The Way of Compassion

I live in emotional pain. All the institutions in my life plus my own desires, tell me that if I don't change the circumstances in my life and resolve this emotional pain, then something is wrong with me. The church tells me if I have emotional pain then there is sin in my life. The psychology profession tells me if I have emotional pain and I don't do anything about it, then I'm in denial or I'm avoidant. I tell myself - "I'm not being a good manager, I'm weak, I'm a coward, I'm lazy, I'm defective, I have no business telling others anything because I haven't 'dealt' with the emotional pain in my own life" etc.

The "way" of compassion puts her arm around me and says, "Okay dear one, let's live graciously and kindly beside this emotional pain. Let's put our arms around her and say, "I'll live with you until I grow enough to know how to deal with you. When I have expanded enough to know what to do with you, I'll do it. In the meantime, you are not my enemy. I will live with you, waiting for all the 'organisms' in the universe to open up another way for me to live. I will "look to Jesus" and wait, loving me, loving my emotional pain, loving 'my' life - emotional pain and all.

And then something inside of me relaxes, and that tells me I'm on the right path.

Enjoy!

I consider grace to be like Christ steadying the bicycle that I'm learning to ride. He fully expects me to be able to ride on my own some day, but in the meantime, there are bubbles, pockets of experiences, freebies while we learn new skill sets, new ways of doing life, new ways of managing our strengths and weaknesses, new ways of being a better manager of ourselves, our treasure.

Grace makes us feel like we are pros at riding bicycles. Grace makes us feel like we've arrived, like we already know everything we need to do life well.

Enjoy!

From Glory to Glory

So I was mulling over the song "from glory to glory He's changing me" (taken from 1 Cor. 3:18) when I realized that I never consider the place that I'm in right now as a place that is full of glory. In other words, if, as Scripture says, that we are "changed from glory to glory", then that infers that we move from a glorious place to a glorious place, which infers that the place that I'm in right now is glorious.

Another way of saying that is . . . that who I am, right now, is glorious (acceptable, desirable, enjoyed by God). (After all, we don't live in places, we live in bodies.)

Recently, I moved away from a place of cherishing who I am and where I am and was almost immobilized by the crashing of rejection/scorn/contempt. It lasted 2 days and was such a sobering, painful experience, that it made me realize that cherishing/enjoying my present "glory", my present (albeit incomplete) state, was not to be taken lightly.

Dissolved into Irrelevancy

"So I set my face" towards change and growth and was walloped by hopeless/helpless blankets of emotion. And of course, at the time, it was not emotion; it was reality. What I am feeling is who I am and always has been.

That's not a problem except when what I am feeling is more than I can take; except when what I am feeling takes more courage than I have; except when what I am feeling immobilizes me. (No wonder people don't feel their feelings. They don't have the skills to know what to do with them when they are overwhelmed by them!)

So I am meditating with our Sunday night group, and God says so simply, "Just because you are feeling hopeless doesn't mean you (as in, identity) are hopeless." And I thought, "Oh, that's right. My feelings are not an accurate protrayal of my identity. I can feel hopeless and it just be a feeling. I can feel hopeless and that doesn't mean that Robin is hopeless."

So I put my metaphoric arms around my feelings of hopelessness and helplessness and hold them close until they dissolve into irrelevancy.

Immature?

I was lamenting to a friend about how immature I was. When she asked what I meant, I told her about my immature reaction to a criticism lobbied against a group I was a part of. She so wonderfully pointed out that a person can react immaturely but not be an immature person. And because I have become so wonderfully teachable and because I love life/light/truth and because I especially love life/light/truth that makes me look good, I immediately abandoned the woe-is-me-I'm-so-immature-way of thinking.

She is right - one can have an immature reaction and that not mean she is immature.
Thank you God - thank you friends.

But/And/Or/ Maybe

So I'm watching a Flash Mob Dance in Belgium on UTube and I'm wondering why my spirit gets so happy/excited about these kinds of things. Part of it is just me, I'm sure, because I love to dance.

But . . . maybe it's because Flash Mob Dancing "fleshes out" an underlying truth that there is an underlying music that we all dance to. And the unconscious part of us knows it and then lo and behold, what we've always suspected actually happens in front of our very noses!

And . . .  maybe it's that we all want to dance together with strangers in a harmonious way.

Or . . . maybe it is affirming the whimsical part of life that gets so shunted to the side - the lightning bug- butterfly-baby-part of life.

Maybe . . . it allows us to make-believe/pretend that there are some things in life that we don't have to work at and they just appear whole and ready made.

Whatever the case, the day might come that you turn on UTube, and there I'll be . . . Flash Mob dancing in Belgium!

Lost

"Lord, sometimes I feel lost." 

"It's because My arms are so big that you feel lost.  But the reality is . .  you are lost in My arms."

Gift of Hell

The first hell I had to learn to conquer and neutralize lasted 30 years. The next hell lasted 10 years. I expect the next hell to last 3 years and the final one will last 1 year. Because my arsenal  and my skill set keeps growing and growing, there will soon be no set of circumstances that I will experience as "hellish".

And what will be the pay off? What will be the reward for all my hard work? What will be the gift of all these hells?

Learning that indeed, "Nothing outside of you can ever give you what you are looking for." The gift of hell is learning how to come home to me; learning that I am the treasure; learning that I am the reward. How can it be otherwise?