Be your truth.

“Argue for your limitations, and sure enough they're yours.”

-- Richard Bach

“Be calm and still within yourself, clear and firm in your truth, until the object of your attention affirms your existence, your presence, and your truth.”

-- Minor White

“Our life is what our beliefs and thoughts make it. A man will find that as he alters his beliefs, it will change his feelings and thoughts toward things and other people, and things and other people will alter towards him.”

-- James Allen

“Our subconscious minds have no sense of humor, play no jokes, and cannot tell the difference between reality and an imagined thought or image. What we continually think about to ourselves and speak out loud to others eventually manifests in our lives, whether we take responsibility for that or not.”

-- Sidney Madwed

I have sat with many over the years who have argued for their limitations with me, very convincingly, and who have refused to see how (or why) they are speaking their emotional experiences alive with their beliefs and their words, who have seen themselves as victims of circumstances, or of others, in inescapable ways, and I believe in compassion and can listen to them endlessly in that space, and yet the questions looms, “Would you care to think again?” “Do you care to explore the possibility of seeing what I see, or more importantly, what He sees in you?”

We have both in us – fear-based self-contempt and love-based self-realization. And we all have two distinct choices of belief: 1) I am a child of my own dark, fear-based imaginings, or 2) I am a child of an adoring God who loves me. And also remember that when we embrace the second choice, He turns everything upside down, inside out, and backwards on us. And yet we must continually believe, think, and speak it alive for ourselves.

Spiritual Maturity

I have learned through sometimes painful, sometimes poignant, and always powerful personal experiences that now dominate my days that the breadth and depth and frequency of “experiencing God” (leading to this amazing sense of “seeing the sacred in everything”) is a reflection of spiritual maturity, which comes only through His Spirit, in His time. We can’t make this happen by trying harder; He does all the work, when we are ready for Him to do it. That is not a statement of comparison or elevation, either – no, quite the contrary, for there is less and less room for one’s pride in accomplishment as one grows in spiritual maturity (in fact, it is usually delivered after a shrinkage of one’s assessment of and/or focus on his or her own significance, as the awareness of God’s significance and magnificence grows dramatically), but one of deep and penetrating humility, for spiritual maturity is about gaining clarity about one’s ignorance in the face of our magnificent Maker, and about the full nature of our “dependency” on Him for everything that truly matters.

Maturity is not an elevated status, but one of meekness and poverty, made holy and exalted by the only One who can do such things. All that we can do is drop down our own rabbit hole into greater and greater self-awareness and emotional maturity while we are learning of His ways, and from there we’re in His hands. Ultimately, when it’s time to face our true destiny, ferociously being guarded by our worst fear and lie (the scariest dragon imaginable), we must remember to simply “hold the sword” (vs. try to slay the beast on our own), for the sword knows what it is for and what it will do, if we ask. This sounds familiar, doesn’t it? The Spirit knows what it is for and what it will do, if specifically and sincerely asked by someone who is ready to accept, believe, commit, listen, and obey.

So, spiritual maturity is like a restoration to our child-like state before God, a process which is kind of like Merlin’s “youthening” in the King Arthur tale, where we pay the price (which is everything we once held dear) consciously and willingly, because we know that the path we’re now on of aging and growing in power and status is empty and meaningless. We return willingly, humbly, yet ecstatically to Papa’s lap, thrilled for the amazing opportunity to see like He sees and love like He loves.


“Spiritual maturity truly isn't measured by how long you have been a Christian, or how long or how often you’ve been going to church, or how much or how long that you pray, or how often or how long you read the Bible, or how frequently and how well you can quote scripture. Spiritual maturity is measured by the relationship that you have with God, and thereby all others. It's measured by the amount of love, available only through His Spirit, you invite and allow to flow into, through, and out of you, especially where it is less obviously ‘warranted’ by others’ appearance, behavior, or performance. This is our true ‘Christian gift’.”

-- Steven E. Coffman

“When ours are interrupted, His are not. His plans for us are proceeding exactly as scheduled, moving us always (including those minutes or hours or years which seem most useless or wasted or unendurable) ‘toward the goal of true maturity’ (Rom 12:2 JBP).”

