Bittman Bliss Blog

I ran across this Cherokee expression: “When you were born, you cried and the world rejoiced. Live your life so that when you die, the world cries and you rejoice.” I know that this kind of life is possible and it unfolds one choice at a time, as does any kind of life. When my choices are aligned with my highest vision, my deepest values and my heart’s desires, I can not only rejoice when I die (assuming one can rejoice at that point) but all along the way as well. And those choices begin with what I choose to focus on moment by moment.

Eckhart Tolle wrote, “What the future holds depends on our state of consciousness now.” Knowing that my life plays out according to the thoughts, feelings, attitudes, and beliefs I choose to place and hold in the center ring of my awareness, why is it that I still make stinky choices as the ringmaster? Why wouldn’t I always choose to give the center ring to what I want to be, do and have and how I want to show up in life? Why wouldn’t I always choose to focus on love, joy, peace, compassion, abundance, service, oneness and wholeness?

Well, at this point in my life the only answer to those questions that truly serves me is, “Who cares?” Historically, my responses to those “why” questions have always been a list of less-than-empowering activities such as excuses, justifications, blame, negative self-judgment, shouldas, couldas and wouldas. None of those ever get me any closer to the choice I really want to make in that moment, in every moment, which is to proclaim loudly and proudly, “Ladies and gentlemen, children of all ages, for your enjoyment, now in the center ring…LOVE!” In fact, I’m now convinced that it’s the mental gymnastics I choose instead that represent the primary thing that stops me from making truth and love my focus in any moment.

I’m tired of the gymnastics. So I’m renewing my intention to pay attention to what I’ve chosen to place in the center ring and to take responsibility for placing it there. Yes, often it seems as if my mind were a 50-ring circus. Yes, I have old tapes and mental mechanisms that make it easier for me to give the spotlight to fear, lack and limitation. But when I simply notice I’ve done that and take responsibility for doing it (instead of engaging in shoulds and “yeah, buts”), it’s a lot easier to shine the light of my awareness where I really choose to.

This choice to focus on truth is apparently one I need to make over and over again. I practice it in meditation so I can do it more easily in my “normal” life. And it gets easier. Every time I remember to make that kind of choice, I leave a little trail of breadcrumbs that make my highest truth easier to find the next time.

There’s more good news about all this related to how our brains and nerve systems work. It’s called reciprocal inhibition. Whatever I put in the center ring of my awareness expands, and all the lunacy and mayhem on the fringes diminish. This motivates me to keep making the choice for joy and peace without excessive resistance or justification. I’d rather have joy and peace in the center ring and not resistance and justification!

My hip is pretty much fine again, and I bless it once again for helping me to practice making the choice for truth (and for feeling better, too). There were times in the first week or two after injuring it when the choice to focus on my highest truth seemed very difficult to make, and what I discovered was that by simply being willing to make it, that helped. When the pain or frustration or worry seemed overwhelming, I remembered (most of the time) to simply say to myself, “I am willing to experience joy right now.” That really helped me to remember all the tools I have for accessing joy, and the willingness itself felt a lot better than the angst. Even when the angst wouldn’t completely leave the center ring, taking responsibility for choosing it felt more empowering and hopeful than being at its mercy.

I know we each have everything we need to live our life so well that when we die, the world cries and we rejoice. It’s happening right now in the center ring…so it behooves me to be mindful and responsible about what I put there!

And if that’s all I remember, that’s more than enough for now.

My hip continues to improve (please see last post), and I am grateful for that, though at times I find myself sad. Maybe it’s because I’m dog tired, or maybe it’s because I still lapse into wrestling matches with worry and fatalism and feeling old. Three against one is not really fair.

My work with the meaning I assign to it all is, obviously, ongoing. I’ve chosen to see it from the highest possible point of view, to let the meaning unfold from a place of clarity and wholeness, and to stay the heck out of the wrestling ring (why do they call it a ring when it’s square?). For the most part, that’s what I’ve been doing, and I’ve managed to enjoy the blessings that have already shown up and to stay open to any more that might happen by. I’m grateful for that, too, as well as for the fact that I speak about these very things every Sunday. Knowing I’ll be up there inspires me to practice what I preach!

Somewhere in my process, I realized I was in good company and that some of my heroes had “bad” hips, too. Charles Fillmore, the co-founder of Unity, broke his hip in an ice-skating injury at age 10 and was left with “permanent” deformity and disability. Ralph Waldo Emerson also had a chronic hip problem. In neither case did it stop them from shining their light on the world. More good news is that both were “cured”. Fillmore, who was told he wouldn’t live past age 18, and whose withered leg was markedly shorter than the other, died at age 94 with 2 legs of nearly equal length. He attributed his healing to prayer, meditation, affirmations and denials, and basically “spiritualizing” his body.

