My job description, from Spirit

Several jobs in the arts coupled with an unknown future for the building in which I rent sparked me to update my resume. I crafted this objective at the top:

Award-winning journalist, disciplined editor, artful graphic designer, patient listener, compassionate non-profit founder and engaging artist seeks to clarify and energize your presence and message, communicating what deeply speaks to people.

It seemed a good compromise between the corporate world and what I do. This exercise also helped me more clearly view my gifts and skills – a nice bonus.

And, suddenly there was a plethora of communications jobs, taunting me and making my head spin. My friend and confidant, Kathie, judiciously selected the four that made the most sense and told me to forget the rest. I had already tackled the arts openings and, yesterday, completed applying for two in the non-profit/education world. I have to say it was soul-sucking to use the online procedure that bypasses a cover letter in favor of limiting text boxes that do not account for gaps in employment for any variety of reasons. Then there was the signing-your-life-away for a background report. It all made me feel a little dirty. "Pay attention to that," Kathie wisely counseled.

In my busy-ness, I have not spent much time in silence and with God. So, today I settled a bit longer with my daily readings and journaling. Lately, my Thomas Keating daily reader has focused on losing the false self. Online, Richard Rohr has been advocating much the same and they both emphasize purification. How incredibly timely for me since that's the precise word randomly selected for me by my spiritual director for this year. "Never gotten this one before," she remarked.

I journaled about the emotional programs I am dismantling vs. what Spirit speaks to me, specifically:
False Self:
• I'm only of value for doing, behaving a certain way.
• Fibromyalgia has proven me less than.
• I don't heal because I deserve this; there's something wrong with me.
• I am VERY broken.
• I'm not good enough to be successful.
• I can't succeed in the material AND spiritual worlds.
Spirit:
• You are infinitely loved, beyond you knowing though I have shown you.
• You are gifted and blessed for a specific task.
• In your dreams, I have told you, you are chosen.
• You have passed through the cross and transcended.
• You have burned your false self.
• Your current explorations will renew your confidence.
• The money/what you need will come.
• All follows love.
• Believe.
• Trust.
• You are growing your faith.
• You have already been chewed up by the corporate world; remember you are stronger and wiser now.

Maintaining peace, Keating writes, amid the false self's cycle of anger, grief, fear, pride, lust, greed and jealousy requires so much energy that can be FREED. "The fruit of the purifying process is the freedom to decide what to do without the interference from the ... fixations of the false self" according to Keating. "As the false self recedes, our energies can be put to better purposes."

God commands us to put on our new self:

"So, as those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience." [Colossians 3:12]

As I read Keating further and began to explore my distorted  view of God being replaced by the freedom to relate to God as she is, I shuddered with revelation: God is purifying me because I am chosen (just as we all are) and have always been held close.

And then I was compelled to write my real job description:

Chosen: Follower of Jesus with great compassion, tenderness, intuition, courage, depth, faith, persistence, abundant creativity, desire to serve the poorest, great listener, organizer, able to gather others with her light and sense of conviction. Thoughtful communicator, backing of trusted friends, family and faith community. One who puts others first, but does not punish herself. She must be fed so she can feed others. Sensible, practical, able to make the abstract reality, step by step, slowly over time even when the path is absent. Deep knowing and sense of purpose. Requires one who is loved more than she can imagine; she will be shown. Ability to speak and solicit on behalf of others and herself. Can show others how to help in places they never imagined. Will touch countless lives in impossible ways, yet may never see this. But will, innately, know. Will be tempted to chuck it all because she hasn't learned how to ask for what she needs. I will provide; this IS teachable. She will grow more clear and confident.

• For what am I searching?

• What throws me off course?

• What happens when I listen in silence?

• How am I dismantling my false self?

• What is Spirit's job description for me

Listen to this post:

Gathering the pieces

Yesterday, we took our teen daughters to the county clerk of courts to begin the process of applying for their passports; we're traveling as a family this summer. I was caught off guard when the clerk asked us all to raise our hands and swear the photos we were handing over were actually our daughters.

