baby had gone missing. Deep in the belly of the cave they find the baby nestled in the lap of a bear. You would have expected the bear to tear the baby to pieces. On the contrary, after rescuing the baby, they find him in perfect health and with signs that the bear has actually been nursing him. The bear that had likely lost its own cubs took the child as if it’s own, nursed and protected him from harm.

It’s an incredible story. There are three lessons that I take from this story that seem relevant at this time.

1. Miracles happen

Miracles happen. When it seems like all hope is gone, and when the cave of despair seems darkest, you find surprising hope sitting on the lap of a bear. We’ve seen it in the incredible stories coming out of Japan, with the recovery of people missing for days in seemingly impossible situations. We see it in the seasons. Even now we see it in the new buds of spring. When it seems like you can’t bear another cold, grey day of winter, nature reminds you that there’s always more to come.

Whether you believe in an interventionist God or not, and no matter what language you use to describe unexpected situations, believe in the miracle that hope and fresh starts are ALWAYS possible. The pattern of possibility seems to be built into the nature of life.

Don’t just believe in miracles. Live the miracle. Human beings are not unique among species in our ability to compete and destroy in order to ensure our survival. We are probably just the best at it. The true measure of our species is not so much in our ability to conquer as it is in our ability to care, even radical care for those outside of family, nation and species.

2. Sometimes the very thing you fear becomes the path forward.

The other side of hope is fear, and you can’t have one without the other. Courage is not the absence of fear. Courage is the choice to proceed despite the fear. Susan Jeffers wrote the book, “Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway.” In it she says, “Fear goes on every journey we take and always has bad advice.” I saw a televangelist describe fear like this. FEAR= False Evidence Appearing Real. At best fear takes an argument from silence or unknown outcomes and lives down to the likelihood of a negative outcome.

Again, learn from nature. Remember the cyclical nature of life, with its ups and downs, peaks and troughs. Every ending is preparing the way for a new beginning. Fear’s imagination may have a half truth about change that is looming. What fear doesn’t know is whether it’s going to be negative change. As Tom Stoppard said, “Every exit is an entry somewhere else.” Sometimes your worst fear actually becomes your greatest opportunity.

Where do you find the ability to deal with fear? This story might illustrate. A mouse was in constant distress because of its fear of the cat. A magician took pity on it and turned it into a cat. But then it became afraid of the dog. So the magician turned it into a dog. Then it began to fear the panther, so the magician turned it into a panther. Then it was full of fear for the hunter. At this point, the magician gave up. He turned it into a mouse again saying, “Nothing I do for you is going to be of any help because you have the heart of a mouse.”

Have the heart of a peaceful warrior and nothing outside of you can conquer you. Therefore there is nothing ultimately to fear. You nurture the heart of a peaceful warrior with the rock solid inner stillness that accepts change without attaching to outcomes.

3. Global healing.

The third lesson from the story of the bear relates to the current needs in the world. Kingsolver found the news story about the bear protecting the baby on the same day that America began bombing Afghanistan in 2001. The story is a parable about the challenges we face in our world today. The bear represents both the best and worst of contemporary culture. Our voracious appetite for power, control and possessions leads to internal and external wars. We tear ourselves and each other apart in search of the enemy. And yet the bear is also the answer. There comes a time to stretch across the boundaries that divide us and show compassion across lines of difference, even across species. When we do that we discover that there are no enemies, and fear disappears. A verse in the Hindu Scripture, Isa Upanishad, “Who sees all beings in his own self, and his own self in all beings, loses all fear.”

Eleven years later, civilians are still dying in Afghanistan and Iran remains a sleeping bear in a rapidly changing Middle East. 2001 was also the year that America withdrew from the Kyoto climate change agreement. Eleven years later, America still lags the rest of the world in “getting real” about global warming. A 2009 UN study showed that global warming is killing 300,000 people a year and affects 300 million people. By 2030 the same report predicts that half a million people could die every year as a result of climate change.

Think about the need for inclusive spirituality in this context. It’s not just a philosophical curiosity or a sociological experiment. It’s a matter of global healing. Inclusive spirituality is not just about the freedom to think for yourself and take from whatever wisdom sources make sense to you, although that is true. Inclusive spirituality is about reaching across boundaries and conquering the fear of difference. It’s about living in harmony with the earth and seeing the divine wisdom in the earth. It’s about not giving up optimism no matter what the setbacks and how impossible the problems.

Arthur Ashe, the great American tennis player and social activist who died of AIDS a few years ago was asked how does he get through the day when everything seems so challenging. Ashe replied with a profound formula for spiritual activism and I end with these words-

Start where you’re at… Use what you’ve got… Do what you can.

Wabi Sabi and the Japanese Cherry Blossom

A verse in the Jewish text the Talmud says, “Every blade of grass has its angel that bends over it and whispers, “Grow, Grow.”
What a beautiful image! Today, where I live, I’m watching brown grass squeeze out the last reminders of snow and frost as it strains to kick start its green growth. The sun is doing its utmost to break through clouds and call to the grass to “Grow! Grow! Take my rays of light and reach for the stars with me.” It’s as if the tiny beads of dew are perspiration as the grass prepares for another spring on green duty.

Nature has spectacular patterns of growth and change. Mushrooms hover over grass as if they are umbrellas to soften the fall of rain. Every blade of grass, every leaf and drop of water is part of an elaborate ecosystem. We can learn so much from nature. It’s as if nature is your angel bending and whispering to you, “Grow, Grow. Just a little bit more.” Every turning and falling leaf is calling you to fulfill your personal potential and be all that you can be. They are reminding you that growth is not always a linear process but it always involves change. Human beings grow the same way a leaf falls to the ground- back and forth, two steps forward and one step back. Be prepared to change and fall, many times and then get back up. Sometimes you grow in one area of your life and not in another. As Anais Nin said, “Growth is relative. We are mature in one realm, and childish in another.” Celebrate your own crazy, unpredictable and sometimes even erratic, growth.

