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WE MUST CONVICT TRUMP TO SAVE CHRISTIANITY FROM TRUMPISM.

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Is it Christian to murder a policeman?  Is it Christian to attempt to murder the Vice President because he won’t lie for you? is it Christian to attempt to murder the Speaker of the House because she’s a different political party from you? IS it Christian to incite others to attempt these murders?

Is it Christian to violently overthrow the government because you’re unhappy that you lost? Is it Christian to incite others to do so?

Is it Christian to label the 81 million people who voted for a guy who wasn’t your r guy as evil, Satanist, pedophiles, and socialists, when you don’t know any of these people?

Is it Christian to slander the new, devout Catholic President by calling him a Satanist, a pedophile, or a socialist, when you know these terms to be untrue?

            Is it Christian to disobey laws because you don’t like them?

            Does Christianity make you immune to the rule of laws or consequences?      

Is it Christian to assume everyone who doesn’t agree with us politically is a Satan -worshipping baby – molester?  Is it Christian to accuse our political rivals of these things, when we know it’s a lie?

If you answered, no, would you trust a friend who answered, yes? Would you want to join a religion that answered yes to all or most of the above questions?  

A surprisingly high number of Christians think all of the above is ok. Five years ago, the answers would be resounding no to the above questions. The mission of Christianity is to win others to Christianity by our example, i.e. how we treat people. We are to be the light and salt of the world. Do you ever wonder how that mission is going of late?

We all saw it. We all watched in terror and horror.  Craziness just destroyed the Capitol in the 1st violent coup attempt in our history. Animals broke in, many proclaiming their Christianity all over social media, all proclaiming their worship of and service to Donald Trump, a false prophet if there ever was one. They sought to hang their Vice President and assassinate the Speaker of the House because both opted to follow our Constitution and tell the truth. They’re on video  attempting to do just that. They lied to themselves and everyone else about their motives. Wrapped in “patriotism”, they beat two cops to death. —. All of this horror occurred in the service of the man they worship—Trump, and the 33,000 lies pinning his fragile ego together.  His lies became their only truth. Lies about who won. Lies about voting machines and good civil servants just doing their jobs. These dedicated civil servants had to hide and hire protective details because thugs threatened to rape their daughters and murder them. Trump has not only corrupted large swaths of the GOP, he’s corrupted and confused large swaths of Christianity.

The Bible says Satan is the Father of Lies. The End Times will Include a False Prophet who claims to be one of the Christian faithful and spreads lies and hatred. Look at from where the lies are  emanating. The beating, black heart of these abominable lies that came within a hair’s breadth of destroying our country began with the  political party that’s branded itself as the only party for Christians—the GOP.  Many of us don’t believe any of this nonsense, but millions do. The lies began 33,000 lies ago with small things like crowd size and then spread to everything – even the weather! Truth itself was suspended for 4 years in the interest of politics. And many Christians went along for the ride to be “good Christians”. What happened on January 6 was entirely predictable.

But, four years ago in 2016, millions were miserably unhappy and frightened over the election results. Many thought the election was stolen by a foreign power. They were reviled and threatened and called babies, and a lot of other things.  These millions feared the new President would destroy the nation, but not a shot was fired.  No one tried to murder the Vice President or the Speaker of the House, or incite violence or the overthrow of the government.  No one murdered policemen. Power was handed over peacefully, because   better angels were in control. Peaceful protests occurred all over the world. The people so many “Christians” love to slander as Communists, socialists, Satanists, cannibals and pedophiles, behaved admirably and morally, holding  themselves accountable for protecting the Constitution and our democracy. They did the right and “Christian” thing, in contrast to the GOP, the party of “ Christian” values. Maybe those of us worried about our nation should be taking a hard look at Christianity, not Antifa.

Christianity desperately needs to be redeemed. Its credibility  is in tatters because of its abusive parent, the GOP. There’s lying, conspiracy theories, blaming, excusing, and enabling, and Trump- groveling. The few who took a moral stand after almost being murdered by their fellow party members have been treated as heretics.  Is Christianity without accountability or truth worth much at all? Who will believe us, when a large portion of our faith supports these lies and expects to be excused for the lies, the insurrection, the deaths?  The lies are still being spread. Someone just sent me an email proclaiming Kamala Harris was a Satanist because she placed her small clutch on the bible she swore on. Christianity has got some big problems – bigger than putting a clutch on a Bible. Maybe we should be taking a serious look at Christianity instead of Antifa. 

