streams of thought....june 2nd, 2014

 “Watch, Lord, with those who wake or weep tonight. Give the angels and saints charge over those who sleep. O Lord Jesus Christ, tend your sick ones, rest Your weary ones, bless Your dying ones, soothe the suffering ones, pity all the afflicted ones, shield the joyful ones, and all for Your love’s sake.  Amen” – Saint Augustine

I started a book the other day titled, Exuberance: the passion for life. It has been a joy to read. The author is Kay Redfield Jamison, who is a psychologist and well known writer.  She begins the book with a line from the Augustine prayer…

“…shield the joyful ones…”

I stopped as soon as I read that simple set of words. It is not really an easy concept to wrap my mind around actually.  I mean that I agree with the author’s presentation of the fact that we often think thoughts of protection for those that are suffering. We furrow our brows like a farmer tilling the soil when we hear of a tragedy or saddening situation.  We lament over the losses of those in and around our lives. We pour the emotional “alcohol” to numb us to the painful present.

            However….

How many times do we seek to protect the joyful moments and those within them? Oh, we share in the gratefulness of the greater moments while trying to shelter those in the lesser. We speak the goodness of Creator of joy… all the while never thinking that both… joy and grief are many times brought together in the union of the universe. We will walk along the shorelines of sadness while wondering if the waters will ever calm down. We look to the rocky soil that our feet trod upon while in contemplation over the heaviness of life.  We ruminate over the misfortune… yet discard the joyful moments almost as if we already know in the soil of our soul that the seeds of negativity still lie dormant deep within.

The “joyful ones” is not just a place or only a seasonal moment.

            “He who has not looked on Sorrow will never see Joy.” – Kahlil Gibran

Could it perhaps be that we look at the weight of sorrow and look lightly at the spirit of joy? We talk about “sorrow" being for a moment yet we look at joy as an experience.  They are both experiences that we will all have through this circle of life.  We will see the beauty and joy of birth while feeling the pain of loss in death. We see the hope of joy in the movement of a love; while blinded in a transition of grief.  Neither joy nor grief truly occur without the other. Someone once said that for we know “joy” because we have experience “sadness”. Gibran encourages us to not just glance on sorrow like we do an open wound but to look into it; so, that we will understand the future of healing.

Yes, Saint Augustine was wise to ask that there be a shield around those that know joy.  For it is in joy that the darkness of sorrow is given space and healing. It is the strength of joy that lifts the weakest of those in pain.  Thich Nhat Hanh, speaks of the garden of our soil when he shares with us that when a lesser seed of negativity is germinated we need to be mindful of love so that we not become chocked by the weed of hatred.  It is in the act of metta that we give ourselves and those around us the air of freedom to not be down-casted but to be uplifted

We are meant to dance as well as mourn. We have a spirit that lives within us that longs to be laughing at the simplest of things.  We all have this inner child that dares to dance to music within and it is so wanting to just get out of the chair that we have many times confined it to.  We have an inner adolescent that wants to know that it is ok to be embraced with sadness while still having the freedom to joyfully explore its own identity.  In many ways, it could be that the lack of freedom is where we get the shackles of self-restraint; so, that the desired joy of self-acceptance is denied.  

Would we not be angry if we discovered that a missing child had been entrapped and placed into slavery?

Would we not be infuriated over the knowledge of run-away teenager being abused?

Would we not grieve over the loss that a person has to accept when they are confronted with a death or illness?

That child… that teenager… they all represent something to us. They represent the innocence of joy.  The promise of hope.  They are the dream-makers in our lives. They represent the daring ability to try something that adults rationalize as being inconvenient… reckless… radical… promising.

The confrontation of death and illness symbolizes something fundamental to all of us.  They tell us that life is dangerous… fleeting… mortal… loss of freedom… it steals our dreams.

Yes, shield the joyful ones.  Protect those that have hearts that send us light into a darken present. Provide a music within them to sing to us so that we have the opportunity to dance.

We need those that have a joy to be free to reach their hands out to those that are lying down in the gutter of despair; so that in the union of connection the strength of the joyful draws those that are weak to be stronger.