As well as being angelic and nurturing, nature is also wild and destructive. We have seen many examples of this in recent weeks. Nature’s wild outbursts call for a different human response, more active and decisive, but growth nonetheless. In this case its often courage and resilience that are added to beauty’s inspiration. Among the devastating stories of death and destruction on Japan’s north coast, some awesome stories emerged of survival against the odds. Many people, the elderly and babies included, rose from the ashes days after the earthquake and tsunami hit Japan. Against all odds rescuers gave hope back to families like a spring miracle of rebirth. Life can be a wild and unpredictable ride, but there is always more to come, more to learn and more to become. Spring is a reminder that nature, like the seasons of personal circumstance, cycles from death to life.

Imagine the joy of holding your four month old baby three days after being separated by a massive tidal wave, followed by even larger waves of grief. It is a reminder, like every spring is a reminder, to take nothing for granted and to stay open. Life is a precious gift. Give thanks for every moment of living and loving. Make the most of every opportunity for giving and growing.

We tend to want everything NOW, but it may not be time and you may not be ready. There is a time for patience and there is a time to dig in the rubble and get active. Learn from the people of Japan. What a wonderful example of grace under fire. I bow to the people of Japan and hope that if I am ever struck by tragedy I can respond with just as much character. For a culture that values nature, beauty and order so deeply, we can only imagine the heartache of living in the midst of so much chaos. But you don’t see stories about Japanese people looting or disrupting food lines, and you DO see images of people still bowing to each other and helping wherever possible.

Every year at this time Japanese people celebrate the blooming of the cherry blossom tree which bears no fruit and flowers for just a few days. Even so, it represents something incredibly powerful. The cherry blossom is a reminder of new beginnings and the briefness of life. Seeing the seed of change in a cherry blossom, or the cries of hope under the rubble is the essence of wabi sabi, recognizing order beneath the surface level chaos, perfection beneath the appearance of imperfection. It’s this perspective that enables people to maintain dignity and optimism when all seems to be lost. There is a saying, “The cherry blossom among flowers, the warrior among men.”

Wabi sabi is an inner strength and perspective that can see a cherry blossom nestled in a pile of debris or hear the cries of a baby from the middle of rubble and know that life is beautiful. Where does this hope come from? It comes from stillness that collapsed houses and disheveled gardens can’t disturb. I can appreciate beauty, but don’t attach even to the beauty because that too will change. From stillness and simplicity, your positive thoughts and acts of kindness create beautiful symmetry in an imperfect world. This story illustrates the power of Wabi sabi-

Sen no Rikyu desired to learn The Way of Tea and so visited the Tea Master, Takeno Joo. As a simple test of whether to accept Rikyu or not Joo ordered him to tend the garden. Rikyu raked the garden until the ground was in perfect order. When he had finished he surveyed his work. He then shook a cherry tree, causing a few flowers and leaves to fall randomly on the ground. At that moment Takeno Joo knew Sen no Rikyu would be one the greatest example of wabi-sabi way of life.

Cherry blossoms scattered on a perfectly raked garden are just as disarming as blossoms in rubble. They both shake you out of preconceived expectations and lead to an act of surrender. You can’t control nature, you can’t control growth, you can’t control the timing of events. But you can control your responses to life. The cherry blossom takes most of a year to prepare for its spring splash of color. Growth is like that. It arrives like a stray cherry blossom or a wild wave. You can’t always trace its path and the source of growth may be as random as stray seeds or buried dreams. In any case you often become aware of growth only after being reunited with hope. Nature reminds you to watch and be mindful. Your thoughts are powerful, and wherever you place your attention there you shall dwell.

Begin with awareness of change and possibility. Scatter a little positive thought and kind action on your awareness. You are a beautiful flower opening yourself to life, as if to say, “I’m here and I’m growing and I’m ready to bloom.”

My friend Richard Powell, author of “Wabi Sabi Simple”, has a profound understanding of wabi sabi. He summarizes the essence of wabi sabi as “nothing lasts, nothing ends, and nothing is perfect.”

May you remember that without darkness nothing comes to birth, as without light nothing flowers.
May nature teach you patience as snow covered grass.
May the earth teach you courage as the tree which stands tall and strong.
May survivors inspire optimism as the seed which rises in the spring.

Please note- this was cross blogged from Soulseeds which is my main blog.

Ending the Battle – Mindful Separation

I figure I’ve married about a thousand people in my life. I don’t mean that in a Charlie Sheen “winning at home with my two and a half goddesses” type of way. Do you know the religious argument that you are required to marry 16 people; 4 better, 4 worse, 4 richer and 4 poorer? I’m not a believer in polygamy. It’s a miracle that I could even find one woman who would marry me. But I have presided over the weddings of at least 500 couples in the last 20 years. I’ve always wanted to tell my favorite wedding story and since it took place in New Zealand nearly 10 years ago, it seems safe to do so now. I’ve had some fun moments, twice this past year with dogs in the bridal party and once on the 18th fairway of a golf course. The runner up for best wedding story was when the mother of a bride stopped the wedding mid vows when she realized that it wasn’t a Catholic church. Her daughter had told her I was a Catholic priest. The ear ring and bleached blond hair gave her some doubts, but when I prayed without doing a sign of the cross, she stood up and stopped the wedding.