What makes Christians so willing to believe hateful, crazy untrue things about their neighbors, while excusing themselves from self- examination or accountability? Crackpots on social media and craven GOP politicians who stoke the flames to get or stay in power.

 If we want to save Christianity for those of us who want it to be more than screaming conspiracy theories and bullying others, we have to hold those who have lied and lied and lied again accountable. Those who sought to overthrow the government must be held accountable, and those who warped and betrayed our Christian moral framework must be held accountable also. There’s more to Christianity than just how loud you proclaim it.

I’m sick of this wimpy, deluded, violent brand of Christianity. It doesn’t stand for anything. Certainly not courage, and it’s taking all of the oxygen out of the moral and spiritual conversation so badly needed right now.

  Real Christians don’t spread lies and conspiracy theories against others because they don’t like their politics, nor do they murder cops “for the cause.” They don’t overthrow the government and seek to assassinate their leaders because they’re unhappy.  They don’t blame others for their own transgressions, and seek to evade accountability for their own actions at every turn.  They hold themselves accountable and take their medicine.  It’s time for America to take its medicine. Jesus may forgive, but laws, constitutions and social fabrics do not.  This isn’t a holy war against our fellow Americans. It’s a lie and it’s dangerous. Let’s save ourselves, save our faith, save our country by voting Donald Trump “guilty” in his impeachment trial.  Let’s free Christianity from the GOP. Unity only happens after reconciliation. Reconciliation occurs after accountability for the lies.

JOY IN CHRISTMAS TIMES LIKE THESE

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 It’s always a song that saves me when I’ve completely lost the point.

     I’ve always thought of myself as a creative introvert. Joy was not something to be hunted, but found in the process.  When the pandemic first hit and our walls got closer and our circles got smaller, I was in heaven.  I had an excuse to fold in on myself and go deep. I could do nothing but create, meditate, pray, and think. I had a plan. I wasn’t afraid. I was going to live in my studio and come out the other side with some amazing stuff. I could also use the solitude to get closer to my God without feeling like I was avoiding social interaction.

It felt like a cosmic deepening and shift. Everyone was in the same place and focusing.  We were all waking up. A time of hope and rebuilding, personally and globally. I was an explosion of expression. So much novel territory to reflect. I could stay informed and get involved. There were so many opportunities to give.

   That all worked for about 6 months. Who ever thought we’d all still be here 8 months later?  I hit the wall. I had created and didn’t want to do it anymore. I had given to food banks and food pantries and charities and the homeless and still the yawning chasm of need I saw on the news never narrowed.  The world was not only waking up, it appeared to be burning down. The need was endless. I tried every Bible app and meditation to put a new fire in my spiritual journey. I took walking meditations.  But, my joy enthusiasm were gone. Watching the news revealed not hope, but terror. That all worked for the first 3 months. But then, I wasn’t joyful. I was exhausted and scared all of the time. I didn’t want to do anything at all. I had poured everything I had to give out and it wasn’t working. Reading the bible wasn’t working. Praying wasn’t working.  Solitude wasn’t working. The things that were so rare and gave me so much joy pre- pandemic, didn’t do it after pandemic.

   After a while, you just want to see someone’s entire face, without the mask. You want a hug or a smile. You want to see your aging parents or be able to travel to see your kids, or just travel with your spouse, because ya’ll dreamed and planned for it your whole lives.  You want to collaborate in person, not via Zoom.   

Lo and Behold, there was Dave Grohl:

   It’s times like these,

   You learn to live again.

   It’s times like these you learn to love again

   It’s times like these you give and give again

   It’s times like these, time and time again.

Where do we find hope that isn’t dreaming? The regular reassurance we need in a time when nothing is regular, reassuring or normal?

