LOVE- The Story of a Life, of Any Life

It’s time to write about LOVE. I haven’t written about it for some time, although this blog is a labor of love, and both the ‘Mommy’ and the ‘Mystic’ part of ‘Mommy Mystic’ are all about love. Certainly love is the only thing that keeps parents going some days, fueling us through tantrums and stomach flus, missed curfews  and rebellions. And perhaps the only teaching mystics from all the world’s traditions can agree on is that love is the essence of our being, and that all the individual loves we experience in our lives – parents, children, partners, friends – are like refractions from a prism, brightening and focusing this essence for us.

I wanted to write about love this week because it’s been about three months since my friend and student Matt passed unexpectedly in June, and his 31st birthday would have been a few days ago. His entire life and path oriented around love, and his parents and friends have started a foundation in his honor, highlighting this. I haven’t written much about him here because I didn’t think it was my place. But the timing feels right now, and I think this foundation is a beautiful idea and would like to help publicize it (and for you Stumblers out there, I have stumbled it, please click through and add your thumbs-up to do so too if you like.)

As you’ll read on the foundation site, on one level Matt wasn’t subtle about his mission. He was a huge Dave Matthews Band fan, and years ago when attending a concert (a common event – his family found 78 DMB ticket stubs in his safe) he got the inspiration to make a big sign that simply said ‘LOVE’. With a friend’s help he did so, and held it up for the entire concert. He did that at every concert he attended after that. After his death his friends and family contacted Dave Matthews, who remembered Matt and his sign well, and dedicated a concert to him (you can hear the audio on the foundation site). In addition, many fans who had never personally met Matt began to hear of his passing and remembered his sign, and one has made a beautiful photo collection featuring it. (One of the foundation’s main fundraisers is pins and stickers with his LOVE logo on it.)

Matt’s sign was a wonderful, fun way that he demonstrated his connection to love, and what I particularly like about this act is its fearlessness. He didn’t care what anyone thought of him and his sign. He wanted to stand for love, so he did it. And this fearlessness was one of his defining characteristics on his spiritual journey too. He was willing to face any part of himself in his quest to know love at the core of his being, and in his mission to bring that through him out into the world. He was willing to question, to see the shadows, and to abandon the walls so many of us build in the name of self-protection, but which so often block us from the love inside us instead. In that he was unusual, especially for one so young – he seemed to know that he didn’t have much time. I had never seen someone radiate out so much love when meditating, and he was largely unaware of it. Again, it was fearless. Love is the antidote for fear, love is courage.

Matt did all this quietly however – even his sign was not something I personally heard him talk much about. In daily interactions, he lived love in smaller ways, in little kindnesses, which of course is where the rubber really meets the road. He would crack a joke to relax others, stay late to clean up the room after a class, be the first to volunteer to rent a car on retreats. And when speaking with friends and co-workers after his passing, I learned of so many other little ways Matt lived love in his daily life – sitting with a woman who had just had a minor car accident outside his work until the paramedics arrived, comforting the friend of a friend who was distraught at a party, cleaning out the work refrigerator, giving up birthday presents and asking his family to give to charity instead.

I don’t want to give the impression that Matt was some sort of holier-than-thou type walking amongst us. He was a normal twenty-something, with an apartment and a sales job, who loved to play touch football on the beach and hang out at bars with his friends (and go to DMB concerts of course.) But that is exactly the point. As much as I love to write about history’s ’saints’ and ‘masters’ and ‘mystics’, whether our name is ever written down or remembered as theirs was is obviously not the point. We are each part of a fabric of love, a thread in the weave amongst our family, friends, co-workers, neighbors, blog-commenters and even Twitter followers. And what we radiate out impacts every single one of them, impacts the entire fabric, and that in turn impacts their fabric, and so on and so on. The way Matt’s life is rippling out and generating changes and insights amongst every one who knew him (and many who didn’t) is truly awesome, and the best use of any life, in my view.

I also don’t think love is necessarily the driving orientation of everyone’s spiritual quest either, although it’s always the destination. In Matt’s case, they happened to align. In my own, I would say I have been more driven by a quest for truth, on many levels. And I think people orient through all different themes – peace, joy, power, stillness, compassion, wisdom, knowledge. But they all lead to love. Truth and love are the same, power and love are the same. Sometimes they appear in contrast at the relative level we live on, in the realm of action and ideas. But ultimately, they all come together, and that may be another thing all the world’s mystics could agree on.

So there you go, the story of a life, the lesson of a life, and in a way the story and lesson of all our lives. In honor of Matt, try to live the love inside you today, bring it forth in some small way, out into the world, instead of leaving it dormant inside you. Face down the shadows, the problems, the irritations, all the things your mind tries to tell you are more pressing than love. There is nothing more pressing.