That was interesting, but my all time favorite story was another couple I married in Auckland. I didn’t think much about the fact that the bride wanted to meet daily before the wedding. Each bride has their own way of preparing for their big day. And I didn’t think much about the way she was looking at me while she held her fiancé’s hand at the altar. I thought she was looking for reassurance. But when she made an appointment to come and see me 4 days after the wedding, it all became clear. She declared her undying love for me, and told me that she had fallen in love with me while standing at the altar with the groom. I know the pastor is supposed to love the flock, but this was going too far. She wanted to know what I suggested. I said, “Get thee to a nunnery” and sent her back to her new husband with the phone number of a good therapist. She tried to keep in touch with me, and eventually gave up when we moved to America.

That particular bride wasn’t a great advertisement for the troubled institution of marriage. With brides like that it’s not surprising that over half of all marriages in America end in divorce, and half of the other half of couples who stay together might be better off getting divorced. It might also be true that half of the marriages that separate, don’t need to. I want to address some relationship questions, from a social, religious and finally from a spiritual perspective. My hope is to build a stronger platform for relationships that last, whether in marriage or not. I want to instill an inner motivation to have awesome relationships that fill your own life with meaning and create healing energy for others. I want to remind you that life is beautiful and even better in healthy relationships. Relationships are not just a good and beautiful thing to be nurtured but a gateway to the sacred dimensions of life, where you learn about the source and many faces of love.

I also want to broaden the conversation from just marriage to relationships in general. These could be romantic relationships, business relationships or family relationships. Many of the same principles apply in all cases.

Among other questions I want to ask- How do you mend a broken relationship? How do you know when a relationship is done and needs to be ended? How do you end a relationship in the healthiest way possible? How do you heal when someone leaves you and you didn’t even see it coming?

Relationship Ethics and Religion

Let’s start by looking at the role of religion in morality. A lot of people think that the Ten Commandments provide the basis for morality. Do you know the real story about Moses and the Ten Commandments? In Mel Brooks version of the story, Moses came down Mount Sinai juggling some large stone tablets. Just as he was announcing to the Israelites that he had 15 commandments, he dropped one tablet. It smashed on the ground and without missing a beat he said, “I have 10 commandments.” In another version of the story Moses came down the mountain and said to the Israelites, “I have good news and bad news. The good news is that I got him down to ten. The bad news is that adultery is still in.” While I don’t endorse adultery in any way, and know that it’s no laughing matter, the joke points to the problem in looking to ancient religious texts that have passed through multiple oral and written revisions before arriving in their current form, for contemporary morality.

The Bible has many conflicting teachings about divorce. The Hebrew texts teach that a man can freely divorce his wife without need for a reason while a woman has no right to divorce under any circumstance. Deuteronomy 24 implies that a man can divorce his wife if a better offer comes along or his wife is no longer “pleasing to the eye”. Numbers 5 says that if a man suspects that his wife has been unfaithful, in fact, even if he is jealous of his wife, she is forced by the priest to drink a cup of muddy water. According to superstition, if she is innocent, she will become pregnant. If she has been unfaithful, then she will suffer the agony and the pain of a prolapsed uterus. The last verse of the chapter says that even if she is innocent, the husband remains blameless and either way the woman will suffer.

It’s not just the Old Testament. The New Testament is also inconsistent. The early Rabbis had diverse opinions about divorce. By the first century, some Rabbis allowed divorce for just about any reason, including a wife burning the toast. In one passage Jesus is recorded as saying that divorce is always wrong and in another he is recorded as saying that divorce is allowed in the case of sexual immorality. Saint Paul allowed a Christian spouse to divorce if the other spouse is a non-Christian and has left. Polygamy was widespread in Hebrew culture and life expectancy was so short in Bible times that marriages rarely lasted more than 15 years. It was a completely different world. Even if you expect to find morality in the Bible that makes sense in the modern world, the Bible’s teaching is completely inconsistent on the issue of divorce.

Apart from anything else, even if we could say for sure that we have an accurate record of what was really said by Jesus and others and even if the Bible had a consistent teaching on the issue of divorce, it still has little to offer us in a world where we value gender equality. The world of the Bible, Old and New Testament alike, afforded women very few rights and very little dignity. Women were literally the property of men to be used, abused and discarded however men chose. I feel no need to criticize ancient cultures and the Bible is simple a semi historical record of ancient practices. The question is what, if anything, it offers today’s world in relation to morality.

In the past many people believed, or maybe needed, religion to be the basis for morality. When it comes to marriage, the statistics suggest that religion doesn’t help. 25% of the total adult population in America have been divorced. 27% of adults in churches have been divorced and 29% of adults in Baptist churches have been divorced. At the other end of the spectrum, 21% of adult atheists and agnostics have been divorced. You could easily conclude that religion makes it more difficult to be married. The stricter the church, the greater the incidence of divorce. Maybe the more conservative the religious perspective, the greater the pressure, and the less realistic the expectations and gender roles. Divorce rates are MUCH higher in the Bible belt, in the American south, than in New York and other parts of the north east. The statistics come from a 1999 Barna Research Report and Barna is himself a conservative evangelical Christian.

This is all particularly surprising when you remember that conservative Christians are more likely to preach family values and the danger of same sex marriage on the basis that same sex marriage is a threat to the institution of marriage. In fact since 2003, states which have not passed a state constitutional ban on gay marriage saw their divorce rates decrease by an average of 8 percent. States which had passed a same-sex marriage ban saw their divorce rates rise by about 1 percent over the same period. IF marriage is under threat in America, it may be more at risk from those who read the Bible literally than it is from atheists or supporters of same sex marriage. The reason I emphasize this point is not to criticize the Bible. I have no need to defend or critique the Bible, except when the Bible is used as a whipping rod of guilt and shame for so many people. The Bible does have wisdom when it comes to relationships and sexual ethics, like all wisdom traditions, but not in the way it is usually used. Before I turn to some examples of non literal wisdom from the Bible, let me just say that because gay and lesbian people still deal with high levels of pressure and alienation in society, break ups can be particularly difficult and lead to a lot of isolation. Both in terms of community support and also in legal options, we should be particularly mindful of this extra challenge and create community that has an extra cushion of support for people who are doubly marginalized.