    I realized that it’s not the big things that give  us hope and strength; it’s the little ones. My joy needs a scaffolding of daily touchstones to give it meaning and purpose, to foster hope. We learn new traditions. We hone in on smaller events.   We keep loving and giving. Meals with our family. Learning to cook and bake and do power yoga. Long walks with our significant other. Our furry family members , who we can still hug!

Christmas is still coming! O holy Night is still a miracle of meaning and melody that takes my breath away every single time. A human being wrote that!  Or, if you prefer, Mariah Carey is still singing All I Want for Christmas. Our friends and family are still there, and they still love us, even if we can’t all be in the same room.

   Especially when everything is turned on its head, basic isn’t bad, even spiritually. There is an overwhelming array of Bible verses, Bible apps, Bible stories, but these days, for me, the comforting repetition of two verses gives me the strength and grounding I need.   I start and  surrender my day  with Psalm 31. It  even has a little Step 3 prayer in it: My times are in your hands... Into your hands I commit my Spirit.  To clear the day away at the end of the day, I use Psalm 91. For me, they work, because I can count on them, just like I can rely on the Fall leaves, the sunrise and sunset, the continued love of my family and friends. Faith in things unseen is one thing, but we can also have faith in the small things we do see.

    Every December, I pick a phrase that I aspire to live fully in the coming year.  My phrase for 2021 and  the remains of 2020 is Grounded in Joy, thanks to Foo Fighters and the pandemic. I discovered that passion is a lifeforce, but it can drain all of one’s strength and energy,  if it isn’t grounded in something less ephemeral. If I live entirely in my head and heart, my feet won’t be rooted in reality. And it’s loving what is right here and now, finding joy in the present moment that gives me strength, grounding me in joy. Reach and hope for the stars, but keep your feet firmly planted on the ground. Reality is our friend.

What to Pray When Your Prayers aren’t Working.

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    Sometimes, I’m a -Whac -A- Mole too slow to avoid the hammer.Obstacles and challenges are things I usually leap and dodge, like hurdles. But, if I can’t see God’s direction for a sustained time, I can become exhausted, confused. I can spend months not wanting to get up off the mat, because I don’t know in which direction to go.

    When my prayers seem like they are hitting an invisible ceiling and bouncing back to me, I pray the Ho’oponopono Prayer:

    I am sorry.

    Please forgive me.

    I love you.

    I thank You.

    It works. In this simple prayer, I assume Jesus is filling in the gaps, and interceding on my behalf or on behalf of the person I’m praying for. This gives me peace and is the simplest way for me to place myself, my loved ones, and even the world itself, in God’s hands. It becomes a mantra I can repeat throughout the day. It can be said to God, myself, or prayed over a person or situation.

    I don’t know what I don’t know. He is God and I am not. That may be a point of frustration, but it’s also where the mystery, glory, and miracles reside.

    TELL ME, WHO ARE YOU?

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    If you don’t let go, you’ll get dragged. As humans, we strive, we grasp, we control, we grab anything and everything, and refuse to let go unless it’s taken from our hands. This is America. We never surrender, never stop, and Die Hard. Because of this attitude, when someone or something precious to us — a pillar of our lives– has been ripped from us,  it threatens to obliterate us.

    When we’re obliterated, the things we already know aren’t accessible to us. We’re lost in the woods in the dark, with no flashlight.  We can’t remember how we got here, much less, how to get out. We no longer know who we are without this person, dream, talent, possession, etc.

    For example, I had two treasures that were the two halves of me, I thought, and temporarily lost them both. All that was left of me was weeping pieces. I was erased.

    I ‘m a lawyer. Translation: fast on my feet, at ease verbally, sometimes insufferable, love a challenge, incapable of being intimidated, tough and strong. I liked those traits. But, on December 6, 2012, all of that changed, and the fearless part of me was erased, along with my short- term memory, my ability to drive without panic attacks, and my identity.

