The Choice to Rejoice

"The world will end in joy, because it is a place of sorrow. When joy has come, the purpose of the world has gone. The world will end in laughter, because it is a place of tears. Where there is laughter, who can longer weep?" (A Course In Miracles, Manual for Teachers)

If you ever doubted for a moment that spiritual truth runs very deep, you haven't pondered Jesus' words about suffering and joy. In a singular passage Jesus says there will be many trials and tribulations in life and be of good cheer. I have heard and read these words countless times before, but the last time was the decisive stroke that split my heart open. I can't explain why in just that moment, I was so deeply moved by the significance of this juxtaposition of seeming opposites. Perhaps my ego was dozing and let its guard down momentarily, for in that instance these familiar words were transmuted from platitudinous utterances, to a portal into my own deeper spiritual understanding. As the depth of meaning reached my heart, I shuddered and felt the sure sign of profound truth - a tingle that ran down my arms.

Do you feel it too? Can you wrap your heart around the enormous significance of a spiritual reality that makes joy possible in the midst of suffering? Human perception scoffs at such a notion for it seems that the trials of life are the barriers to our enjoyment of life; that difficulty and joy are mutually exclusive.  Our hearts are sensitized to close and resist the tough stuff, to push back in the face of tribulation. Hardly an atmosphere for rejoicing. But there it is in the same breath, master of Life, Jesus who well knew about suffering, advocating joy in the midst of life's trials.  

What did Jesus know that allowed him to advocate a seemingly impossible response to difficulty? He knew that he was not a mere body. He knew that worry was counterproductive to faith and prosperity. He knew that anger and resentment and resistance only serve to separate us from the God moments we all seek. He knew his true essence was spiritual. He knew he was the light of the world. He made the same claim for you and me.  He talked about a Kingdom that had already come; a heavenly awareness that was accessible to all.  The difference between Jesus and us, that makes all the difference, is Jesus didn't just talk about the Kingdom within, he lived there. It was his moment to moment abiding place.  

When we live on the surface of life our capacity for enjoyment rises on the good news and falls with the bad news. Trials and tribulations knock us for a loop, and we see no way out until things get better.  But there is a dwelling place, an abiding place within us, beneath the appearances of life, where all is indeed well. This is how Jesus overcame the world. This is how we too can be in the world but not of it; how we can live in this world and still be happy.

Of course, all of us find ourselves at times saying "if this or that would happen, then I would feel happier!"    It's an easy trap to fall into for us humans and clearly it a journey that will not bring us home for the holidays.  The truth is in the reversal.  All of those stories about what keeps us from deep joy are, well, just stories.  Nothing can keep us from the goodness of God, from the joy that runs deep within us.  At the end of the day, it's about you and me trusting in the goodness of God, whether the appearances support our faith or not.  Hang in there long enough, and deep enough with your faith in the Presence, and your journey will bring you home, sweet home, for the holidays, and beyond.

Love From Above

"I have found the paradox, that if you love until it hurts, there can be no more hurt, only more love." - Mother Theresa When I think about what really brings me into the heart of the Christmas season it is usually a story about how unfathomable love prevailed against great adversity. One such story that still tears me up and reminds me of the depths to which love is capable is of a mother with a terminal illness who made the conscious, heart rendering choice to find foster homes for all of her children before she died. Most of us can only imagine, and wince at the pain she went through. Yet the beautiful paradox revealed by this story is how human love can come up against its limits, endure great pain, and be transmuted into extraordinary love. Who would have blamed this mother if she found it unbearable to release her children to new parents and clutched them to her side until her last breath. But this mother knew about a higher love that would outlive her suffering and the suffering of her children.  She accepted the inevitable, though devastating, reality that her physical presence as their mother would soon end.  She found a way to endure this reality and the pain of releasing her children by tapping into a greater love, a love that would continue to live and love long after her human heart could not. This is our great challenge if we are to ever really know the high form of love that is possible; the divine love which Jesus embodied and demonstrated in his life on earth.  The hardest part of love is in letting go.  The reason it is so difficult is that when we love humanly we get attached to people and we cling to them being a certain way. Their being or acting a certain way constitutes our love of them. Of course when we are aware of this tendency we realize that we are never really loving a person, but loving our image of them, our expectations, and the mandate we have placed on our love for them. Ouch, you say! Yes, this is a painful awareness. It stings to realize that our love is not as pure as we imagined. But you and I are capable of a truer form of love; love that is seeded in our souls and available to our hearts if we are open and willing to know it.  It begins by letting go of conditional love. It will  take extraordinary willingness to release clinging to preferences of how others should be. But as with the mother who endured the pain of separation from her children, we too can tap into a love that connects us deeper and wider with no limits of time or space by releasing our ideals for other people.   Unconditional love is demanding, but it gives more than it asks of us. Ultimately it's about allowing a lesser love to die so that eternal love can be born. Jesus demonstrated this lesson at the end of his life as well. Though he might have clung to his preferences for his life on earth, a deeper wisdom allowed him to release the form that would only limit his expression of love. He released limitations and unleashed the power of a love so great that to this day we can be reborn by its power made manifest in us.  Divine love is more than a heavenly ideal, but a real possibility for mothers who have transcended ordinary love and those of us who would follow.

The Inward March for Peace

"There is no way to peace, peace is the way." A. J. Muste

I grew up as part of a generation of idealists that marched for social change.  We marched against unjust wars; we marched in opposition to unfairness and to redress inequality for those subjugated by barriers of race, gender, and socioeconomic status. Wherever and whenever injustice reared its prejudicial head we took to the streets with signs or candles to bring awareness to the ignorant side of humanity.  In our vision for a liberated humanity, change meant activism.

The question I ask today, from a more integral perspective than I had 30 years ago, is what is the most effective method of achieving beneficial changes in society and in our own personal lives?  While activism was an easy answer in my earlier life, today I pause to consider that response. 

What is different for me today is a realization that my motivation will determine the results of my actions. That is, where I'm coming from will determine where I end up, regardless of my plan of action. I've come to notice that righteousness is not a path to peace, nor is indignation, nor is judgment. No matter how justified I may feel in my disapproval of a situation or an individual, these feelings will, by universal law, only create after their kind, and I'll never get the peace I'm after.  As Einstein noted, you cannot make plans for war, in preparation for peace. 

When we feel conflicted with another person or with a particularly troubling situation, we cannot achieve peace  of mind if it's dependent on a change in events or of another's heart.  If this is our form of activism we will march until our legs fall off and in the end we'll still be upset and confused.  Peace eludes us when we make it dependent on outer conditions. Why is this? Because peace is not the mere absence of discord or conflict but a divine quality that is embedded within us. Peace is seated in the soul.

If I make the mistake of seeking peace as a destination - a place of calm and well being that I'll get to when a certain outcome comes to pass - I will never get there. Finding peace is a deeply personal endeavor, that no-body or no-thing can give me. As an eternal verity of Being, it is not a destination, but a realization.  I must restore awareness of the still point inside of me. I must be still and know. This is the true peace that Jesus referred to when he said, "My peace I leave with you, not as the world giveth, give I unto you."  The world gives us a set of conditions in which peace is possible. Spirit offers peace without condition. 

Today I know that any march for Peace must first be inward, then outward.  When I center myself in the ground of being peace, I am best equipped to take up the causes that stir me to action.