Chapter 70: Accepting and Appreciating

 For a decade I’ve been writing emails that mention my desire to embrace acceptance: of myself, of others, of what is.  It is a life-long lesson for me, this acceptance business.

Try not to resist the changes that come your way. 

Instead, let life live through you. – Rumi

Genuine acceptance invites reality without resistance.

 

“There is no controlling life 

try corralling a lightning bolt, containing a tornado. 

Dam a stream and it will create a new channel. 

Resist, and the tide will sweep you off your feet. 

Allow, and grace will carry you to higher ground. 

The only safety lies in letting it all in – the wild with the weak, fear, fantasies, failures, and success. 

When loss rips off the doors of the heart, 

or sadness veils your vision with despair, 

practice becomes simply bearing the truth. 

In the choice to let go of your known way of being  

the whole world is revealed to your new eyes.” – Danna Faulds

“Between clinging and letting go, I feel a terrific struggle… let go, to “win my life by losing it,” which means not recklessness but acceptance, not passivity, but nonattachment… Yet I feel calm, and ready to accept whatever comes and therefore happy… 

acceptance which is not fatalism but a deep trust in life.” – Peter Mattiesen, The Snow Leopard

So also is appreciation a life-long lesson and desire. Rereading correspondence from the past, I marvel at Reb’s words shared with me in 2016 in her "agua dulce" email: words she wrote in 2012, while sitting beside our beloved Lake Superior and reflecting on her summer. I am writing this while also sitting by the great lake. I was reminded of the words Reb passed along -- repeating a sentiment of her hippie friends in Tulum: “the universe will give you what you need” -- when reading this Richard Rohr quote in this past early September 2022 week:

"More and more we sense that Someone Else is for us, more than we are for ourselves. 

All we can do is get out of the way. 

We realize that this is a radically benevolent universe, and it is on our side..." - Richard Rohr

I repeat some of Rebekah’s beautifully written, insightful, epic words; they reflect my heart as well:

"I do know that part of me stepped back into the light while I whittled away my days in Tulum, a part of me that helps me see beauty and accept love and be truly grateful as opposed to feeling guilty about my privilege…

…I feel grounded by the acceptance that I'll probably never be totally certain about many things and that doesn't mean I can't be happy and productive and loving.

Today as I relish the sun and the waves and this stunning afternoon, I'm pondering the undeserved abundance I've been offered - of love from my family, of opportunities from society, of 'agua dulce' as far as I can see, of mystery that continually laps up along this jagged shoreline.

Today as I sit along the shore of this lake that feels like an ocean, this lake that I love, I can hardly believe this life is mine." 

– Rebekah Menning

 

I too have “undeserved abundance” and I want to embrace and enjoy this life that is mine. 

Chapter 69: God IS

God is “the breath inside the breath.” – Kabir

In September 2022 I am on my first solo retreat in a dozen years, writing some of my “story” after a nearly six-year hiatus of reflection-writing since Mom’s death. Settled into soft chair, encased in blanket, holding warm mug, enchanted by pitter-patter on one day and lake-surface-light sparkles on another – I get to reflect. 

What has happened, what is happening within? What is different now from then, a half dozen years and more ago. 

For sure, my concept of God has morphed significantly. Among my collection of quotes are:

“God is Being Itself” – Franciscan John Duns and Dominican Thomas Aquinas

 

“God is a pure no-thing  

concealed in the now and here 

the less you reach for God 

the more fully God will appear 

God is my final end  

does God from me evolve 

then God grows out of me  

while I in God dissolves.”  

 – Angelus Silesius

 “the soul of the whole; the wise silence; the universal beauty, to which every part and particle is equally related, the eternal ONE…” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

“God is at least the set of forces that created and sustain the universe…” – Mike McHargue

God is “all over the place. God is up there, down here, inside my skin and out. God is the web, the energy, the space, the light – not captured in them as if any of those concepts were more real than what unites them – but revealed in the singular, vast nets of relationship that animates everything that is… 

God is the unity, the very intelligence, the very elegance and passion that make it all go…” – Barbara Brown Taylor

“God is not what you think or even what you believe because God is a word unspoken  

a thought unthought  

a belief unbelieved.  