    I was stopped at the yield sign at the 290 and I 35 interchange. Someone hit me from behind, going 50 mph, and I felt my brain shake in my head.  I don’t remember much else except looking up at the 18-year-old with no insurance who was driving her grandmother’s car without her permission asking if I was ok. As a typical American, I said “sure”. I was tough and strong.  By the next day, my way of being in the world vanished.  I was the Scarecrow needing the Wizard  of OZ to give me back my brain. That was 8 years ago. This year, I got my memory back, but have still felt lost.

     God wasn’t finished with the tour de force in which he had me enrolled.

    I was a concert pianist. If there was any place with a baby grand or grand piano, I would sit down and run through my repertoire, compiled through my 11 years of piano lessons.  It was my meditation and peace. It was the gentle other side of the hard- charging warrior persona. I needed it to feel whole.

     In October of 2018, I fell and shattered my hand, and it mended in such a way that my fingers couldn’t move across the keyboard. So, here I was without my familiar touchstones to guide me back to myself.

    But, these “essential” parts of my history were hiding something more important I couldn’t see until the obstacle—me–was removed.

    When we’re obliterated and detoured, the only thing to do is retrace our own footsteps.  The people God puts in our lives are no accident. Only very recently through the perceptions of my wonderful friend, Anita, did I get a glimpse of the truth and the purpose of this detour.

    She’s an Enneagram Yoda, and assessed me as a 4. But this wasn’t who I thought I was. I was strong and tough! I was objective and analytical. I had these skills, but they were not who I was. What I lost was my crutch, and what I received was the gift back of my true identity.

    For a 4 to be happy and optimally functional, she must live from the heart. That’s where her confidence comes from. But I’d been living in my head since law school!  How insane.  My heart had been starving for decades.

    I received a course correction, and a reminder the part about being a lawyer that I loved didn’t come from a fancy law school or prestigious law practice.  It came from my childhood dinner table! Some law professor didn’t give me my gift of oratory, debate, or confidence. My parents did! It’s always about relationships, isn’t it?

    The piano was always calling me back to my heart, back to myself, back to vulnerabilities, out of my intellect. It took losing it, to shed what Thomas Merton calls “the false self.”

    So, who we think we are, often isn’t even close. We put on “temporary costumes” * to cope with loss, change, and the ambiguous nature of life, and then forget we’re wearing them. In doing so we refuse to surrender to something bigger than us, something better to our own true selves.

    Our hearts are our North Star, if we don’t let loss and confusion blind us to what’s been in front of our faces all along.

     We may pray for divine intervention and look for grandiose flashes in the sky as an answer. But, the answers inhabit the everyday miracles in life right now—friends. Music. Even lawyers.  Pianos. The things we have that we love call us back to ourselves and the world with renewed purpose and vigor. Above all else guard your heart, for it’s the wellspring of life.

    So, tell me, who are you?

    *Richard Rohr, The Universal Christ.

    SEEING

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    I saw beauty and magnificence today, with a side of inspiration. As I walked through my neighborhood, I smelled grass, trees, and flowers. I felt peace, gratitude, and, most significantly, awe.  I got an energy infusion from the warm spring sun and air. I heard children laughing and windchimes playing harmonies across backyard fences. I felt God’s presence and my own. My mind slowed long enough for the rest of me to catch up.

    During my walk, the usual static was replaced with the quiet certainty of knowing I was exactly where I was supposed to be, doing what I was supposed to do. I was happy without trying to be happy. I felt joy without praying to be joyful or undertaking a self-improvement checklist that promised joy upon completion.

    We strive to be rational. We plan our futures. We plan to be happy tomorrow. But, happiness is only possible in what Richard Rohr calls The Naked Now. Buddhists call it the present moment and mindfulness.

    We spend so much time trying to get God to love us! But, if we show up for ourselves just for this moment, we can forget trying to be perfect, productive, and accomplished long enough to let God love us and really feel it. That’s a game changer!

    ALL TOGETHER NOW!

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    We’re locked in a war that’s making us all hostages.   We ‘re all scared. Politics has swallowed up everything else that matters, it seems, until there is no oxygen or energy left for anything else. Some may enjoy the constant combat, but most of us want things to calm down. It’s like the Talking Heads song: How on Earth Did We Get Here? We can blame the politicians, who richly deserve it, but nothing will ever change if we do that.  Politics is about pointing and blaming, to some extent. Maybe, it’s time for us to look at us? If experience is our teacher, what are we learning? What are we teaching? How much of what we’re experiencing in our political system today is about what we choose to see and the meaning we choose to give it?