If you are joyful, dance with life.

If you are joyful, speak with words of encouragement.

If you are joyful, reach out to those that are weaken.

If you are joyful, do not consider this a fleeting a moment for self-pleasure but a time to share in the journey of those that need you the most.

breaking script…. Namaste

streams of thought....april 8th, 2014

“To accomplish great things we must not only act, but also dream; not only plan, but also believe.” – Anatole France

As a child, we all seemed to have had dreams. 

We all played games of adventure and fantasy. 

When I was young boy, we would many times grow up wanting to be the noble character of a fireman, or a sports figure, or a doctor.  It was a time when many of us simply may have wanted to be what our father’s had been… a farmer… a salesman… a person that went off to do whatever it was that they did.  During that same era, the young girls wanted to be teachers… or nurses… or to be doctors as well…. or they, too, simply may have wanted to be whatever their mothers might have been. 

Growing up in the Midwest during that time was just simpler actually.  It was simple… somewhat satisfying… yet… there was something within us that wanted more.

I remember dreaming of becoming a park ranger.  I liked the outdoors… the chance to live near the mountains… In fact, I vaguely remember a television show that was about being a national park ranger.  It was exciting… you lived in some amazing places… and did exciting things… and you got to rescue people because it seemed like every week there was somebody that needed rescuing. Then I realized that a park ranger in the mountains had to climb a lot of things; so, I quickly crossed that dream off my list because I had this fear of heights.  

We all have dreams; even now at this very moment. 

We have things that we want to accomplish.  We have weaknesses that we want to overcome.  We may be facing an illness that we are working to not only move on from but to regain a life that we once had or thought that we wanted back.  We may be struggling with a break in a relationship that seems entangled in our hearts and souls. We may dream of retiring to that beach front cottage or to travel the globe experiencing the richness of life that we have worked so hard to develop.

To dream is the life of the inner child within us.  It is the simplicity of that child that is willing to dare the impossible because, as a child, there aren’t any impossibilities.  The child within us wants to be courageous and to do that which is considered risky.  Many times the most colorful of ideas come from the child within us.  Yet, a child needs something to empower them to act out their fantasy.  It needs security. It needs reassurance. It needs to feel that no matter what happens tomorrow will be another opportunity to act the dream all over again.  It needs an adult.

The adult.  We all know this part of us all too well.  The adult is the one that says that there needs to be order and tells the child all the time that its fantasy is silly.  The adult in us counts the cost that says it is too risky to do some of the things that the inner child wants to attempt.  It tells the inner child in the back of our minds to sit down and to buckle up. The adult…. It is the one that disciplines us sometimes because the mischievous child acts out a dream on their own. It is the one that sets the boundaries too tightly because…. Well, it doesn’t want the child to be hurt.  Our adult personae tells us to be rational in an irrational world.  All the while, the adult part of us wants to have freedom to have fun… but we have stifled the child so much that we lost sight of it.

Then there is the adolescent within us that has the energy to act upon the dreams of the inner child but still needs the guidance of the inner parent.  The inner teenager says that they know that it can do what the inner child wants to do… and do it even bigger.  It is the “older sibling” that is not willing to listen to the parent because it is still deeply connected with the younger child but won’t admit it.  It is the part of us that wants to discover who we are by trying to do all that we can.  It is the energy storehouse of all the inner passion… healthy and unhealthy.  It is the reckless one that doesn’t mean to be careless but they are still trying to find their own meaning in life.  The inner adolescent is the one that looks in the mirror every day and says “what can I accomplish today because I am invincible enough to overcome anything”.  The only problem is that sometimes that internal mirror is a distorted reflective object that can create some unhealthy imagination.

We all have dreams….

We all have the ability to release the inner child into the playground of possibilities.

We all have the inner teenager that says that I can do anything… I just don’t know what it is that I want to do.

We all have the adult that has learned over time how to protect itself and to plan out a contingency when things go awry.

Sometimes we forget about that inner child and lose sight of our dreams of desires. 