Emerson was reportedly cured by “a quack”. Somehow I feel really good about the way both of their healings came about.

And then there’s the very first case of a hip injury recorded in the literature (as far as I know). The hip belonged to Jacob and the story is in Genesis. He wrestled with “a man” all night. At daybreak things were still at a stalemate when the man struck Jacob on the hip and “put it out of joint”. Still Jacob clung on and grappled until the man (who Jacob then realized was God or an angel of God) asked to be let go. “I will not let you go unless you bless me”, is Jacob’s reply. The angel blesses Jacob with a new name.

I have found great meaning in this story this week. For Jacob, being in exile for 20 years for fear of his brother (whose earthly inheritance he stole), an all-night wrestling match with God and a dislocated hip were finally enough for him to surrender his ego and embrace his divine inheritance. His new name signified a new state of consciousness. For me, this is possible in every moment.

The word “wrestle” is derived from the root of the word “turn.” So every time I’ve realized I was wrestling with things from a limited, fear-based, ego-driven place, I’ve remembered to “turn the other hip” to the other side of my nature, the unlimited, whole, divine side. I’ve done this by forcing myself to consider all there is to be grateful for, by breathing into my heart so that my brain didn’t continue to fly solo, by inquiring into the meaning I’ve given to things and opening up to other possibilities, and by reminding myself that joy and peace were closer than my next breath.

Every time I’ve done this, every time I’ve looked at things with both my heart and head engaged, every time I’ve turned the other hip in this way, I’ve come away with a greater understanding or awareness. Every time I’ve brought things to that place in my own consciousness where God and I are one, I’ve felt less sad, more hopeful and more empowered. I’m not sure what will happen with my hip, but if choices are to be made or actions taken, from that place I know I can make them and take them from a place of power and presence.

Jacob’s story also reminded me that whatever it is I might wrestle with, it will not let me go until I bless it. In order to bless it (or him or her), I have to first see things from a different place, a truer place, a more expansive place. And as soon as I do, the need to wrestle with it begins to let go of me. So I bless me hip, because not only has it provided me with a bunch of rest and relaxation, it has also reminded me that joy is always a choice away and that I don’t access it by wrestling. I experience it by turning; away from the often crazy and limiting meanings I give things with my surface mind, and toward the bottomless well of love, strength and wisdom that is always right here, right now.

And if that’s all I remember, that’s more than enough for now.

The Buddha said, “When the mind is pure, joy follows like a shadow that never leaves.” When he referred to a pure mind, I don’t think he was talking about one that was free of lustful thoughts (at least I hope not). I think he was talking more about a mind that was un-muddled and un-muddied by what he called “conditioning”; one that was relatively free of learned, robot-like, ego-based reactions, patterns, and mechanisms.

One my teachers, Richard J. Santo, used to say, “If you want to be happy, stop doing whatever it is that’s making you unhappy.” He was saying the same thing as the Buddha: unless we choose something else (consciously or unconsciously) to occupy center stage in our awareness, we would experience joy. Joy is like a bottomless well that sits just below the surface of our minds that is often obscured from our sight by all the resentment and guilt and worry and thinking we don’t deserve and thinking we must beat ourselves up sufficiently before we could ever experience joy.

Sometimes joy bubbles up in the hardest and darkest times. That’s how I know it’s always there. The most dramatic example for me was when my dad was making his transition in 2005. We had spent a horrific 2 weeks in the hospital and at this point he had stopped talking. My brother, the nurse and I helped him into the bathroom and sat him down, and when we closed the bathroom door behind us the nurse asked, “Are you comfortable?” Now, my dad always had a stock answer to this particular question but hearing it in that moment was the furthest thing from our minds. But sure enough, a weak voice came through the door: “I make a living.” I still can’t quite describe the joy we all experienced in that moment and it clearly felt as though it had been there all along, just waiting for an opportunity to slip through all the other things we had been thinking and feeling.

