Offer It Up?

The Mystery within...

From God Never Hurries:  ‘Offer it up’ was a phrase I was taught early and reverted to throughout my life.  Now I wonder how many times I avoided addressing serious problems with those words?

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Offering it up can be an evasive strategy to not address real problems.  But this weekend, as I walked the narrow winding path in the woods that gives me solace, I was reminded all truth is paradoxical, both/and, and so I did offer up a hurt and disappointment I was having a hard time shaking and it brought me real relief.

And that led me to the question of powerlessness and power, which is being addressed this week in Richard Rohr’s Center for Action and Contemplation’s daily online meditations exploring the spirituality of Bill Wilson’s twelve-step program for alcoholics.  The deep paradoxical truth offered so far is the need to admit our powerlessness before we can realize our own individual power—the spirituality of imperfection—how we learn to love one another and ourselves.     

What if we all pondered the paradoxical nature of offering it up?

Lessons Everyday

The Mystery within...

Three things I am quite sure about this week:

1.  Every one of us is unique and we each come with our own set of gifts and faults. 

2.  Our faults are pure gold for they hold the potential for true humility, compassion, and the ability to love everyone else regardless of their faults.

3.  Every day presents opportunities to grow in love for others and our self through the power of reflection. 

What if we all knew our true potential for humility, compassion and love, present in each day’s living?

The Power of Could

The Mystery within...

Words have real power.  I know this because I have been calmly talking to my resistant muscles in my surgical leg telling them, “You can bend.  Yes, you can.  You can bend.”  And ever so slowly those stubborn, long dormant, knotted muscles are beginning to respond to my words thereby making my exercises and therapy more productive.  I am now hopeful good health could be restored in that leg.  Could is the power word here.  It presumes I continue to talk positively to my muscles and do the work. 

The word could is very optimistic.  It invites challenge, thinking, and a plan.  Alternatives and opportunities come with could.  The negative opposite of could is should which I could eliminate from my vocabulary.  If I tell myself I should do this, that, or the other thing, it leaves me flat and uninspired.  And heaven forbid that I ever tell anyone else what he or she should do.  But “could” could get us both thinking.

What if we could help ourselves and one another be good by eliminating should and using could?

Spirit Animals

The Mystery within...

My August 5, 2013 blog titled “My Spider” told of how I came to know, and be grateful for my totem spider that appeared to me while on a “Women Gathering” retreat.  I wasn’t at all sure I wanted this spider spirit until I began to understand what it was asking me to suspend:  judgment of others and myself; anxiety for things undone; and the need to be perfect or right.  And after I learned that my spider is the keeper of the primordial alphabet, and teaches one how to write with power and creativity, I was in love with it.

Two more spirit animals have now recently showed up very unexpectedly in my life in the forms of a golden Palomino and a black horse.  They appeared on the first thawing day of this winter’s frigid grip while I walked in a wood not far from my house with my yellow Lab, Oliver.  Oliver stopped and stood transfixed with something among the bare trees deep in the snow-covered woods.  I followed his gaze and there stood a yellow horse!  My disbelief doubled when a black horse soon joined it.  We all just stood watching one another until finally the horses snorted, and then Oliver gave one bark, at which the pair turned and ran north into a grove of pines. 

This little 17-acre wood, bounded by private residences, a bike trail, and the Milwaukee River is home to squirrels, birds, chipmunks and deer.  Not horses.  I figured they probably escaped from their paddock somewhere and were enjoying a little spring fling.  I thought somebody should know where they were so when I got to the bike trail I asked a couple walking there if they had a cell phone so I could alert authorities of the horses whereabouts.  Later that night I called the Ozaukee County Sheriff’s dispatch to see if anyone reported a missing black and Palomino horse.  The dispatcher said no and they sent two deputies there and found nothing. 

I looked on-line for the spiritual attributes of horses and found Horse Journeys.  I learned horses are symbols of freedom and will awaken and discover my own freedom and power.  They teach fear kills creativity and can lead me to trust my own inner wealth of knowledge making me aware all things are possible.  Horses can reconnect me with the natural world, encourage me to be in the moment, and inspire a heightened sense of awareness.  Some of the goodness horses possess leads to a balanced social order because of their heightened sensory awareness, self-responsibility, and support of the greater good for the whole community.  These spirit guides can help me claim my authentic heart so what I say, do, think and feel comes from love.  I also found a golden horse signifies the coming of a spiritual manifestation and action; and a black horse is symbolic of death and rebirth.  I am thrilled to accept these new spirit animals in my life and welcome their mentoring.