Quakers don't take oaths or swear, I wanted to announce.

But there wasn't time and I'd already been admonished by my husband to behave and get this over quickly. He knew the clerk piqued my ire when she questioned the paper the photos were printed on and, with a scowl, asked if we'd taken our own. "I thought so," dripped out of the side of her mouth. She had no clue what a wonderful photographer had taken them AND paid full attention to all of the rules and regulations.

I merely raised my hand and said nothing, which seemed enough for her. Quakers believe in integrity and always telling the truth, so there's no need for an oath.

There are other things Quakers don't do and I missed growing up Methodist that I am just learning. Take the practice of Lent, for example. All I remember as a child were the candles (and I could be mixing up Lent and Advent; I can't recall any explanations), a new-color cloth on the cross and many sermons building up to Easter, when everyone dressed to the nines. The words seemed so ancient and removed from me and the dressing-up business, well, a giant mismatch to what I, even as a child, learned as the teaching of Jesus.

Because Quakers value every day as sacred, Easter is often not put on a pedestal, nor is it neglected. Ever since a Quaker mystics gathering last summer, I have been fixated on the cross and what it truly means to me and my life. I want to personalize its symbolism, not merely dismiss it as part of a rote story.

Interesting that Catholic priests and an Episcopal minister have gently nudged me in my exploration and search for truth. I regularly read Catholics Henri Nouwen and Richard Rohr's daily meditations. And Pastor Mary launched me on a New Year's retreat that has bled into Easter. She's the one who gave me the word "purification" as my mantra for this year, which seems like the ideal Lenten focus. Rohr brings the idea of the false self and being separated from God to life through Jesus' pre-Resurrection journey. And, Nouwen has helped me identify the mystical Jesus, or Christ energy as I call it, in myself. I feel as if I am on a similar journey of stripping away what is not of God with the exclusive purpose of becoming closer to union. There are also elements of absorbing the world's pain as Jesus soaked in universal sin and letting that action be transformational; surrendering to Spirit.

In an e-mail, I recently thanked Mary for her guidance and even my word. She responded that she was glad it was blessing me. Blessing me? I thought. I wrote backing saying, some days, it felt like work. Her wise response: "Yes, healing often feels like work, which is one of the very few reasons this kind of work can sometimes also be a blessing."

Not the answer I wanted to hear, but truthful, I understood.

Somewhere in all of this, I had a flash that instead of looking at my body separately (this health issue and that), I needed to consider it as a whole, much like the body of Christ.

But God has put the body together ...  so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it. [I Corinthians: 24-6]

I understand that metaphorically, so why not physically, in my own body. Unity in my body, wow, what a concept! No fighting or battling, competing or quarreling. Just peace. 

Could this be a path to healing?

• What did my childhood faith neglect to teach me?
• What truths did I retain?
• Where do I find truth these days?
• How do I view the concept of resurrection?
• How is it applicable in my own life?


the division
IS false

this or that,
it says

until it drives
you into
submission

breaks you
up, spits you
out, helps you
believe you
are nothing

sometimes
only then,
can you
surrender

the pieces
to be picked
up and made
whole

by Spirit

Listen to this post:

To be held

All these months, six and to the day to be exact, I didn't get it. What the surrender meant. What God was asking of me on that Meetinghouse pew when she gently commanded me to lay down.

Today, I do! I just read a Richard Rohr meditation and it jumped out at me:

"Good powerlessness (because there is also a bad powerlessness) allows you to “fall into the hands of the living God” (Hebrews 10:31). You stop holding yourself up, so you can be held. There, wonderfully, you are not in control and only God needs to be right. That is always the very special space of any positive powerlessness and vulnerability, but it is admittedly rare."

You stop holding yourself up, so you can be held. That's it. All God wanted was to hold me and for me to feel being held. Simple Truth.

This is the same message, in a different package, I recently received about laying my burdens at Jesus' feet and coming to Spirit naked. Boy, did I need a smack in the head. Fortunately, God is much more loving and gentler than that.

