Meditate to Rock It!

My husband led the meditations. His spirit embodies a peace grounded in the beauty of that which is bigger than what we can see and touch.

Before he began to lead them, the weekly staff meetings at our medium-size valley church were painful. Disorganized and meandering they would typically end up a bitch and complain session. I would walk away feeling mired in the negativity that fed my own anxiety and fear.

Once we began with the meditations, everything changed.

Poetry was a favorite for becoming grounded, and Mary Oliver was often the poet of choice. Her poems moved me to another reality that would both compel me further on and make me giddy with the beauty of her words and art.

One phrase from a poem she wrote I will never forget. It is the concluding stanza to her poem “The Summer Day” and it is this question. “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”

Tears spring to the corner of my eyes whenever I hear it. It touches me deeply in that inner region of my desires and hopes and it nudges me like a gentle finger pressing just hard enough to remind me I need to get moving.

What is it you plan to do, AmyJo, with your one wild and precious life?

Meditation has not always been my friend. I struggle to be quiet and still. The state of my natural being is movement. My mind is always working, thinking, dreaming, telling stories and making up fantasies. As most who know me will quickly attest, my mouth is rarely closed and voice seldom not being used.

I talk a lot, laugh loud, run hard, hand-dance in the car and simply have an all around difficult time sitting still and being quiet.

So of course, meditation is especially important for me. I need it, and I have recently rediscovered this very important truth.

After leaving the organized church, I establishing an experimental community that eventually progressed to embrace new ideas and a system of belief that was no longer Christianity. During those incredible three plus years of teaching, studying and questioning we developed deeply meaningful meditations. I wrote ritual that spoke to our new way of seeing the world and poetry replaced memorized liturgy.

When that Community ended, and it did so in hurt, betrayal and much pain, I stopped meditating. I literally put everything from my office, on my shelves, in drawers and from my home that had to do with Way of Compassion Community in a box, closed it and shoved it in a dark corner of my garage.

I recently unpacked it. What a charge it was to walk my fingers through books, files, framed pictures and documents and reclaim them as me. My heart fluttered and spirit soared.

I am being born again, and this time, I am going to do some amazing shit with my one, wild and precious life! This time, I am not allowing anyone to nay-say, or nervously keep me down because they want me small. This time, I am going to say “shit” if I want to. This time, I am going to wear my red lipstick without apology, sing loud, laugh with abandon and be the big, great person I have always known is the true me.

I can claim this truth because I have rediscovered meditation. There is such a thing as “divine timing”, which I refer to as “universe time”, evident in my connection with Lissa Rankin and Amy Ahlers. They lead Vision Ignition Switch; a business that mentors visionaries in building their business so they can both change the world and their lives for the better.

Before each webinar or group call we are lead through a meditation. The first time it happened I was stunned. I wasn’t sure how I felt about doing something that felt like going backward. I had worked so hard to finally leave the old system of belief and the practices that came with it, I was not clear I wanted it again.

For some reason I trusted these women and myself enough that I decided to do it and fully participate.  Tears streamed hot and salty from my closed eyes, pooling in the corners of my mouth so that when we finished, I was wet.

Joining the boxed items I had chosen to return to me, I now added meditation. I reclaimed it in a new, meaningful and life giving way.

The next day my husband, the gentle giant who had led meditations so effectively for years, listened to a webinar with me. I suspected there would be a meditation, and wasn’t sure how he would receive it. When Lissa began, I closed my eyes and began to participate. A minute in I sneaked a peak at my husband. He sat stiff with mouth clenched. It was painful. Something he loved, let go of and never had been recognized for, was happening right in front of him in his own home.

I took a risk. Tapping him gently on his knee I said “participate!” He did. We both have a piece of us back.  We both are claiming our one, wild and precious life and the truth that we are going to rock it!

Stay tuned for meditations, poems and ritual for you to rock your life! 

Grasping Good

We need to spend more time seeing the good.

Sounds simplistic, right? But it’s not. Try it and you’ll see how dependent we have become as a society on blaming, seeing and pointing at the bad. We are verging on a cultural addiction to the bad; we use it to excuse our own actions, explain the actions of others and when we need a scapegoat for tough social issues, we offer it up.

A few weeks ago I was with extended family. The conversation migrated to the content of my upcoming TEDX San Joaquin talk.  I began to explain the gyst of my talk: that the Doctrine of Original Sin is wrong and needs to be replaced with the Affirmation of Natural Goodness.