      This may seem a radical statement, but I don’t think my Liberal Arts Degree was the cakewalk for stoners it was labelled to be. I’m more convinced of this every day. In many ways it’s exactly what we need today. It teaches what so many are looking for: that we’re not alone, that we’re not meant to be, and that we, in fact, never were.  Liberal Arts means a generous, extensive course curriculum. —the big picture. The more information is fragmented and aligned with our preferences, the less useful that information becomes. It provides no navigation tools for turning off the fear, the rage, the confusion we are being fed by our televisions.  But my liberal arts education taught me all I needed to know to combat all of this noise.  Here’s how:

    I learned that troublesome people are often my teachers, particularly those I wish I’d never met. When I was at the University of Texas and Vanderbilt University, the schools deliberately paired Engineering students with English majors as roommates.  We thought it a sadistic exercise of power, but this simple practice was a deliberate part of our education.  We mocked each other’s chosen careers and thought the people with whom we had been paired extra- terrestrials. I, as an English major, was in “Arts and Crafts” and “Finger-painting”, and my roommate’s future vocation of Engineer was labelled “Robot” and “Gearhead.”  But when our own skills, mindsets, emotional intelligence, and aptitudes weren’t enough for an educational or life challenge, we borrowed those of our roommates and increased our arsenal for taking on the world. My engineer roommates taught me women could be tough and compete in male- dominated fields, and gave me organizational skills that made me more productive as a writer and artist and eventual lawyer.

    I learned the real, comprehensive story of America and its place in the world through the study of world and American history.  I learned how a multitude of disciplines and points of view made us an indomitable whole.  I learned that America had help from other countries, particularly France, in becoming America.. I learned our American system of government, how the branches of government are designed to work, and when they don’t.  History reaffirmed our American values and explained why they were our values in the first place. It gave profiles and examples of courage, heroism, service, and sacrifice. It chronicled our mistakes and recorded them for posterity, so future generations wouldn’t repeat them. Attempts to correct these mistakes are the beginnings of policy.  In the study of history, we got to stand on the shoulders of millions who went before us and learn what their lives taught us, without having to suffer their tragedies. Our history is a gorgeous, unlikely miracle illustrating how the sum of our many parts made a whole of incalculable beauty.

    Those “useless” English Literature and foreign language courses gave me the most precious thing possible:  a way to disagree with my friends, and still keep them as friends. They did this by giving me a bridge of language I could use to reach and learn about people unlike me.  Friends did not used to ask each other who they voted for before becoming friends in the first place. It made life so much easier. We had other things to talk about. We were focused on learning each other’s story and walking with them as it unfolded.

    A broad- based education has served for generations to be an orientation on everything you want or need to know about America; our history and why it’s important, our heroes, and our children’s potential place in all of this.   It gave me a common story with every other American and gave me the gift of being  part of a giant family, all working together. It’s always the story that matters, that transforms and changes, not whatever technical information we may learn.

    My education taught me to stay curious and dive in. That’s the magic bullet for fighting fear. I can say this from personal experience, as a naturally fearful person. For this reason alone, a broad education is worth its weight in gold.

    Curiosity allows the mind to open just long enough for it to assimilate new information before fears sets in and stops us. It allowed me the space to ask the 3 questions that keep propelling me forward: What if? Why not? and Who says? I never would have gone to law school if I relied on polling to make my decision. No one thought I could do it, and that made me curious to see if I could. Even more importantly, how can I progress spiritually if I don’t wonder and question?

     Fight or Flight does not provide insight. 

      The antidotes to the terror we all can feel when we look at our world and the safety of our children in it are love, curiosity, and engagement.  The cure for our world and our politics is us—daring to live without fear and throwing ourselves into humanity and watching for what unfolds. No one mentors or transforms themselves.

