Why do I resist?

Centering amidst the torrent, that's my present goal. Present being a key word.

Life right now is a challenge for many of us. Personally, mine is fraught with uncertainty, anxiety and a lack of clarity. I can hardly fathom my own plate, let alone everything else happening in the world.

Yet, somehow we must.

After floating with a spiritual practice, this torrent has pushed me toward daily centering prayer and a contemplative reading. It's so wonderfully opening that I wonder why, before, I felt as if it were a chore. I can carve out 20 minutes a day for this. I need to.

Even so, by mid-afternoon, I can begin to feel unglued and off-course like I did yesterday. So, I posted feeling so on Facebook, asking others how they center and the response was heartfelt and interesting:

• You get a hug from your husband 

• And then play candy crush to induce general lethargy. 

• Sit in stillness.... 

• Not easy but I think our spiritual centers, even though tested, are what gives us the strength to get through the difficult times. 

• I like to sit and think about all my good fortune in life.... health, family, love, job and how I have more on my plate that makes me happy than most people do. A LOT of people have life a lot more difficult than I do. I just try to be more thankful for the goodies that my life has in it. All the hard things seem to melt away. 

• Silent dwelling with God. 

 • Play at being with people that give you energy. Do some things that get you out of your head. I also lay prostrate on the floor and surrender everything to God. 

• It seems to me it is the work of life to create interior space big enough to hold my own struggle and the larger struggles of others, my own joy and the joys of others. Not diminishing other struggles and joys, and also not diminishing my own. So how do I find my center in that place of spaciousness? For me, there is an element of surrender, what I have is enough, even if what I have right now is hard. And that place of surrender comes in fits and starts and all in the truth that the center is God's goodness.

• Listen to whatever music makes you feel good. I recommend Paul McCartney's "Red Rose Speedway."

• Talk to God one-on-one, read His word, ask Him to show me the path He wants me to follow. Wait...and listen...

I have some pretty wise Facebook friends. They seem to focus on love, gratitude, stillness,  playfulness, creativity, prayer and surrender. ALL of those resonate with me.

As a result, before bed, I pulled out my notebook and made two lists. One for all that I was grateful that day and, the other, naming the things I was surrendering to God. And then I 
slept. Well.

This morning, I continued with the centering prayer and felt God's hands on my back, neck, head and shoulders as loving energy filled my body. Then Spirit, without words, nudged me to direct it to my mother at the Cleveland Clinic this morning completing testing before a double-heart-valve replacement later this month.

A trip to yoga and then, today, I am surrendering into the joy of preparing for a daylong 
retreat I lead tomorrow on naming gifts. Lucky, grateful me!


• How do I  keep my spiritual center when things are hard and take their toll?
• What role does trust play?
• What spiritual practices support that trust?
• What about prayer  and how does it change during these times?
• Where do I find God in all of this?


the words today,
as they have been
all week, were
just right

exactly what my
heart and head
needed to hear

something about
uncluttering the
space and coming
to Spirit with no
expectation,

simply being
there, open
and receiving

that's ALL
God ever asks

so, why do
I resist?

Listen to this post:

Another brick [in the] wall

Ever feel like there's always a wall you hit? Something not necessarily tangible, but rather an invisible obstacle?

I often meet that impediment in the morning trying to get out of bed because that simple action really hurts. Once I do get up, however, the barrier recedes, eventually disappearing. I face it again when I am stressed, overly tired, too busy or pressured. That – for all of us – happens constantly.

Maybe your wall is something else. For me, it's elusive, but never far away.

I've been ruminating on why I feel like the mainstream of our culture rushes in a one-way pattern and just how much energy, gumption, motivation and self-awareness it takes to swim against the current or divert out of it and into a calmer tributary. It exhausts me to even think about it, yet it requires a persistent, intentional action.

I've also been analyzing how I hold my body and why I don't move with the flow and grace I once did – or, at least, imagined. I do in spells, but not consistently. I'm sure age has something to do with it, but I also believe being so indoctrinated in our culture and forgetting what comes more naturally gets harder the farther we gravitate from childhood, when we let our bodies and nature speak more clearly to us.

While my soul searches for its natural place, my body struggles to keep pace. I want my physical self to catch up to my spiritual self or reside in the same vicinity. There is some disembodiment. That's a word I heard repeatedly at a recent conference and often from one particular young woman, who really understood this dilemma. I recall my massage therapist affirming my remark upon returning from an overseas trip that I really didn't feel here yet. He said I had physically traveled too fast for my body to catch up and performed his magic to bring me back together.

I can not keep pace with this world. Our family just returned last night from a 36-hour trip to Michigan for a wedding. It was a wonderful event, but so whirlwind I feel I didn't experience any depth. When we emerged from the car at the church and were immediately embraced by loving family, I could have used some transition from roadtrip grunge, kid-battling and exhaustion to being the loving person who could accept this marvelous gesture. Midway through the Mass, I had.

Modern life just seems to rev up and, at a time, when I am ready to slow down and actually enjoy the ordinary. Like being a kid in a group that stirs up the water in a pool so strongly in one direction, then tries to move in the opposite. It can be done after meeting with a lot of resistance.

I guess my wall is the grain of convention, against which I push, [or it's pushing against my nature] aiming away and toward where my heart and spirit call. Not easy, yet I can't conceive of moving anywhere else.


• Do I ever feel a wall, resistance or obstacle in moving toward where I am called in my life?
• How have I named, examined, removed or tamed it?
• Where do I naturally fit into the mainstream of life?
• Do I ever feel pressured to go with the flow?
• Where has that taken me?


so easy
to get
caught up
in the
wild tide


of
normal
life,
whatever
normal
means
or is



and,
at times,
much
less effort
to float
with
the
swift
current


than to
stop
and swim
the 
other
way


what
if the
other
direction
is my path?