I’m sorry to have not kept up with these posts.  I got lost.

I feel as if I’m slowly returning to my old self while also noting the impossibility of that.  There has been a death on many levels and though it’s the season of new life and resurrection, mine is halting and unsteady.  It’s not without joy, however.  There are lots of small joys in a day and they are noted and somewhat treasured.  

The joys are small because my life had to become small- miniscule even.  There’s just not enough energy for the grand plans and big dreams.  There’s not even a lot of energy for much forward movement at all!  There’s just enough energy to get through a day as long as there’s a nap somewhere in there.  So I’ve spent a lot of time contemplating the value of simplicity and pairing down all that is extraneous.  Not an easy feat.

I feel as if I was sailing along in the middle lane of a 5 lane highway.  There were plenty of cars sailing faster and I was going at a steady clip but not too fast.  Then the car suddenly stopped working and I had to get off the road fast!  Now the car has restarted and I’m on a very, very long onramp wondering if I should just stay on the shoulder for a while.

In the meantime, I’m questioning everything- even the value of keeping up with everyone else.  And what does keeping up mean anyway?  I see a lot of busyness but not a lot of meaning.  So much seems without purpose.  And on days when I have the energy to be busy, I get that it feels good just to have accomplished something- even if it’s something rather meaningless.  Accomplishment itself is of value.  It feeds the spirit somehow.  It furthers the cause of my life somehow.

Of course I recognize the illusion of “moving forward” as if there was a “forward.” I often have to catch myself as I think I’m progressing toward something – even if that progression is backwards toward an “old” self .  None of us have an “old” self.  We just have a self that keeps being present in the moment while the rest of us muddles along in illusions.  My self is my self no matter the state of the extremities of my body or my life.  Is that true?  I don’t know.  I have to think about that.

What are we all progressing toward?  Death- and the final moments just before death when we think we will have time to reflect on our lives.  What would count? What do we want to be able to say about how we lived?

I want to say that I went to the bank and the post office and helped out in my community. No not really.  I really want to say that I had fun and I loved – maybe even that I loved well.  I think I want to say that I made a contribution in the healing of others.  But that goes under the “loved well” category.

So if this is the last day of my life, am I loving well?  Hmmm, better work on that.

There are so many things to do between work, home maintenance, schoolboy activities, community stuff. It’s sometimes hard to imagine getting it all done. I wonder about the choices I’ve made to get involved in so much. It just makes me feel so unreliable when I get sick and it all topples for a while. People count on me. Organizations seek out my leadership. How will the world survive?        Very well, thank you.

I used to think my patients could only work with me, that I was the only one who really understood them and knew how to treat them. I used to be more involved with their overall care. I used to wonder how they would manage if I were to die.  I was also involved in many large issues and efforts and thought of myself as indispensable to my community.

Then I got sick. Three years ago, I had to abdicate my self-coronated throne and leave life for a while. It was an incredible struggle as I worked to get better as fast as possible. I knew that so many people needed me. I couldn’t let them down.

The weeks and months wore on and I slowly discovered that I was not nearly as important as I thought. My patients found other practitioners or found that they actually could manage without my therapy. The PTA was limping along before I took over and continued limping along after I left. People either stepped in or things went undone. Either way, life went on. It was quite an ego smasher of a time.

I thought often about how we are like footprints in the sand. Not like that old, worn out Jesus story, but more like the actual print in the sand. Our presence is so temporary and obvious for a time. When we leave or die, our presence fades and washes away, eventually leaving no trace. it made me question life’s purpose.

Our attachment to “leaving a mark” is all about making sure that our footprint stays clear for all to see and even to trip over. It’s unbearable for us to think that we could be forgotten or unacknowledged for having lived. It’s too hard to consider that generations will go by and all but a few will become completely lost among the millions of names in the graveyards of the world.

As I was in vacate mode without the vacation, I realized that I could see all of this as a living tragedy or I could see it as a liberation. This choice showed up over and over again as time went on and as I couldn’t resume my former life. I had to face the fact that whatever importance I held for people or organizations, I was not so important that they couldn’t live without me. Not that I would ever say that, but deep inside I think that’s what I really wanted to believe. I think I wanted to believe that something or someone would really fall apart without me and that I had to heal for their sake. I was THAT important.