One of my siblings in-law who is not now nor ever has been, part of organized religion, interrupted me to ask “Well, how can it be true that we aren’t born naturally bad? How do you explain all the bad stuff that happens?”

It’s funny how the non-religious can sometimes become defenders of the faith. It happens because Christianity has had such a profound impact in laying the foundation of our Western culture. The idea that we are all born with the desire and penchant to do and be “bad” (The Doctrine of Original Sin) is one that has had the greatest impact.

Sure. Absolutely. Without Question. There is evidence of bad actions, choices that harm, hate, prejudice, violence, deceit, betrayal and more. And agreed. It’s not going to go away.

But if the evidence being presented to prove that we are all born naturally bad is that those attributes exist, then the argument fails. Yes, there are these realities in our world and personal lives, but it does not prove that sin, bad or the dark side is our first inclination.

There is no more evidence of bad attributes and actions than there are of the good. In fact, the truth is there are far more incidents of good that we experience every day than of bad. Our problem is that we don’t see them. We don't pay attention to the good stuff.

We have been trained to see the bad first and walk right past the good.

It’s time for a reorientation that will restore our collective spirit and hope in our common goodness.

We need to retrain our minds to see, notice, and mark all the good that happens around us every day.

Yesterday I was given unsolicited hugs from my kids (good), was told that my advice was valuable and helpful (good), attended a webinar by two women who have “made it” in my industry and who are giving away what they have learned to help others (good). After a long day of teaching fifth grade my husband sat at the computer and helped me revise items for my upcoming TEDx Talk (good). My mother called to check on my kids (good) and my sister called just to tell me she loved me (good). My hair stylist who just had a baby texted me to ask how things were going (good) and men who were standing in a group on a path where I was running politely made way for me and smiled, saying “lookin’ good!”(good).

All of it is good and all of it is unremarkable. But it’s good and it’s real and it’s important.

The bad that happens to us hurts. It pierces our spirit and has the potential of infecting our minds so that it permanently damages our vision and the way we see each other and the world. It’s true that betrayal, violence, lies, can leave lasting marks on our persons.

Yet that does not prove that it is what defines us. Nor does it mean we have to allow the bad to dominate the good. We can change the way we think and see the world. It is our choice.

Practice makes perfect.

When we prepare to run a half-marathon, we train. If we intend to play piano in a jazz band, we rehearse. To excel at a skill or area of specialty we study, read and focus our efforts on that particularity.

Nothing more is demanded of us to change the way we see the world and each other. We need to practice, rehearse and train ourselves to focus, study and spot all the good in and around us.

Notice it. Point to it. Let other people know when you find it. Tweet it. Post it. Photograph it. We need to share the good so that we daily recognize its overwhelming presence in our lives.

Let’s get to it. 7 Days of Grasping Good will help.

Monday: Concentrate on the goodness in beginnings, commencements and starts.

Tuesday: Spot good actions in people you don’t know but stand next to at Starbuck’s, walk past in the grocery store or pass on the freeway.

Wednesday: Look for the language of good: thank you, have a nice day, after you, you look nice, and…

Thursday: Claim the hope of good in the midst of hurt, pain, sadness, violence, hate and in seeing good even as we recognize the bad.

Friday: The Friday Habit: focus on the good in you and that you see around you and tweet, talk, post or otherwise announce it.

Saturday: Let loose with the good of extra sleep, long runs, movies in the afternoon, friends, kids play and languid love.

Sunday: Rehearse and affirm: I am naturally good and have within me the power to make choices that creates good for me and others.

Grasp the Good, hold it close, ingest it and watch your world shift!

The Friday Habit!

I am thinking about Fridays. I love them. They make me feel hopeful, imbued with a sense of accomplishment and anticipation about what possibilities are held in the next two days of freedom.

I didn’t always have this view of Fridays. As a pastor, Friday was the last day to prepare everything needed for the busy, overwhelming stuff that was the weekend of worship.

I’m not sure how many people realize it; the hours a pastor puts in. During my tenure as an ordained woman, I had my share of those folks who asked “What do you do during the week?” I always laughed between clenched teeth and explained that being a pastor was a full time job, oh sorry, vocation, calling.

Right. Forgot, not a job, a calling. I digress.

I have had free weekends since the spring of 2008. At first it was strange and uncomfortable. I felt like a truant child who was cutting class. It was as if something was wrong with the extra hours that were now mine to decide how to use.

