fbpx

Mystery and Magic

Mar 9, 2023 | Spirituality

We can never know with any degree of certainty all the ways in which our choices, our life, has rippled far, far beyond us and into an interconnected world that is wide beyond comprehension. Wider still when we consider the lives of others (known and unknown) and the ways in which their choices have influenced and impacted us. It defies definition. It’s beyond our ability to fully comprehend or grasp.

Mystery.
Magic.

These two words—mystery and magic—captivate me. To allow for them, to anticipate and expect them, invites me into imagination; into a belief in things that are beyond me, my understanding, my efforting, and my control. One might even say they require faith.

The poet, W.B. Yeats, said this:

The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper.

This feels like perfect intention and hope: having the “sense” to see a world full of magic (and mystery).

It is my intention and hope.

As I’ve reflected on this for the past few days, I’ve felt the near-demand of competency and perfection show up in full force. Surely there is a plan or process or 3-step succession I can employ that will ensure mystery and magic.

And this? The part of me that already wants to control?

Deep breath.

Mystery and magic will not be tamed.

So, this leaves me with a choice:

Will I demand exhausting certainty and proficiency (of myself and everything/everyone else), or will I loosen my clenched fists, take another deep breath, and *just* trust? 

As is true with most things of value and worth, this is easier said than done.

I spent large swaths of my life certain that if I could just get everything in order—my thoughts, my emotions, my desires, my weight, my money, my marriage, my work, and yes, even my house—then I would feel safe, at peace, and whole. This is, of course, what our capitalistic culture promulgates and promotes. And it is, at least in part, what my former belief system promised (along with “reasons and proofs”). Everything hinged on my efforting, my competency, my perfection, and yet again, my control.

Fewer absolutes and more “Maybe.” Fewer answers and more curiosity. Less order and more that is random and strange and serendipitous. Less pressure, no more “perfect,” and lots more possibility. 

Mystery.
Magic.

Learning to Trust Your Heart

Nov 11, 2022 | Hope & Encouragement

Growing up, I learned that the only voices I was to trust were those outside of me. Parents. My elders. Pastors. Scripture. And most certainly God. Somehow, even though I’d “invited Jesus into my heart,” that didn’t include listening to my heart. The idea of giving credence to any voice within was anathema. Frankly, I didn’t even consider it for decades. And when I DID hear a voice within, I knew it was not only untrustworthy but to be outright rejected. Unless, of course, it summoned guilt or shame. Those two were undoubtedly on the mark and accurate. (Just to be clear: I’m being facetious.)

I don’t say this in critique of my upbringing. I’m pretty sure your experience was similar, regardless of your faith / religious background or lack thereof. Few of us were taught to value and honor a woman’s inner knowing, her intuition, the voice of her heart. Fewer still of us were taught to value and honor our own inner knowing, our own intuition, the voice of our own heart.

So, when I did begin to hear an increasingly louder voice within, I was not sure what to do. At first, guilt and shame were my go-to’s. I was convinced that what I heard, thought, and felt was wrong! But as the voice persisted, I began to recognize that it was consistently counter to what people expected me to say, let alone do. In fact, most of the time, it asserted thoughts and ideas and emotions that were the opposite of what those in “authority” in my life at the time wanted from me: my husband, the church, and most certainly the God I had come to know.

That was then and this is now. Admittedly, there is lots in between the two, but let’s focus on the now, for now.

Now, when I hear the voice within that refutes or contradicts external “authority,” I know to follow it immediately. I know it to be exactly what I must trust. It is, without question or doubt, how I discern what to do, what is right, what is best.

Which explains why I so love this quote:

There can never be a spiritual authority outside of me that is greater than this voice I hear within, this voice of my own uncaged heart.

~ Meggan Watterson, Mary Magdalene Revealed

For most of us, when we even consider listening to the voice within, to the voice of our own uncaged heart, we are instantly bombarded with a mile-long list of risks, costs, and consequences.