    It all comes down to the two roommates I described in paragraph 3 of this essay. Are they fellow travelers and friends, or enemy combatants? Is life a never-ending adventure and classroom for them or a sentence only to be endured? Is the world something benign and beautiful, or is it menacing and dangerous? Are there infinite possibilities for them? Do they stay in touch? I’ve got to believe that everyone we meet is our teacher, especially those we may wish we never met, that all things and people work together for our eventual good, that our purpose is to keep learning, and that life is most definitely not over after High School.

    There is a way for all of us to come home.

    10 REASONS TO GOBBLE UP GRATITUDE THIS THANKSGIVING

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    1. Gratitude slaps fear in the face of fear and subdues it. For that reason alone, we must return Thanksgiving Day and Thanksgiving Week to their glory days as full-throated holidays. Not at all coincidentally, thought and conversation about the traditions of Thanksgiving and the reasons for it keep family discussions away from the rolling political disasters and crises that turn discussions into hyper- heated detours from which no one returns alive.

    We all need a freaking break. And turning Black Friday into Death Race 2018 isn’t taking a break. Let’s pause long enough to actually remember we like our relatives, so long as we’re not playing Hot Topics truth or dare. Gratitude and inspiration breed hope, and fear takes them away. So, here’s a little dose of hope for the holidays.

    2.In light of the California Camp fires and the Paradise Fire, we can be grateful that the relatives sitting around our Thanksgiving Table or celebrating with us from afar are still in our lives, still breathing air, annoying us, challenging us, inspiring us, and lifting us when we fall. To a large extent, they have formed us.

    1. There’s always another source of inspiration just around the corner. The world is full of unsung heroes quietly living their lives, forming a protective circle around us. Of course, we’re so thankful for the first responders in the news today, who keep us safe in ways of which we are only marginally aware. The fact that these people exist in the world, who’ve run into the fire, the flood, the dissolving buildings, is nothing short of a miracle. But, each of our lives is also populated with people who help us and give us the love and courage to be exactly who we are. For every image that inspires fear, there are many more people that inspire faith, courage, and admiration.

    4.If we have a roof over our heads, a warm bed to sleep in, a fridge full of food, clean water to bathe with and drink, and clean air to breathe, we’re not only better off than two thirds of the world, we’re better off than cities and counties of the United States of America.This one gets cited often during the holidays, because every day proves its truth.

    5.And then there’s holiday fatigue. We can be thankful that we have the right and the means to veg out and take a break, when we need to. There is nothing wrong with a well-timed retreat, if it provides an escape from  the sad, abandoned pets on TV, the ubiquitous Michael Buble’ Christmas CD, the Will Mariah or won’t Mariah have a New Year’s Eve Meltdown? quandary, the frantic trip to the frantic mall with the frantic minions spraying frantic fragrance in our frantic faces, as we frantically check items off our frantic Christmas lists, and prepare to fight with other frantic shoppers in the parking lot!

    1. Art, music, movies, painting, poetry, travel, and each other can all be the difference in a life. A movie, a song, a sonnet, a book, or a trip can live in us like a joyful virus for weeks and months, keeping us strong, and then we get to pass it on! We pass it on by inviting others to enjoy what we enjoy, through groups, retreats, clubs, blogs, videos. Or we can create these inspirational art forms ourselves, if we’re so inclined. We can join with other creatives like ourselves and collaborate. These things and so many others ignite the spark of joy within us. We get to be the neurotransmitters of joy! What could be better than that? These joy- starters are always there, as long as we can see, hear, and move.
    2. We can be thankful for the struggle, for it’s only the struggle that teaches courage, perseverance, when to shut up and listen, when to speak up, and the common sense to know we don’t know enough yet or that more action is required. This year, the struggle has made us bulletproof and bionic.
    3. A late bloomer still blooms. All we need is a pause and a reboot.
    4. Finally, I’m grateful for the fact that God brought each of you into my life, as a continual source of inspiration.
    5. Oh, and coffee!

    Without the wonderful aroma, the beautiful-bitter taste and the sizable jolt it provides, we’d never make it out of bed to ponder the imponderables, journey towards purpose, or write or communicate anything intelligible to anyone. Happy Thanksgiving, and thanks to each and every one of you for everything you add to my life.