Divorce and Spirituality

It’s questionable whether religion increases the stickability of relationships, and it’s questionable whether religion offers a clear basis for morality. What does an inclusive spiritual perspective offer the issue of morality and relationships? Inclusive spirituality looks to the truths that turn up in many places rather than expecting to find absolute truths in literal readings of ancient texts. Let me illustrate by looking to the Bible stories in a different way.

Here are three non literal possibilities.

1. We are all connected.

Jesus encouraged his disciples to live with integrity after he was gone by saying, “I am with you always.” Think about the implications of living as if we are with each other ALWAYS, whether we are physically together or not. We are with each other, whether we are together or separate, married or divorced. Let me put it more bluntly. You might be able to remove your ex from your daily logistics, from your home and from the photographs around your house, but you can never remove them from your heart. This is where the notion of closure can be so impractical. We’re ALL connected, and you chose to make a special connection to your ex. He will always be with you to some extent. She will always stay with you.

No matter how much you wish you could erase parts of your life, they stay with you. Their lessons and karma continue to cycle through your life. You may even feel that you have been greatly wronged, but let me remind you that even a pancake has two sides. You brought at least some of the energy to the broken relationship. You don’t have to wear the other person’s baggage, and you can’t make them clean it up. But you can ALWAYS honestly reflect on your own part in the relationship and take responsibility for your responses NOW. The beautiful irony in the words of Jesus (I am with you always) is that according to the story he said that in one of his reappearances after death. Jesus kept showing up. Sometimes he was easily recognized and other times he was in disguise. The same is true for all of us. Our previous relationships and nemeses, our hurts and betrayals, continue to turn up and demand a great deal of honest self reflection. The question is “do you recognize the past when it turns up in your life?”

2. Make Peace with the Past

That sounds like bad news to many people. It’s a harsh reality. The good news is that you can make peace with the past as you learn to recognize it when it turns up in your present. When Jesus made his resurrection appearances, the story tells us that sometimes he told people to hold on and sometimes he told people to let go. When Mary wanted to hug him, he said “Stop clinging” and to Thomas he said, “Touch the wounds”. There is a time for both when it comes to moving on and making peace with the past. Do you remember the agonizing scene in the movie Titanic? Jack and Rose are floating in the icy ocean after the ship has gone down. Rose finally realizes that Jack is dead and she pries her trembling hand from his dead, lifeless grip. She lets go and his body floats away. As hard as it was she came to realize that she couldn’t carry his corpse or else she would risk her own life.

We spend far too much energy carrying corpses through life, the skeleton of past choices or previous relationships. Sometimes you need to question what you’re clinging to, whether you’re clinging to an idea about the past, blame for the break up, settlement details, custody arrangements or seething hostility, and sometimes you do that by touching the wounds of the past with the healing touch of acceptance. Make peace with who you are and who you’ve become. Your first love, even though they may have broken your heart wide open, taught you how to know yourself and to know what open-heart living feels like. They were with you for the first mile when your heart broke a sweat, the first kiss when your lips became moist with awareness, the first heart palpitation when you surrendered to passion. All that the past meant for you is still with you; the good, the bad and the ugly. Your choice now is how you respond.

3. Love Your Enemies

The measure of spiritual strength is not how well you love those who are easy to love, but how well you love those who are hardest to love. Jesus said, “If you only love those who love you, the rewards will only be moderate.” Growth takes place when you can wish ALL people well, even those who have harmed you and left you with many pieces to put back together. I know how hard it is. Even though I have been with the one saint of a woman who has put up with me for over 20 years, I know how hard it is to forgive enemies and how much easier it is to curse them. I have my “exes”, the corpses I carry around with me, the hurts I cling to. Letting go of the corpses and wishing my “exes” well may be the most challenging thing I ever do. But the rewards are phenomenal.

If you are still making an enemy of your ex you are harming yourself. If you are speaking ill of your ex, then you are harming yourself. If you are gathering people around you who confirm your basest instincts and encourage bitterness, then you are hurting yourself. You can be so much more by living from your highest values and loving even those who have hurt you. Note that I’m not suggesting that you trust them. They may be exes for good reason. But love them. Love them despite themselves and their destructive patterns. I’m not even talking about expressing it to them. You might have good reason not to communicate. But in your own heart, love them and recognize that they brought something good, true and beautiful to your life at some time. Love and let the past be what it was, clearing the way to move forward with integrity.

Spiritual Break Ups

Every situation is different and I’m certainly not telling anyone what to do. There are very few rights and wrongs when it comes to ending relationships. Whatever your situation, whether you are considering a break up, trying to mend a relationship or trying to mend your life after a break up, make sure that this is an opportunity to be all that you are destined to be in the world. Choose to stay together or break up, but either way do it with mindful self reflection and honesty.

Other people can make you lose your balance for a time and wobble on the edge of bitterness, but ultimately you have a spirit that no one and nothing can break. As you honestly face your own attachments and take responsibility for your own sense of inner peace, you will remember that you are strong and capable. This self awareness will prepare you for relationships that are healthy and life affirming. The unbreakable spirit of strength in me honors the same in you. Namaste.

Inclusive Spirituality

It happened once again. I was asked to take a funeral in a tragic situation. The family described their dear departed as intelligent, philosophical, very musical AND particularly emphasized that he was spiritual but not religious. I feel right at home in that setting and have strong intuition about what people mean when they use the phrase.

I prefer to call it inclusive spirituality to avoid any unnecessary negatives. It’s generally healthier to talk about what you are than what you aren’t. It took me a while to come around to that distinction and I fought for the “spiritual but not religious” label for some time. But it’s not a fight I need to take on anymore. I’m very comfortable with the phrase inclusive spiritual and I think it catches the spirit of what people mean when they say spiritual but not religious but without the unnecessary drama. If there’s one thing we need less of in the world, its drama.