What if we all became aware of our spirit animals with messages for our life?  

Human Progress

God is...

It might have been 15 or 20 years ago when I heard it projected women worldwide would experience acceptance and equality around the year 9,000 and something.  That seemed like an interminably long timeline.  But that was before the Internet was a household experience bringing the condition of the world, and people who want to make it a better place, just a click away.  I am hoping our ease with communication will now revise that timeline downward.

Former President Jimmy Carter’s new book, “A Call to Action—Women, Religion, Violence and Power,” encouraged me with his insight and frank writing.  He wrote, “The relegation of women to an inferior or circumscribed status by many religious leaders is one of the primary reasons for the promotion and perpetuation of sexual abuse.”  And, “…there is no greater challenge than the full embrace of women’s equal rights by religious leaders, institutions and believers alike.”  Among the many shocking statistics Carter presented were 200 – 300 children are sold in Atlanta, GA each month, and if the perpetrators are caught, there is generally a $50.00 fine.  The United States ranks 23^rd in achieving equal status for women; and America is at the bottom, among industrialized nations, for women dying in child birth despite spending more per average patient.  Worldwide there is genocide of girls, rape as a weapon of war; “honor” killings, usually by a male relative of any female only suspected of improprieties or refusing an arrange marriage; genital cutting; child marriage and dowry deaths.  Maybe the year 9,000 and something doesn’t seem so incredible after all. 

I am grateful to former President Carter for his bold statements on religion and women, and the admission that he, and his wife Rosalynn, left their former church since it did not support the ordination of women.  I felt supported for doing likewise.  It is so encouraging to know that this former President, and his wife, continue to address serious problems in the world through their Carter Center, especially in areas where there is little other aid.  And I am again reminded that the independence I enjoy today is because of other courageous men, women, and elected officials, whose efforts created the Civil Rights Act, with its prohibition of discriminating against women in the workplace. 

What if we all voted for the best candidates to make our world a better place for everyone?  How much faster would acceptance and equality be achieved?

Courage

God is...

From “God Never Hurries,”  …God’s living word is in our life’s stories—tell them and write them down.

As I watched Robert Reich’s documentary, “Inequality for All,” I was grateful he chose to tell his story of how he came to be an avid advocate for the fair treatment of workers.  As a child, he said he was frequently bullied because of his very small physical stature, the result of a medical condition.  He had a friend who protected him from bullies.  When his friend grew up he continued to defend the oppressed, advocating for fairness and justice in the Civil Rights movement, which led to his murder.  His friend’s death profoundly affected Reich.  He said it gave him the courage to speak out on behalf of fair treatment of others.  He subsequently became a prolific writer, Secretary of Labor under president Clinton, and taught classes at Berkley on wealth and power.  The eye opening statistics Reich shares in his documentary highlights the flattening of workers’ wages beginning in the 1970’s, and the staggering rise in corporate profits and CEO pay.

Bringing forth gifts from oppression is a specialty of this mysterious God of ours.  I am very aware that my economic status was improved with the passage of Civil Rights legislation with its extension of equal employment opportunity to women in the workplace.  That legislation spawned training opportunities that allowed me to compete for jobs that supported my three children and myself after being widowed in 1975.  I eventually came to manage one of Robert Reich’s, then Secretary of Labor, employment programs for economically disadvantaged elderly while working for the U.S. Forest Service, Eastern Region.  I remember a national meeting I attended for the Senior Community Service Employment Program in Washington, D.C. where Reich spoke.  He then held, and still does hold, my deep respect for his heart, compassion and advocacy for the less fortunate.

What if we each told our story?  Would your story change hearts? 

My Shadow's Voice

God is...

The awareness of my shadow last week took me back to a 1998 gathering I attended sponsored by the Center for Action and Contemplation (CAC).  I wrote of that experience which was published in that fall’s CAC issue of Radical Grace.  I found a yellowing copy of my learning that read:

I concluded the Women’s Rites of Passage program with Carolyn Baker, author of

Reclaiming the Dark Feminine, with a deeper appreciation for the creative energy of my shadow.  And I had an immediate opportunity to give my shadow voice.

The bus that was taking us from Ghost Ranch back to Albuquerque hadn’t even reached the highway when I met my first reentry challenge.  A wooden drum rolled off the luggage rack above and hit me on the head.  It momentarily stunned me as it bounced off my skull onto the floor.  My body was already objecting to being in the great aluminum container, with windows that didn’t open, and an air conditioner that could not be turned on until we left the curving, dusty road in the hot desert sun.  The heat and lack of air added to the insult of the drum.

