Goose Family Visits the City

This is not a picture I took but it almost could have been. I was the first car to approach a large intersection in Dayton this morning. There were five lanes in all directions and these are streets that even in the wee hours see their share of traffic. I couldn't believe that I was so blessed as to be able to see a family of Canada Geese in the crosswalk right in front of me as if a policeman had been standing on the corner telling them it was their turn to cross. Cars around me dutifully stayed their distance and probably watched in awe as I did, thinking we were witnessing something one rarely sees.

Mom (or maybe Dad Goose) led the procession. Nine goslings followed in a fairly straight line and Dad (or Mom) walked beside them all, corralling as necessary. When they were safely beyond my path, I stole a quick glance at them as I drove by to see that the babies, though almost as big as their parents still had fluffy-looking backs and were, I presume adolescents. Even though these were older babies, I would guess that they couldn't have lasted in the air long enough to have flown with their parents to wherever they were going and that walking was the best choice. But given the nature of the paved roadway they chose, I could only say a prayer that they would not get hit.

It struck me that what they were doing either took great faith or a naïveté that allowed them to walk, not run, in the midst of humanity like that. How provided for they were! In fact, due to their large group size, they were probably highly noticeable and thus somewhat protected. Still, it was a gutsy thing to do, in my opinion! It wasn't hard to feel the presence of God right there in the midst of the city streets.

Vulnerability

I had a dream last night that I can only admit was a cry of vulnerability. I've had several dreams lately that have seemed unlikely to me, given my opening sense of who God is. I would think that as I open to see God as All That Is, I would feel more surrounded, more secure, less vulnerable. Awake, I am growing into an awareness that God is the air I breathe, the people in my life, all of nature, and all of everything. I am learning to trust that God and I are in fact inseparable, one and the same, and that God is closer than my crying out, my thoughts or my prayers because God just IS. God, the great I AM. The only thing that changes from the illusion that I need God to "come" to my rescue and the fact that God is already Come, is my awareness of the latter. More and more I am aware of this never-without-God state that I and everyone else is really in.

And yet, perpetrators have come into my dreams with the intent to do harm. They never accomplish what seems to be their intent and something always comes to my rescue. But I awake with a disquieting sense of foreboding and anxiety. My thoughts, especially when I am awakened in the middle of night by such a dream, launch off into all sorts of "what if’s" and "beware of's". I am often escalated into places that make my heart and my thoughts race and as I try to calm myself enough to return to sleep, I wonder what on earth brought that on.

In a chat over breakfast, I heard myself say, as though I'd been thinking this all along when in reality it was just then coming to me, that perhaps it is because of my opening spirituality that these dreams occur. Maybe, as I realize that everything is God, even that which includes what I judge as "evil", I am realizing that there are seemingly no boundaries to stop evil from getting to me. If I live with the illusion that God stops evil and that if I am "prayed up" and in good standing with the Boss-Man evil can't get me, then I can buy myself a measure of imagined protection. But if instead, I understand God to be the Creator who gave Divine, Complete, Total Free Will to all of creation, then I am no more protected from evil than the next guy, "prayed up" or not. What praying does for me is help me be more aware of the presence of God everywhere, more palpably aware that help is everywhere.

So, I wonder if in the transition from thinking of God as One who is "up there" and separate from myself, to One who is With Me Always, I will be prone to bring to my consciousness, via dreams and other waking fears, the reality of feeling vulnerable that I have always carried with me. The new reality says that although I am indeed vulnerable and cannot be protected from “evil”, I can develop a solid understanding about how present God really is in the midst of evil. I can develop a solid understanding that all circumstances, “good” or “evil” are really only subjective reasonings anyway and with God’s abiding presence, ALL things work for good.

Welcome!

It is Memorial Day, 2009. Hubby is painting the den per my request for a place to see clients in spiritual direction. And I have puttered around today doing this and that. One of the "this's" is to create this blog; a new blog created after my three years of school.

I learned so much in school. I learned the art of spiritual direction, yes, but more than that, I learned about myself. I visited my strengths, weaknesses, gift and shadow elements. It was said that we students would need to learn how to sit with ourselves before we could begin to sit with another. Put another way, we cannot expect another person to go to interior places and feelings that we are not willing to go to ourselves.

My hope is to continue the journey of self awareness while seeing clients. I will certainly do that through reading material, continuing education classes, sitting with my own spiritual director, and prayer and meditation. But all of life is filled with the Spirit. There is no day that is not infused with Spirit, no person who doesn't embody Spirit, no bit of nature nor any thought, word or deed in which Spirit does not dwell.

And so, as I breathe, I question. As I question, I search. As I search, I become aware. As I become aware, I breathe.

Welcome to my world.