Labels are a funny thing. None of us want to live with them, but we can’t communicate without them. We spend our days growing in and out of various labels like a pair of jeans that shrink in the wash and stretch with use. That’s all fine as long as we don’t imagine that ANY of the labels fully define who we are. Even our most carefully crafted labels will fall short and grow holes eventually. Still, we do our best to identify ourselves with the language we have.

What are some of the features of inclusive spirituality? Let’s start with the bleeding obvious. It’s inclusive!

A cowboy went to an up market church wearing jeans, ragged boots and a worn out old hat. As the cowboy took his seat, people moved away from him. No one welcomed him. As the cowboy was leaving the church, the minister approached him and asked the cowboy to do him a favor. “Before you come back in here again, have a talk with God and ask him what he thinks would be appropriate attire for worship.” The old cowboy assured the preacher he would. The next Sunday, he showed back up for the services wearing the same ragged jeans, boots, and hat. Once again he was completely shunned and ignored.

The preacher approached the man and said, “I thought I asked you to speak to God before you came back to our church.”
“I did,” replied the old cowboy.
“If you spoke to God, what did he tell you the proper attire should be for worshiping in here?” asked the preacher.
“Well, sir, God told me that She didn’t have a clue what I should wear, seeing as She’d never been in this church.”

Maybe you have had your own experience of being made to feel unwelcome in church because you didn’t have the right clothes, lifestyle or labels. I couldn’t tell you how many people have asked me over the years, almost apologetically, if I would baptize their babies or conduct their weddings, even though they aren’t members of any church. Many of them have already been rejected by 5 or 6 churches who insisted that they go to classes or agree to certain labels.

The whole intent behind inclusive spirituality is to bring people together. Incidentally that’s also what the word “religion” means, “bring together”. If you are one of those people who have been shunned by the church because you didn’t measure up in some way or other, then this message is for you. Inclusive spirituality is concerned with bringing together; head and heart, past and present, beliefs and values, people and neighbors, tribe and nation, reason and passion, spirituality and religion. All of life is part of a unity that is miraculously connected and beautifully meaningful. Maybe you don’t even have to choose between spirituality and religion. Just be yourself, love what you love, and live beyond the labels.

Having It All. It’s All Spiritual!
Inclusive spirituality is about having it all, including it all, loving it all. Millions of people have been deeply moved by the Elizabeth Gilbert book, “Eat, Pray Love.” It’s the story of her search for meaning in a variety of places. She wanted her life to make sense as a whole, and she wanted to honor all the parts. She wanted to include even seeming opposites in a worldview that excludes nothing. She was on a quest to eat, pray and love with intention.

The concept of having it all always reminds me of a Seinfeld episode. George Castanza has a fantasy about making love to a woman while eating a sandwich. The scene has George under the sheets, his hands occasionally appearing out of the sheets to dip his pastrami sandwich in hot mustard. Then he says under his breath- “Now for the trifecta.” Grinning, he puts his ear piece in and begins watching a portable television under the sheets. The woman turns the light on, throws the sheets off and sees George eating his sandwich and watching television. She says, “what are you doing.” George replies sheepishly. “Pleasuring you?”

Narcissism, and pastrami, aside, what if it was possible to have it all and learn from it all? Inclusive spirituality honors all traditions, religious and otherwise, science included. It honors inner wisdom that intuits so much ancient wisdom. It honors the collective imagination and the earth’s wisdom. Inclusive spirituality touches every aspect of life, and includes all experience and all language. My favorite quote from Gilbert is about the value in cherry picking, which is taking wisdom from many different sources and not feeling tied to one tradition alone. She says, “I think you have every right to cherry-pick when it comes to moving your spirit and finding peace in God. I think you are free to search for any metaphor whatsoever which will take you across the worldly divide whenever you need to be transported or comforted... You take whatever works from wherever you can find it, and you keep moving toward the light." (Eat Pray Love p. 208)

When it comes to life partners and family doctors you might want to find one and stick with them. There is something to be said for loyalty and intimacy in those cases. However when it comes to your spiritual essence on a unique human journey finding your connections to all else, no such limitations apply, because God is in your bloodstream. All of life is infused with wonder and meaning the way sunlight glistens on water and oxygen moves through your body. You don’t want to limit your experience of life any more than you want to limit your oxygen intake.

Inclusive Spirituality is Universal
I like to think that Jesus was a great humanist preacher and an inclusive spiritual teacher in his day. He seemed to prefer ordinary people over priests, compassion over rituals, and justice over judgment. Jesus traveled with a group of rural hippies who were critical of a religion controlled by Roman yuppies. Jesus was nominally Jewish, knew nothing of the later Christian movement named after him, and was intolerant of the intolerance of the temple. He seemed to appreciate nature and laughter and food. I don’t know what he thought of pastrami, but he certainly had his own way of eating, praying and loving with intention.

Jesus was living the truth of many ancient traditions that life is beautiful and every person and every experience contains some golden nugget of truth. There is an ancient story from India that points to the universal truth of unity.

The God Brahma got sick of being alone. So he created the goddess, Maya. Just for fun, Brahma and Maya created a whole world of illusion; sun, stars, planets, oceans, animals. Then they said, “Let’s create an animal that is so intelligent and aware that it can appreciate this wondrous creation.” So they created humans.

Then the game began. Maya cut Brahma up into millions of little pieces and placed a piece of Brahma in every human being. Maya said to the human beings, “ I am going to make you forget who you are, then you can try and find yourself. You will spend a lifetime searching for your true essence.”

