Staying centered through the storm

The Ejyafjallajokull Volcano in Iceland

"Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart 

and shattered the rocks before the Lord, 

but the Lord was not in the wind.  

After the wind there was an earthquake, 

but the Lord was not in the earthquake.  

After the earthquake came a fire,

but the Lord was not in the fire.  

And after the fire, came a gentle whisper ..."  

1Kings 19:11-12

The storms of our lives, the large and small dramas that have captivated our minds, lives and imagination, spin around us like a galactic windstorm.  I find that I, and many of you, am literally at the mercy of everything.  In fact, the subtle forces of the voices from my world, gnaw away at my self confidence, attempting to drag me back into the wide raging rivers of our times.  Yet, I resist.  Some days I resist with everything in me, but I resist.

The quote above is one of my favorite stories of Elijah who had been hunted (and spared by God's interaction) by the religious leaders of his time.  For a moment, it seems God's power is displayed before him.  I can't even imagine what his life might have been like, nor can I imagine standing in a large opening of a cave and witnessing some of Mother Nature's most terrifying powers.  Yet he stood there, watching the rocks of the mountain being ripped loose by the tempest, fearsome and threatening the prophet, who stood there, wrapped in his cloak, waiting for God.  And, as if the wind storm wasn't enough, the earth shook violently as an earthquake split the Earth, threatening to topple the entire mountain he stood on, and then an unquiet fire storm followed, perhaps ignited by the winds over the dry desert.  And, he stood there, unmoved, very awake and very aware, perhaps listening, perhaps wondering, yet unafraid.  He had passed the test, and then God said to him, "What are you doing here, Elijah?" And, Elijah shared his plight, his love of God and his concern that the religious leaders were trying to kill him.

Elijah reminds me that our lives are very precarious.  We are fragile beings.  Sometimes I am amazed that we survive childhood and adolescence to even grow up and survive the huge demands our culture places on us in which we could get swept up in the consequent stress, worry and fears. The image of him standing high up at the opening of the cave as the storm threatens him attempting to rattle his own inner calm is iconic.  It reminds me of another powerful image, one of Jesus in the desert being tempted by the devil.   But, heroically and courageously stand tall, fearless and centered in God, unmoved by whatever spins around them tempting them into a lower level of chaotic fear.

It seems that Elijah's certainty, his sure footed faith well beyond ordinary wishful-thinking faith, is a faith that comes with a kind of inner knowing. He, as a child of God, is like God and is in the whisper, the eternal presence of beinghood.  While clearly he would not want to die, death itself doesn't frighten him. So the power of the storms that wracked his mountain watch did not deter his centered calm with in, a whispery calm. 

All of us are sometimes faced with uncertainty in life.  I have found that as I release the false certainty and temporary comfort of my past to embrace a new life, one which I have no control over, I have no choice but to turn to the only one who can catch me if I fall. I am left with only one thing and that is the certainty that God is with me and God will provide.  God will provide everything I need in this life.  Like a mantra, I find myself repeating as i walk or in the car, "God will provide. God will light my path."  As I step into this strong, intentional awareness at the opening of the cave of my life and watch the storms pass by, I remind myself over and over again, "God will provide.  God will light my path."

And that is a choice - either to give in to the temptation to give into fear or breathe deeply, release any rising tension, and choose deliberately to stay calm, unmoved.  In a fearsome state, would I hear God's whisper?  Fear seems to breed chaos.  So, we all have only one choice in these uncertain times.  We can choose to stay centered, rooted, in our own spiritual center, remind ourselves and remind each other, that God will speak, God will deliver us.  Each  one of us - all 6.8 billion one of us is known intimately to God.  Each one of us can find that calm deep within our minds and hearts, to which we can choose to cling and hold onto no matter what happens around us.

In the end, Elijah was spared.  The religious leaders did not kill him, unlike many other prophets throughout the ages.

His wisdom continues to guide me today.  I can also watch the tempests, earthquakes, raging fires, and political and economic storms, and stay calm, not give in to the temptation of fear, worry, tears or anger.  We all can choose to release our attempt to control everything and stay calm, listen for God's whisper.  We can choose to hang in there in peace, and perhaps, even in joy. 

Take back your dreams

Today life may seem so out of control. On one day we may breathe a sigh of relief at the news of a new cap for the leaking oil well in the Gulf, and then the next, we may gasp in fear and disgust at the news of a double digit unemployment rate in the country. Then there's the war in Afghanistan and the terrible deaths of two Navy men who were there to train a counter insurgency for the Afghans' own stand against the Taliban. While we may pray for our country, our president, our Earth, yet, we all must wonder, as I do from time to time, if our prayers are ever heard. Can we really make any kind of difference?

While you may not feel you can change the news you read about or decisions made on the upper levels of global government or corporate management, you can make one single decision that will radically change your life for the better, forever. It may require constant vigilance as the winds of the times blow against our good intentions daily.