I got used to it. It’s a totally new universe, one that I now adore and enjoy. The weekend has allowed for more time with my kids, late night and morning intimacy with my husband and the ability to sleep in which has allowed for parties! Saturday and Sunday’s are great for long run’s, bike rides and reading uninterrupted. Love ‘em. That’s their job, to rejuvenate and give reasons for joy.

Now I have a new job for Fridays: an experiment to form The Friday Habit. Here it is. Every Friday wake up with this intention: To concentrate on the good in you and in others around you and Tweet, Facebook, Orkut, Blog or otherwise announce it.

We focus too much on the bad, the violent and awful. We come by it honestly. Christianity and the Doctrine of Original Sin laid the foundation of Western culture and our ideas about humanity. We have practiced and rehearsed that the “bad in us” dictates and rules.

Father Augustine, the author of this ground-laying opus, declared that humans are born ensconced in sin, wrapped up in the dirty reality that our first human inclination is to choose that which is bad. We lie, cheat, harm, are selfish, greedy and are overcome with the desires of the flesh.

Of course, the answer to such a state of affairs is God and the Church. Convenient, I know. We can never escape this cycle of sin until we die and then are judged as to how well we did managing it via God, Jesus and the Church. In other words, we need them and it. We cannot handle our bad or create our own good, so that we must go looking for it in the divine entity which apparently created us with this wanting for good, which is concurrent with this same divine entity. Clever.

The marketing plan is actually pretty ingenious. It provides for a life long need to buy what the Church is selling.

I want a new plan, and it begins with The Friday Habit: Concentrate on the good in you and in others around you and Tweet, Facebook, Orkut, Blog or otherwise announce it.

We need to let go of the thousands of years of practicing the idea that we sin first and we gotta get the good from outside of us.

We need to replace the old confession of sin with a new affirmation, a new, powerful sentence. Yup, a sentence!

Here it is: I affirm that I am by nature good, and have within me the power to make choices that create good for me and others.

That’s it. One sentence.

It takes 21 days to form a habit. We could change the world by making this sentence our new habit. Seriously. Think about how the ground of our world, built on the Doctrine that we are first sinful and need God and Church to manage it, would shake and turn if we practiced that we are all good and already have the power inside of us to do and make more good!

I am good, you are good. We share the same core of good potential and ability to make and create more good. Imagine it! It would change the world – change how we see one another – how we interact – disagree – worship – think – plan – solve problems.

No, it’s not a formula for utopia or perfection. Ick. We don’t’ want that, it’s not reality and it’s boring. What we want and need for the sake of our society and our future is to reframe our vision of ourselves and each other.

It is harder to focus on the good in each of us and our potential and responsibility to use that good to make more of it, than it is to default to the easy excuse of “well, we are all naturally sinful”, or “I guess I just haven’t been praying enough” or, “God is telling me no, because there is no change in the situation.”

Focusing on the good makes us responsible and full of amazing possibilities!

21 days. One sentence. Change the world.

Let’s begin today with The Friday Habit! See you in cyberspace and all your good!

Do God and Mohammed Need Our Help?

Why do God, Allah, Mohammed or Jesus need us to defend them?

In the wake of the tragic attacks on the U.S. Embassy in Benghazi, I wonder about this question. Apparently the motivation for these killings is due to outrage at an amateur film posted on YouTube that mocks Islam and the prophet Mohammed.

I get it that we don’t like someone poking and prodding at that which we hold sacred or important. But really?

I was in college when The Last Temptation of Christ came out. The polar opposite of Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ, this movie explored, albeit tentatively, the possibility that Jesus had a sexual relationship with Mary Magdalene. People were in an uproar.

I thought it was cool. I saw the movie and attended a forum at my university. The “panel of experts” was our three campus pastors and a few religion professors. How these people could take an intriguing, artistic and controversial film and suck the life out of it, was astounding. In the end, any energy around was deflated from boredom.

What I do remember happened after the forum. I was defending the film to another student when she said “How would you feel if someone made a film denigrating your hero Martin Luther King, Jr., and do it with lies and make-believe fantasies?”

Hmm. The question gave me pause. I probably wouldn’t like it.

But so what?

Dr. King was a public figure. He was tracked, stalked and dogged by the FBI and other organizations. He was hated, revered and loved. He was married and a philanderer. We know these things about him, and we know it because he was in the public eye. It’s what happens.

The fervor and willing anger thrown, pitched and spit at anyone who denigrates, questions or pushes on religion and religious figures, is saddening and out-of-control. It happened last night in Benghazi and it occurs every day on the internet and blog-o-sphere and almost any other time someone questions, insults, criticizes or otherwise does not ignore or adore, religion. Any religion. Christians do it, Muslims do it, and those not well known, do it. And, it’s wrong.

