LETTING MY TEARS BE SEEN The room was astoundingly bright and bone-chillingly cold. There was banter and chatter, some directed at me yet somehow not to me. I was told to move from gurney to procedure table. In doing so I went from being me to being an object to be examined and explored. The words coming at me became less and less personal. I could feel myself disappearing among cloths, wires, instruments, and tubes.  The medical personnel in the room were friendly yet detached. I was moved about and positioned and poked and I was prodded. As the outer became less personal my interior became more and more intimate and alert and spacious. I remained centered in a compassionate awareness of what it must be like

ODE TO THE OPEN HEARTED There is spiritual theory, and then there is spiritual reality.  In order to have theory become reality there must be direct experience. A spiritual concept will live in the head and have no real impact. When life in some way pushes a theory will fail you. Every time.  When life is pushing and the theory fails, in that failure is a glint of possibility. Depending on what you do with that failure it will either be buried in denial or integrated via direct experience. Leaning away the lesson is left to be recycled. Leaning in, a vague theory becomes a felt-reality. What you suspected to be true becomes a living truth. It becomes real and vital and sustainable. Every time.  For over

ABOUT LIFE For most of my years I thought life was about me.  I asked questions that came from that perspective.  What do I want? Where do I want to live? Who do I want to be with? What is my deepest desire? How do I want to serve?  I was missing the mark.  I am no longer consumed by a perspective that life is about me. I can fall temporarily into that trap for sure. I do not dwell there for long.  My questions have changed as has my vantage point. Life isn’t bout me. I am about life.  I am about life.  What does life want from me? Where has my path led me to live, and how may I be content here? Who is

GUIDING PULLBACK I have long been criticized for what others deem to be a certain level of aloofness. I have been accused of withholding, and even pullback. Caring people have told me that they perceive in me a tendency to isolate.  Guilty as charged.  What others have called aloofness is for me an earned level of discernment. What some would deem to be withholding is for me a healthy set of boundaries. If I am pulling back there is almost always good cause.  I have done enough inner work in my life to be on alert for my own triggering, distortions, and projections. I am keen on staying alert to those, and to wakefully dealing with them. I also lived years of my life trusting and disclosing

REPENT! It seemed I had waited my entire life to escape the too-tightness of my midwestern upbringing. Conservative, religious, simple, confining I wanted out of Ohio and into New York City! I knew it was the place I would finally fit in. I knew possibility would be beckoning on every corner. I viscerally longed to get to the place where I could finally and fully be the real me.  And so, I talked my mother into letting me go to New York on an opera tour my sophomore year of college. She rightly suspected my motives as I had no previous interest in opera whatsoever. Shortly after landing into LaGuardia a couple like-spirited friends and I headed into Times Square to sell the opera passes and acquire

ALONE ISN'T LONELY I can honestly say that I have never been lonely.  When I was alone.  I have had a few people share with me lately that they are experiencing loneliness. Life circumstances have shifted, leaving them in some ways alone. As they shared with me I internally did what I always do when interacting with someone’s feelings: I went into my own depths in order to directly relate and empathize with what was being shared. It was that direct inquiry inside of myself that reaffirmed what I have long known.  I have never been lonely when I am alone.  I have indeed felt lonely in relationship and sometimes even in crowds. I feel lonely in relationships where there is little actual relating. When vacancy is

HURT BY LOVE? I have always had a tender, sensitive heart. From the earliest age I loved fully and easily. I loved everyone, much to my parent’s consternation. A tenderhearted, sensitive, loving boychild was sure to be hurt.  They were right.  So I decided sometime in my mid-twenties that I was going to pull back. That I was going to toughen up. That I was not going to traverse the earth as this sensitive, open, loving easy target. I had been hurt enough times by then. I knew it was time to put on the armor. To replace sensitivity with a bit of sarcasm. Tenderness with toughness. Love with aloofness. The hurt had to stop. I would make it stop. I would keep you at bay. If

ARE YOU HERE? “I can’t make it tomorrow. But I will be with you in spirit.”  “I know I said I was going to be there, but I’ll be there in spirit.”  “Gosh, I can’t make it again tonight, but I’ll sure be there in spirit.”  After repeated vacancies excused by the promise of terrestrial presence I finally needed to speak up.  “No thank you. Keep your spirit with you. You’ll need it.”  A prolonged silence was followed by a nervous giggle.  Things happen in life that truly do prevent us from being where we have committed to be. In my experience these occurrences are rare. It is more common to make a commitment to be somewhere and then just decide we really don’t feel like following

CRASH The premise of the Academy Award winning movie Crash is simple yet profoundly difficult to take in: we as human beings crash into each other in all sorts of violent and chaotic ways as unconscious and ill-advised means to connect and to touch.  It doesn’t make logical sense, does it? And yet as I watch this violent and chaotic world unfolding before me, I ponder if indeed it may be true.  In times of tragedy, terrorism, and natural disaster human beings often rise into their most magnificent expression. When looking at demonstrations of the worst of the worst of what humans are capable of there are almost always contrasting acts of heroism, generosity, kindness, and compassion. Superhuman feats of transcendence happen in the middle of terrifying

BUT, IS IT TRUE? There was a time when not only did people believe the world was flat, they made decisions based on that fact.  This is not only evidence of the power of belief. It is also evidence that as beliefs evolve and change, so do the subsequent decisions.  The beliefs that governed my life a few decades ago are largely not the beliefs that govern my life today. That is because for me many beliefs become like shoes that are too tight. If I really like the shoes, I may still wear them for a while. I may choose situations of short duration to sport them. I may need to wear band aids on my heels. But eventually the pain becomes too great and I