So, with a general intention to experience more joy, I’ve been paying attention to how I tend to muddy the waters of my consciousness. And I discovered a big one recently while meditating: all the meaning I assign to everything, even my own thoughts. I was sitting out at the lake, soaking in the sound of the lapping waves, watching my own thoughts and my reactions to them. Everything was hunky dory until a car went by blasting some music, the bass sounding like a series of sonic booms. Instead of simply noticing the new sound and acknowledging it as part of my experience in that moment, I immediately went to, “Why does he have to play his lousy music so loud?” Four or five additional judgments later, I realized I had lost sight of my joy. In reflecting on this phenomenon, I realized I’m always doing this! I give meaning to everything, and often that meaning isn’t necessarily true. Often it’s the same meaning I assigned when I was two years old. Often that meaning is not aligned with my core values. Often that meaning limits me and makes it harder for me to unfold what is good and beautiful and true about me.

What does it really mean when someone disagrees with me, or disapproves of me, or judges me? What does it mean when someone’s behavior annoys or baffles me? What does it mean when things don’t go according to my plans? When I look deeply and honestly at these questions, the only answer is, “I don’t really know.” And when I don’t really know, I can remember that the meaning I assign to anything is essentially a guess or an opinion anyway, so why not give it meaning that expands me and allows me to express my highest? Why not give it a meaning that will give my life more meaning?

Among the beings I know well, the one with the purest mind is my dog, Brenna. Indeed, she never seems to be very far removed from her joy, even in situations when I know she would prefer things to be different than they are. And I really believe it’s because she doesn’t attach a ton of meaning to things. If I stop throwing her stick, for example, she doesn’t wonder why, she doesn’t assume she did something wrong, she doesn’t appear to hold anything against me or herself, she simply sits down and starts chewing the stick or starts throwing it around for herself. In other words, the only meaning she assigns to an “obstacle” is that it means she must make a different choice, one that still allows her to access her deep well of joy. I am truly inspired by this incredible wisdom, and I’m fairly certain one need not have a brain the size of a golf ball in order to display similar wisdom. And there are so many opportunities to practice!

This week I was “supposed” to go backpacking. We’d arranged our schedule to take the time off, and my daughter did likewise as she came up from Santa Cruz to join us. It was to be a time of fun, relaxation, communing, connection and oneness. Then the day before we were to leave, I jumped off a ten-inch high rock and landed wrong, severely tweaking my hip to the point where I couldn’t put any weight on it. Home I limped, feeling angry, scared, guilty (Hillary had been talking about going backpacking for years) and generally old, stupid and very sorry for myself. Where did my joy go?

Hillary helped me reclaim it by reminding me I was giving it all the meaning it had for me. And wow, what meaning that was! A brief synopsis: I would never be able to hike again, I sucked for ruining my family’s week, I brought it on myself because originally I’d had some resistance to the idea, etc., etc. With Hillary’s help, I emulated Brenna. My daughter decided to come up anyway, I surrendered to what was, I asked for prayers, I opened up and thoroughly enjoyed being taken care of, and we’ve had a time of fun, relaxation, communing, connection and oneness. And, my hip is recovering much, much faster than I imagined, and I think there’s every reason to look forward to a hiking future.

I think I’ll notice when I’m muddling my joy with meaning a little more quickly and easily now. And I know that will continue to reveal my bottomless well of joy in more of my moments. My mind may never be as pure as Brenna’s, but there’s always hope!

And if that’s all we remember, that’s more than enough for now.

I apologize for the grammar, but hey, it’s a lyric from a song.

The late, great George Carlin once said, “I put a dollar in one of those change machines. Nothing changed.” There’s wisdom in that as well as humor. Living under a brain as I do, I’ve noticed that often it seems to me as if nothing changes, and apparently I’m not alone, based on how often I hear something like, “Same schmootz; different day.” This contrasts sharply with the truth of the matter, which is that change is constant and just as inevitable as death and taxes (and often equally desirable).

On every level of material existence, everything is changing in every moment. Nature shows me a different face every single time I commune with Her, which is often. 98% of the atoms that currently comprise my physical body will be comprising something else 3 months from now. Even more amazingly, according to Ken Wilbur the entire manifest universe blinks in and out of existence every .00000000000000000000000000000000000000000001 seconds. So in the time it took Carlin to put the dollar into the machine, a whole bunch of things changed. It’s rather amazing how well our brains hoodwink us into believing otherwise.

Even the Bible reminds me that everything changes. One of the most common phrases in it is, “It came to pass…” Not once does it say, “It came to stay.”

I used to resist change, which is probably why I was OK with the hoodwinking. I even resisted change when I knew I could use a great deal of it. Change brings me into the unknown, which at times seems worse than whatever is going on, no matter how bad it is. This has historically been compounded by my tendency to want to figure out in advance all the possible ramifications, combinations and permutations that could result from making a change. And my figurings and imaginings were not usually what one would call the best case scenarios. No wonder I resisted change!