    Need more inspiration?  Click here: https://www.amazon.com/Ignite-Poems-L-E-Kinzie/dp/1635052114/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1468507965&sr=8-1&keywords=kinzie+ignite

     

     

    HOW TO BLOOM

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    I don’t happen to believe that people who are truly spiritual are even aware of their spirituality. And here I am writing a spiritual blog, stumbling from one lesson to the next, inviting you to come with me. But, I think that’s the point. In sharing our stories of imperfect stumbling and discovery, we are sharing the most vulnerable and important part of ourselves, and are exercising our spirituality.

    So much of our spiritual lesson is loss, and dealing with it. We are bulbs stuck in the dark, yearning to see the light and open. But, when we finally blossom, the light is glaring, and we feel exposed, and maybe afraid. There are prettier blooms out there! We have left the safety of the dark soil behind.

    That is loss. Life requires us to shed the things we can’t carry or that belong to someone else on our journey.

    Sometimes, we’re presented with the necessity masquerading as an option, to shed people, or bad habits, or a way of coping with life that is fearful, critical, or foolish. I personally can fill in the blank with 100 different things that don’t get me anywhere spiritually or anywhere else. They’re stupid habits, that provide momentary comfort, that are ridiculously hard to drop! It’s even more difficult to opt out of certain relationships in the realization that you have changed beyond them and they just don’t want the new you—they want the old version. All of these things or circumstances are innocuous in and of themselves, but they can eat up other options, even a calling.

    Sometimes, the lesson is more brutal, as someone who occupies a chamber of our very heart is ripped from our lives. How to make sense of the brutal pain? I’m watching someone I love go through this now. Why did it happen? No mortal can answer the question.

    I don’t think God is doing something to us or taking the things we lean on to make us grow. I think we can’t help but grow, if we let the tears out and let them water us like rain, letting our hearts open to the sunlight that’s still there, and always has been. 

    BOOK REVIEW: LINCOLN IN THE BARDO by George Sanders

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    Compelling stories can be transformative for both reader and writer. They unify us because everyone’s got one. Even non- fiction and poetry genres tell a story, or they aren’t reaching anyone who cares.

    Lincoln In the Bardo is one hell of a weird, wonderful, super-unique, cosmic journey of a novel. The author has painstakingly researched and accumulated real newspaper reports and book quotes from the time of Lincoln about him, his family, his acquaintances and party, and the Civil War, and incorporated these into a novel astounding in its breadth and scope, spanning love, war, hate, grief, loss, life, death, and beyond, blurring the boundaries of them all.

    Too many details will give away too much, but like other great novels such as The Goldfinch, The Nightingale, and All the Light We Cannot See, this work’s profundity sneaks up on the reader and will leave him or her breathless and thoughtful for quite a while.

    It confronts the darker instincts and fears that unite us in our humanity, and shows these darkest instincts and circumstances can give way to something brilliant, good, and immortal.

    Likewise, books give us a kind of immortality: they spawn further creativity, clarity, and invention. They get under our skin like a virulent contagion, and change us, as we pass our insights and creations on and on. Enjoy!

    Lauren

    http://www.lekinzie.com

    “A spiritual journey is a terrible thing to waste.”

    THE TRADE

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    THE TRADE

     

    The inward battle—against our mind, our

    wounds, and the residues of the past—is more

    terrible than the outward battle.

    —Swami S

     

    If you don’t have 10 minutes, you don’t have a life. 

    Tony Robbins

    We’re in a Game of Thrones society now. We’re tethered to a remarkably short and fraying fuse, ready for combat at the slightest disrespect or perceived injury. Everything is always winner take all, and there’s a trail of bodies in our wake, because losing an argument now is cause for public shaming. We’re all so very war- weary, and it feels like we’re under an existential threat. As Father Thomas Keating said, we’re in a cultural straightjacket.

    Most of us are getting progressively more desperate for less Game of Thrones and more I love Lucy in our daily lives– a little humor, a little perspective, a little lightheartedness.

    I think I know how we got here.

