Tag: relationships

Growth through Connection

October 26, 2017

The only real way to grow is through connection. Sometimes we think we need to pressure, prod, or push growth by telling people what to do or making a plan to which they must adhere. The only real growth in the natural world around us, though, is through cells connecting with one another. There is no real laid out plan for how plants should grow (except maybe their DNA – the plans are encoded within), and there is not someone there demanding they straighten themselves up and reach out further ...  Keep reading

Reconciliation/Repair

May 21, 2017

You will always be in conflict and there will always be a need for reconciliation and repair. The people around you are different than you, and your competing desires produce tension, sometimes agonizingly so. It is not hard to see the world around you is in turmoil. You are probably even in conflict within yourself. Repair, or reconciliation, is what brings all things together. Any beauty we see is the orchestrating of disparate parts into a state of resonance. ...  Keep reading

Transformative Repentance

May 3, 2017

Living in a perpetual state of repentance is the way to change. We are always in brokenness and there is nothing that keeps our hearts tender like saying we’re sorry, turning around and repenting for the things we have done. It is true you make mistakes every day. Why would you not want to live in repentance? The alternative is to not pay attention to the things you are doing wrong or to rationalize and try to convince yourself and others that the things you have done are not that bad. When ...  Keep reading

Resonance and Drag

April 27, 2017

God and universe are system. We are constantly interacting with them – with God, one another and the environment around us. The cycles of interaction (feedback loops) between you and all things in your life can largely affect how you feel day-to-day. If you are getting positive feedback from others in your life and your environment, you feel good. This is what we call resonance. It is the feeling you get when you are doing something you were ...  Keep reading

Searching Out Truth

June 5, 2016
  I think the truth is something that is more uncovered than “known,” and something that morphs and is constructed, rather than being a static thing.  When I talk to people, I am always looking to discern and express what will meet and resonate with their experience the most. What they and I collaborate to articulate comes from how our experiences intersect and blend together. What is constructed with one person is different than what is constructed with the next. The truth is what feels most true to us at that particular time. It could be abandoned for another superseding truth at a later date, but for that moment, we feel like we have really discovered something! Sometimes, it is like pushing out another corner of the universe to include what we have created together. If I say the same things to everyone in the same way without crafting a new dialogue to fit our experiences, it will not resonate in the same way. The truth must be expressed in different ways to different people. I and they will be in different places on different days depending on our life experiences. Something that “felt true” on one day may not resonate or even seem true on a different day. It is not that the truth is based on how we feel, but we have noses and minds for searching out the real reality and it is being created all the time. We are made to be discerners and discoverers of truth.

Connections

January 31, 2016

Our connections with one another are all that matter. When everything is stripped away, what will be left is your essence and my essence (who we are) and the connection our essences can have – on the soul level. There are so many things in this life which present barriers to our souls connecting: our defenses that keep us from having intimacy, our covetousness, our hatred, our possessions, even the physical barriers of skin and geographical location. And yet, there are moments in this life when we connect with each other on this deep level. It is very satisfying and can even give us the feeling of ecstasy on a momentary basis. Those are the moments I (and likely you) cherish. They are windows into the next life.

We get glimpses into that type of connection now. Some day we will see fully and our connections with each other will be more robust and fulfilling. I have no idea what that looks like, but I have an inkling of it because it was planted deep in my soul. I am an eternal being. I am interested in how our connections with each other and God will some day be realized. For now, we live in this incomplete dispensation. When everything is stripped away, it will all be revealed. Let us live into that and learn about what that next new thing will be like. It is that for which we live.

Being Kind

September 27, 2015

It is actually quite a difficult thing to be kind. If you are going to be truly kind, you have to be very present in the moment and work to put yourself into the world of those around you, understanding them in order to avoid judgment. If you don’t pay attention, your default will be to act and react based on the prototype or standard to which you hold yourself and everyone else and you can easily become a tyrant. Our demands for perfection create anger which then spills out onto others when we are not paying attention to how we treat them. That’s why it’s easiest to be unkind to ourselves and those closest to us: our families or those with whom we spend the most time.

Being kind to others springs from putting effort into receiving gentle kindness for your self at the deepest level – at that place where you believe yourself most unlovable. If you are able to do that for yourself, you can know the deepest parts of ANYONE else and be understanding, empathetic and kind to them, too. We don’t love others because we don’t love ourselves.