I’ve come to embrace change, and this has been a tremendous gift. Understanding that change is inevitable is very helpful to me. It reminds me that I can change. Sometimes I look at some of my issues and berate myself over the fact that I’ve been working on the same ones for 30 years. But when I breathe and look more deeply I clearly see that I view these issues now from a much different perspective, approach them with many more effective tools, and generally hold them with a lot more humor and lightness. That’s a huge change!

As I’ve let go of figuring out what might happen if something was to change and focused instead on expressing my deepest values and intentions no matter what was going on, every day I become more of the person that I choose to be; every moment the spiritual being that I am shines forth a little more brightly. In becoming aware of (and OK with) the impermanence of things, it has also helped me to remember to focus more on what doesn’t change, to identify more and more with the eternal, unchanging, unchangeable aspect of my being. This divine essence is my anchor and has become a safe haven in the storms of the world and of my mind. It’s easy to fall asleep to that essence when I buy into the idea that things don’t change. Change keeps me awake.

Change is gonna do us good, especially when we remember that it’s the only constant and when we remember to use it for good. The coolest thing of all is that every time I focus on what doesn’t change and awaken to the depths and truth of my being, everything changes.

And if that’s all we remember, that’s more than enough for now.

Independence Day is tomorrow and it’s worth celebrating if only because it’s about the only holiday we still celebrate on the right day (even if John Adams thought we ought to celebrate our nation’s independence on July 2nd). More than that, and much more than the beer and fireworks, it’s a celebration of our autonomy from external control and constraint, our nation’s freedom from external forces.

It’s quite a blessing, though it has me wondering how free I am from internal forces. I am a being of consciousness and often become imprisoned, not so much by what I don’t know, but by what I “know” that ain’t so. I (and undoubtedly you too) live under a brain, and therefore am not entirely free from its tendency toward “knowing” that I stink, that I am separate, that this universe is hostile and full of lack and limitation, that I am right and you are wrong, that you are stupid, etc. None of these things are true, and yet once I “know” they are, it stops me from knowing what IS true: that you and I are whole, beautiful and perfect expressions of Love.

It’s amazing how quickly my brain can believe it knows something or someone. I wouldn’t look at 1 piece of a 1000-piece jigsaw puzzle and expect to know the big picture on the box, but my brain performs this amazing feat constantly. For instance, it thinks it can understand you based on one word, one look, or one action. Then, once it knows you, it will doggedly gather evidence to support that knowing. It’s crazy, and it greatly compromises my freedom, but on it goes. And I have a feeling that’s just what it will continue to do.

Here’s where I’m at now, especially in the realm of relationships. I can never understand anyone. What I generally think I know about you is only the tip of the iceberg. And, especially because I’m trying to know you based on my filters, judgments and perceptions (in other words, trying to understand you with only the tip of MY iceberg), my knowing becomes even more limited. I can’t see the unfathomable depths of God/love/being that you really are. I can’t see that at those depths, you and I are one. So if I ever have any hope of knowing you, I first have to plumb those depths in myself. I used to think I needed to understand someone before I could connect with them, now I know that’s bass ackwards. If I can go to my heart and make a connection with you first, I’ll know all I need to know about you.

This all came to light recently as we attended a retreat to mark the completion of our first year of Interfaith Ministry studies. We are doing the program by correspondence, so this retreat was the first time we actually met our classmates, our deans and the directors of the seminary. We had communicated all year by conference calls, emails and Yahoo groups. It’s hard to connect with people this way, based on “disembodied” words and stories, but that didn’t stop me from thinking I knew everyone. I had so many judgments (mostly not positive); I even “knew” what everyone looked like! I was almost 100% wrong on all counts, as usual. The retreat gave us the opportunity to connect heart-to-heart, and I fell deeply in love with everyone.

I see now why the Scots say, “I ken you” instead of “I love you”. It’s the same thing. When I open my heart and feel yours, I know all I need to know in order to love you. I know you’re just like me. I know you are just as screwed up as I am. I know you are doing the best you can. I know you’ve had horrible sadness, frustration and despair in your life. I now you’re looking for love. And I know that we are both spiritual beings, children of the divine; I know we are one. I may not understand your actions or your words, but I don’t have to (I’m still working on understanding mine!). I still have judgments, but I can see them for what they are: iceberg droppings. I can wrap them up in the love that we share and watch them melt. It’s much harder for them to make me forget the truth.

