streams of thought...july, 27th, 2014

The summertime.  A hot muggy season that seems to entice so many of us with offerings that only this time of the year can afford.

A movement from indoors to the outdoors.

We do know that It is just a season right?

We will not have any control over this movement of time but we do have control over how we spend it. 

I have a few friends that love the summer season. They love sitting out at the beach or at the park or on their patios soaking in all the vitamin D that their body eagerly consumes.  Others can found at the local park playing volleyball or taking their children to the playground.   During this season, there will be swimsuit clad males and females at the waterpark or at the pools splashing around while swimming or simply having a great time. There will also be some that will spend the day in front of an air conditioner trying to keep cool and avoiding the heat all together.

We all make choices and have preferences. We all make decisions on what will make our present day the best that it can be… or maybe we won’t.

For me one of the best parts of the summer is seeing the dark clouds rolling in over the Rocky Mountains.

Today, while driving over the crest of a hill looking down into the Boulder Valley, I saw the Flatirons being engulfed with clouds and to me that is one of the most awe inspiring views that I can imagine.  

What inspires our imagination or willingness to act is many times forgotten until… well, until we encounter it again. It seems that we move through life so focused on the event right in front of us that we miss a small whisper of a notion that resides within almost every encounter. The simple fact that we have the ability to take another breath should be a moment of inspiration. Many times we look for a grand event, sign, or thought to light an emotional kindling that will launch us into an act that will give us an internal fire that generates enough energy to move us beyond our imaginations.  However, it is not always the grandiose signs but often times it is the simplest and the most silent of all that moves us to travel on a path that we would have never gone down before. It could be…

the laughter of a child…

the sound of silence moving through the aspen leaves…

a photo or a painting…

a word spoken in a conversation…

If we are open to the possibilities and recognize our own capabilities, we can be inspired by almost anything.

Can I share a secret with you?  I am blended introvert. Some of you who know me well are just smiling at something that you already have known for quite awhile.  

Rarely, will I ever get inspired by some huge rally where some dynamic speaker will get up before thousands of people to espouse their insight in how to live… to sell… to promote yourself better than anyone else.  In fact, I will definitely react the opposite way that they will want me to act.  My sense of identity is totally contrary to the bombastic experience that this type of episode offers to me.

In other words, I find my inspiration in the smallest of things… a line in a book… a drop of a beat in a song… a quiet walk at Chataugua… or perhaps that presence of another person who seeks to do more than just live. They really don’t have to say anything.  No, it is something about their presence that tells me to act on all the gifts that I have been given.

Jung once used the phrase “the birthing of death”.  He was referring to his perception that we will hit an apex of life when we will be birthing on how we will be known after we die.  Simply stated, we begin creating our own legacy. I agree with him to a point but I disagree with his conclusion that all people will die.  Oh, I know that none of will escape the inevitable but yet how we interact with others will determine how will be remembered.  Yes, we will all eventually leave this earthly vessel called our body but we will never leave the memory of another person. It is our life reconstituted in the spiritual.  It is a non-physical yet always constant presence of how we are remembered. So, how we choose to live this life… to inspire others… to interact and act upon the behalf of others are decisions that we encounter with each breath of physical life.

We know our weaknesses all too well.  We live in the winter of our souls when we seclude ourselves from others. A spiritual and emotional hibernation… even in the heat of the summer we can isolate ourselves.  Our spirit needs the warmth of inspiration.  It requires the water of walking fluidly.  We allow the fear of drowning emotionally to take away the joy of living. So, find someone that will support you as you venture out into the “swimming pool” of life.  Let them be your “floaties”. 

Enjoy life.  Enjoy the heat of the season that we move through it.  Explore your own desire. Challenge yourself and in turn you will empower others to be challenged.   

streams of thought...may 14th, 2014

”In those moments I sometimes catch a glimpse of my true life, a life hidden like the river beneath the ice.” – Parker Palmer from Let Your Life Speak

Have you ever found a writer, a performer, a thinker of all times, or perhaps just another person that makes both your face and soul smile at the same time? 

It may be in the way they live their lives.  It may be in some act of kindness that they have done.  It may be in what they have written.  Or it may be just because they sang something that just reached inside you.

Parker Palmer is one of those individuals for me.  He speaks with such depth and clarity, yet with the simplest of ways.

In moments that I need to re-find my way, I go to some of the writing sources that always seem to inspire me.  Yes, I find refuge in the Jewish Proverbs.  I find meaning in the writings of Thich Nhat Hanh. I revisit my calling in the writings of Parker Palmer and Henri Nouwen.

We just left a winter season of introspection.  That period of time when we can pause to discover how we can live life. 

I think that we take the seasons for granted.  In winter, we move through them mindlessly and always looking for the warmer seasons to come. In the spring, we seem to be thinking about the family “vacations” that need to be planned out.  In the summer, we are outdoors and moving about going from one event to another, all the while making plans for the fall events and holiday seasons. We just do not seem to give the seasons a place where they can guide us in looking at ourselves.   

Hopefully, during this winter season of reflection, we had the opportunity to glimpse through the icy cold exterior of the day to day into a warmed life that flows inside of us.  Just as the trees had shed their leaves… a symbol of their external beauty… its life moved inside of itself to develop a greater strength in the roots, which anchor the tree into the soil of the earth.  We, too, have gone through a season of moving inside of our own souls to take a moment from the busyness of life to develop the roots inside of ourselves to anchor us for the impending seasons. 

Now in the spring season, we move into a period of renewal and rebirth.  Just as we see the flowers and the buds on the trees start to peek their colorful heads from the dark depth of their birthing place of protection, we, too, are moving into a new season of life.

If we have caught a “glimpse of (our) true life” during the season of introspection, we have discovered what path we are designed to travel on. Hopefully, we have looked at our sense of being a little differently than before.  Many times we get caught up into a cultural movement which pushes us into competing more… into earning more… into consuming more… and yet our life, that is uniquely individual, yearns for more than just moving in the same direction as everyone else.  We are reluctant… dare we say… afraid… to step outside of our environment that we live in to be different.  We have learned to live from the outside in and then wonder why we are never satisfied.  Instead, we need to pause long enough not to say how we want to live life but to listen long enough for our life to tell us how we should live it.  We are becoming deaf to the beating of our soul because the noise of the world has been turned up too loudly.

Nature has a way of teaching us so much more on how we should walk in our own present life.  We have become the consumers of the earth more than the caretakers.  A caretaker will do just that…. “take care”.  They will know the dangers and the possibilities in the land and the creatures that reside in the habitat.  It may be possible that we no longer listen to our own inner self because we are just thinking about how we can consume life not care for it.

Parker Palmer writes, “Before you tell your life what you intend to do with it, listen for what it intends to do with you. Before you tell your life what truths and values you decided to live up to, let your life tell you what truths you embody, what values you represent.”

We all go through a season of what is seemingly lost.  Is it possible that the loss is not really a loss but a lesson?  Is it possible that the lesson is meant to be a positive teaching of how to live and love?  Perhaps the loss is showing us what we truly value and therefore giving us a chance to live those values out in a richer sense.

We see the streams of water… the current is flowing and carrying with it what needs to be taken away… perhaps the only thing the separates us from that Living Water is the icy barrier of being something that we are truly not meant to be.

Breaking script… Namaste