You can decide what you are going to think about. You and you alone are in charge of your mind. You may not be able to DO anything about things around you. You may not be able to get a job or pay your mortgage or organize a group of people to lobby for a cause in Washington or do much for our government beyond your own vote, but you can choose to set your own inner emotional barometer. You can choose what you watch on television, what you read, what you think, what you say, what you do. You can choose who you want to be, what kind of person you want to be and you can choose to live into that self definition. You can also choose to pray, to meditate, to raise your own sense of self value by tuning out the noise of the insanity all around you and listen to the gentle hum of heaven within you.

You can choose to be hopeful, happy, loving and personally empowered. You can choose to exercise your right to your own opinions about yourself and others. You can choose to stay physically, mentally and emotionally fit.

You can accept the things you cannot change and choose how you want to feel and stay centered and focused on that decision. You can choose to smile. It is all up to you. How you look at the challenges before you today, in this moment, this week, this year or in the years ahead, is up to you. No one can control how you think or feel or act.

We are magnetic beings always attracting to ourselves that which resonates, or vibrates, on the same frequency on which we operate. We also repel that which doesn't and is inconsistent with our belief system. It's simple science really. All of life is composed of particles, all vibrating at a certain frequency. So, if we choose to think positively, pray with faith, love with passion, embrace and cultivate our creativity, distance ourselves from whatever dims our light, we will increase our spiritual, emotional, psychological and physical "chi" or life force energy. We will, in short, turn up our light, heighten our vibration and magnetize into our lives that which operates on a similar frequency. If you are inclined to pray, you might want to invite the Holy Spirit into your life which will boost your "chi."

It's an easy thought to grasp, but we have been sleeping in the mindfulness field for so long that to actually put this into practice may take a bit of focus, determination and concentration. That's where our work is. It may be like going on a mental diet - we have to choose carefully what we put into our minds and there we will find what kinds of thoughts we've become addicted to. Eradicating those mental addictions may require some real work and focus, but we all have to begin somewhere.

For a long time, many of us have been victims of our times, believing the dark news on the news channels or the newspapers and slowly, unaware, we have blindly allowed ourselves to become degraded and filled with the negative news. Once the New York Times claimed to print only the news that's "fit to print." Today, I suspect very little of that news is worthy of our time.

Just as we are what we eat, physically and spiritually, we become that which we read and expose ourselves. If we allow ourselves to consume negative news, we will become negative or at least lower our vibration to slower, lower frequency waves. This morning, when I read the news that the second  Navy man missing in Afghanistan was found dead, my heart sank.  It sank all the way down to who knows where, until I began to sob. It's a very sad, out of control world out there and it breaks my heart almost daily to see it, especially when we have a choice to make it all so beautiful.  This isn't going to be easy, this monitoring our thoughts and reaching for the light rather than be dragged down, so we have to hold onto something within ourselves as we encounter the "maya" or the collective illusion, or Shakespeare's stage on which all have starring roles.

If we play war games on the video games or watch violent videos, movies and entertain hate-filled thoughts, participate in negative gossip, eat chemically grown foods, we are degrading our bodies and our souls. We are dimming our life force energy which leaves us vulnerable to disease.

Usually, disease occurs on a lower frequency that health and vitality. This may be one reason why St. Francis could kiss a leper and not get leprosy or Jesus could embrace and heal those who came to him. Both, as are most healers, were coming from a high level of personal spiritual consciousness, awareness and self discipline and mindfulness.

This doesn't happen overnight for most of us. It begins as a decision to raise our minds up out of the gutter where the news draws its drama. Then, it follows that with that decision will be the next one which is to turn our concentration onto things of beauty, life, joy, peace, hope. When you exercize the decision to take back control over your mind and choose what you will think about, you will immediately feel a rocket boost of energy. You will have made the decision to take back your power which had been leaking out of your mind and life while you were unaware.

The rest is up to you. You can dream the biggest, most beautiful dream and have the most beautiful life, if you want to. There is no recession in God's economy. There is plenty. Lack only exists because we forgot that we were divine born with the right and the ability to seek heaven, rather than hell, seek life, be life and live life. Life is meant to be joyful, beautiful, happy and abundant. If your life isn't, then you forgot that you have the power to choose your thoughts.

Even if you are a poor woman in Africa or Mexico or pretty much anywhere in the world - you can choose how you will think. You can set your attitude as a pilot would set the altitude of his plane. Change may not occur overnight, but change will occur. You can keep a journal and daily affirm your choices and day by day mark the things that have occurred that are lighting the way to the fulfillment of your dream.

Let my country awake!