I’m practicing this now. And I’ve already noticed that it’s a lot easier to make a connection with someone when that is my primary intention. My trip home from the retreat, another Cecil B. DeMille United Airlines adventure story, provided multiple opportunities to practice. In one instance, I was trying to go standby on an earlier flight and was told by the agent that she would be with me in a minute. Ten minutes later, as she continued to make phone calls and shuffle papers, my head began to fill with judgments. I remembered my intention but I couldn’t use my usual arsenal of tools to make a connection (eye contact, smiles, hugs, etc.). I knew I’d find a way.

People joined the line, and I started answering their questions. “Oh, I hear the flight is booked but not overbooked.” “Yes, there are only 8 people on the standby list so far so it’s looking pretty good.” “No, this flight is scheduled to leave on time even though the earlier one to San Francisco is delayed.” I knew the agent was hearing all this, so I turned to her and said, “I want half your pay if I’m going to answer all these questions.”

She replied, “It won’t do you any good.”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s gone before I see it.

“In that case, I want it all!”

She laughed and immediately her whole persona changed. And I could see that she had been confused and frustrated, trying to find help to figure out how to do something related to what everyone on line needed. I knew all I needed to know to love her.

To “understand” literally means to “stand in the midst of”, or even more literally, to “inter-stand.” So, when those iceberg droppings start plopping into the seas of my awareness I remember that in truth we are inter-standing, standing together in the truth of love and oneness. And when I think I know something else about us, I’m beginning to doubt it. It feels good to be just a little freer this Independence Day.

And if that’s all we remember, that’s more than enough for now.

I’ve been in the healing “business” for 30 years now and it’s still fascinating and meaningful to me that the word “heal” comes from the same root as the words “hale”, “holy” and “hallowed”, and that their common root means “whole.” I love that because I believe we are spiritual beings having a spiritual experience (the only separation between the spiritual and the human being in our minds), so we are already whole, and therefore health and holiness are our normal states. This makes the whole business a lot simpler for me!

Wholeness is defined as “an undivided or unbroken completeness or totality with nothing wanting.” So to say we are whole means we aren’t missing anything physically, mentally or emotionally; we’re not missing any parts and all the parts function in harmony because they’re not really parts, they’re just aspects of one indivisible whole.

For me, the best news about all that is that because I am already whole, healing on every level is always possible. I am whole, but my awareness of that wholeness may not be fully expressed. My “polar bear cage” (see last week’s blog post) may be quite small when it comes to my ability to see and know my own wholeness. But anytime and every time I become more aware of that wholeness, I heal!

I need to make a distinction at this point between curing and healing, as they are not even remotely the same. Curing is something that happens to our symptom or our health problem; healing is something that happens to (within) us. Curing is something that happens in the realm of appearances and form, healing is something that happens in the realm of consciousness and energy. Curing is sometimes not possible; healing is always possible.

Given a particular situation, healing can show up in many ways: in helping us tap into resources, support, or help we didn’t know we had, in strengthening our relationships, in helping us to not stress the small stuff, in helping to transform fear into love, in teaching us that sorrow and joy can coexist in the same moment, etc. Healing is a movement in consciousness or energy toward wholeness, on whatever level that happens and by whatever means that happens. We are not the same after such a movement in consciousness; we generally experience more peace, more love, more faith and/or more joy, more of the truth of what we are, as a result. On the other hand, a cure can happen but nothing shifts on the inside and often the fear remains (“what if it comes back”?). I have nothing against cures (though they are often worse than the disease), in fact I admit there have been times in my life when nothing else seemed important. But without healing only the appearance of things tends to change; our inner atmosphere and our state of consciousness often don’t.

It takes imagination to see our wholeness, to see past the appearances and the bars of our cage, and this is hard to do when our issue is in our face. When I have a health issue and all I do is focus on the diagnosis or the cure, the problem becomes like a stone I hold right up against my eye. I can’t see beyond it, even if the stone is relatively small. I can’t see the bigger picture or the possible gifts; I can’t take advantage of the healing opportunity.

The same is true if all I do is ask why I got the problem to begin with. More and more I’m convinced of the truth of, “Everything happens for a reason.” And, I’m equally convinced that I don’t really ever have a clue what that reason is; at least the entire reason. So instead of asking why, why not use my imagination to see the wholeness that is always there? Generally that simply means I have to move the stone a little bit further away from my eye.