If Dr. King, a human being of great accomplishment and normal failings, doesn’t need defending, why would a divine entity and prophet? Why do I, a non-Muslim, have to venerate Mohammed or at the very least, say nothing about him or Islam without risking rage and violence against me or the country of my origin?

It is indefensible. Mohammed does not need to be so defended, nor does God, Allah or Jesus. If you are a follower of these entities, you believe they are divine: all-powerful, all-knowing, perfectly able to manage their own divine selves. Why would they even be bothered by a mortal questioning or even insulting them?

These divine entities, described as such by their followers, do not require our human help in venerating and preserving their position of honor. These violent responses to those outside “the faith” that push on it, question or even mock it, denigrate that particular religion and risk propelling us into further intransigence, so that we will not hear one another, learn about our differences, and find our commonalities.

It doesn’t matter what you are: Muslim, Christian, Jewish…. When you react defensively with anger, venom and violence, physically or with words, you represent that religious system and reduce it to defensive and insecure humans lashing out in fear. It does not reflect confidence in your own belief or in the power of your divine entity, and it surely does not promote peace, mercy and justice that most of these religions preach.

If this continues, we will see more violent responses to any seeming "threat" to someone's "sacred". 

All religious leaders must speak out against such atrocities. Those on the edges of extremity must not be allowed to expand their reach. Secularists, humanists and the religious need to raise our voices together and say “no”. “No” to not listening to opposition, “no” to reacting defensively to criticism and “no” to teaching and preaching division between “right” religions and hate for those who are not religious.

God and Allah do not need our help. Let’s focus on who and what does.

Here's the Real Question - and It's for All of Us

NPR recently announced they were going to focus on the most important question of the 2012 Presidential race: what is the role of government?

I disagree. I think the most important question we ought to be asking is “What kind of society do we want to build?”

As a parent of three, I would restate it again. “What kind of society do I want for my kids and their future?”

I think about the vision cast by Romney and Ryan. Their speeches were caustic, misleading and self-righteous. They promise a return to America as a land of plenty and the stand-alone super power in the world.

I am not opposed to a more robust economy. I welcome it, and for many reasons. First, those who are most harmed by this down economy are not the likes of Romney, Ryan or Obama. It is those who were already struggling, already weak in our society who have truly suffered and lost. Second, when there is opportunity that stretches across gender, race, religion and political affiliation our nation as a whole is less anxious. We make better decisions and are more open to one another.

I don’t think anyone would make an argument against regaining our economic footing and growing all of our wealth.

Ah, that’s the trouble. Is the recovery going to be for everyone, or only those who have, up until now, continued to accrue and build up more wealth? 

In terms of the Romney/Ryan vision, I remain skeptical. Their divisiveness alarms me, as does Ryan’s budget that builds a society that does not have programs or provisions for the struggling folks. Their adamant insistence against abortion, birth control and attack on women’s health care is more than troubling. Finally, their insistence on the insertion of God, Church and right religion into making public policy is far beyond my comfort zone. 

Definitely not what I want for my kids.

Listening to Michelle Obama speak at the DNC we begin to see a glimpse of how the Obama/Biden vision will be presented. Her speech was beautiful, smart and seemingly intimate and personal. I cried.

But I couldn’t help thinking, when she said to loud fanfare and applause, that “Barack Obama doesn’t think that success is just measured by how much money you make, but by the impact you’ve had on the lives of others,” that such a statement is so easy to make for those with abundance and plenty.

Making a difference in the lives of others is a powerful feeling. I have and do experience it. But when push comes to shove, those feelings don’t pay for my kid’s swim team fees or buy groceries.

I hate to say it, but I suspect that even with the humble beginnings of our President and First Lady, none of the candidates understand the way most of us live. 

It is up to us. We need to be in discussion with one another, outside the boundaries set by political parties and religious affiliation, about who we want to be and how we intend to conduct ourselves.

Economy and jobs is critical, without question, but what else are we missing?

Gender equality, equal pay for equal work, open access to health care, women’s choice, sexual autonomy, human rights for all, excellent public education for everyone, respect and dignity to all simply because we are people, reduction of religious rhetoric of judgment and absolute statements about who is good and who is not.

These are just a few things I consider important. What about you?

What kind of society do you want to build?

And, what are you willing to do to get it?