Dreams

We all dream, but how many of us take real notice of them? When we take note of them at all, they generally bewilder us, trouble us, and amuse us. But rarely do they instruct us. Most of us who remember a dream here and there dismiss them as irrelevant. Some of us do remember them, but when we do, we tend to misinterpret them. They rarely mean what seems obvious to us.

Dreams are rich material for self understanding, guides for the spiritual journey.  But they are a very different mode of communication than we're used. to.

Every religious tradition honors them, but few of us know what to do with them. In the Bible, dreams are taken very seriously. That's been true throughout history. But today, the modern mind discounts them as phantoms of the imagination--unreliable, and often impenetrable by conventional reason.

Learning from your dreams is an art. They require attention, objectivity, humility, and patience. They are as important as the sense-data that comes to us when we're conscious, but they come from a very different place within the mind. You know, don't you, how a frightening or bizarre dream can lead you into a frump as surely as a critical word for your boss can, or a bad result on a test?

Frankly, dreams often need another to interpret them. And that's a problem for us, for who among us is in a relationship with someone who doesn't have an agenda for us, who will listen without bias, who will remain curious, open, and playful with our dreams, holding the interpretation loosely, as we wait together for something to click?

Because we don't have such persons, we tend to miss out on all God would teach us through our dreams.

You can change that. The first step is to become aware of your dreaming--to welcome them, as bizarre as they might be. Start to write down as much of them as you can, without concern for making sense of them. Observe them over time. Notice how they make you feel. Look for themes and connections--between dreams, and to what's happening in your life. And while you're doing that, wait for someone to come who will sit with you as you together listen for the dream's wisdom.

That someone will come as surely as your dreams will--if you attend to them patiently.

Intention: Today, I'll open myself to my dreams as gifts from the Spirit to my spirit. I'll simply become curious, and take note of them in a more disciplined way than I have in the past.  That's a good enough beginning.

Morning

The way you greet the day matters. Your first lucid moments set the course for what follows. Set that course with intention, through a simple prayer, and you’ll be okay. The prayer needn’t be long, but it ought to be clear. In fact, the simpler, briefer, and more focused it is, the better. For the better part of your life, you’ve let the day start you. Your alarm awakens you, and you stumble out of bed. You turn on the coffee or the shower. A steady stream of thoughts flows through your head. You get the newspaper, put on music or the TV. Maybe you check your email or head off to the gym. The mental stream swells, and as it does, your body and spirit are pulled along with it. Even first thing in the morning, tension and stress tug at your neck and shoulders. The thought-stream nags at you from the start, demanding more from your body than your body’s ready to give. So you pump a little more caffeine into your veins and jot another note on your to-do list. These thoughts—largely unexamined—have yanked you into a river whose direction you control far less than you realize.

Isaiah says, "Morning by morning GOD wakens--wakens my ear to listen as those who are taught" (50.4b).

What might it mean for you to arouse your spirit first thing--to embrace the day and join up with God?

Intention: Tomorrow, I'll embrace the moment of my rising and waken my ear to GOD. Doing so has the power to change everything.

Loss

A friend's mother died suddenly early this morning. I got the call at 3:30am. After comforting the family, I found myself plunged back into my own experiences of grief--my own mother's, years ago, and a few more recent ones. I also found myself tumbling back into experiences of loss I thought would undo me, but didn't. Loss is inevitable. And it hurts. Frightens us too. Loss is a reminder of how vulnerable we are, how much we're not in control after all. Loss of any kind can send us spinning, craving firm footing again.

When we do so, it's not hard to bury ourselves in work or anything else that might distract us, numb us, and help us avoid the pain.

But loss is an invitation. There's grace in it, hidden beneath the pain. Through loss we can come to greater clarity about what really matters in life.

Through some losses I thought would destroy me, I've learned that a lot of what I thought I needed, I don't really need, and so much I thought I could not live without, I can, in fact, live without.

Grief has taught me how involved I am in humanity, how much I'm made for love. And loss has taught me that the one thing I need most can never be taken from me.

Perhaps that's what it means to live Holy Saturday, halfway between Good Friday and Easter Sunday.

Intention: Today, I'll let my losses shift my priorities again. I'll look back upon them gratefully--even through my pain--and realize they can be my teachers.  Every loss can open me to embrace life more fully.

Ahhhh

Kon Leong is co-founder, president and chief executive of ZL Technologies in San Jose, California. Adam Bryant of the New York Times recently caught up to him and chatted about leadership and life and advice for students fresh out of college. "Experiment," he says. "You can go in any direction. So experiment and you'll have a much better chance of finding your sweet spot. And the sweet spot is the intersection between what you're really good at and what you love to do. A lot of people would kill for that because, at 65, they're retiring and never found it. Try to find your sweet spot and, once you find it, invest in it."

Yes, to be spiritually and vocationally alive you must lean into your own God-breathed originality. There are so many bullying voices--inside and outside your head. If you can refuse them and find the sweet spot God's made you for--what you're good at and what you love to do you'll not only live a better live, you'll made life better for others.

Intention: Today, I'll take note of those times when I'm in the zone, doing me and doing me well. I'll look for those times when I'm happy, feeling good, and see if I'm doing things well at the same time. That'll tell me something I need to hold on to.

Thoughts

You know, don't you, how your thoughts crowd and push inside your head, almost incessantly, from the moment you rise to the moment you fall asleep. Even sleep is no vacation from the thoughts that assault and confuse and entertain. Because of this mind-parade of incessant thoughts, most of us are living a spiritual catastrophe. We float along in the flotsam of thoughts, carried somewhere, and often feeling we have very little power to escape them. One long, sleepless night is evidence enough that you're among that mass of sufferers. Or maybe you anesthetize yourself by falling asleep to the TV, or getting a little help from a drink or drug.

Truth is, you are not your thoughts. The very fact that you can think a thought, watch a thought, even exchange thoughts is proof that there's a you beyond your thoughts.

St Paul said, "Take every thought captive" (2 Corinthians 10.5). Paul knew that there's a you who can take your thoughts captive, who doesn't have to be a slave to the stuff parading through your brain.

How?

This kind of spiritual freedom is the fruit of the prayer of the heart--a form of prayer that can occupy you for a lifetime, but is so simply a child can practice it. The prayer of the heart is simply the practice of the steady, patient, and habitual drawing the mind down into the heart using a simple prayer like the Lord's Prayer or the words "Jesus have mercy." By repeating the prayer, reverently, mindfully, you'll find yourself resting there in your heart with the Christ who dwells within you. It can be practiced even during the busiest moments of daily life.

"The head and hands at work," the saints instruct us, "and the heart at rest in prayer."

Intention: Today, I will pause periodically throughout the day; whisper a simple prayer silently in my heart, and commune with Christ for awhile and give my mind a break from the steady stream of thoughts within.