Here’s an example of what I mean. About 10 years ago, Hillary was in the throes of menopause. She was having weird pains and scary neurological symptoms, heart palpitations, significant sleep deprivation, and a bunch of other things I’ve happily forgotten. Through this time, the words of Archie Bunker kept going through my head, when Edith was going through a similar process: “Edith, if you’re going to change, just go ahead and do it!” Alas, that didn’t happen for Hillary any more than it did for Edith.

One day, upon returning from a breakfast meeting with our mastermind group, Hillary was convinced she was about to die. She was extremely agitated, fretful, angry, overwhelmed and hopeless. There was no cure in sight. I wasn’t sure what to say or do, but these words came to me: “If this really is your death, is this how you want to do it?” This was exactly what she needed in order to move the stone away from her eye. No, she didn’t want to do it that way; she wanted to do it with more peaceful acceptance and with much more awareness of the love within her and around her. So first she used her imagination to actually contemplate her possible death. This brought her fear out in the open where it couldn’t lurk just beyond her awareness and run her. Then she used her imagination to fill herself with light and love, to affirm her wholeness, to open to the unlimited possibilities inherent in that wholeness. This helped tremendously, not so much with the symptoms, but with her perspective. It was a healing. And to this day she’s convinced that if hadn’t opened up to that healing, she would indeed have died.

So the question for me becomes how do I want to live, whether or not I have a health problem, even whether or not I’m dying (which, you’d have to admit, we’re all in the process of doing). When I keep that question on the center stage of my awareness, the answer is obvious and my vision immediately becomes bigger, better and more beautiful. Every moment is a healing opportunity, and when I use my imagination to remember this, I can take advantage of more and more of them.

And if that’s all we remember, that’s more than enough for now.

I’m not sure exactly when my imagination started running away with me, that is, when I began using it to limit my self-image, to blind myself from my own light, my wholeness, my greatness. When did I become like that polar bear cub I heard about many years ago that was kept in a cage at a zoo for several months and when finally released into its permanent enclosure would not venture beyond the limits of its imaginary cage? When did I start putting up the blinders and the filters and the defense mechanisms and the bars? I distinctly remember as a young boy using my imagination to become bigger, better, stronger, more like Superman…or at least more like Shane. I used it in order to see myself as being capable of accomplishing anything and everything. I loved letting my imagination run away with me that way. Then it turned around and double crossed me and started running away with the “real me.”

Maybe it began around the same time I started believing that it wasn’t safe or appropriate to show my feelings in this world. But it doesn’t really matter how or when or why it happened. What matters, as always, is what I do about it now. Because I’ve used my imagination to limit myself for so long, it has become hard for my eyes to see what my heart knows is true of me and of everyone else—that we are whole, perfect and complete. As Mark Twain said, “You can’t trust your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.” So I can refocus my imagination by using it to see the truth of me.

I can envision myself showing up in life exactly as I choose to. I can envision myself responding with patience, love and compassion instead of reacting with anger or judgment. I can envision myself sticking to my intentions, acting with kindness, giving hope to people, helping to birth a greater awareness within myself and other people of our wholeness and oneness. I can envision myself going beyond the bars, opening up to a more expansive picture of myself. I can do all this because I still have a power of imagination. And if I imagined all the illusion and limits, I can certainly imagine the truth.

John Muir said that “imagination makes us infinite.” It’s a beautiful phrase, but I beg to differ. Imagination doesn’t make us infinite, we already are infinite. Imagination can help us see it. And when we can see the eternal and the infinite in ourselves, we can see it in others and in the world.

It might feel like pretending, but that’s OK. It only feels that way because I’m inside the cage right now. And, as it turns out, the word “pretend” comes from the same root as the word “claim.” So I don’t look at imagining my bigness and wholeness as acting, I look at is reclaiming my birthright. I look at it as remembering. I look at it as reclaiming and repainting a picture of myself that is good and beautiful and true; a picture I can continue to grow into.

The polar bear cub had to have some imagination to have ever seen past the imaginary bars. I can see now that imagination has played a similar role in everything I’ve ever done that had real value. Everything I’ve ever done to truly love and serve others involved me first seeing past the imaginary bars of my own creation and into a realm of greater possibility for myself.

That’s the really good news: that whenever I break through any imaginary barriers and realize more of my bigness, everyone benefits. We break through barriers for each other, because we’re all one. Before Roger Bannister broke the 4-minute mile, it was thought to be impossible. Within months, many other runners did it. As Marianne Williamson wrote, “When we let our own light shine, we unconsciously allow others to do the same.”

