If I cannot pray with Rick Warren, I realize, then I am not worthy of being called a Christian. And if I cannot engage him, then I am not worthy of being called a writer. And if we cannot work with Obama to bridge these divides, none of us will be worthy of the great moral cause that this civil rights movement truly is.
Awesome! from Andrew Sullivan’s blog
(Fixed the link I hope)
Recently, very recently, I was finally convinced by a long-time friend to create an account on FaceBook. I was very resistant to these way-too-popular social networking sites due to the possible massive loss of privacy it represented to me. Why do we want to post everything about ourselves? The fragility of giving away of information that could in one moment be shared only between friends, but then is available to anyone!.. information which is never meant for another’s eyes.
But my friend pointed out the control I would (should) have on the display of my information. OH-KAY. WHAT THE HECK. I decided to create an account to stay in touch with her.
Now. What an onslaught of experiences I am having. In part I feel like some of my core ways-of-being in the world are being augmented, added to, or maybe it is challenged.
I have long recognized that I tend to be a type of person who maintains connections with friends for the duration that I am in regular contact with them. I have one close friend with whom I’ve maintained contact. And that is truly because she told me she wanted me to. (Otherwise, is it an esteem issue? Or simply a soul-style?)
Yesterday and today, I have spent time re-connecting with my next door neighbor from the time I was 10 to 16. He was a confidant, a friend, a co-conspirator, and we were simply growing up together. (How many pizzas did we order to be delivered to a neighbor?) One of the greatest realizations I’m having in all of this is the realization! that I was truly able to, I did!, have a male friend. I AM capable. I DO have memories, experiences that prove I was (and am) able. And talking / chatting with him is awakening a part of my life I’ve left behind, that I think I want to reconnect with.
This ability/tendency of mine to leave those behind when I leave situations is now somewhat in question. The emotions that are being stirred up by these simple posting exchanges catch my attention – deserve my attention. There is something there for me to learn from.
I am in between my in-betweens. Liminal-squared!
I have finished a quarter, I am waiting for the books for my next quarter (I am appropriately guilty for not ordering them sooner, and thus losing study/reading time.)
But let me share. The quote that follows is ubiquitously familiar. But still, it comes the closest to acknowledging a truth that my deepest self resonates to. (And to which I do not dare yet claim, for fear of living the label of ‘arrogance’!! This is where I meet Lucifer. My fear of being (of believing myself) arrogant… keeps me from so much… I dare not stretch… and … Lucifer wins.)
Marianne Williamson:
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, ‘who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?’ Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world.
Frightening.
But it always has been.
Now, at this time of my life, I feel a risk-taking freedom, a “so <the f’> what!”
Scary? Fine.
Could end up devastated? Yeah. So?
Will I know who I am any other way?
Just writing these words puts a gravity to a part of my psyche that I have refused to offer the full light of day.
The sun shines on in.
Ecto just crashed, mid epiphany. freakin’ lost a great additional post!!
Protest!
Write in!!
WE WON’T GIVE IN!!
okay
really now
In the meantime, do check on this (Quaylin?)!
At my school, we all come together, from remote parts of the continent, as a cohort, once a month as a group that grows to be a solid, rich entity of its own right. We also consistently share campus with the year ahead of us… they are “the second years”. We look up to them. We want to be them. We wish we knew what they know! Socially we get to know them only a little, but I suppose that the important thing is that we get used to seeing them. They are a part of our experience. Their consistent presence serves as part of our ability to become fully present for OUR learning!
NOW… FALL 2008. We are officially “the Second years”!!! When we next set foot on campus, we will have star-struck, discomfitted eyes looking toward us. Looking for assurance that survival is possible. (I suspect that it is Month Two when that look must come into full bloom!!) They’ll be gazing at us … for answers, for guidance… and actually mostly just to be the familiar faces over time.
What a kick.
What a ‘kick’ to be a year along in my own journey. How amazing it is to be so … transformed since I first started classes.
This transformation is not at all about the recovery from betrayal I have lived & grown through. No, the ‘newness’ of my own self that I speak of has to do with an alchemical, soul-level, awakening-type experience I have experienced more profoundly with each and every weekend that I have shown up. Being with this Cohort, with this learning experience, with this intention….
“Behold, I am doing a new thing (in you),
now it springs forth,
do you not perceive it?” Isa 43:19
What does living on the cusp of ‘my life has just begun’ really feel like? Do many people even have a clue? Even ever have a chance to notice? Probably not, because how rare it is to notice a beginning… at the beginning!?
Doesn’t this experience, of major life transition, really belong only to 14 yr olds entering high school? No! matter of fact, they don’t even have a chance of noticing it.
But certainly to 18-19 year olds leaving the confines of predictable schooling and parental oversight, right? Again.. how many 18 year olds notice their interior experience?
For this is wholly an interior experience! Shoot… the frontal lobe isn’t even fully developed until 25, so it would be much later yet (if ever) to use the capacity for the complex cognitive layer that can handle “what do I think of what I think they think of me?”. (Hell. How many adults do that one???)
I don’t think it is till we’re about 29 that we first have a retrospective experience of looking back and thinking… Wow, that’s when my life really started… Or, …what a turning point. It was all different after that.
Yet, right now, fully conscious, I find myself living a cusp (liminal) experience. I am still firmly (4/5ths?) grounded in where I have been up until recently (earnin’ my buck from the corporate gig… and thank god, for the time being, still doing so). I also fully find that I am not only looking over the ridge at the next version of who I am, but that 1/5th (or more) of me is already moving into/resonating with/vibrating in/BEING that new reality that I am transitioning to!
If in all of this process I can do something uniquely valuable, I think it would be the ability to NOTICE (and report) THE LANDSCAPE as I progress. Notice and record.
I am finding out how valued this reflection is: of ‘what the landscape looks like’, ‘See, it’s safe! (Look, here I am!)’. For all of those coming along behind me… Possibly younger. Possibly newer at this. Charge on. And if you can… Notice. Notice what it is like to be YOU in this moment, in this experience!
namaste
Oreo came back. But he wasn’t well.
He moved only very slowly. His back permanently arched, in a position that shouldn’t have lasted.
Worry. And watch.
And add on the worry that I should really be treating this as life threatening, I should be panicking…
– because what if it IS!? LIFE Threatening, that is!
I feel that that is the right direction to lean. If in doubt.
SO off to the Emergency vet I went, I just couldn’t wait 4 more hrs for my vet.
Vet said he was hit by a car, mouthed aggressively by a dog, or had something fall on him.
read more…