And if you like, in the comments (which I live for) share your own thoughts on love – in life, in meditation, in religion or spirituality, in any context you like. Or share the memory or story of someone in your own life that has taught you what love really means. As always, thank you for reading. Namaste-

Why Adam Lambert Didn’t Win Americal Idol (or, the problem with religion)

If you are surprised I am writing about American Idol on this blog, let me just say – not more than I am.

But I simply can’t get past my view – and anger – that Adam lost because he is gay, and because Kris Allen is an evangelical Christian that did missionary work. I just can’t get past the idea that this is a referendum in the ongoing religion-fueled culture wars of the U.S.A.

I have been trying to tell myself otherwise all night and morning. I have been saying, ‘But Kris seems like a great guy, and he is really talented’, and ‘It doesn’t matter – Adam’s success is already assured, he will go on to a long and illustrious career’. Or ‘Kris’s song choices were more mainstream, hardcore rockers like Adam never win’, and finally, ‘Geez, Lisa, it’s just a TV show – get over it!!!’

I’m sure I will (get over it, that is.) Probably by tomorrow, when I’ll do the Blog Sharing/Link Love post I had planned for this week. But not before I vent a little today (Ok, you’ve received your vent warning, so if you keep reading and end up mad, it’s not my fault.)

From my perspective, it is completely naive to think religion or Adam being gay had nothing to do with this upset. For weeks, media outlets have been running articles along the lines of MSNBC’s Is America Ready for a Gay Americal Idol? The LA Times  ran a front-page article on how these two represent this country’s cultural and religious divide. In the interviews leading up to the finale, the contestants were consistently asked ‘do you think religion will play a result in the vote?’ (to which they both – good friends – said, ‘I hope not.’) But since Adam has never publicly expressed any religious views, it’s hard to escape the fact that ‘religion’ in these questions was really shorthand for ‘religious views on homosexuality.’ On a darker note, the blogosphere has been alight with vitriol from supporters of both contestants, most of it aimed at their beliefs and personal lives.

It’s the vitriol on both sides that really gets me. And THIS is the problem with religion. The New Testament is 100% about love. That is almost all Jesus talked about. Sure, there are some other statements about the social and political situations of that time. But when asked which commandment is the most important, Jesus makes himself pretty clear, “Love God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.” and then “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

Love, love, love. Buddha rarely used the word ‘love’. He focused more on connectivity, on the essential oneness of us all. But the essence was the same. And of course Jesus and Buddha were just two of the more famous messengers – there have been many more, within virtually every religion, and many outside of them all. They each found this love, this truth, for themselves, and then they said ‘here is how I did it, here is one way to find this out for yourself.’

Somehow, over time, after a messenger is long gone from this earth, the message always gets mucked up. Someone comes along that wants to use it for political purposes, or just has an axe to grind, and the ‘one way’ changes to ‘only way’, and the focus on ‘love’ shifts to ‘righteousness.’ And one great teacher’s realization gets morphed – in my view disfigured – into a religion.

Don’t think this has only happened with Christianity. I have been on many Buddhist forums over the years, and have often been shocked with the views on what makes a ‘true Buddhist.’ I have read that you can’t be Buddhist and 1) eat meat, 2) drink wine, 3) be pro-choice, 4) be a Republican. Since 3 and 4 rarely go together, you can see it would be tough to meet everyone’s standard for ‘Buddhist.’ I have also run into strong opinions about meditation, about what is ‘real meditation’ and what is not, and what I should or should not be teaching regarding the chakras. This is in the Los Angeles progressive new-age community, so self-righteousness is not something reserved only for the Bible Belt.

And this is why I don’t define myself as anything anymore. And why, even though I hold deeply spiritual beliefs, I was interested in the mostly atheist views of Raising Freethinkers. Because even though I am a ‘believer’, I sometimes think maybe the world could use a few centuries of atheism, or at least secular humanism, to clear itself out and start afresh on the spiritual front. (As an aside, after giving my intro spiel at a meditation class last Fall, one woman raised her hand and said, ‘Ok, let me get this straight. Your credentials for teaching this class are that you are an ex-Episcopalian, ex-Atheist, ex-Buddhist making things up as she goes along.’ To which I could only respond, ‘yes’.)

OK, I think I’m done. I feel much better. I will return to my usual ‘all religions share common themes’ and ‘all religions are different paths to the same truths’ next week. For today, I mourn for us all. I mourn for Adam because he deserved to win. I mourn for the teachers past and present who have tried to show us how to love one another, and whose messages have continually been lost. I mourn for the world my children will inherit, which I am profoundly worried about.