-- Elisabeth Elliot

“So we can be called into God's Spirit and begin to grow, but then be choked and overwhelmed by the cares of this world and our lack of self-control, which comes largely from a lack of self-awareness, which puts us right back into emotional immaturity, which blocks the path of spiritual maturity.

Luke 8:15 But the ones that fell on the good ground are those who, having heard the word with a noble and good heart, keep it and bring fruit with patience.

And we know that patience requires a great deal of self-control. In I Corinthians 2 and 3, Paul uses a child-adult metaphor as his basis for exhorting the Corinthian Christians to have mature conduct. These scriptures must be understood in relation to the various problems that the Corinthian church was having at that time. They were not acting like Christians at all! There was widespread sexual immorality, false doctrines, envy, strife, division, and other sins within the congregation. The Corinthian church, as a whole, was emotionally and spiritually immature.

I Corinthians 2:6-11 However, we speak wisdom among those who are mature, yet not the wisdom of this age, nor of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing. But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the ages to our glory, which none of the rulers of this age knew; for had they known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. But as it is written, eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man, the things which God has prepared for those who love Him. But God has revealed them unto us through His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God. For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God.

So, while acting like spoiled children (all about indulging and pleasing and protecting the self we made) we cannot grow into emotional maturity (too busy indulging the self to seek to understand the self), which blocks our spiritual maturity (the consciously chosen return to an innocent child-like state, as the Self He made) which we cannot experience without the Spirit of God, which will not be accessible until we are made ready by Him.

I Corinthians 2:12-14 Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is of God, that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God. These things we also speak, not in words which man's wisdom teaches but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.”

-- Martin G. Collins, in a sermon entitled “How Emotions Affect Spiritual Maturity”


Some of this work is clearly ours – the examining in order to understand and let go of self – and some is clearly His – the unleashing and full utilization of Self according to His plan. We’d be wise to stay focused on the former, being open to His perfect timing, while leaving His to Him. We can intentionally deepen and make ready our emotional maturity through time and energy and effort to know ourselves, but we cannot make ourselves more spiritually mature through effort of any kind. We can only invite Him and get out of His way sooner, if we so choose, remembering that “following costs you everything” and gains you more than you knew you needed. And when you can see with His Eyes and Heart and Spirit, you then realize that there is no longer a reason (or anything) to fight.

We are not to be dismissed or elevated, but simply returned to the Garden.

“When we dismiss other people out of hand because of their apparent deep woundedness, we stunt their lives by ignoring their gifts, which are often buried in their wounds. We also stunt our own lives by refusing to see and give our greatest gift, to love out of our own woundedness, which we often refuse to even acknowledge. But we all are bruised reeds, whether our bruises are visible or not. The compassionate life we are invited into is the life in which we believe that strength, peace, and great beauty are hidden in our weakness and that true community is a fellowship of the weak, and this is what makes us healthy, strong, and whole in Him. …

And as long as we relate primarily to each other's wealth, health, attractiveness, stability, intelligence, and strength, we cannot develop true community life. Community is not an ongoing talent show in which we dazzle each other with our combined gifts. Community is the place where our poverty is seen, acknowledged, and fully accepted, not as something we have to merely learn to cope with as best as we can, but as a true source of new life. Living community in whatever form - family, parish, twelve-step program, or intentional community of followers - challenges us to come together at the place of our deepest poverty, believing that there is where He can reveal our greatest richness.”

-- Henri Nouwen Society

It is not about my personal “testimony,” about how bad and ugly and weak I once “was” and how good and handsome and strong I’ve now “gotten” (through my own or others’ skilled efforts), and how much that has blessed me in popularity or in personal power, but instead it’s about how much God I realize I need ongoingly, bringing me together with others who need Him the same way, and in that I am made hopeful, strong, and vital.

I no longer run from or to those who are visibly broken down (for they simply show me my deepest brokenness), just as I no longer run to or from those who are lifted up (for they simply show me my subtlest arrogance). From that “Pure One Place” of Him, I see, love, and accept all, exactly where they are, for they are me, and in that process I see how much POP sees, loves, and accepts me. Thanks, POP!

