December 30, The Sixth Way: Desert

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by Moyan_Brenn

Part of the Series The Twelve Days as Twelve Ways to Deepen Your Connection with God.

You're walking now.  It's night.  Away from the city lights you're more able to perceive the haunting beauty of the landscape around you.  As you do, two things begin to happen to you.

First, with each step you take farther on and deeper in, you sense a growing anticipation rising within you.  In your heart, there's a growing conviction that you've finally set out on the one journey that truly matters; you're pursuing the Ultimate, the Absolute, the Source and Goal of all life.  All you were made for and destined to be lies at the end of this journey, bathed in the pure radiance of the star's bright light.

Second, you notice you've begun to enter a new and strange land you've never seen before, never even known existed.  The familiar landmarks are gone.  You've moved off the map.  You're lost to all except the light of the star.  Anticipation emboldens you, but the strangeness of this new land unnerves you.

If you've not know something of this eagerness and nervousness, you've not gone far enough on the spiritual journey; your praying's been too safe.  At some point, all who seek God must find themselves carried into some kind of desert experience, for the desert is the furnace of transformation.  In the desert, we're stripped of all we've carried but do not need.  In the desert, we're stripped down, relieved of burdens and attachments, until the only thing remaining is the nakedness of the heart's pure trust in God.  All we've valued, all we've used to justify ourselves, prove ourselves, make ourselves worthy and lovable and useful is irrelevant here.  All we thought we needed to survive, we don't need.  Only one thing is needed, and That can never be taken from us. 

This is the very reason why every spiritual "athlete" from Abraham to Mother Theresa was pressed by the Holy Spirit into the desert.  Welcome.  You've now joined them.

Today, I'll acknowledge that the desert frightens me and I don't easily surrender all I've accumulated up to this point.  But I know I must not avoid the desert and its healing, liberating power of I'm to find what I'm looking for.  

December 29, The Fifth Way: Walking

Part of the Series The Twelve Days as Twelve Ways to Deepen Your Connection with God.

Most of us live life mostly in our heads, but our thoughts are not where real life is lived.  Your thoughts may be memories of real experience, they may imagine experience yet to come, but they're not real experience.  They're interpretations of the past and projections of what may come.  They're illusions really, fantasies.  Powerful, to be sure, but not ultimately real no matter how much they'd like to persuade you otherwise.

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by Brian Smithson

The only life you can live is the one that's coming to you right now.  Jesus said, "Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own" (Matthew 6.34).  You cannot meet God in the past or in the future, but only in the present.  So, you must find a way to live here, now, "taking every thought captive" as St. paul taught (2 Corinthians 10.5).

This is why walking is a spiritual practice.

When you walk on the earth, your feet touch the ground.  You awaken more fully to your senses.  And your senses root you to this moment.  But you can't be in this moment when you're galloping along, eyes fixed on the future (or fleeing the past) lost in your anxious, calculating, or ambitious thoughts.

You're a wise a woman, a wise man, when you regularly get down off your high horse or lumbering camel, get out of your head, and walk the real earth for a while, aware of what's right around you.  The feet of the God you aim to meet walked this earth; yours ought to as well.

Today, I'll take off my shoes and feel the ground beneath my feet.  I'll wiggle my toes in the carpet, stroll in a garden, or walk into the kitchen or to the copier at work---and I'll pay attention while I'm doing so.  Remember, "the place beneath your feet is holy ground" (Exodus 3.5).

How to leave a lasting legacy: die well

How will you die? I don’t mean what will kill you; I mean what will be the character of your life in those final days before your passing?

Of course, we don’t have much control over when and how we’ll die. A few of us will go quickly, without much warning or preparation. But most of us will have some time, and our wits about us, for a few days, a handful of weeks, six or more months of living with a terminal illness, maybe more.

The centuries-old Book of Common Prayer contains a prayer that says, “Lord, spare me from dying suddenly and unprepared.” Most of us today want the opposite. “Take me quick, Lord.”

But when we go quickly, we miss the opportunity to die well. And the ability to die well gives us the opportunity to leave a lasting legacy.

I have a friend whose mother’s dying. She’s lived with dying for seven months. But the fact of her dying didn’t mean she stopped playing tennis, going to the opera, visiting with friends, and nurturing her children and grandchildren and great grandchildren. She’s dying well. Last month she took her four adult children to Ireland for one last trip together. Last weekend, she took the whole family (dozens of them) to the opera . . . “Because I love it.” And now that she’s stopped eating, she’s started blessing each and every one of her kin . . . with intention. She’s dying well, really well.

So, if you’re “spared from dying suddenly and unprepared,” how will you spend your last days?

If you don’t take this question seriously, you’ll do very little to prepare yourself for dying. Then when death comes for you, you’ll not be able to live big, give love, let go with dignity, and as you do, inspire, empower, and envision others to live their lives with some special gift that comes from your dying. And if you can’t live well when you’re dying, I wonder how well you’re really living now.

Intention: Today, I’ll consider the kind of person I’d like to be when I’m dying. Then I’ll begin to live in such a way that when the end comes, I’ll have something beautiful in my soul to pass on to others. God, make it so that when I’m dying I can give to others some gift to help them live well so that when they find themselves at death's door, they can pass on gifts of grace to others. 

Lifestyle imbalance and learning to live resiliently

"I feel so scattered." "Overwhelmed." "Like I'm constantly running." Twice in one day, two people, independent of one another--a man and a woman--blurted out that they feel like they're living in the midst of perpetual whitewater--a state of lifestyle imbalance.

They're both high-functioning professionals, extremely busy and highly competent. But they're dissatisfied. More than that, they're just plain worn out. They feel like they're sucking air, their souls tattered and frayed.

Both told me they want a more balanced life.

I get that. I want that too. But increasingly I wonder if balance is possible. I think it's possible to cultivate an inner sense of balance, but I don't think it's realistic to assume we can dwell their much of the time. And I think it's unhelpful to our souls to think we can. If we do, we end up always frustrated because we can't get to where we think we ought to be, except on vacations--and those are few and far between.

Instead, I think it's more realistic and spiritually helpful to develop a sense of resiliency.

Resiliency is the ability for a substance or object to spring back into shape. For us that means we have the ability to return quickly to our center, our spiritual core whenever we're pushed and pulled away from that center.

This is, incidentally, what I see in the life of Jesus. Active, engaged, even often extremely busy, and sometimes faced with enormous difficulties. But life for Jesus wasn't some escape from the world. Instead, he knew his center. He lived from his core. He knew how to return there quickly whenever life knocked him around.

Intention: Today, I'll make a conscious effort to stop bemoaning my busyness. Instead, I'll take a few moments to connect with God and then throughout the day, I'll return to that center whenever I find myself pushed and pulled outside myself.

How to live with gratitude...and why

A TED talk by photographer Louie Schwartzberg, and a short film (exquisite) narrated by Benedictine monk David Steindl-Rast. Watch and open your life to Life, experience the truth that "Today is a gift that was given to you, and the only appropriate response is gratitude." See the world again through the eyes of a child and an elderly man.