Living Presence

                                                                                  Images: sean norman

The Daily Meditation by Richard Rohr (A Positive Vision, March 23, 2021) held within it a mash up of Amos 5.  Here’s a paraphrase: 

Seek the Living Presence and you’ll live…seek who made the Pleiades and Orion turning deep darkness into morning and the day into night…hate the evil and love the good and establish justice… 

Now, I’m not one to normally quote scripture but on this ordinary day the words Living Presence leapt off of the page.  There was a seeming delicious quality to them imprinting a beautiful descriptive image of Life and Love. I imagined a Living Presence (organism) that is available to me, to us, and in which we live and move and have being.  I allowed the jolt of these words to rest on my heart and, eventually, my thoughts turned to my faith heritage and its focus on the doing.  This sense of Living Presence felt like movement and growth and greatly contrasted to the heritage's reduced message of finding the Living Presence largely through doing.  In this moment I remembered the heritage's message as presented in multi-varied ways connected to patterns of belief and behavior.  Now perhaps this is the way one must begin the journey but certainly, intuitively, we grasp that growth entails a leaving behind of anything that is not intended for the mature product.  I am reminded here of the grain of wheat that must fall and die.

So, on this ordinary day, where the essence of participating with a Living Presence was making such an impression, I also spoke with a dear friend recently diagnosed with cancer.  This diagnosis presents her with a myriad of medical decisions and struggles and also the mental challenges associated with the possibility of mortality.  During our conversation she said, “I want to live!”  It was such an impassioned plea and bold statement, I was struck (again) by the scaredness of it and also impressed by the indomitability of the human spirit.  

As the day progressed I realized that one thing I did not fully learn or grasp in my faith tradition, perhaps my own failing or perhaps not, perhaps a feature of growth or perhaps not, is that this Living Presence and this cry "to live" are linked.  How could it be otherwise when, in essence, the Living Presence lives me?  These ideas of living and Living remained with me throughout the day and with each activity of the day the question "is this living?" seemed to be inquiring into all aspects of my ordinary life.  Like the accompanying photos of the aurora borealis (Yellowknife, Canada), undulating overhead in an everchanging dance of lights, this Living Presence permeated and danced me this day.  

It turns out that this ordinary day, filled with mortality, food banks, car repairs, and groceries, was a day filled with awareness of the dance of life surrounding me.  My mind knows that this dance is always present yet my heart is slowly learning how to participate.  This ordinary day invited me into full participation with nothing more and nothing less than what was right in front of me.  So simple yet often, at least in my case, easily missed.  What a beautiful grace. I am now left with the wonder of how to better participate consistently with such a dance partner.  I'm also struck that it has something to do with falling and dying but we will leave that for another time.

Do you have your own practices, noticings or stories related to this Living Presence? Perhaps you have another word for it?  When are you most aware of Life's dance?  As always, if you have thoughts, questions or comments about this subject please leave them here or contact me directly.

Showing Up

 

As you know, I’ve been playing pickleball.  Now playing pickleball is an ordinary activity and playing outside in beautiful spring weather is extraordinarily fun.  It’s even a safe environment with built-in social distancing even while interacting with others. So, as I was preparing to meet my pickleball buddy last week I heard myself tell myself “that I was showing up to win.”  Initially I was startled by this outburst, I wasn’t sure what prompted it, besides, this winning attitude was not a normal personality feature of mine.  Yet, there was something appealing, even inviting, about it even if the appeal was short-lived as subtle stories and body tension made their debut.   

Now the reason for the tension and accompanying story is this.  Being an enneagram nine there is one thing my personality is not and that is a personality that sets itself to win.  Now, don’t think I don’t like to win, or that I don’t play to win.  Heck, a few weeks ago I was willing to sacrifice my body for a shot.  But this intentional showing up to win was something I had never encountered before.  My normal habitual pattern of being tells me to always stay in the background.  This winning attitude felt different, even uncomfortable, yet it was now far too late to not go through with it.  I decided there and then that I was showing up to win and that I would notice my interior world as the process unfolded.

First, on the drive over, the stories kept telling me “it’s not to late to back out of this winning idea” progressing to “it’s not nice to not give others a chance” to “you shouldn’t be more powerful than others.”  Wow, where does all that stuff come from?  Well, I know where it comes from and why, but once you really start paying attention to it, turning the noticing into a practice, it actually becomes quite comical. So now that I’ve arrived at the courts the only thing left to do is fully show up and play to win.  This playing to win was a fascinating thing to observe.  I played strategically, even purposely, often hitting the ball to areas on the other side of the net that I knew my buddy would never get to; I never let up.  It was exhilarating....and I won.

So here are just a few things I noticed during this whole process.  First is that nothing bad happened when I played with a winning attitude.  I didn’t feel good or bad as in gloating or sabotaged with shame, it just was.  Next, I noticed that it actually caused my buddy to engage differently.  In fact, the next time we played together I could see she was not letting me off the hook.  In this respect my showing up to win actually helped improve both our games.  The scripture “iron sharpens iron” came to mind and it definitely held new meaning for me. Finally, I could discern that I have been short changing myself all these years listening to a personality pattern that tells me to stay in the background.  

This was the best, ordinary lesson anyone could receive; playing pickleball and winning.  Do you notice personality patterns that keep you stuck?  What practices have you developed to become more aware of these patterns?  If you have thoughts or questions on the nature of personalities please comment or contact me directly.  

Thoughts

So, here we are, in the right here and right now of ordinary life.  Have you ever noticed the thinking involved in the ordinary life?  Here's a small sampling I've recently encountered with ordinariness and its thinking.  

I fell down this past week, playing pickleball of all things, prompting a trip to urgent care to rule out a fracture and I’m noticing a “what if” thought story.  In order to allow healing for my wrist the bed has remained unmade for the past five days and chores have been greatly reduced; a “you should” thought appears.  Two weeks and counting on a lab report from the dermatologist’s office and sensing an “if only they were more efficient” thought.  An adorable bunny fell into the pool meeting its demise and an awareness that all is connected creates a pain in my heart.  My mom and I hold opposing political views creating interesting conversation…or not and noticing an “us vs. them” commentary in my mind.  There’s a monthly Zoom group I try to participate in but can never seem to get it together due to the time difference, I notice a “what will people think” story.     

The above sampling represents ordinary life circumstances not uncommon to us all.  Yet, all these ordinary events held the opportunity to notice the underlying thoughts.  Picking up on our theme from the last blog, the ordinary events provide the substance for the practice of noticing and, while it does take practice, it is possible to take the ordinary and begin noticing.  From my perspective it does no good, meaning there is no opportunity for growth, if I am unaware of myself, my thoughts, emotions and reactions in such ordinary situations.  

To be aware means that there is a realization about the thinking and ruminating and to recognize that such thinking and ruminating can go on for hours, days, months, and, yes, even years.  You can see that the above events came with a thought-story but with the choice to notice the thought or story an opportunity arose to discover what the thoughts or stories were about.  For instance, the above thought of  “what will people think” provided an opportunity to interiorly explore what is really driving that story such as needing the approval of others.  I can now continue the interior work further discovering what actually prompts this need.  I will not lie, this interior exploring can be painful work, but it is also liberating work and we are in need of such liberation.  

So, for today, let’s practice noticing all the stories flying and filling our minds.  And, for today, it is enough to just notice; no judgement or analysis needed.  When we begin to notice we begin to see how the thoughts and stories are always informing us.  Please leave any comments, questions or ponderings below or contact me directly.    

 Peace, light and love to you on this ordinary day.