Upcoming opportunities

The six week small group experience that has been meeting on Monday evenings will soon come to an end.  What a privilege it is for me to accompany fellow pilgrims seeking a more contemplative and yet practical approach to life in 2011!

Each week we begin our time together with a guided meditation that leads to a time of silent meditation.  Following the silence, participants share their experience of the meditation, or of their week, or of the challenges and victories in their daily life.  Judgment is left outside the door as the group listens with the heart to stories that so much resemble their own.  Each week is new and fresh, open to any and all possibilities.

After a brief pause, I will be offering a new group experience for those interested in returning or beginning this unique experience.  Though we will use a book as a guide to our communal thoughts between groups sessions, the group is not a book discussion group.  It is more akin to group spiritual therapy, with everyone participating.  I serve as the facilitator and sometime provocateur.

I would love to offer this group experience for those of you who prefer to meet during the day as well if there is sufficient interest.  Let me know!

Also, there has been a request for a day-long meditative retreat on a Saturday!  I love this idea and will begin planning, and in the interest of choosing a space, would appreciate some feedback on who might be interested in this experience.

I love this work and am open to suggestions or requests.  As always, I am available for private appointments either in person or by phone.

Language

There was a period of many years in my life when I would not utter the word, “God.”  When I spoke of that concept at all I used terms like “the Universe,” or “All That Is, or “Love.”  I rejected “the God of the Bible,” and moved on.  I rejected then and still do the notion that “accepting Jesus Christ as my personal Lord and Savior,” was the only path to salvation.  I rejected then and still do the idea that Christianity is the only “true” religion.

Today, however, I find myself enthralled by God, Jesus, Christ,  Father, Son,  and the Holy Spirit .  When asked today if I am Christian I hesitate and usually ask, “define Christian first, and then I will respond.”  Nevertheless, Christianity is in my DNA; it is my heritage; it is the language I grew up with.  The years spent attempting to deny my Christian identity were instructive and valuable, but did not, alas, eradicate my roots.

The primary, but not only, teaching in my life is A Course in Miracles.  It is chock full of references to God, Jesus, Christ and the Holy Spirit.  When I began reading the Course in 1982 I squirmed at all the references to Bible characters, Bible terms…terms like forgiveness, salvation, redemption, holiness, or brother.  I told myself I could overlook all that and still benefit from its metaphysical teaching.  I was correct—it takes a little work to overlook so much, but it can be done.

As I read the ACIM Text from beginning to end for the fifth time, God and Christ, the Holy Spirit, Inner Teacher, forgiveness and salvation are singing to me.  As I welcome those concepts back into my consciousness my worldview changes.  It feels like home.  And those concepts best express what I am experiencing.

For years I have associated myself with spiritual groups and organizations that eschew these Christian terms and concepts in order to signify that all seekers are welcome and that no one path is touted as The One.  I wholeheartedly concur. 

Though I have studied and greatly benefited from teachings from Judaism, Sufism, Buddhist philosophy, and various eclectic metaphysical texts, I remain Christian at heart while respecting other religions and the followers who adhere to them.  The language of Christianity does not and cannot contain all truth. 

My groups and classes are open to anyone of any faith tradition, or none. But with those who at some point in their life threw their western Christian baby out with the bath water I feel a close connection.  The expression, “recovering Christian fundamentalist” has been aptly applied to me for more than 30 years.  The recovery just keeps on keeping on.

Detach with love...

Recently I have been privileged to companion a much younger friend as she agonized over whether to divorce her husband or not.  I was clear that I would support whatever decision she made.  Her process has been valiant and honorable; she has looked hard at her situation and herself.  She has been counseled; she has prayed; she has read a multitude of books; she has stared into the abyss.  She wants a divorce.  I support her.

Imagine my surprise yesterday, when after she declared her hatred of her husband, I heard myself actually say to her, with great intensity, “you can divorce him but how can you say you don’t love him?  He is not a jerk!  You are not a better human being than he is!”  Uh oh. 