Every now and again, a little spark of light awakens in each of us. It comes at odd moments, sometimes with thoughts, sometimes while eating, praying and loving, but also in spontaneous moments of new awareness. As more and more people have more and more moments of waking up to their true essence, the world becomes a more peaceful place.

Religion is one place that this awakening happens, but it’s not the only place. For many people, it doesn’t happen in religion anymore because religion has over identified with its labels and confused the label with the reality. If one religion or another still gets the job done for you, that’s great. If not, or if like me you don’t want to be limited to one perspective alone, then look to the life in front of you for inspiration. It’s all there, all inside of you, all at your feet. As Franz Kafka wrote,

You need not do anything.
Remain sitting at your table and listen.
You need not even listen, just wait.
You need not even wait,
just learn to be quiet, still and solitary.
And the world will freely offer itself to you unmasked.
It has no choice, it will roll in ecstasy at your feet.

Reposted from Soulseeds, which is now my main blog. Please visit.

Sprituality and Fun

A woman was in the hospital, near death. The family called their pastor to be with her. As the pastor stood next to the bed, the woman’s condition deteriorated rapidly. Gasping for breath, she motioned for the pastor to come close as if she needed to urgently tell him something. He couldn’t understand what she was saying so he handed her a piece of paper and pen. She used her last bit of energy to scribble something down and handed it to the pastor, and then she breathed her last. The pastor placed the paper in his pocket and decided to read it later. He forgot about it until it came time for the funeral. As he was giving the eulogy, he remembered the note and realized that he was wearing the same pants. He decided to spontaneously add it to his eulogy. He said to the congregation, “Before Jane died, she handed me a note. I haven’t read it yet but knowing Jane I’m sure it has a word of inspiration for all of us. He opened the note and read it out loud, “Step away from the bed. You’re standing on my oxygen tube.” You could say he put his foot in it twice.

Do you think that death is a laughing matter? Do you ever laugh at funerals, either because people share humorous, heartwarming stories or for no apparent reason? It’s a fairly common phenomenon, and probably some sort of coping mechanism, for people to laugh at times of tragedy. Robert Fulghum even says that “laughter is the cure for grief.” Why does humor heal? What is the power of fun? One of the most famous eulogies was delivered by John Cleese at his fellow Monty Python comedian Graham Chapman’s funeral. Chapman co-authored the Parrot Sketch where the guy takes his parrot back to the pet shop and tries to convince the shop keeper that the parrot is in fact dead. Cleese began his eulogy by saying, “Graham Chapman is no more. He has ceased to be, bereft of life, he rests in peace, he has kicked the bucket, hopped the twig, bit the dust, snuffed it, breathed his last and gone to meet the Great Head of Light Entertainment in the sky.” The Cleese eulogy was followed by the remaining Monty Python members doing a rendition of “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life.”

In the eulogy Cleese spoke about the ability of Chapman to shock people. Then he ended the eulogy by saying something interesting about the value of shock. “The thing about shock is not that it upsets some people. It gives others a momentary joy of liberation, as we realize in that instant that the social rules that constrict our lives are not actually very important.”

One of the reasons that fun and laughter are powerful spiritual tools is because they play with your assumptions and society’s rules. Laughter and fun give you ways to tear apart the straight jacket of personal and social conformity. Life is not always predictable, our rules and conclusions are not always as permanent as we imagine, and it’s always possible to take alternate perspectives. Through the power of laughter, you open up a kaleidoscope of new possibilities.

How do you know when it’s appropriate to laugh at tragedy, and when it’s not? Personally, I take my cues from the people involved. I have fond memories of visiting a woman who was in her last days. You will be glad to know that I didn’t tread on her oxygen tube. She was a spunky flirt of a woman to the end. She asked me if I would make a phone call for her. I asked her the number. She said it was in her phone. I asked her where her phone was. She pointed to her chest. I didn’t know what she meant until I saw her phone hanging by a cord that went around her neck and rested under her nightie. She just smirked and kept pointing to her chest. She wasn’t going to help me get the phone. She forced me to dig in and pull out her phone, get the number and then put the phone back. We both laughed and laughed. It took all the tension out of a difficult situation. People involved in traumatic situations will usually give the cues as to what’s appropriate.

Fun and Transformation

Fun is not only fun. It can also be transformative. I heard a story that illustrates the power of fun to transform seemingly hopeless situations. A few years back the Toronoto Maple Leafs were in last place in the Canadian hockey ranks. They had just set a record for the worst start of any season. Despite being one of the wealthier teams, they hadn’t won a single game. They were the Detroit Lions of Canada. So when they gathered for practice after yet another loss, the players expected to be given a thorough dressing down by the coach, followed by extra drills and a tough training session. Instead the coach shocked them by suddenly and randomly throwing tennis balls at the players. For the next couple of hours, the Leafs played dodge ball on ice. The players skated around frantically, pegging balls at each other, smiling and laughing up a storm. At one point someone even grabbed the coach and used him as a human shield while they both got hammered with balls. While they were having fun, the players forgot that they were the worst team in Canada. Sure enough, a few days later, the Leafs won their first game of the season and went on to win several more. The team had been transformed by fun.

The transforming power of fun is that you can try out a different reality in your mind, see how it feels, get comfortable with it, rehearse it, and live it into existence. You release the tension out of a situation and inadvertently find new solutions that you hadn’t even thought about. Some people have a rare gift of introducing fun into tense situations, but we all have the ability to do it if we are mindful.

There are also evolutionary benefits to fun. People have created serious science out of tickling. Tickling simulates a playful version of a mock attack. We tend to be ticklish in the same parts of our bodies that are vulnerable to attack. Tickling is a shock tactic. You can’t tickle yourself for example, because there is no surprise element. But at the same time a young baby will laugh more when tickled by mom than a stranger, because it’s easier to know that it’s a mock attack from mom than a stranger who could be REALLY attacking you. So tickling has evolutionary adaptive functions. In short, play prepares us for the real challenges of life by finding the boundaries of what feels right and what feels inappropriate. Fun is a fine line as any parent who has hidden for too long or any politician who has frightened a baby can verify. We all have to know where to end the fun and games before the tears start.