I look out at all the beauty contests, talent shows, and manly tests of strength we are seduced into in this world, and it is sickening how subtle and twisted they are, for they are built upon a paradigm of inadequacy and scarcity that is never to be sated, only to be stoked. If we must continually strive to look better, perform better, prove more, then we can keep a machine alive that is callously devouring us in the process, encouraging us to compare ourselves to and compete with each other, finding ourselves lacking in the process, needing it and the next new solution-of-the-month just to keep up, which we can’t. But what if we are perfectly “enough” inside our innate human “not-enough-ness,” and through sharing the “poverty” of that with each other as true equals (where we can continuously learn and re-learn the living lesson of Jesus, transcending that dark illusion, restoring and returning us to the Garden), we are set free to see the perfect abundance, beauty, creativity, intelligence, skill, and strength that’s all Him, equally available to all.

Integrity

“The art of simplicity is a puzzle of divine complexity."

-- Doug Horton

“Love all. Trust and connect deeply with a few (especially those who walk with you). Do wrong to none.”

-- William Shakespeare

“Live so that when your children think of decency, fairness, integrity, and love (i.e.; attention to the things that really matter), they think of you.”

-- H. Jackson Brown

“Moral and spiritual courage and depth and strength of character go hand in hand ... a man of real character is consistently courageous, being imbued with a basic integrity and a strong sense of spiritual discipline. (In other words, he knows his place in the grand scheme of things and refuses to be anything but what he knows to be true.)”

-- Martha Boaz

“Circumstantial upset often reveals deeper relational and spiritual problems (in other words, our emotional ‘perception’ of external circumstances ‘out’ our internal integrity violations), and yet so often the focused corrective attention is placed on changing, fixing, managing, or rearranging those external circumstances (or clues), rather than internally (and more spiritually) resetting my integrity and setting the relationships right. If my most important relationship with the One is working, all of my other human relationships will work, smoothly and effortlessly, even (make that especially) when put to the most severe environmental tests. And if my relationships with other human beings are clear, well-maintained, and ‘working,’ all circumstantial issues will be more manageable and free-flowing, and you can also count on it that when important relationships have fallen into disrepair and no longer ‘work,’ they will point back to the real issue eventually, inevitably. Our spiritual work is to faithfully ‘see the clue’ in our seeming disconnect and to remember the deeper truth about how we all fit together, and to not be distracted by our own warped perception of the external, physical, visible circumstances. When your car is dangerously close to running out of gas and you’re about to head out into new territory, do you attempt to fix the fuel gauge on your dashboard?”

-- Yours Truly

Some have asked me to reduce this mysterious truth to a formula. OK, I can actually do that (he says, tongue in cheek). It goes like this:

C – G = 0 (no possibility); G/C = ? (infinite possibility),
where C = circumstances, and G = God.

It’s certainly not mathematically correct, but it’s most definitely spiritually true.

Integrity equals wholeness, where all the pieces fit into His picture. I am but a piece in His puzzle. I am not the artist, nor am I the whole picture, by any means, nor am I the most important piece, although I have a profound purpose. To try to make myself bigger, more connected, more good, or more important is foolish. I am an essential piece, but no more important than any other. I interlock into other pieces to make up a bigger piece, but we are now still just a piece. Only when we’ve included ALL pieces in our perspective are we complete, where His artistry can be fully visible. We have no integrity until we are all present, interlocked, and the picture is whole, with no holes. God is in perfect integrity, for He has created the vision, made all the pieces, and is putting them all together perfectly. We are only in our own integrity when we are aligned with His, allowing our proper usage, playing our essential role. Outside of that, we are rogue pieces, wreaking havoc on ourselves and others, trying to create our own picture, while noticing that our edges don’t fit where we want them to, and He lets us try to do that, until we feel isolated and hurting and crazy enough to jump back into His reality, when we come back to our senses and put ourselves back in His hands. He alone knows what He’s doing. When we fully surrender to that, then and only then do we also know what we’re doing, even when we don’t have the full picture.

So thankful for the world's purpose and for our many births


“He who deeply and truly loves as a conscious choice believes the impossible.”