The momentary blur in my eyes refocused in anger at the absence of the protective cord to hold luggage above.  Only one short piece of broken cord dangled from a compartment near the front of the bus.  A line of holes the length of the bus indicated where the protective cord should have been.  The next turn in the road brought a soft pouch across my field of vision.  Fear grew for my sore head.  My anger grew in fear of my surroundings.  My mood turned ugly.

Many of the women on the bus joked and laughed with the driver.  I was furious with him.  I worried I might be too much like the frantic Chicken Little, or the perpetually groaning Eeyore from Pooh Corner.  I felt ugly, but I didn’t want to be ugly.  And then I recalled my pastoral training where we encourage others, and ourselves, to stay with our feelings.  We are given them for good reason.  So I accepted my ugliness and waited for what it came to teach me. 

It confirmed for me that it is not right to jeopardize other’s safety.  I must tell the bus driver of the danger and my injury.  And although I appeared to be the only sourpuss on the bus, it was with good reason.  I had a sore head.

After we reached our destination and the bus was unloaded and some of the women gave the driver hugs, I faced him and gently said, “I’m sorry, but I must complain.  The cords on the luggage racks are missing and I was hit by a falling drum.  It hurt my head.”  His smile immediately left and he said in anger, “It’s not my fault!  People should not put stuff up there!”  I quietly and factually said, “No, the cord on the luggage racks needs to be fixed.”  He abruptly turned away from me, and grumbled loudly, “Okay, I’ll fix them!”  And I didn’t feel ugly anymore.

I am now grateful for that bump on the head.  It reinforced the need to accept ugly—stay with the feeling—until it works for change.  I learned I can be calm and factual when asking for change, (though sometimes it is even okay not to be).  And I hoped that when I meet people who are acting like “soreheads” I can remember my drum experience.  Maybe they are just in the process of working on some needed change. 

I believe the ugly hag resides side by side with justice in my shadow.  It is why justice is so elusive.  There is reluctance to seek her in the darkness where tremendous power exists to transform or destroy.  But my encounter with the drum, and my heart, has given me a little more confidence to trust my hag and to give her voice. 

Now, in 2014, I think it’s time to reread “Reclaiming the Dark Feminine.”

What if we could all see and remember the potential creative and healing energy of our shadow? 

My Spider

God is...

Who among you reading this would like a spider as your totem helper?  You might want to think about that for a while as I did this past weekend while on a Women Gathering retreat sponsored by Way of the Willow.  We were told we would journey with a drumbeat, our breath, and come to know our totem animal.  I wondered how that might happen.  I had some preconceived notions of animals that hold special meaning for me and I wondered if it might be a wolf, deer, coyote, fox, or armadillo.  But no, it was none of those.  With my eyes closed in the shaded room, and the steady beating of the drum, a spider showed up.

I didn’t want to believe it at first, but there it was just a darker shade of the dark, plump and fuzzy, suspended from a thin dark thread. I asked myself what it could possibly teach me and then began thinking:

Suspend judgment of others and myself.

Suspend anxiety for things undone.

Suspend the need to be perfect or right.

Look around and know that all is good.

When the exercise was over I eagerly sought out a book in the room, “Animal Speak--The Spiritual and Magical Powers of Creatures Great and Small” and began to fall in love with my spider as I read:  “Spider is the keeper of primordial alphabet.  Spider can teach how to use the written language with power and creativity so that your words weave a web around those who would read them.”  Spiders were also said to be a combination of gentleness and strength, and part of spider’s medicine is to maintain balance between life and death, waking and sleeping.  Who wouldn’t love that?

Each woman attending this retreat had a different totem animal come to her with unique and appropriate gifts and medicines.  It was a serious, but also very fun weekend, as we shared pieces of our lives and helped heal one another through our laughter and tears.

In a Saturday evening ceremony we each put on our wise woman shawls and spoke words that told what was important for us to remember.  I prayed, Dear God, Thank you for the gift of these women.  I know my serenity will be subject to forgetting so may I always remember the way back to it.  Help me trust what comes, comes because it needs to; show me ways I can celebrate what doesn’t get done so I can enjoy the present; help me let go of feeling too responsible; help me hold the questions with infinite patience and learn from them; may I find joy and new ideas in the accomplishment of others; remind me there is always a choice versus the victim role.  Thank you for being my power within and reminding me to “Be not afraid.”  And thank you for my spider.

What if everyone had the opportunity for a fun and healing time and could remember the way back to it when it fades?  I think we would all heal our planet.