I’m always learning how to let my light shine more brightly, and this has been another piece. I’ve allowed my light to be dimmed from my sight over the years, and now I know that it was just my imagination running away with me. So now I’m letting it make amends by finding me. It’s only fair.

And if that’s all we remember, that’s more than enough for now.

Memorial Day has held little meaning in my life beyond family picnics, the onset of the “summer vibe” and invariably, in my 33 years here in Lake Tahoe, snowstorms. I’ve always been aware of what the holiday was about, that it used to be called Decoration Day, but perhaps because I had no close relatives who died in battle I was insulated from its true meaning. At least in my early years. Growing up during the Vietnam War, that all changed. There were guys I grew up with in my neighborhood that didn’t come home.

But by then I had become a bit of a hippie and peacenik, and decorating the graves of soldiers just didn’t seem to be part of the program. Though I had grown up marching with my toy gun to John Philip Souza and reveling in multitudinous John Wayne films, by this time in my life anything related to military endeavors had not only lost its luster, but was an anathema, scary, unimaginable and something I didn’t even want to look at, let alone remember.

I see now that I have done a lot of people a tremendous disservice. For all these years, I have equated the warriors with the war. Even worse than that, I have blamed the warriors for the war. I have met a ton of Vietnam vets and so many of them are understandably bitter about the way they were “welcomed” home. In my anti-war stance I’ve managed pretty well to avoid any responsibility or self-recrimination for my part in that. I can’t begin to imagine how that must feel and I now humbly apologize to all of you. I realize it means little at this point, but it means a lot to me. Not only do I intend remembering all the fallen today, but also all those un-fallen who still carry the scars and wounds of war.

My stance on Memorial Day has changed as it has suddenly become clear that I am just as much to blame for war as anyone else. Every week in most Unity and Religious Science centers the service ends with The Peace Song, “Let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me.” Some in our community have wanted to change those words to more affirmative ones, “Yes, there is peace on earth; I know it begins with me.” I’ve been reluctant to change the words because as they stand, they remind me that in every moment I have a choice to allow peace to come into my awareness and into the world. Now, the next time someone asks about changing the words, I’ll be tempted to say, “Fine, as long as we also add the line, ‘Yes, there is war on earth; I know it begins with me.’” In every moment, I also have the choice to create violence, and I’ve become aware recently of how often I do so, in some subtle and not so subtle ways.

I just came back from a Unity men’s retreat. Thirty-three guys and the great majority have served in the military. They were some of the most peaceful men I’ve ever met, and it was perhaps the most peaceful gathering I’ve ever attended. Thirty-three guys and not one mention of football or politics. We laughed and cried and played music together. We shared things with each other that we hadn’t shared with anyone before, with the possible exception of our closest relations. We shared our gifts and also our authentic, screwed up selves and found out we weren’t alone in being gifted and screwed up. We found out that sorrow and joy can coexist in the same moment; that they are in fact inseparable. And we found out that we can each learn volumes about ourselves in community, especially when we can simply be ourselves in that community.

It seems ironic that I learned so much about violence by participating in such a peaceful gathering. The gift was that violence was so glaringly absent I was able to pay attention to what was missing. We weren’t competing! We weren’t doing all those usual man things like trying to fix each other or giving advice or negating others’ experiences (“ah, you think that’s bad? Well listen to this…”) or attempting to shift someone else’s reality (by interposing our own, of course) or sharing words with the sole intention of showing everyone how much we knew. These are common acts of violence! And I’m not sure they’re only man things.

We sat with our judgments and explored their origins within ourselves. We had agreed right off the bat to see and treat each other as whole, perfect and complete. We did a pretty damn good job of honoring that agreement, and peace reigned supreme. All this certainly wasn’t easy for me, but what helped was first honoring, and then tapping into, all the warrior energy in the room and finding it within myself. In letting go of my blind spots around what being a warrior means, I received a much greater awareness of what it means to be a peaceful warrior.

Gandhi said a coward could never be nonviolent. This means that all the qualities we attribute to warriors, such as discipline, decisiveness, preparation, mindfulness, courage and perseverance, are indispensible as we battle the demons and violence and craziness in our own minds and transform them so that love and peace remain.

I had another similar realization at the retreat: being anti-war never brought me to peace. Not once. By choosing to be against war and against warriors and against violence, by choosing to be against anything, I was just as guilty of choosing violence and expressing violence as everyone I judged. I believe we’ll continue to live in a violent world until we all take responsibility for the seeds of violence that we harbor and “put out there”, because only then can we begin to address the cause and use our warrior natures to transform our own consciousnesses.