-- Elizabeth Barrett Browning

“We are an impossibility in an impossible universe. Why would we ever be so scared of such thoughts as impossibility?”

-- Ray Bradbury

“One great difference between a wise man and a fool is: the former only wishes for what he may possibly obtain; the latter dreams of impossibilities.”

-- Democritus


God, I’m so thankful for the impenetrable impossibilities of this world (and for the crazy fool that I am), and that I no longer suffer the illusion that I can ever master this life. The endless adventure and beautiful struggle against it (vs. the desperately strived for and falsely proclaimed mastery of it) has been what has grown me and revealed You the most, and the fulfillment, miracles, and richness that are possible only in Your Truth are infinitely more satisfying than any accomplished, yet fleeting circumstantial pleasure and delusional perception of winning that sometimes comes while I’m living primarily in my lie. Thank You for the ridiculously clear fact that You and Truth and Love are totally in control, and that You need absolutely nothing from me to exist and flourish quite nicely, forever, and that if I wake up sufficiently to that fact, relaxing into letting You and Truth and Love set me right on a moment-to-moment basis, that I’ll never again have to almost literally kill myself to get things right for myself and/or others again. Why would I ever bother with that, anyway? After all, how could I (and why would I ever want to) get right that which is in the irresistible, perfectly unmanageable process of getting me right?

I sat with several people yesterday who were frozen in the terror of the total unmanageability and unpredictability of the holy “process” of their own transformation, and it was so moving and inspiring to just sit there and love them, knowing that I know nothing of how it will go and when; I only know that it will and why. We are birthed more than once in this life, and I know what this kind of “labor” looks and sounds like, and the difference between the real thing and false labor. As a spiritual midwife of sorts, in the realm of the birth and re-birth of adult, spiritually mature humans, I know that God has created a miraculous, mysterious process, and it doesn’t need my control, intervention, or over-management, simply my naming, invoking, surrendering to in sacredness, tending to with tenderness, and I stand ready, willing, and able to attend in awe and assist in the radical, revolutionary delivery.

Rejecting the mask

It is wonderful to simply be myself, present in each and every moment. I had a wonderful weekend of such present moments, first Saturday at a wedding of dear friends, and then yesterday at Kemah Waterfront with my precious family. My moments weren’t always like this – being myself, fully present – and I’m just learning to celebrate the distinction, having previously mastered living in horror about the past, terrified of the future, struggling while hiding and smiling behind a slick façade, actually “being” nowhere at all.

On the way home from Kemah last night, Anne played the marvelous soundtrack of the Broadway musical, “Jekyll & Hyde,” a dramatic tour de force we had seen together many years ago and really loved, so I also share a small piece of it below, paying homage to a past put away. Enjoy and, if you relate, free yourself while you can.

And if you want to see what it looks like (what everyone seems to ask me these days, then check out this awesome picture of two amazing kids being themselves, very present to a fun-tastic day and a lifetime of adventure and discovery!




“If we insist that public life is to be reserved for those whose personal history is pristine, we are not going to get paragons of virtue running our affairs. We will get the very rich, who contract out the messy things in life, or the very dull, who have nothing to hide and nothing to show, or the very devious, expert at covering their tracks and ambitious enough to risk their discovery.”

-- Charles Krauthammer

“I always want to write about that magical moment when your addictions can no longer hide the truth from you, that point when your whole ‘managed life’ breaks down. That's the moment when you have to somehow choose what your life is going to be about – that moment when you choose if you are hiding from or facing life head on.”

-- Chuck Palahniuk

“I am being honest - I have nothing to hide. All I do, all the time, with everybody, is tell them what I am thinking, what I am feeling, and what I am committed to.”

-- Leelee Sobieski

“No one can lie, no one can hide anything, when he looks directly into another's eyes.”

-- Paulo Coelho

“I've suffered way too much to hide my feelings – in fact, to hide anything.”

-- Isabelle Adjani

“O' What may man within him hide, though angel on the outward side!”

