Whispering in God's Ear

It was bound to happen on this journey. It always does. I find an answer or begin a certain path and then I have one of "those" days and my serenity goes out the window. The fundamental problem with my basic understanding of spirituality has been this confused notion that I'm supposed to be serene all the time, that uncomfortableness should not be part of the process. It's simple. You meditate, you pray, you go to church, you study the Bible, you take communion, you do service, you try to be a relatively good person... so things should be nice and tidy, right? Well...no, they aren't. I'm finding out that this Christian journey is anything but tidy. I'm this messy, blurry-around-the-edges human being, who sometimes wakes up in the morning feeling anxious about how the bills are going to get paid, or whether or not someone likes me, or wondering what the meaning of this very existence is all about. And these kinds of thoughts creep into my doubti...

I've always thought of myself as a caring, emotional person. But the truth is, eight years ago I walked away from God and instead of putting a wall around my heart, I made sure a thick layer of hard ice surrounded it to keep Him out. Last year I lost three people dear to me--my best friend of 33 years, my mother-in-law, and my dearest colleague who died in a hit and run motorcycle accident at the age of 39. I was an unaffiliated practicing Buddhist at the time. Yet no matter how much I meditated and how much I studied, I could not find peace. It was not until I went back to church that the shift began. I have said several times in past posts that my Buddhist practice added much to my life. It taught me the value of going into silence, much about having a compassionate heart, and how to work at living in the present moment. What it lacked for me was a power greater than myself, outside of my "self". The whole time I practiced, I was aware of God, the God I had abando...

I've always had difficulty with the Easter story, but never the birth of Christ.  Only recently have I been able to make any sort of connection between the two. As a child growing up in the 50's, I loved singing Christmas carols and hearing the story about the Baby Jesus.  Interestingly, I learned those songs and the story of Christ's birth not at church, but at school.  Back in the 1950's, life was a little different.  The US was predominantly Christian, so it wasn't unusual to talk about Christmas in school.  I don't believe that we should do that in schools in this day and age, considering all the different faiths represented in our country today. (That's a topic for another posting.) But that's how the story reached me. As a child I was not allowed to attend church, even though my mother was a Spanish teacher at a Catholic school.  My father was a "devote" atheist and forbid me to attend church until I was "old enough to make a de...

I'm not an overly patient person, though I do believe I've gained a bit of it over the years--as a wife, a mother, and a co-worker--mainly out of necessity. One area in which I still struggle with working at patience is when I am feeling an emotion whose source I can't immediately identify. I don't know if is part of our American culture or just a human trait, but I've noticed that so many of us become self-involved in needing to know why we are feeling some emotion at a particular moment. "I'm not happy today. I wonder if it is because it is cloudy outside, or because I'm facing a big challenge at work. Or maybe it's because my spouse isn't paying enough attention to me, or maybe I ate something that didn't agree with me, or (my favorite) maybe I'm just depressed." (I'm not talking about clinical depression here.) It's only recently that I've come to realize that trying to figure out through my intellect why I am feeli...

Lately, I've been making a concerted effort to increase the number of times I pray during the day. To do this, I've found several books that I'd like to share with you: The Divine Hours, Pocket Edition , by Phyllis Tickle.  It is a rather traditional prayer guide with different Offices of Prayer.  This, if I understand it clearly, is in the monastic tradition of praying several times a day. All of the offices are done on the hour or half hour. The first office is "The Office of Midnight" between 10:30 p.m. and 1:30 a.m. The next one is the "Office of the Night Watch" between 1:30 and 4:30 a.m. This is followed by the "Office of Dawn" between 4:30 a.m. and 7:30 a.m. The next is the "Morning Office" between 6 a.m. and 9 a.m. Then there is the "Midday Office" between 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. After that is the "Vespers Office" between 5 p.m. and 8 p.m., followed by the "Office of Compline" "To Be Observe...

As I recover from my surgery, I've been trying to find tasks around the house to do that wouldn't require me to bend. I got this bright idea that using a dog brush I could clean the rug under our bed. Mind you, I knew there was some dust and dirt under there. It's a huge, heavy bed, far too massive for one person to move it, and even tough for two. So for a long time--okay, a REALLY long time--my husband and I have just ignored the dust and dirt and dog hair piling up only a few feet below where we sleep. Well, I, with my trusty dog brush in hand, splayed myself out on the floor, crawled under the bed and began to clean the rug. It was exhausting work, but it was work I could do because there was no lifting or bending. The more I brushed, however, the more dirt showed up.   As I worked I realized that I always keep myself so busy that I never take time to do these kinds of tasks.  But being sequestered in my room for a few weeks has made me look at my room in a differen...

The main struggle in my spiritual journey has always been whether or not I would commit to Christianity on a long-term basis. I have been a Christian in the past, as a Catholic, Lutheran and Methodist. At one point I was a chanting Buddhist and a follower of the Tibetan Buddhist tradition, too. All of these faiths and traditions have added to my spiritual knowledge. All have given me so much in terms of acceptance and understanding. And yet when it comes to my Christian exploration, I always "run away" from the church when the following three scenarios occur: 1) I don't agree with the way something is being done or said; 2) I feel too much is being asked of me in terms of service; and 3) I don't want to face my real self. In 2005, I walked away from the church I belonged to when some pretty serious family issues hit the fan. I felt let down by God, and deeply discouraged that even though I was what I considered a good person, that didn't seem to count in s...