Namaste-

Book Review: The Shack – The Spiritual Lessons of Parenthood

The Shack, in case you’ve been living in a cave this summer, is the runaway bestselling Christian novel by William P. Young that has the religious blogosphere overflowing with both beaming and scathing reviews. Amazon.com currently has 912 reviews of the book (and growing), mostly 5 stars and 1 stars from each end of the religious spectrum. Many consider it a life-changing book, with its message of love and forgiveness a welcome reminder of the core tenets of Christianity. Others consider it subversive, undermining Church authority and the Bible.

Personally, I’d have to say both sides are right, and that’s why I loved the book. Although entirely Christian (the main character spends much of the book ‘visiting’ with the Holy Trinity of God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit), its exploration of good and evil, free will, the nature of love, and the role of religion, are all done in a way that can appeal to anyone, regardless of their religious faith. And in the end, the focus of the book is on the spiritual process, not religious beliefs – the process of growth and learning that true seekers within any faith engage in.

Since so much has already been said about The Shack, I’ve decided to highlight the theme most relevant to this blog – themes of parenthood. The plot of the book is designed to plunge the reader into one of the most fundamental questions of religious faith – if there is a loving God, how can such evil exist in the world? And the way it does so is through a storyline representing every parent’s darkest fear – the main character’s youngest daughter, just six years old, is abducted and brutally murdered by a serial killer.

There is perhaps no more basic, or universal, love then a parent’s love for their children, and nothing that could inspire more raw anger and hatred than the harming of a young child (in polls, when people are asked if they believe in the death penalty, many who otherwise don’t support it pause or change their answer when specifically asked about child molesters or murderers.) In this way, Mack is forced to face the disconnect between his ‘beliefs’ and his true inner thoughts – while he professes to ‘believe’ in a loving God, inwardly he is angry at God for not protecting his daughter, and cannot understand how God can possibly allow such an event.

In his visit with God (who appears to him as an African-American woman, because that is what he least expects), his anger and these questions are the focus of all the discussions regarding free will, and what it means for the world to exist independently of God. That independence enables both suffering and the joy of the spiritual process, the joy of rediscovering God through one’s own mistakes and inquiry. As God explains to Mack, removing humanity’s free will would end suffering, but it would also end any possibility of engaging in spiritual practice, and finding God for oneself.

And what is the pathway to finding God for oneself, even in the separate and independent world? LOVE (of course)  and parenthood emerges as one of the primary means for humanity to do this. In fact, in one scene, a spiritual judge uses Mack’s feelings for his own children as a way of explaining the crucifixion to him. She asks Mack to choose two of his children to be ’saved’ and two to be damned. Mack refuses to choose, and instead says ‘take me in their place’ – the same choice, the judge explains, that Jesus made.

The love of parent for child is also expounded upon as a pathway to finding God, in addition to all other types of human relationships. God explains to Mack that it is first through our love for others that we learn what love is, and only then can we pursue a loving relationship with God (or Christ.) And since our parents are our first experience of love, they largely shape our initial relationship with spirituality. If our parents abuse us or are unable to love us, we will struggle with the trust required for any true faith. We can heal this as adults through forgiveness, and through our own adult relationships, with friends, spouses, and, especially, our children.

While I do not consider myself Christian – or at least not exclusively so – The Shack’s exploration of love is broad enough for me to embrace. And although I am hesitant about paths that expound parenthood as a spiritual path (see my post on the Spiritual Mommy Wars for more on that), I think the author here has made it clear that truly loving in any form takes work, and ALL our relationships, not just parenthood, are potential vehicles for exploring love.  So overall, I recommend this book to absolutely anyone with spiritual interests of any type, although if you are not Christian, you will need to look past the surface.

If you are interested in some of the current religious debate surrounding The Shack, one of the best places to go is Amazon.com, where the most influential reviewers have excerpted their reviews. The official book website is www.theshackbook.com, and there are of course links to many positive reviews there. Two theologically critical reviews (both LONG) can be found at: http://www.challies.com/archives/book-reviews/the-shack-by-william-p-young.php and http://sharperiron.org/2008/07/17/the-shack-a-review/.

Two others posts from this blog that explore ways to use your own parental love as part of a spiritual journey can be found here: Meditation For Busy Women Part III – Love and Mystic Parenting. For other book reviews on this site, go to the Book category.