Spirituality and Fun

Fun is important to all species. Animals in the wild engage in ferocious mock battles. Magpies wrestle, foxes jump on trampolines and elk frolic in puddles. Bears charge rivers, monkeys somersault down hills, and elephants doodle with sticks in the earth. Fun even crosses species lines. Polar bears have been seen horsing around with dogs, and monkeys playing with tigers. Fun seems to be a universal instinct.

A study of Alaskan grizzlies showed that the ones that played the most were the ones most likely to survive. Another study showed that if you take play away from lab rats they develop behavioral problems and become bad lovers. And we can’t have that, can we?

Fun is important, and there are loads of examples of fun and laughter in spiritual traditions. There is a Japanese proverb that says, “Time spent laughing is time spent with the gods.”

An Apache Indian creation myth tells the story of the creation when God first created all varieties of animals and laughed uproariously at their peculiar shapes and funny behavior.”

“Then he made a man and spoke to him, saying, ‘Laugh!‘ The man laughed and his laughter caused the dog to jump and wag its tail… His laughter helped to complete all that the God had initially brought into being at creation.”

“At last the man was caused to fall asleep, and he dreamed a creature like himself, a woman. When he awoke to find her more than a dream he began to laugh and she laughed too. They laughed and laughed together… and that was the beginning of the world.”

Particularly in the Tibetan Buddhist traditions, laughing is greatly emphasized. There is a quote usually attributed to the Buddha that says, “When you realize how perfect everything is you will tilt your head back and laugh at the sky.” It’s a great thought although not quite accurate. It likely comes from a Tibetan text that says,

Since everything is but an illusion,
Perfect in being what it is,
Having nothing to do with good or bad,
Acceptance or rejection,
One might as well burst out laughing!

(From chapter 1 of The Great Perfection’s Self-Liberation in the Nature of Mind, by Longchenpa (1308-1364)

From the Muslim tradition, a beautiful image comes from the Sufi poet Hafiz who said, “Me and God are two giants in a tiny boat, bumping into each other, and laughing.” Imagination and fun are gateways to wonder and possibility.

It’s harder to find the fun in Christianity but it is there if you look hard enough beyond the pious Churchianity that many of us were raised on. The Gospel of Judas was discovered in the 1970’s, and believed by many to be compiled in the 4th century, around the same time as Constantine was making Christianity very serious, and very focused around beliefs and practices. Meanwhile Judas was portraying Jesus as laughing hysterically at his disciples. When he saw them gathered intently around bread and cup, he burst into laughter and said they were worshipping a false God. Maybe they were taking themselves and their beliefs a little too seriously, imagining that their practices could get them to God. It is laughable to think that you can look outside of yourself for God. Looking for God outside of yourself is like wandering around looking for your sunglasses when they are on top of your head all along. There’s nothing wrong with beliefs and ideas about God, nor with rituals and practices. It just requires the humility of playfulness to avoid setting up false gods.

Fun and Perspective

There is yet another effect from laughing, and that is that we have the ability to laugh in the face of the unthinkable and create a little distance from the trauma in order to gain new perspective.

There is so much death and suffering in the world. It seems like there is a new natural disaster every week at the moment, now with hundreds, maybe thousands of people dead in the Japanese tragedy. Meanwhile they’re still looking for bodies in Christchurch NZ and a fresh round of floods is hitting northern Australia. Since Katrina, not to mention last year’s gulf oil spill, Mardi Gras has become an occasion synonymous with rising from the ashes of disaster. Is it appropriate to have fun at a time like this? Maybe it’s one of the most powerful things we can do. It’s like raising a fist to despair as if to say, “You can’t have me. I won’t give in.”

Four rabbis were gathered before the desecrated temple in Jerusalem in the first century. Three of them were weeping. The fourth, Rabbi Akiva, was laughing uproariously. The three rabbis were shocked at his response and said, “Why do you laugh?” He responded to them, “Why do you cry?” They said, “This temple that we have adored has been burned to the ground by the Romans. Foxes now roam in the space where up to this point, only the most enlightened of all Jewish leaders could even tread. How can you laugh? All is lost.”

Akiva said “that is why I laugh because now I know the prophecy has been fulfilled. Until the temple is completely and utterly destroyed there will be no new temple. I laugh because I know the prophecy has been fulfilled.”

I’m not suggesting that laughter is always appropriate, but at times it is a coping mechanism as if to say, “Alright I’ve hit rock bottom here. The only way is up, and that’s where I’m heading now.” Things seem so bad right now that it’s comical, but I can beat this and rise from the ashes. I will get the last laugh by climbing on top of the very rocks that have shattered around me and use them to give me a leg up.

Laughing As a Sign of Spirit

Do you remember Guido in the movie, Life is Beautiful? The story is set in the time of the holocaust, and Guido, his wife and 5 year-old son are being held in a concentration camp- Guido and his son in one camp, and his wife next door in the women’s camp. Guido breaks the oppressive spirit of the camp with humor. In one scene Guido commandeers the PA system in the camp and sends a message to his wife, who doesn’t know if he is dead or alive. Guido says he wants to make love to his wife in Italian so the solders can’t understand him. In another scene Guido volunteers to be the translator for the German soldier who is barking orders about different rules that the prisoners must follow, or be killed. Guido translates it completely differently. What he says is a message in Italian to his son. He tells his son that this is all a game, and if you follow the rules of the game, you can win. If you win the game you get a beautiful big tank. The son’s eyes grow wide as he listens to his father, while the soldier barks out order about death. In the midst of unthinkable sadness, Guido gives his family hope.

