Natural Truth

Yesterday, I shared coffee and conversation with spiritual friends, spiritual friends who are also mystics. Ever since a June retreat for Quaker mystics, we've carved out a monthly meeting time to check in with each other spiritually, support our journeys and be present to one another. There's no real set agenda, which is such a blessing. We're there to be ... together.

I crave this kind of connection, daily. Perhaps that's why I subscribe to two online meditations and just signed up for a third. I need reminders and companionship. Walking the walk isn't so easy for me. It can feel lonely and desolate at times. Me against the world, when I have forgotten that Spirit is always available. A grounding of like-hearted others is crucial.

We don't even have to talk about much in this group of three, though we usually meander some deep places. I like that we come as equals and can bare our souls. I shyly released a haunting confession yesterday, to which one friend spouted out a silly story and put my heart at ease. "I would have responded with something deeper," the other said and we all laughed. It was just right.

Such an antidote to the fact my life is in high gear as my daughters transition to ungodly wake-up times, heavy class loads and after-school commitments. Toss in six weeks of three birthdays, accompanied by parties and overnights, a major grant, evaluation of another, an Artsy Fartsy field trip and community art day and, well, you get the picture. Fill in your own details, I'm certain you recognize this space. Not much room for God.

"What art are you making?" one of my mystic cohorts chirps. "Are you blogging?" I confess that it's been ages since I've made art and that my usual, holy blogging days of Tuesday and Friday have been shuffled for 13th-year celebrations and pursuing grant finances, something I abhor because it is the least creative endeavor I can imagine.

I have an order for a Turtlebox, plan to open an Etsy shop with more and am dying to get knee-deep in a daylong retreat I am facilitating on naming gifts in October. But not until the surveys, evaluations and event planning happen. Sometimes I think the super structure will eat me alive. Without it, however, there's no funding for work God calls me to.

My husband hints that I wouldn't know myself unless I was stacked to the gills with work. I yearn for spaciousness. Do I make my work work? There have been times when it seems flowing and easy. This is not one of those. Now I feel ultra responsible, with few to share the burden physically, emotionally and spiritually.

One of my escapes when I am busy is to read. Currently, I'm reading Bridget Jones' Edge of Reason for the second time (I need to laugh, plus I love her vulnerability), Henri Nouwen's Spiritual Direction, Quaker Jan Wood's Christians at Work and The Edison Gene, which I find fascinating. Subtitled ADHD and the Gift of the Hunter Child,  I recognize elements of my youngest, but also myself. I have no problem focusing, but the sections on why some people can't function in the public-education system as well as the history of compulsory education help me see the untruth in our society. These artificial systems of dominance defeat our natural and beautiful wild tendencies, beating us into submission. No wonder I detested the corporate world and felt like an outsider in school, even if I could conform and do well. However, what speaks to me most are the sections on spirituality and mysticism. Thom Hartmann supposes with much fact that people with this hunter gene, holdover from ages ago, constantly scan the landscape and, with our changing technology this is, yet, another genetic adaptation not a disorder. These Hunter types stray from the mainstream, seeking a direct experience of the divine, dream and have an inner knowing that's lacking today. THIS is where I want to live.

I'd love to trade the busyness and super structure for dreaming, closeness to God and deep relationship with others. What's stopping me?

• With whom do I share my spiritual journey?
• When do I have a space for that with no other agenda?
• Who are the companions or mystics in my life?
• How do I nurture my spirituality and connection to God?
• What untruths have I recognized in the secular world?


in 20 years,
the NPR reporter says,

productivity has
risen 70 percent

and salaries,
5 percent

craziness, I say

just what are we 
laboring and pushing for?

and when we have trouble
focusing, they suggest
we are disordered

when the truth is
the material world
creates myth and
a vicious cycle

like the lab rat in
a cage, unable 
to see her way out

dreaming, praying
and connecting
are the essential
and natural Truth

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Dance of obedience

Last week, I was privileged to, again, be the focus of a Quaker clearness committee, the small-group process of deep listening to another. Listening, reflecting back what the speaker said, asking questions for clarity and assisting that person in discovering the guidance of their Inner Teacher.

This is the fifth clearness committee I've been the subject of; I've served on several others. Each one has been different. Some, such as those for membership or marriage, are more clear cut with questions outlined. Mine on concerns of ministry generally seek answers to where God is leading me and currently working in my life. Of course, I am constantly discerning that for myself and checking in with others who nurture me, but, sometimes, I suspect, those sources tell me what I want to hear, not necessarily what I ought to hear.

The same person who has convened my last three sessions has scrupulously ensured that each one be as pure as possible. Because of his careful guidance, these sessions have been gifts. A previous committee offered advice that weighed me down. Another was silent and left me wondering and in doubt.

The two questions with which I am working from my most recent session include naming the props I feel Spirit is asking me to surrender and removing my block to aligning my spiritual work with income and career.

Clearly, God told me I did not need props such a a book, a turtlebox or studio. Initially, I thought that meant to surrender those things. Then I surmised it could signify a willingness to surrender them. With patient listening and careful questions, I am understanding what those objects Spirit named represent: worldly recognition, identity and security. My life is about faithfulness in using my gifts as God desires. [Interestingly, I just led a retreat session in naming gifts]. I now see it's about laying down illusion and forming a different dream, one I co-create with Spirit, than the world pushes and let the rest fall into place WITHOUT worry, fear or doubt.

F(ear) = listening to the wrong source

Doodling I did prepping for a retreat on naming gifts

Out of that clearness session also came the suggestion to read a book by Quaker Jan Wood called "Christians at Work." Typically, I veer from anything with the word Christian in the title, assuming there's some sort of judgment. But I know Jan Wood; she's traveled to our meetinghouse to facilitate two retreats and her Good News Associates presented me with a ministry grant last summer. She sees things in fresh ways, inspired by Jesus and scripture.

In fact, years ago, when she was summoned for a retreat on stewardship, she rocked our world, looking directly at us at pointing out that we should and could be funding the ministry of 6 people. She said stewardship, according to Jesus' view, is not about comfort and buildings, but about supporting people and ministry. A few years later, when our meeting so very easily agreed to spend $90,000 on new "green" windows, Jan's words haunted me. I spoke up and said that if we could easily spend money on comfort and energy efficiency, couldn't we also support ministry. The meeting listened and, eventually, set up a ministry fund. That was years ago and I had no idea I would ever apply for or be the recipient of any of that funding, I just knew what Jan Wood had said. God works in wonderful and mysterious ways.

Jan's book has been just the tonic I needed, describing how work, originally as God intended, was a natural, shared adventure, not slaving away at a boring desk job just to pay the bills. She speaks of the world's system and God's:

"When we're knitted back into God's heart through Jesus, we leave the systems of this world based on distrust of God and reliance on human senses and wisdom."

She speaks of obedience as relaxing, a liberating dance and how tasks, turned to service, become profound worship.

This is where I want to live.


• How do I seek my Inner Teacher?
• Where do I seek outside help in that listening and discerning?
• What difference can that deep listening by another make?
• What is or has God asked me to surrender?
• What does obedience look like for me?


I'm not sure I
could have been
on the hotseat,
she remarked

meaning the focus
of a clearness
committee

for me, it
wasn't that,
but the chance
to get out of
my own head

and into my heart
where Jesus,
the Inner Teacher,
dwells

once there,
I'm certain
that I don't
ever want 
to leave

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