Meditation for Busy Women Series: Part III – Love

“He that made all things for love, by the same love keepeth them, and shall keep them without end.” – Julian of Norwich, 14^th century British Christian anchoress

 

“Live in joy, in love, even among those who hate.” – from the Dhammapada, words of the Buddha

 

“I do not want to worship from fear of punishment or for the promise of reward, but simply for the love of God.” – Rabia Basri, 7th century Islamic Sufi

 

“I am mad with love…for the divine.” – Mirabai, 16^th century Hindu Indian Saint

 

“I do this act…in awe and in love, to unite the holy letters…of the holy name into complete unity” – mystic Jewish candle-lighting incantation

 

“It is love alone that gives worth to all things.” – Theresa of Avila, 16^th century Spanish Catholic Saint

 

These quotes (four by women) pretty much sum up the spiritual purpose and source of all the major religions – LOVE. Although countless religious wars throughout history are testament to how often the world’s faiths have gone awry on this score, the mystics that have sprung up in spite of such turmoil have always served to remind us that LOVE is what it’s really all about.

Meditations on love are a key component of the devotional arms of every spiritual tradition. I have written a bit about this in my posts on mommy devotion (Part I and Part II), so I won’t go into it more here. We all have people in our lives that we love (and creatures – pets count!). The issue from a spiritual perspective is how, in our busy lives, can we FEEL that love more often, instead of getting bogged down in the day-to-day muck of interacting? And then, how can we transform that personal love for one being or creature into a wider, more universal love that links us to a higher power or force within ourselves?

Here’s one idea, based on the ‘bhakti’ yoga concept of devotional visualization:

Choose someone (or some creature) in your life that you have a fairly uncomplicated love for. Take a moment out of your busy day to visualize him/her with your eyes closed – if you have kids, doing this right outside their door after you put them to bed is great. Visualize them until you feel a swell of affection in your heart (if you’ve had a rough day with the person and can’t feel that love, don’t worry, just pick someone else for now!). Once you are feeling your love for that person (or pet), drop your visualization of them, and see if you can just FEEL the love, apart from that trigger. If you can, then imagine that feeling of love expanding larger and larger, until it takes over your entire body. If you can keep the feeling and visualization going, imagine that love emanating out from you, until you are just a little dot in a giant field of love.

Like all visualizations, this one can take a few attempts to login to. But it is something you can do for even just a few minutes to shift yourself, and open that magical doorway to all spirituality – yes, LOVE.

Here’s the prior and final post in this series.

Mystic Parenting II: More on Mommy Devotion

In my prior post, Mystic Parenting, I mentioned that the main spiritual lesson for me from parenting has been learning to let it open my heart wider, instead of giving in to my ego’s impulse to just protect ‘me and my own’. Someone asked me to write more about this, so here goes.

Lots of Hindu philosophers categorize spirituality in terms of four main paths or ‘yogas’ – service to others (karma yoga), inquiry into truth (jnani yoga), mystic and occult study (raja yoga), and devotional practice (bhakti yoga.) Most people’s spiritual journeys, and most religions, combine two or more of these, but the emphasis is usually on one. For example, most Christianity is very devotional in nature, because the foci is on faith in Christ, although there is often a strong service orientation too. Buddhism and Vedanta are more inquiry oriented, but there are branches with strong service and mystic emphasis. Taoism, Shamanism, Tantra, Kabbalah and Sufism are all mystic in nature, but each also draw on one or more of the other paths.

True devotional practice, regardless of which tradition it is practiced within, is about surrendering the ego through love to a higher power. This higher power is initially represented by a deity or teacher. In Christianity this is Christ, in traditional Hinduism it is often a Hindu deity, and in Buddhist and Yogic traditions it might be a living or deceased teacher. The idea is that the love a devotee feels for this ’symbol’ of God (or a higher power by any name) dissolves the bonds of his or her individual ego and transports him or her to a new spiritual understanding.

For many of us in the West, the idea of devoting ourselves to a living teacher is very scary, and rightly so, with all the corrupt ‘gurus’ running around. But assuming a teacher is legit, the real danger is that a devotee never moves past their individual, ego-based, attachment to their teacher into the greater love and understanding he or she is supposed to represent. In this case, their relationship to their teacher, or deity, or even Christ, just becomes a personal dependency, subject to all the usual human dramas like jealousy, expectation, hurt etc. In classic Indian spiritual texts, this problem is often described (and you can easily witness it in almost any spiritual community:-)

So this was my model for thinking about motherhood as a devotional practice. It generates such an overwhelming, new kind of love for many parents, and that creates both great spiritual potential and great spiritual risk. If we can use our love for our children to open our hearts to a greater love, for humanity at large and the universe that engenders it all, then that is a true gift. But if we give in to our tribal instincts to just love our own ‘blood’, then it only feeds the ego with more excuses for division from – and judgment of - others.

Of course this is easier to theorize than to practice – maybe more on that in a later post!!

Prior Post: http://mommymystic.wordpress.com/2008/06/30/mystic-parenting/