So now I’m choosing to be for peace, and to be a warrior for peace. I know that begins with me, and for a start I’ll remember all the warriors today with honor, with gratitude and with love. I see a day when we won’t have to decorate graves and instead can focus on decorating the world with our beauty. Peace.

And, if that’s all we remember, that’s more than enough for now.

If there’s anything more dangerous than wishing someone a Merry Christmas, it’s wishing them a Happy Mother’s Day! I seem to be among the minority of folks who don’t have major issues around it. Of course, the issues are completely understandable. Lots of people have lost their mothers, and whether they miss them terribly or regret the relationship they had with them when they were alive, it’s not particularly fun to be reminded about them. Other women never had children and that is their deepest regret in life. Others have lost children or have children with whom they are estranged. Still others don’t feel honored on Mother’s Day because of other mothers (and/or mothers-in-law) in the picture. For all these reasons, every year when I do a talk at Unity on Mother’s Day, I feel as if I’m treading on shaky ground. Yesterday, as always, I attempted to reframe the holiday for people who need that and to focus on some themes and reminders that could be meaningful to everyone. I will repeat that here.

First of all, the holiday originally had nothing to do with honoring moms. It was essentially an anti-war protest. Julia Ward Howe, who wrote The Battle Hymn of the Republic in 1858, was so distraught after the Civil War that in 1870 she issued a “Mother’s Day Proclamation” calling on mothers to come together and protest the futility of their sons killing other mothers’ sons. She actually proposed converting July 4th into Mother’s Day. That obviously didn’t fly, but in 1873, women came together in 18 North American cities to observe this new holiday. Most of the gatherings were personally funded by Mrs. Howe, and when she stopped footing the bill, they petered out. But a seed had been planted.

A WV women’s group led by Anna Reeves Jarvis began to celebrate an adaptation of Mrs. Howe’s idea, to re-unite families and neighbors that had been divided in the Civil War, calling it “Mother’s Friendship Day. “ After she died, her daughter Anna M. Jarvis campaigned for the creation of an official Mother’s Day in remembrance of her mother and in honor of peace. On May 10, 1908, the first official Mother’s Day celebration took place in West Virginia, and in 1914 Woodrow Wilson made it a national observance on the second Sunday in May.

Besides using Mother’s Day as a wakeup call for peace, we can use it to remind us to honor all the people in our lives, perhaps besides our mothers, who have nurtured, protected, cared for and otherwise mothered us. We can include Mother Earth in this category (that would be two times a year we honor her…yahoo!), since she undoubtedly meets all those criteria. We can even include God in there, if that fits our belief system. All faith traditions honor those more feminine/motherly aspects of God, which I believe are right inside all of us.

Sometimes the least safe and least nurtured place I ever find myself in is inside my own head. So I like to use Mother’s Day as a reminder to mother myself more. Over the years as I’ve done that, my mind has become a much safer place to hang out, and I’ve noticed that I see the world as a safer place. I’ve tapped more and more into the part of me that is always ready, willing and able to mother me, to nurture me, to whisper encouragement and support in my ear. But it has taken some work to find that place, and most of it has involved actively mothering myself.

For instance, I’ve become much more careful about how I talk to myself (please see last week’s blog post, Blessed are the Peacemakers). I’ve become much gentler with myself as I continue to grow in awareness and still make many mistakes. I spend a lot less time beating myself up and a lot more time checking in with myself and listening to my own needs and feelings. I give myself much more space to grow into the highest vision I have for myself, as I stubbornly hold that vision, much as a wonderful mother would do. And I’ve stopped thinking of all that as being selfish. In mothering myself, I’ve become a much better giver and server for others.

I’ve always been a nurturer. When I was a young child my favorite activity was caring for a doll and wheeling it around in a little stroller. Yes, the neighbors wondered and worried about me, but I see now it laid the groundwork for my life’s work as a healer and minister. But at one point in my life I realized I was mothering everyone but myself! And when I changed that, everything changed, and my healing ministry took on a whole new energy. I was able to give and serve from a place of fullness if I filled myself up first, not from a place of obligation or from a state of being tapped out or depleted. Many of us believe that as spiritual beings we “should” be loving and compassionate. Well, how about starting with ourselves?

So if the traditional way of celebrating Mother’s Day doesn’t work for you, perhaps you now have some other options. And if you’re worried about Hallmark, go ahead and buy yourself a card.

And, if that’s all we remember, that’s more than enough for now.