-- William Shakespeare


Watch a piece of the musical here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0deAX52Vdzc


There's a face that we wear
In the cold light of day -
It's society's mask,
It's society's way,
And the truth is
That it's all a facade!

There's a face that we hide
Till the nighttime appears,
And what's hiding inside,
Behind all of our fears,
Is our true self,
Locked inside the facade!

Every day
People, in their own sweet way,
Like to add a coat of paint,
And be what they ain't!

That's how our little -
Game is played,
Livin' like a masquerade
Actin' a bizarre charade -
While playing the saint!

But there's one thing I know,
And I know it for sure:
This disease that we've got
Has got no ready cure!
And I'm certain
Life is terribly hard -
When your life's a facade!

Look around you!
I have found
You cannot tell, by lookin' at the surface,
What is lurkin' there beneath it!
See that face!
Now, I'm prepared to bet you,
What you see's not what you get -
'Cause man's a master of deceit !

So, what is the sinister secret?
The lie he will tell you is true? -
It's that each man you meet
In the street
Isn't one man but two!

Nearly everyone you see -
Like him an' her,
An' you, an' me -
Pretends to be
A pillar of society -
A model for propriety -
Sobriety
An' piety -
Who shudders at the thought
Of notoriety!

The ladies an' gents 'ere before you -
Which none of 'em ever admits -
May 'ave saintly looks -
But they're sinners an' crooks!

Hypocrites!
Hypocrites!

There are preachers who kill!
There are killers who preach!
There are teachers who lie!
There are liars who teach!
Take yer pick, dear -
"Cause it's all a facade!

If we're not one, but two,
Are we evil or good?
Do we walk the fine line -
That we'd cross if we could?
Are we waiting -
To break through the facade?

One or two
Might look kinda well-to-do -
Hah! They're bad as me an' you,
Right down to their boots!

I'm inclined to think -
Half mankind
Thinks the other half is blind!
Wouldn't be a surprise to find -
They're all in cahoots!

At the end of the day,
They don't mean what they say,
They don't say what they mean,
They don't ever come clean -
And the answer -
Is it's all a facade!
Is it's all a facade!
Man is not one, but two,
He is evil and good,
An' he walks the fine line
We'd all cross if we could!

It's a nightmare -
We can never discard -
So we stay on our guard -
Though we love the facade -
What's behind the facade?
Look behind the facade!


from the brilliant 1997
Broadway Musical,
“Jekyll & Hyde”

The power of absence, when in the right spirit

Bringing the Spirit Through Leaving (Henri Nouwen Society)
It is often in our absence that the Spirit of God manifests itself. When Jesus left his disciples he said: "It is for your own good that I am going, because unless I go, the Paraclete [the Spirit] will not come to you. However, when the Spirit of truth comes he will lead you to the complete truth" (John 16: 7;13). It was only in Jesus' absence that his friends discovered the full meaning of his presence. It was only in his absence that they completely understood his words and experienced full communion with him; and it was only in his absence that they could gather in a community of faith, hope, and love. When we claim for ourselves that we come to our friends in the Name of Jesus - that through us Jesus becomes present to them - we can trust that our leaving (or unavailability) will also bring them the Spirit of Jesus. Thus, not only our presence but also our absence becomes a gift to others, when in the Spirit of Jesus.

I am learning what it is to be fully present with another human being. And because I am learning this, and because I am also a human being, I am getting what absence means - both the spaced-out, distracted, disconnected kind, as well as the kind described above. I am feeling a little bit absent to many people these days, a little baffled and befuddled by technological challenges (and possibilities), but it is not in the spaced-out, distracted, disconnected way. Quite the contrary, I feel deeply connected, just also a little physically absent, and it is very cool to know what is truly possible in that miraculous space.

So, to those of you with whom I am very actively present these days, I love you dearly and deeply appreciate our connection.

And to those of you who feel that I am a little absent to you, I love you and appreciate our enhanced connection through him.

What I can do to stay truly available and present to more people is very limited, even as I become more technologically sophisticated. But what he can do with my simple asking is totally unlimited, totally radical, totally miraculous, totally super-connective, totally awesome.

As a human, I am limited by time and space. He connects things way beyond my imagination and comprehension.