  • If I follow the voice of my heart, then I will be misunderstood.
  • If I follow the voice of my heart, then others might get hurt.
  • If I follow the voice of my heart, then I will pay a price that’s more than I can afford.
  • If I follow the voice of my heart, then I might lose an opportunity, a job, a relationship, even more.
  • If I follow the voice of my heart, then I can no longer pretend.
  • If I follow the voice of my heart, then I have to be strong enough to follow through.
  • If . . . then . . .
  • If . . . then . . .
  • If . . . then . . .

Deep breath.

I’m not going to tell you that the above aren’t realistic or worth consideration. In fact, I’m far more honest when I tell you that every one of them should be expected! I wish I could say anything other, but I know better—from personal experience and in the lives of my clients, my friends, and others. As long as I’m being honest, let me also say that it has been my fear of exactly these things that has kept me from listening to the voice within. Instead, I’ve doubled-down on compromise and compliance, biding my time in the hopes that eventually something (someone) would change instead of me having to be the one to do so.

But as I said above, it is the conflict itself—the difference between the voice within and any voice of “authority” in my external world—that now tells me I’m on the right track. DISSONANCE IS A GIFT! The tension itself IS the voice of my uncaged heart calling me back to myself, to what’s true, to what’s possible, to what I desire, to what is in complete integrity and alignment, and to my own authority, to what I know-that-I know-that-I know every. single. time. Listen. Can you hear it? The voice within? The part of you that would, if it could, be free and expansive and passionate and unbridled and unrestrained and awake and alive?

Mmmmm. That is your uncaged heart, to be sure—beating, thrumming, speaking, singing, longing. That is all the authority you need to know-that-you-know-that-you-know every. single. time.

*****

I write a long-form email every week for subscribers. I’d love for you to have it. Learn more and sign up.

Belief: Then & Now

Jul 2, 2021 | Hope & Encouragement, Spirituality

There was a time in which any question about what I believed merited a simple, obvious, and expected answer. After all, I grew up in the church, went to Christian summer camps and later, a Christian college, was a missionary (!!), married a pastor, led Bible studies for women, even went to Seminary and got my Master of Divinity degree. I had a definitive understanding of who God was – and wasn’t. Until I didn’t. 

In the midst of all this, I divorced the pastor and left the church. I stopped teaching bible studies (though I do still tell its not-honored-enough-stories of women). And hardly definitive, I have an ever-shifting understanding/perception of the Divine. Which is exactly the way I like it! 

Distance from past beliefs, even from religion itself, does not mean disconnection from belief.

I still need and want to believe. NOT because I’m ailing or unmoored without such. NOT because I need something or Someone to rely on. But because what I believe in, how I believe, belief in-and-of-itself is what compels and shapes my story, my life, my world.

What has changed, of course, is the what and who – subject and object. 

Now, what and who I believe in is me. 

In many ways, the world in which I was raised taught me just the opposite. I learned to place my full reliance in the God that dwelled outside of me (at best, in my heart). I learned that I couldn’t trust myself or my desires. I learned that my body/feelings/thoughts were unreliable. I learned that I needed to be forgiven in order to be worthy of God’s saving. Until I un-learned all of these things. 

There is no need to choose between belief in the Divine and belief in self. 

Here is what I believe today: 

  • I believe in the Divine that dwells within me. 
  • I believe in (and trust) my desires. 
  • I believe in the wisdom, knowledge, and intuition present in my body, my feelings, my thoughts.
  • I believe I am worthy; I don’t need saving. 

None of these are at the expense of belief in the Divine, in the Sacred, in every-and-all things spiritual. These beliefs, when in place and practiced, are the Divine, the Sacred, the most spiritual presence and expression possible. Said another way, this: 

We see, know, and experience the Divine, the Sacred, every-and-all-things spiritual when we are truly and fully ourselves. 

And that? You and me living truly, boldly, out loud, full of desire and fully ourselves? Well, that might be enough to start a revival…or at least encourage a couple conversions!

May it be so. 

Non-existent, but no less real (February 29)

Mar 1, 2021 | Hope & Encouragement, My sort-of Sermons, Women's Wisdom

My father died a year ago today.