More than 35 years ago I was in her shoes.  How well I remember the agony and the defeat; the relief and the freedom.  At the time I thought I despised my first husband, convinced he was the source of all my guilt and pain.  He was a failure as a husband and a father; how could I have been so stupid to marry someone so dense.  With my guilt buried deep inside, my self-righteousness overflowed.

Yesterday, in a split second, my role shifted from supportive companion to judge,  one who was deeply invested in someone else’s process.  When I stepped back, I saw that I did not want her to make the mistakes I had made, but even more I did not want her to remind me of the mistakes I had made.  All those years ago I had shut a precious human being out of my heart, blaming him for my self-hatred, and I clung tenaciously to my victimhood way too long.

I did not belong with that good man; our adult children today are amazed that he and I ever got together – we are not a good match.  At the time I could not conceive of divorcing someone with love.  I had to declare him a villain in order to extricate myself, and set him free. 

Today I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that when I shut someone out of my heart, when I declare someone to be unlovable, I am out of step with Truth and will suffer as a result.  In AlAnon we talk of “detachment with love.”  What a profound concept.  Most relationships are not life-long.  People come into our lives for a season, and most go on their way.  We make promises we find ourselves unable to keep.  I just wish I had known then what I know today, that we can detach with love and gratitude.

I apologized to my friend for transplanting my regrets on to her current life.  She must find her own way, her way.  I am oddly grateful, though, that my old regret rose to the surface for me to revisit and forgive yet again.

I love this poem by Rilke

No one lives his life.

Disguised since childhood,
haphazardly assembled
from voices and fears and little pleasures,

We come of age as masks.
Our true face never speaks.

Somewhere there must be storehouses
where all these lives are laid away
like suits of armor or old carriages
or clothes hanging limply on the walls.

Maybe all paths lead there,
to the repository of unlived things.

And yet, though we strain
against the deadening grip
of daily necessity,
I sense there is this mystery;

All life is being lived.

Who is living it then?
Is it the things themselves?
Or something waiting inside them,
like an unplayed melody in a flute?

Is it the winds blowing over the waters?
Is it the branches that signal each other?

Is it flowers
interweaving their fragrances,
or streets, as they wind through time?

Is it the animals, warmly moving,
or the birds, that suddenly rise up?

Who lives it, then? 
God, are you the one
who is living life?

"Love Poems to God," Rainier Maria Rilke


PS:  It is not too late to decide to join the small group which begins this Monday evening at 6:30.  This poem speaks eloquently of our much anticipated discussion in the group.

Brene Brown, PhD

I attended a 3 hour conference this morning listening to Dr. Brene Brown, a professor in the graduate school of social work at the Univ. of Houston.  She was amazing.  For more than 15 years she has researched shame and human connection.  I'll just share a tidbit from her lecture.

Research shows that the top three expectations of themselves held by women and men, and for which they feel the most shame are:

Women

1.  Thin
2.  Nice
3.  Quiet

Men

1.  Primacy of work
2.  Emotional stoicism
3.  Power over women

Small group update

It looks like the Monday evening group is winning out over the afternoon meeting time.  I'm happy to do both, so if you are interested but have not yet spoken up, please let me know the time that works best for you.

Also, let me say again, please do not allow cost to prevent you from participating.  I am happy to agree on a sliding scale fee, confidentially.  If you want to be there, I want you to be there.

Groups begin Monday, Feb 7th.  The evening time is 6:30; the afternoon time is 2:00.

Harmony

One of the most beautiful pieces of music composed in recent years has to be Hallelujah by Leonard Cohen.  I love hearing him sing it; I love hearing KD Lang sing it.  Recently, however, I was introduced to the version by the Canadian Tenors, and it blew me away.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTx8IGPwrIk  (turn up your volume)

The reason this version grabs my heart is the perfect, pitch-perfect, harmonies.  In my own personal experience, nothing is more exciting or inspiring than singing in harmony.  Why I haven't found a way to do it more frequently is a topic to ponder at another time.