Thank goodness for laughter and for those who are able to create fun in tense situations. Mardi Gras is the perfect time to consider your own relationship with fun. Are you burdened by unsolvable problems? Are you overwhelmed by the sadness and suffering in the world? Laugh, not at the suffering and not in a callous way, but in such a way that you remind yourself that a new reality is always possible. If you can’t find anything funny, conduct a preemptive strike on fun. Laugh on suspicion of something ordinary and every day. Laugh at your own routines. Laugh at your over active imagination. Laugh at the absurdity of chaos. Laugh at the frailty of life.Then surrender to new perspectives that only open up because you let the air out of your nervous energy. Fun is a pathway to spirit, rerouted surprise, laughter’s short cut. The spirit of fun in me greets the spirit of fun in you. LOL! Namaste.

Waxing Lyrical About the Moon!

I love the moon at this time of month. Its “waxing crescent” and if that isn’t the name of a yoga move, it should be. There’s something playful about the tiny slice of light and its daily game of hide and seek. I keep expecting to see a kid fishing off the end of it with his knee under his chin. This slender crescent is seen in its glory in the morning which is also my favorite time of day. I get up early, a zillion thoughts in my head, barely knowing where to begin, and the silver slither watches over me without judgment. There is something benevolent about the moon as it both impacts human mood and behavior and also shines down without preference.

The moon has always been a cause of great wonder. It waxes and wanes in diverse beauty and shines an endless stream of light on science, poetry and every day inspiration alike. A 4,000 year old verse from the Rig Veda, a sacred Hindu text says “O Moon! We should be able to know you through our intellect; you enlighten us through the right path.”

The moon brings together science and spirituality, intellect and emotions, ancient and modern hopes and dreams. It’s a curious irony to westerners that the first Indian moon landing took place just recently in 2008. A week before the launch, millions of Hindu women fasted, according to ancient custom, until the first sighting of the moon’s reflection in a bowl of oil. They do this as part of an ancient belief that it will safeguard the welfare of their family. It’s a beautiful parallel, nature and humanity both reaching toward and reflecting the other, people looking for moon magic even while technology lassoes possibility and pulls it a little closer to here and now.

The magical qualities of the moon don’t seem to be compromised by getting up close and personal with the giant ball of silly putty in the sky. As scientific advance chips away at superstition, like thinning slices of a fading moon, imagination still runs free. Wonder affirms both the curiosity of science and the collective imagination of people and cultures. The moon is its own metaphor for the relationship between science and spirituality, with its yin/yang shades of light and dark, receiving and reflecting the sun’s rays. Her front porch is lit with guiding light, while the inner parts of the house are in deep darkness. She is whole, no matter how little we see or understand. How whole the moon! What a wonder!

The prized gift of wonder is the ability to see yourself as a participant in a greater whole. You are a player on life’s stage with a love so large it can travel to the moon and back, shedding beauty and softness on the whole and never lose its luster. In the words of the classic 1946 film, It’s a Wonderful Life, wonder “throws a lasso around the moon and pull it down, then you can swallow it…and then moonbeams shoot out of your fingers and your toes and the ends of your hair.”

Wonder is a uniquely human trait with its adaptive evolutionary qualities. It allows you to suspend judgment, consider new possibilities and shift perspective. Wonder is like a stray flower in winter or a light hearted story at a funeral. It has the ability to upturn your assumptions and turn up your optimism. Wonder allows you to experience the world in a new way; with fresh, unprejudiced attention.

When the child sees in the moon a giant rabbit standing over a kitchen table, maybe the child is intuiting something about the wondrous kitchen table wisdom of the universe. What wisdom is contained on that dusty, cratered orb! How many stories the moon has heard! How much life it has seen!

Wonder taps into the miracle of being alive and the joy of sharing in new life. Every moment is a miracle, every person pure magic. As a father, I wonder at the single cells I contributed to the miracle of new life. Each cell is so small that it’s invisible to the naked eye, and the nucleus in the center of the cell that contains the DNA is even smaller. And yet if you unraveled the DNA of this single cell, unwound and uncoiled it, it would stretch to over six feet long. Now if you are like me and you look eye to six foot high eye with your child, you are looking eye to eye with the miracle and wonder of life. In my case, I’m looking at a six foot bundle of creative potential with the world at his feet. Then 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.

Now as you look at your four, five or six foot miracles, consider that if you took all the DNA from all the 50 trillion cells in each young 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 you love them. To the moon and back…. multiple times. That’s how far a parent’s love stretches and it’s also how far human wonder reaches.

Wonder could even be another name for God, the mysterious symmetry that defies any names or description, the moments of magic that change everything. As the Swedish Nobel Prize winner, Dag Hammarskjold said in his book of meditations, “Markings”,

“God does not die on the day when we cease to believe in a personal deity, but we die on the day when our lives cease to be illumined by the steady radiance, renewed daily, of a wonder, the source of which is beyond all reason.” Dag Hammarskjold

You could replace the word “God” with wonder and it would have the same meaning in the quote. Your relationship with wonder is only limited by your imagination. The moon is a constant reminder of the mystery that goes by many names and no name. Shine on you crazy diamond. Fill us with the light of your lunar wisdom. Teach us to bask in the beauty of it all, scientific curiosity and spiritual imagination alike. All of life has a unity. Each moment is filled with enough beauty and mystery to keep our attention locked in wonder’s gaze forever.

The silver light, which, hallowing tree and tower,
Sheds beauty and deep softness o'er the whole,
Breathes also to the heart, and o'er it throws
A loving languor which is not repose. Lord Byron

Please visit Soulseeds for resources that celebrate nature and wonder.