But – no.

Everyone carried on. Space was filled. Arrangements were made. Ego smashed.

Take a breath. Start again. Maybe a little lighter this time. Maybe a little more free of care. There is a focus on healing now that is more liberating as I get to discover new dimensions, new corners of me I didn’t know were there. It’s more fun this way.

But what’s the purpose of life then? Well, I think it is simply to follow our nature, whatever that may be. A tree does not seek anything but to be a tree. It stays for a time until it’s ready to fall over and become food for the rest of the earth around it. It doesn’t need to leave a mark. It is not attached to how other trees see it. It just stands there and waves in the wind, reaches for the sun, and bears its own fruit- until it doesn’t anymore.  Kind of simple.

After the most recent brush with death, I came back not wishing to leave a mark really quickly before I die. Instead I began feverishly getting rid of things, working to be sure my family is taken care of if I should go a little sooner than I expect and to disappear quietly without a trace. I’ve saved so many things to mark my life; journals, art, books, junk. In the face of death, it’s all just a lot of junk for someone else to clean up.

I want to live more like the zen monks who did their level best to simply disappear without a trace and to live without attachment to their place in the world. Their collective mark is felt by those of us who yearn for a simpler life where we chop wood and carry water and lie in the grass watching clouds go by. It’s not a tragic life. It’s a poignant life. And then it’s not. Simple.

I’ve been thinking a lot about Moses lately. He came up after a dream I had which was about me simply teaching a meditation class. As I was teaching this class, more and more people showed up. Every time I turned around to address another part of the group, there were more people and more chairs until the room had to be opened up into another room. There was more to the dream but it’s not relevant to my point today.

I awoke thinking about Moses. You know he was reluctant to accept his calling from God too. He wondered how he could be chosen to be any sort of spokesperson for the Almighty since he was just one guy and had likely had a speech impediment too. God told him all that he was to do, which included getting his people to believe that he had a direct line to the Almighty, calling everyone to change 30,000 years worth of not so nice behaviors, oh- and moving for years and years across a desert to some land that was supposed to be full of milk and honey.

Moses was reasonably reluctant. He begged God to send somebody else. “Anybody but me.” But God had made his decision. So Moses becomes a spokesperson and leader and follows God’s prompting each step of the way. It was years of walking in faith with his God.

I’ve looked at this story a thousand times before. I’ve even done a lot of teaching from a theological viewpoint about Moses and his relationship with God. What came up for me the other day was God’s response to Moses when asked, “Who should I say has sent me?” God replied, “The God of your ancestors.” Moses said, “Yes, but what’s your name?” God replied, “I am. Tell them I Am has sent me to you.”

What occurred to me is that the story is told in such a way that it is assumed that God really said this rather than that this is what Moses heard. In any case, it’s a brilliant response. Well- I guess that would be true because, after all, God came up with it. It’s a brilliant response for anyone who has practiced meditation or deep prayer because it is that very feeling that we are all trying to achieve. It is the great sense of “I am.”

Isn’t it interested that God did not offer a “rest of the story” as it were. There was nothing to follow the word Am. It is a statement of total being-ness and nothing more. Identity had nothing to do with roles, behaviors or qualities. God is a state of Am-ness. God just “IS.” It’s a very Taoist concept actually.

I remembered when my mom passed away, I did the eulogy for her. I sat for many hours trying to come up with ways to describe her. For every word though, there was a contradiction. She was kind but I could think of many times when she wasn’t so kind. She was funny and often not. Over the course of those days, up until the time I had to speak, I realized that I could not find a way to describe her that would truly capture her essence. Maggie just “was!” But she was fully, “Maggie.” There was no other like her, yet all the qualities I could come up with were rather universal: funny, fierce, kind, etc. Then I realized that the same was true for everyone. It’s so hard to pinpoint anyone and really capture their unique way of being in the world. We are no two alike and yet we are all alike.