Hearing this beautiful arrangement, sung by four tenors, reminds me of how it can feel to live harmoniously, and how painful it is to live "off."  I have had the privilege of singing in multiple choral groups and well remember how often the director would stop us mid-note to declare, "whoa, whoa, we are off...let's try it again."  The huge pay off for all the practicing and rehearsing came when we could hear for ourselves that we were "on," blend our voices and soar with the music.

I think Life requires a lot of rehearsing; learning to hear the Music is no easy task, much less finding and mastering our place in the Choir.  But I gotta tell ya, nothing is more satisfying, healing, and inspiring than the actual experience of knowing, however briefly, that you are "on."

Small group

Working and sharing within a small group of people with a common goal is inspiring, fun and educational.  The desire to "go deeper" in our journey toward authenticity and trust is all that is required to participate.

Two groups are forming to begin in February, one during the day and one in the evening.  Both will use Richard Rohr's book, Everything Belongs as a basis for discussion.  The group provides an opportunity to raise questions and share insights with one another, discuss personal issues in a confidential setting, and support one another's intention to deepen our trust in Life.

Meeting times will be Monday afternoons at 2:00-3:30, and Monday evenings at 6:30-8:00.  The groups will meet for six consecutive weeks.  The first meeting will be on Monday, February 7th.  The fee is $210 for the six sessions.  If the fee is a hardship, please contact me for other options.

To register to participate in one of the groups, you may call or email me, or leave a comment on my blog.

It'll be fun!

Decision

I have made the decision to resume my private practice of spiritual direction.

Years ago I served as a doula-- a woman who attends and encourages women in childbirth.   In significant ways, that work laid the groundwork for my work as a "spiritual doula."  When I was 29 years old, after having given birth twice myself and endured and survived a frighteningly dark period in my life, I wrote the following lines:

A woman should never be left to labor alone,
No person should ever be forced to labor alone.
She should be able to look about her and see and touch
A woman who has labored and birthed and survived.
Every laboring person needs to see and know at least one survivor.
Some day, someone in heavy labor will look up and see me, and
I will giver her hope, and
She will continue on, to the finish, to the new beginning...

Spiritual growth and development can be as frightening, arduous and last much longer than labor and childbirth.  It is immeasurably comforting to have someone hold your hand and whisper words of encouragement who absolutely believes that all will turn out well.  A spiritual doula has utter faith in the process and in God, Love, Allah, The Force, Life, the Nameless.

I am not a psychotherapist, coach, nor ordained clergy.  I am a fellow pilgrim who has battled through several spiritual crises, a seeker my entire life.  I also discovered years ago a trustworthy inner voice that I rely on and share with others.

My work takes various forms: individual sessions, meditation instruction, Spiritspeak poems, small group experiences, and contemplative retreats.  My background and tradition is Christian, the language I am most familiar with, yet I respect all religious traditions as well as agnosticism and atheism.  I have studied A Course in Miracles for more than 20 years, and have benefitted from 24 years of membership in AlAnon.

There is nothing I would rather do than befriend someone who is struggling to achieve authenticity, trust and faith,  in large part out of gratitude for the dear souls who have befriended me over the years.

New small group experience....

I’m tempted to say that I have come full-circle and am revisiting my former life, but that would not be accurate.  It does feel familiar to be teaching meditation classes again, and now I am offering a small group experience as I did years ago.

However, we never go back.  I have changed; my work has changed; the world has changed.  It’s a new day.

Beginning in February, I will host and facilitate a small group of folks who want to explore a more contemplative life while living the life they already have.  We will use the lovely book, Everything Belongs: The Gift of Contemplative Prayer, by Richard Rohr as a touchstone for discussion.

I am open to afternoons or evenings, so am asking for feedback from anyone who might like to participate to let me know what time works best for you.  We will meet for six weeks, once a week.

The fee for the group will be $210 for all six weeks, and the number of participants will be limited.

Call or email me, message me on Facebook, or leave a comment here if you are interested in participating.  I’ll get in touch with you.