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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.

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!

SELF- AWARENESS SUCKS

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grasshopper on top of world Anything that is both absolutely essential and inherently difficult, by definition, sucks. Mindfulness, the most important tool to emotional and spiritual healing, growth and wellness, can be a graduate level S&M course from which one never graduates. So why bother? The pay off is worth it. Of course, to find out what that is you have to read all the way through to the end 🙂 But, first a few reasons why it really sucks:

 

1) Self- awareness sucks because I can’t be a pernicious pain in the ass provoking mass flight from friends and family, and then blame said flight on said friends and family. Unfortunately, self awareness requires an hourly examination of my true motivations and an assessment of whether I am being truly loving to my fellow man or fake- loving to get them to behave in a way that makes me more comfortable or directly benefits me in some way.

 

2) Self- awareness sucks because I can’t blame disappointments, hurts and failures on

“ my enemies”. I can no longer do this because I know my true enemies are my thoughts. Fear, guilt, self- condemnation, arrogance and insecurity are the line-up that will cause me to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory before any living person can truly have power over me. It sucks because I have to ask myself, does my attitude match the facts? I should have been born centuries ago during the time of the Huns, because I am always girding my loins in preparation for Barbarians at the Gate, most of whom never arrive except when I invite them in, which leads me to number 3.

 

3) I have to ask myself “ what would I do if I weren’t afraid?” about every 60 seconds, because I am aware of how fear is the prism through which I often choose to view my world. It is my fall- back position. Self- awareness requires me to act the opposite of what my mind is telling me to do, which is “ batten down the hatches!”

4) Self- awareness sucks because it isn’t flat. It’s a multi- level high rise, and it’s about progress not perfection. If I am self- aware, I can no longer hide behind technical truthiness.

I can have awareness of something in my mind, and it may be the literal truth. From my mind, awareness then travels to my heart. This is a deeper level of truth for me. This is where denial begins to fall away and those hurts from way back when begin to surface. It is painful, but it passes to the next level after the tears have been shed or the anger has flared, and it reveals a still deeper level of truth—the emotional truth.

I never felt anger until I finally got to this level and, as a consequence, I had no idea what a boundary was. I was trampled and resentful and had no idea why. Once I tended these truths begging for my attention, I discovered boundaries, and stopped being a professional doormat.

It’s at this point that my higher power shows up because I’m hurting and I ask for help. A more accurate statement would be I’m suddenly aware of his presence, because I start looking for it.

Then, my awareness reaches the cellular level and I am sitting atop the high rise. Fear is no longer present. I am not attached to an outcome, the past or the future, and therefore, my vision is unimpeded.

This is the only point at which I literally hear the deep and unabashed truth coming out of my own mouth. In the long run, it is always kinder.

 

So, what on earth is worth all of this self- vigilance, you might ask?

Here is the big payoff:

 

I don’t need to blame God for ignoring me because I am aware that I have ignored him, and that he has always been there. I know that he is not too busy to help me: I’ve been too busy to ask, and I know I can rectify that oversight at any time. I don’t have to lose my peace or obsess about if I am in his will because I know that so long as I am in the presence of my loving creator, I cannot really avoid being where he wants me to be.

I get the true humility that comes from knowing the whole truth about myself and speaking it.

I get courage, if not the freedom from fear.

I get success, fruitful relationships and spiritual transformation.

I get to finally close the door on the past, and let happiness and blessings happen, instead of vigilantly watching for them, with firmly clenched fists.

I get true abundance, as my eyes are opened to miracles and blessings falling on me like rain.

 

“ My God with his loving kindness, shall come to meet me at every corner.”

Psalms 59:10.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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