    We traded communion for connection, after

    We traded wisdom for information, after

    We traded eye contact for feedback, after

    We traded contemplation for activity, after

    We traded authenticity for truthiness, after

    We traded mastering ourselves for managing our image, after

    We traded understanding and community for tribal identity, after

     We traded accuracy for speed, after

    We traded self- knowledge for goals.

    Not coincidentally, we’re immersed in the trivia of each other’s lives to the exclusion of our own. We’re more attuned to whether others are succeeding at their goals or agree with us, than knowing what we truly want. It’s a world of spiritual poverty and perceived dire scarcity, and yet we run from the fact that we’re all connected, because we’re all connected.

    Everything that’s happening in the world is actually happening to us.

    Charles Eisenstein

    As one Hurricane Harvey survivor put it,

    Everybody needs everybody.

    It hurts and makes us feel even more helpless and tiny than we do already, unless we can get in there immediately and help. Hurricanes Harvey and Irma brought us together as we all jumped in and helped, donated, or both. But, other things, farther away, like the Congo make us feel somewhat impotent. What’s the point of seeing all of this suffering if we personally can’t get in there quick and do something about it? Of course, there is a point, and yet we run from it like Ebola. We voluntarily make the trades mentioned above rather than face it. It might as well be written on a tablet in Greek, locked in a cave with the Dead Sea Scrolls, because that’s how far away we want it to be.

    We’re afraid we’re going to have to sit in a prayer closet in the lotus position, breathing like a lifelong Yogi, waiting for God to show us what our purpose is, and there will be only silence. Or, even worse, we’ll do it wrong, we’ll have spent the money for the prayer pillows and the God box, and somehow, we’ll piss him off. Or that in the silence in the middle of the night, after we turn off the reruns and the infomercials, we’ll realize we aren’t anywhere close to our path, or that the grief we feel will break loose in a torrent and we’ll lose ourselves in it forever.

    But, it’s simple. It’s how we think of it that’s terrifying. TV taketh away, but sometimes it givith, by showing how something scary and complicated isn’t either of those things. I’m going to get us there via a TV show called The Leftovers about running away from loss and pain, individual and global, about existential crisis. But that has nothing to do with us, right?

    Each character devises a story to explain his or her pain, in the hopes of minimizing it. There are clues to the greater meaning, as we and they attempt to decipher it all. Some characters even attempt to escape the suffering and ambiguity by dying.  But they can’t, and no answers ever come. Their elaborate explanations of why are false, and each is operating as an imposter because of them. Each character finally hurls themselves into what is, facing the darkness and their own imminent mortality, only to find they get to start again.

    The brilliance of the show is that we go along for the ride, only to discover the clues were just red herrings, pointing to the now obvious: there’s no escape.   The situation was horrible, but they were inflicting the torture upon themselves.

    The only way out is through, hurling ourselves into loss, grief, and  uncertainty, and the fact that none of us have enough time, by learning to listen to the silence, so we can hear our true natures, for how can we face the world and all of its tragedy as imposters? 

     But, it’s not about hours logged in the prayer closet like it’s punishment or atonement, —it’s our reward. We fear, because we misunderstand what silence is and what’s required to listen. Silence is playing with the dog for 10 minutes in the back yard and noticing that he smiles, and then noticing the trees are whispering as they dance in the wind. Something magnificent is happening at this moment, and we’re here in it. Something turns and softens in us and we aren’t scared or resentful or mad as hell anymore.

    Listening is simply listening in the moments when life is trying to tell us something, letting ourselves know that life is paradox, love, and loss, and letting the silence, the truth, and the tears cleanse us like rain, so we’re no longer haunted by the past. We can pay attention to what is happening now, all the wacky, crazy, tragic, comic beauty of it. Silence cleanses us of what blocks us from bravely facing the world as ourselves.

    It’s that simple: it’s a trade. We escape running and distraction for embracing the loss, the pain, the grief and helplessness and letting it wake us up, yet again, to our own lives, our own heartbeats, and tears. If we do this, then even the most mundane things can become our sanctuary, sprinkled in the sacred.

    Lauren

    http://www.lekinzie.com

     

    “A spiritual journey is a terrible thing to waste.”