Sunday, June 26, 2011

If He Loved Me, I Wouldn't Have to Tell Him...

Women have such a naive fantasy that if someone loves us, truly cares about us, that they will understand us and anticipate our needs, wants and requirements. I have been guilty of this again and again myself.

And it is pretty much never the case.  Because what it means to understand me, really understand me, means to connect with me emotionally, intimately and personally, and also spiritually.  And this is a place that not very many men, not very many people, can join me. 

There are some.  I'm not a special prophet or something.  But I have a particular love for and receptivity to G*d, and no human relationship trumps that.  And that's not something your average guy is going to get, no matter how much they like me.

I get it now.  And I'm ok with that.  I just had to understand it.  Because people can confuse what they like about me spiritually with how they feel about me personally, and it can confuse me too.  So a little clarity is a very good thing.

Saturday, June 18, 2011

You Can't Use the "G" Word

I've been told time and again that you can't use the "G" word.  Which means they are saying that I can't talk about G*d.  I've been hearing this for almost 30 years now, people warning me away from mentioning G*d, saying it's too scary, too religious, too heavy with implied meaning, too traditional, too old-fashioned, and that's just for starters.

I'm so sad at all the ways religion has destroyed the name of G*d for so many of us, sad at all the ways that it means something bad, awful, negative, hurtful, hateful, destructive, meaningless, irrelevant, restrictive, and misunderstood.

My own relationship with G*d isn't about religion or even belief.  It's about experience.  The experience of complete belonging, of unconditional love, or unquestioning acceptance, of peace and purity and power, of all the good things ever imagined embodied in one divine being.

So I don't know what to do with people saying I can't use the "G" word.  What else is there to talk about?  What else is there to say?  How could I talk about my life without G*d?  I've tried to accommodate these concerns, dance around the name, use language that might make others more comfortable.

But the reality is that I'm completely comfortable talking about G*d.  I'm even comfortable saying "He", since English offers no better gender-neutral pronoun.  And I think if I get distracted by everyone else's limitations, I can't express what I have to share.  Otherwise I'll have no room to just be able to talk, use ordinary language and normal conversation to communicate.


I don't know the way around this, so I'm just going to have to go through it.

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Mad

Do you get mad?  Probably.  Who doesn't?  I wonder sometimes at just exactly what happens to me when, in an absolute split second, white hot rage sears through me in an explosion of angry-ness.

And I know the correct word is anger, not angry-ness, but that's what it feels like, and it's completely beyond my control.  I can mostly control what I do with and about that rage, but I seem to have no control over its presence.

If you've ever had serious acid indigestion, where acid spills out of the safe container of the stomach and spews up into your esophagus, throat and mouth, burning every soft mucous membrane along the way, you have some idea of how powerful rage can burn, and how much beyond any control it feels. 

I have practiced a kind of meditation for years that says that anger isn't a natural human state, but it's what happens when we are out of balance and out of connection with the pure love and peace of our true and eternal state of being.  And I don't disagree even a little.  I agree completely. But I know how angry I can get and how quickly it can happen, and I have to say it's one helluva hard habit to kick.

I don't do drama.  I rarely, if ever, act on that anger, at least not without waiting until I can think clearly again and understand why it's so intense.  But I cannot believe its power and presence.  And how quickly it separates me from those whom I otherwise feel warm or kind or loving towards.  Because when I get angry, and it feels like that anger is burning up inside of me, I want to get as far away from the trigger as possible.  Which means there's a chance if I'm angry, you'd never know.  I'm just gone.

I'm drawing no conclusions here, no judgements of even any real understanding.  Just observing myself and how far I've come and yet I'm still in so many of the same places I've been.

Emotion and spirit and so interconnected, and yet not the same.  And there are spiritual traditions that say emotion is just reaction, and spiritual power means always choosing your response to situations, not merely reacting.  And it sounds right.  It sounds great.  But life isn't some sterile theoretical environment.  It's messy and tricky and unclear most of the time.

So I won't consider anger a failure, but a chance to learn more about myself, who I am and who I want to be.  But I think, in the meantime, don't make me mad.

Saturday, June 4, 2011

Full

There has been a huge emptiness within me for such a long time I can't remember it another way.  And various people and things have come along and filled up that space, and I have moved out of the way to accommodate their presence.  I have stepped aside and given over what belongs to me willingly and without hesitation.

But this model simply doesn't work any more.  I am full now.  I am full of myself, my own energy completely inhabiting every inch of myself, every inch of my life.  There's no room for a succubus to hide away and feed off of what doesn't belong to it.  There's no room for entities and ghosts of the past and of sorrow to reside within any part of my mind or heart or psyche.

I have taken it all back, and I'm full, satiated, settled, complete.  Not done.  Not over.  Just full.  And joy drips from the simple sensation of contentment and belonging and purpose.  And empty vessel makes a terrible noise.  A full vessel makes none.