I am. I keep wanting to finish that statement. I keep feeling compelled to complete it somehow as if it weren’t complete. Ask me who I am or who you are. It’s a tough one. I simply am. What makes me want to add more? My ego I guess. I want you to know me. But it’s experience with me that has you know me. I could do all the descriptions I want and you won’t have any idea what I’m talking about. You just have to experience me. Even then, all you will have is your own experience of me. It still won’t be who I am. I am who I am. Maybe that’s the part of us that is God.

So what if we trusted that?  What if I trusted that the way I am led, deep from my heart, from that still, silent place- what if I walked with that trust and spoke the words that came to me- even if I stutter a bit.  What if I allowed myself to say yes- YES. I AM!

Wow. Deep thoughts. And I’m not even smoking anything!

I started rummaging around WordPress to see if there were any kindred spirits out there.  I may have found one at “sophiespress.”  I haven’t read her entire blog but it looks interesting so far.  I just read something about the practice of humility.

I think it’s a rare find in our country to find people who are truly humble-like me!  (Just kidding)  To me, humility in it’s most honest sense is not self deprecation but the capacity to acknowledge our place in the vastness of humanity and in our natural world.  It is the capacity to take up our space and live according to our purpose with grace without judgement of ourselves or of another. 

Sophiespress  talks about “defects” and “embracing our humanness” and “acknowledging when we screw up.”  Her version of humility includes “finding beauty in the defects.”  But I wonder for her, where the kindness is in acknowledging some quality as a “defect” at all.  Who gets to decide what perfect is?  Who has defined that for us?  Who has defined what is defective?  It’s all in our own perception.  One can easily declare anything as defective as it is beautiful and vice versa.  Why do we get caught up in all of that anyway?  I think it’s that we are constantly comparing ourselves to others, hoping to measure up to some standard that someone else has set for themselves.  We are stuck in middle-school mentality when those perceptions really get enmeshed.

Humility is simply to acknowledge what is – is.  That’s all.  My nose curves up.  I made a mistake in that conversation.  I treated my patient and she felt much better.  I am 5 feet 11 inches tall and 220 pounds.  If I judge all of that as good, bad or otherwise, I create some sort of attachment to the judgement.  If I simply acknowledge what is, then I can let it go, make the changes I want to make or move on.  Humility requires letting go. Otherwise ego gets involved shortly thereafter and then you have a real mess!  ;)

I could go on and on about this because I love to hear myself think.  But my commitment is to make offerings that serve others- not just myself.

I think we need to lighten up a little.  Humility requires no real energy.  In fact, when we get to big for our britches, something tends to come along and balance things out a bit.  That’s certainly MY experience!  How about yours?

I went to my office yesterday and found a letter in the mailbox.  It was a real, handwritten letter in my mailbox.  Opening it, I found a card that read, “I read your blog today… Thank you for being a messenger and sounding a clear note of love for all of us to hear (we so need reminding).  You have an angel voice.  Peace to you and deep healing.”   What a way to make someone’s day!?  That was incredible!

I sat in complete surprise.  Here is a person I don’t even know, writing to me to tell me something encouraging.  And she didn’t even email it!

I was happy for the rest of the day.  Thinking about it made me remember something I learned in acupuncture school, “Words are needles.”  We use needles to create openings, encourage things along, unblock communication between energy pathways.  We can also use them to shut down communication, discourage movement and create certain blocks.  All of this is done in the name of healing.  Can you see where I’m going with this?

Our words can do the same things.  I am new to blogging.  I haven’t read too many as what I find tends to be trivial, mental self-massage, or opinionated.  It’s a challenge to find anything meaningful for me.  When I started this blog, my intention was to create small offerings from my own experience as I wander through this life.  This card, a small but grand gesture is telling me that I’m succeeding.  It is a needle that inspired me to continue on this path.

I am reminded of the words I use each day and the way I use them.  I question: Am I creating opening or shut down, encouragement or criticism.  What’s my purpose in speaking?  How do I want my words to land? Do my words create healing or harm?

I get in a lot of trouble- often funny- for speaking without thinking about these things.  The more I take a moment, the less I find myself in opposition or having created harm.

Still, sometimes things just pop out!