No, that’s not quite right.

He died on February 29, 2020. That day doesn’t exist this year – or next, or the year after that.

The fact that the date itself is not on my calendar, doesn’t prevent me from remembering, reflecting, and honoring him. Still, it’s a strange phenomena: to have such a significant marker arrive and almost pass me by, to not be something I can land on, see in front of me, capture, or hold.

Perhaps because this is so, I am even more aware of him, his life, his death, and his ongoing influence on and presence in my life. Maybe it’s something being intangible that makes it all the more real, more true.

And this makes me wonder about something else equally (and perhaps even more) intangible…and real…and true.

As we develop, mature, grow, and transform, we move from reliance on the voices and seeming-wisdom of those around and outside us to an awareness of and trust in the voice and actual-wisdom we hold within. We learn to listen to our intuition. We are willing and able to hear our deepest heart. We know-that-we-know-that-we-know. 

But like February 29, there is little to validate such – at least externally. It requires that we hold onto something WE know, but that others can’t easily see, name, or acknowledge. It requires that WE be the ones to remember, reflect, and honor who we truly are. It requires that WE mark, name, and denote all the brilliance and beauty we hold within. And all of this without measure, without out-loud celebration, without any date on the calendar.

As I think about my dad, I know he’d understand what I’m talking about. Our best conversations were always philosophical in nature. Unanswerable and intangible questions that we wrestled to the ground. Endless unknowing that we attempted to lasso and hold – even for a moment – before it slipped out of our grasp. Books we’d read, things we’d pondered and perseverated on, stories we’d lived or heard that captured something nebulous, mysterious, glimmering, and true. Always heady. Always stimulating. Sometimes frustrating. And endlessly reliable: his thinking, his pushing the boundaries, his deep desire for knowing, understanding, and being, and his requirement that I do and be the same.

So, on this non-day – February 29 or March 1 – I’m holding on to three irrefutable but un-markable truths:

  1. This day, the day my father left our presence, exists and is real – whether seen and named on my calendar, or not. It’s deserving of a date. He is. And, as my mom acknowledged in his memorial service, it was just like him to die on a leap year so that we’d only have to remember him every four years. Mmm hmm.
  2. My wisdom, my knowing, my heart is as reliable (and even more so) than the wisdom that can be named, written down, memorialized, taught in institutions, praised in public forums, or canonized in sacred tomes.
  3. This is true about your wisdom, your knowing, your heart, as well.

You, me, all of us have vast and infinite opportunity to believe and trust in ourselves – our wisdom, our knowing, our heart. It doesn’t matter that it can’t be proven, that it’s different from the status quo, that it defies cultural norms, that it upsets the apple cart, that there’s no date on the calendar.

And if you’re struggling to believe this, to trust this, to be this, you can be certain that my dad is holding every bit of it on your behalf. Me, too. I am my father’s daughter, after all.

Believing the Voice Within You

Jan 7, 2019 | Spirituality, Women's Voice & Power, Women's Wisdom

A voice dwells within you that can be trusted, that longs to be listened to, that consistently speaks truth.

I promise.

Other voices dwell within, as well. They have strong opinions, speak irritatingly louder, and often trick you by sounding far more sane. “It’s dangerous!” “You’re dangerous!” “It’s way too risky.” “Think about the consequences!” “You’ll never be understood.” “You’ll be completely alone.” “Are you completely insane?”

They’re hard to ignore, no doubt about it. But when you listen closely you’ll hear that they actually sound plain-old boring and pretty damn tired. After all, they’ve been droning on and on for a very long time. And really, anymore, they’re not all that convincing. So give them a retirement party. Send them packing. Wave goodbye.

Then choose to believe the voice that knows what it’s talking about. Choose to believe you.

You can be trusted. You already know. You are beautiful and wise and amazing. You are that Sacred.

I promise.

How do I know? How can I promise? Well, because at least at this moment, I’m practicing what I preach. I’m believing the voice within me! The one that speaks deep truth. The one that knows-that-it-knows-that-it-knows.

Yes. That one.