"Where the mind is without fear 
and the head is held high;

 Where knowledge is free;

 Where the world has not been broken up 

     into fragments by narrow domestic walls;

 Where words come out from the depth of truth;

 Where tireless striving stretches its arms toward perfection;

 Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way 

     into the dreary desert sand of dead habit;

 Where the mind is led forward by Thee 

     into ever-widening thought and action;

 Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, 

    let my country awake!"

by Rabindranath Tagore, (1861-1941) "Gitanjali"  (Song Offerings),  Nobel Prize in Literature 1913.

Life on the edge

Some say life begins on the edge of your comfort zone. It just seems that when you step off the ledge of the life you have such a tight grip on and let go, fully expecting to fall and self destruct, that's when life begins. Maybe because that's when you find yourself praying as if your life depended on it, because it does.  That's when you seek the kingdom of God and that's when you find It.

If that's true, that life begins on the edge of your comfort zone,  then it must take an awful lot of courage to live.  I wonder when it was that we dove into the system, was it after high school, college or fifth grade.  When did we take the high dive, plunging into the thick of it, never to surface, never to embrace the thrill, challenge and even sheer terror of living our lives outside the box, without an agenda.  

What if we didn't live "purpose driven lives,"  what if we just winged it, didn't plan for ambitious careers, or strived our whole lives away to make a lot of money, even putting some away for retirement - if we live long enough to retire?  What if we learned in elementary school and high school, how to meditate - not within any particular religious dogma - but how to center our minds, explore the cosmos from within an interior lens?  What if we taught the children real, honest to God non-violent confrontation skills, how to manage their center when confronted by someone who is angry rather than reacting with hostility?  What if we really taught peace rather than stirring up their lowest violent natures in combative sports events?  Aren't the interscholastic football games, mini wars?  Aren't they teaching competition, violence, strength of the will, strategy and strength of the body to overcome the "enemy?" What if Math and science were electives and art and music were requirements?  (although I think math and science are important) When the school system has to cut its budget, music and art are usually the first to go.  So, we forget about the need for poets and artists and musicians in our culture, but we keep the sports team! 

When did you last step out from under the canopy of your comfort zone and do something really original?  If you are in a care taking role, when did you do something that really matches your own inner integrity?  When was the last time you really laughed with enjoyment, sang in the rain, went for a moonlight walk at 3 a.m.?  When was the last time you went swimming in the lake?  There are so many things we stop doing when we grow up and then we don the mantle of adulthood which is as heavy as hell and drag that thing all through our lives, completely by rote.  It is so sad.  It makes me so sad that so many people do this.  

Maybe I should tell you a little bit about me.  I broke out of the system a couple years ago.  In truth, I didn't really mean to break out, but I realized I didn't fit in anymore.  I grieved that for a long time, feeling that I had to force my round peg in the world's square hole.  Now, I love this life I live. When I do return to a real job, it will allow me to be authentic and it will be a mutual love affair.  Lately, as I reflect on my move out west and think of returning east where things are more linear and left -brained, something inside me feels like I can't clip my wings that small again.  These two years of searching, dreaming, meditating, praying and encountering the divine, have only made me even less marketable in the world's system.

And then, sometimes I think it would all be different if I went back because I'm different.  Or, maybe, I'll join an ashram and spend the rest of my life writing and meditating and living on mangos and rice ... Seriously, that's where the terror comes in and it is exactly in that space, which is a deep chasm really,  between who I was and who I am becoming that is the hardest to embrace, but you come to the point - like teetering on the edge of the high diving board - that there's only one way to go and that's over.  

It takes a kind of courage I never knew I had.  I've always had a wild streak of non-conformity in me, but I never dreamed I would come to this place of such utter stark authenticity, where I would die before I would trade in this life for something false and materialistic.  I think if I had a mortgage and bank loans, I would let them go into default before I would default on myself, my essence, and subvert my soul to the regimen of ordinary life.

So as I invite you on Tiger Lilies' journey, I am not asking you to take the high dive, but I am asking you to find and step into your joy and maybe - if you have the courage - to also to step out from under the heavy mantle you let the status quo heave over you.  

Last year when I was working as a chaplain at a local hospital, I met a man who was homeless.  As we talked about his life on the streets, I asked him if he had a plan to get his old life back, seek employment, find a home, live the American life again.  Evidently an educated man, he was articulate and wise in his own way, he said, fervently,  "never."  He had learned how to survive on very little, had friends and had a life and didn't want to go back to work as a slave to the system.  I was surprised.  I'd only met one person - back in Buffalo - who had the courage to do that.  Now, I am not advocating homelessness, yet I am advocating stepping off the treadmill of your life, look at your joy meter in your life and seek to live in that joy.  Take more time for your own heart, see if you can even feel it anymore, under all the layers of responsibilities and obligations you've piled over it.

Go swimming, dance in the rain, laugh at the angry drivers who are in such a hurry to do what?  to go where?  Where does any one of us have to get to but right here?  Right where you are is where you need to be.  Smile, you are loved,  now feel it and live like you know it.