Many times the inner adolescent shows up as our insecurities of just not knowing what we want to do and questions sometimes if the dream that we dare to “dance” with will say yes.

Life is filled with risks and dares us to dream… when the inner part of who we truly are becomes present that is when we can live this life with the richness of meaning.

 

Breaking Script… Namaste.

streams of thought...january 22nd, 2014

“Before anything ever was, it had to be dreamed. Everything had its beginning in possibility.”  -  John O’Donohue (Eternal Echoes: Celtic Reflections on Our Yearning to Belong)
I believe that there is a place in life for the mystical playground.  A place where we can go to with the hopes and dreams of a young child. Where is that in you?  Can you close your eyes and see it?  Can your spirit feel it? Can your mind go to it?
I remember when I just a little lad, I would swing high on the swings all the while afraid that I would fall backwards and out of the seat… yet for some reason I had no problem launching myself from the front of it. Also, in our school yard, we had this big tree, I have no idea what kind of tree it was but as a child in second grade it was humongous.  A person could sit at the base of it with another friend and have no idea that there was another person on the other side…. if they kept quiet.  We found out who wanted to be “boyfriend” and “girlfriend” that way. It was also a good place to hide, too.
As a child, we had the freedom to believe in anything we wanted to believe in.  To us there was an amazing amount of possibilities. We could dream of being doctors… baseball players… anything was possible.
I had a cousin, Brent, who wanted to be a baseball announcer.  We had these plastic lockers that we would put our baseball cards in and would play with them like they were meant to be played with.  I remember going over to his house to see if he got a new card that I was willing to trade some of my cards for… we were the ”general managers” of our cards.  Brent had this fascinating ability.  He could remember the statistics of every player that he had in his set of cards.  I could barely remember the cards that I had let alone their statistics.
A child has a fascinating ability… one that as adults we sometimes miss the opportunity to use.  A child will unflinchingly dream of who they want to be… what they want to become.  A fireman… a policeman… a sports figure… a doctor… a teacher. They dream of becoming these people because they inwardly see value in becoming them.  If we were to ask a young child if they wanted something that was contrary to what they valued, they would look at us and respond back saying, ”Why would I want to do that?”
So, when was the last time we believed in possibilities? We have within us a gift.  A gift to dream.  A gift to make possible the impossible. We wake up every day with the freedom to say that we want better.  How many times have we wanted to know and to be who we are meant to be? Yet, we dismiss that thought as being ridiculous.
We all have the cellular capacity to act upon what we see as being valuable. Sadly if we haven’t responded to that calling within to become, we are not just losing an opportunity but we are losing ourselves.
“Before anything ever was, it had to be dreamed.” 
What do we dream?  I think that we dream too little but we want to accomplish much.  I smile at this concept because it is the same thing as saying I don’t know where I am going; so, I will just walk around in a circle because at the end of the day I can say I did something.
What is the purpose of living without dreaming?
What is the purpose of painting without having a vision within our spirit to guide us in at least starting?
To act upon a dream does not mean that the dream is going to be completed as it started out but it is more akin to the beginning stroke of an artist with an open heart to whatever the artistic piece will eventually look like. To give ourselves to a destiny, we need to dream of what that destiny will look like and let it unfold every day.
I say “Dream! Dream with all that you have within you!” Go find the child within that wants to explore and play in the playground of your spirit and while that child plays they will tell stories to your mind of magical things. Magical because that is the only way that as an adult we could ever imagine these dreams to coming true.  Dare your child to risk… risk peddling hard and fast so it stays up their bike Give the child within you to freedom to laugh… to see the joy of life once again.
We all know what that child looks like.  Mine? He is a round belly, curly headed, big brown eyed little boy. His eyes sparkles when he knows that I am aware of him… and when I am not he just plays all alone.
We all want to do something… so dream of it being bigger than we could ever imagine. Let’s allow our imagination the possibility of finding colors and paths that have been hidden away. Don’t worry about what others will think; let them find their own inner child.
And by the way… when you find that inner child… give them a hug… they have missed you.
See you on the playground…  breaking script… Namaste