So if you want to know this God, practice wonder. 

Do what is good, and cultivate silence, the rest will follow.” 

– Meister Eckhart

“God co-inheres and interpenetrates everything... God is creation itself, endlessly outpouring, endlessly receiving itself back.” – Cynthia Bourgeault, speaking of Thomas Keating's understandings

Maybe a few words here toward the middle about who and what Jesus Christ might be:

Jesus is “at least a man so connected to God that He was called the Son of God” – Mike McHargue (my note: Jesus never refers to himself as Son of God, only as the son of man); 

“Christ is the name for the very shape and meaning of the universe. Jesus reveals this wonderful message in human form, showing us the full meaning of our own lives – in a way that we could love and admire.” – Richard Rohr

God is 

a field of cosmic consciousness, born as a universe, interbeing, 

ground of being (Paul Tillich), 

“True Being of all beings” (Rami Shapiro), 

I AM (Exodus 3:14), 

essence of life, luminous vastness…more intimate to me than I am to myself (Augustine of Hippo), 

incomprehensible to the intellect (Cloud of Unknowing), 

transcendent and immanent, ultimate reality, reality with a face (Rohr), 

known by diverse names, disguised as our life (Paula D’Arcy), 

inherent Goodness (Rohr), 

an insistent and persistent love, 

Oma love, 

“life power itself, the power of love itself” (John Shelby Spong).

  “in God all things hold together” Colossians 1:17       

“in God we live and move and have our being” Acts 17:28       

“My deepest me is God” – St Catherine of Genoa (1447-1510)

On the note of recognizing the goodness and god within, I wish for movement toward self love, compassion, acceptance. 

Chapter 68 [PART III: 2022 "I am here to be here." - Peter Mattiessen]

 Chapter 68 - YES

If you are irritated by every rub, how will your mirror be polished? – Rumi

I park in front of the North Shore villa entrance, excited to begin my personal retreat days, noticing feelings of gnawing stomach after crunching too many Cheetos to stay alert while driving and a full bladder resulting from no stops during the 5 hours since leaving home. I am calculating the number of minutes – 50 – before needing to facilitate a Women-In-Recovery enneagram book discussion via zoom. First stop is to squat just right of front door to find the hedgehog key holder to retrieve passage inside. But to no avail: I cannot find hedgehog or key among the rocks right of doorway or along the adjacent walkway or by the back door. I check email and text for exact key location description: “to the right of the door among the ivy.” I’m not seeing any ground ivy but maybe she meant the sprawling spruce branches? I text and email and phone my host – no response. I look some more, lifting rocks and branches, searching the other side of the walkway, opening storage door to left of doorway, checking near outdoor shelves. No key.

I notice that I’m not panicking (after all I have a few minutes margin); I consider my options if I’m locked out. Shelter in the car? No, I can pay for lodging somewhere nearby. Notify book group organizer? Yes, I can do that, I have her email and a phone connection. I sense slight urgency within as the clock ticks to 5:50p. I text again, leave another phone voice message. 

My host calls back! 

Turns out, the hedgehog holding the key is at her Twin Cities house! I mistakenly assumed that it was at the villa. She calls the villa guest services and they make (or have) another key for me to use. Yay, entrance gained, with a few minutes to spare.

I was aware of a measure of internal unease lurking as the time ticked toward my approaching zoom meeting; I also sensed a calm acceptance of “what it is” rather than too-familiar resistance, especially as compared with a decade or so ago. Que sera sera from a familiar childhood song came to mind “whatever will be, will be.”

This outlook is a change in me, one that I welcome and hope to nurture.

Do not worry that your life is turning upside down. How do you know that the side you are used to is better than the one to come? - Rumi

The following morning, rain rather than sun heralded the new day: so there was no beautiful sunrise, no dancing sun rays on lake top, no trekking the trails. AND (rather than BUT) there was yes to sounds of rain patter, yes to sight of mesmerizing raindrop prickles hopping on gentle wavy lake surface, yes to smell of earthy moistness, yes to cozying up in blanket wrap.