For years I have wondered what that thread was holding me up. I had suspected ego, will, darkness and all manner of things. It's mine to cut.

...
I wrote that passage Friday, elated at the revelation. Sunday, I stumbled into an old friend who came to visit my mother while I was there. She's a student of healing touch and promised to come each week to tend my mother. I delighted in watching her lovingly protect my mother's heart, re-stitching over the incision, sealing it and working her petite hands, mostly hovered over my mother, up and down, then ending with a repetition of:

"You are blessed. You are healed. You are loved."

As we departed in unison, she hesitated, then asked if I'd like the same. "YES!" I quickly replied. I savored every minute from the invocation of angels to the final blessing and grounding. Jean is quick to note that she's taking her time learning the healing-touch technique – she even shared her wonderful cheat sheets – because she doesn't yet have the ability to feel the energy she is moving and clearing. She's been told that the more she practices, the more surely it will come. I told her I call that faith and strong discipline. Whatever it is she does, she does it with such love and grace and as God's vessel, you know it is healing.
...

The French monastic community known for its prayer worship

After  a very long day away from my family Sunday, worshiping at my Quaker Meeting, visiting my mother and grocery shopping, I dashed home to discover my girls were decorating the tree at my parent's house, at the request of their grandfather. As I unloaded bags of food and instructed my agreeable husband on a soup recipe, I headed back out for a Taize´ service at the local Episcopal Church. I have wanted to attend for a number of years and two of my neighbors told me at last week's book club how much I would enjoy its charms. So I drifted over just as it was commencing.

Uncertain where it was being conducted in the mammoth church, a kind soul directed me. "They keep it pretty dark in there," she mentioned. Good, I thought, I can do dark and contemplative.

I entered the beautiful, but dimly-lit sanctuary behind a young woman in a beret, who seated herself at the piano. I sat toward the front in a lonely pew. I'd guess there were barely 20 people attending. Made me feel more at home, much like in my Meeting. I happened to look up and glance across the aisle to catch the eye of one of my beloved neighbors. I moved to sit with her. Margaret has always been such an inspiration to me. We hold similar beliefs. I felt honored to be with her, here, at this service even though I had not real idea what it would entail. 

The program was a good guide through the simple, repetitious song phrases, silent prayer, collective readings and Scripture. But what caught my eye was a single sentence: "Those who desire prayers for Healing of mind, body and spirit are invited to go to the pews in the rear corners to receive the laying on of hands and anointing at any point during the service."

So that's where Margaret was off to, not a bathroom break. I knew I'd go as well, though I waited for God's direction, staring into the image of Jesus colorfully cut into glass. I remember, years ago, sitting in the balcony watching one of my daughter's perform in a Bible school musical, witnessing a laser beam of light slice Jesus' heart and directly to me. I felt primed and found myself standing and going to the back. A generous woman, clutched for my hands and asked what I needed: prayer for my mother and me on all levels. She articulated an intricate, heartfelt prayer, then asked if I'd like to be anointed. Yes. I've never been formally anointed, I thought.

Two healings in one day, I mused. So much today has revolved around the heart. First, spending time with my mother as she recovers form heart surgery and then during this service and the Scripture that continues to haunt me:

Strengthen your hearts for the coming to he Lord is near. [James 5:8]

In the Lord, hold firm and take heart. Hope in the Lord [From Psalms 27]

Christ Jesus, broken hearts will be healed, the staring filled. [intercession]

...
Today, Tuesday I am experiencing a pain day and my heart is breaking for my mother, who is struggling with the grueling after-effects of surgery, anesthesia  and pain meds. I think we ALL could use God's healing and just to be held.

• When have I let God hold me?
• With what difficulty?
• When has another reminded me of God's love?
• How have I experienced healing?
• How do I seek/ask for healing?


what IS holding me up?
I've asked myself
for years

perhaps a better
question is,
how can I let
God hold me?

just hold me
and nothing more,
or less

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