The Sacred in the Ordinary

Because we live in the third dimensional plane on this planet, our days get filled up with a lot of ordinary. Besides the daily tasks of fixing meals, making beds, personal hygiene and going to work, my list usually includes things like yard care, house cleaning, laundry, mending, etc., etc. In fact, our days can be so full of the ordinary that the sacred gets completely squeezed out.

Many years ago as a young, busy mom, I was completely caught up in my to-do list. As I did one chore, I would be going over the rest of the list in my head and feeling stressed that I would never get everything accomplished that everyone needed for me to accomplish. By the end of the day, I couldn't even sleep because I was over-tired, over-stressed and my mind was continuing to go a hundred miles per hour over the seemingly never-ending list of chores. When I tried to create time for the sacred, I found it very difficult to completely stop and to completely focus on the Divine.

Then I learned about the empty interval and began to develop a spiritual practice of creating a period of time where I completely set aside the ordinary - releasing my feelings, releasing my thoughts, releasing my to-do list and creating an intention to be an open receptacle to be filled with the Divine. Difficult at first, but powerful, these set-aside times allowed me to feel peaceful and serene for the first time in my life. Often, however, the serenity lasted as long as it took me to get up and get moving and then it flitted away - like an illusory butterfly.

Eventually, with time, I learned that most tasks of my day took very little to no deep thought to accomplish. . . and I began to develop a way of being present with the tasks while at the same time being empty and open to Spirit. Suddenly, most of my day stopped being ordinary and became sacred. I now find myself in cooking meditations where I sense sacred symbolism in the mixing and blending of colors, tastes and textures to create a satisfying meal. I find myself doing weed-pulling meditations where I see myself not just pulling third-dimensional weeds but see myself removing the things from my life that could choke and kill the beauty that I am trying to enhance in my life. Most of my life has become a meditation where ordinary chores have become symbols for what I want to have happen on the level of the sacred in my life.

Find the peace and serenity of the sacred throughout your day - explore the sacred that can be found within the ordinary tasks of your day.

Surrender

On dictionary.com, the word surrender is defined as "the act of giving up one's person, one's possessions, or people under one's command to the authority, power, or control of another." The visual that comes to my mind along with this definition is that of the white flag tied on the end of the musket in an old war movie. It is what you are forced to do when you no longer have the wherewithal to keep fighting the battle.

Yes, there is this aspect of surrender on the Spiritual path. There are always times when one must acknowledge that they are fighting a battle that is way over their head, surrender it to a higher power and then completely let go. Early on in my journey, this was a very familiar cycle to me - I would grow unhappy with some part of my life, fight tooth and nail to change it for weeks, months or even years and then finally fall exhausted to my knees and turn it over to God.

Slowly, with time and wisdom, a new concept of surrender began to come to me. The visual of deciduous trees feeling the first twinges of the approaching winter, begin by surrendering their greens to yellows, oranges and reds and then silently releasing their leaves as if they understand at a deep level that holding on to the old would make them vulnerable to damage during the snows of winter and would keep them from being able to be reborn in the spring. What a beautiful metaphor for the Spiritual path! What if we, like the trees, moved through life with an ongoing attitude of openness and surrender which allowed Spirit to point out what is no longer serving us well, what is going to make us vulnerable to the storms that are coming and what is going to keep us from being able to be reborn in areas that are in need of transformation.

I have a new favorite prayer: "I am open to healing in this area," or "I am open to learning a lesson in this area." Does this openness and constant state of surrender release me from the sometimes painful process of releasing the old and accepting the new? No, but it does invite in the abundant help that the universe is anxious to give. . . and it allows me to move more smoothly through the seemingly endless process of letting go of what no longer serves my highest good.

This time of year, as the deciduous trees turn lovely shades of yellows, oranges and reds and begin to slowly and steadily release their leaves - what a great time to ask Spirit what is ready to be surrendered from your life?

Affirmation

I grew up in a day and age, with busy, over-worked parents, where no one paid much attention to anything that I did until I did something wrong or produced something far below my potential. Therefore, when I became a parent, I created strong intentions to shepherd my children more with affirmations of what I liked about what they were doing and less with reminders of what they were doing wrong. However, to my surprise, I found this far more difficult than I expected it to be. I found that it was much easier to ignore happy, productive, busy children than it is to ignore children who are making poor choices with their time and energy. With time and effort I got better and better at affirming behavior that I wanted to encourage in my children while ignoring behavior that I hoped would be extinguished. And what I found is that affirmation is powerful!


Yet, everything that I learned about affirmation through parenting two children seemed to be lost on myself. When I began my journey toward wholeness and began to listen to the self-talk in my head - I was astounded by its negativity. If affirmation was so powerful in helping children grow and transform into higher functioning beings - what was I accomplishing in the area of personal growth with constant negative self-talk?



For several years since this revelation, instead of saying to myself "I am never going to get well - this cold is going to hang on forever" - I try to say, "I feel my body fighting this cold - I am going to be well soon." Or I choose to tell myself, "the fifties are the best years of one's life." "Wrinkles are a sign of wisdom and saging." "That wasn't a mistake - it was just another opportunity to grow into who I was made to be." "My soul is drawing these difficult things to me so that I can grow and better serve the highest good of the all."



Do I always talk to myself in positive affirmations? No, like all humans, I have days of discouragement where I slip back into negativity. However, learning to monitor my self-talk and to speak to myself in positive, affirming ways has been transformational for me.



My daughter's church is having a "No Complaint" campaign where you wear a pink plastic bracelet on one wrist. Whenever you catch yourself complaining out loud you have to move the bracelet to the other wrist. The goal is to make it 21 days without having to move the bracelet. When she was explaining it to me she said, "The Rabi says that if you catch yourself and don't say it out loud - it doesn't count." I wanted to say, "It's great to monitor and be in control of the words that you speak but it is harder and more important to monitor and control how you talk to yourself in your head."



Is your self-talk serving your highest good? Are you positive, affirming and compassionate in the way that you talk to yourself? If thoughts and self-talk are transformational - what are your messages to yourself bringing into your life?

Parents

A spiritual idea that has been really helpful to me is the concept of the Soul Covenant. The Soul Covenant is an agreement between the soul and Source/God/The Universe. The contract is made before the soul enters a human body and comes into existence on this planet. This agreement defines what you have come here to learn, what you have come here to do and who you have come here to serve. After the soul agrees to the covenant, it then chooses the time in history that it needs, the place that it needs and the parents it needs in order to best fulfill its covenant with Source.

When I first heard that my soul chose my own parents because I needed them, in order to become who God needs me to be, I was frustrated...but then as I sat with the idea - it began to bring me a lot of peace. The ensuing questions were fascinating: What was it about an absent, too busy father that was necessary for me to become who I needed to be? What was it about a shut-down, overwhelmed mother that was necessary to teach me what I needed to learn?

Until I have clear, unobstructed communication with my soul, I won't have access to all of the answers to these questions. However, I do know that a lonely, difficult childhood connected me early and steadfastly to nature; it connected me to the very old and to the very young, and to other outcasts of society; it connected me to the God who seemed always present no matter who else was missing. In trying to understand my soul covenant, I have found that all of these deep connections formed in childhood have opened up areas of ministry as an adult. I have grown more fully into God's hands and feet on this planet.

There is a movie that my husband and I like called, Smoke Signals. The theme of the story is that everyone has to forgive their fathers. All fathers, and mothers for that matter, were there too much or there too little. They gave too much or they gave too little. They loved too much or loved too little. We all have to make peace with our parents. What better way to do that than to realize that our souls actually picked exactly the right parents, in order for us to learn what we needed to learn?