My hallway of transformation

What I want to talk about is that things are always perfect and it can’t get any better, life is wonderful! I love to talk about things being magnificent and sublime. I thoroughly enjoy those moments, sitting with others, basking in the glory of all that is good, true and beautiful. When I do, I can feel my body literally lightening up. Everything around me is glowing. I never want to lose those most precious moments of celebration.

But what do I do with the times when things are breaking down, when they feel less than sublime? The human part of me wants to say, “Oh no, that can’t be happening!” That human part wants to put everything back together again, and sometimes I try to do whatever I can to make that happen, just like Humpty Dumpty. I think that if I have all the pieces I should be able to organize them in such a way to make it “work.” I put so much energy into putting pieces together, that I wind up resisting the breaking down.

And what if the breakdown is just as much a part of my journey as the wonderful times? And what if the breakdown is the most important part of my transformational path, something to be embraced and not resisted? The reality is a good percentage of our life is always breaking down, and it doesn’t mean God isn’t at work. On the contrary, it means God is absolutely at work, and maybe I just don’t want to participate in that part of the divine activity.

My own experiences of breakdowns are very telling. A fall from love, moving far away from friends and family, betrayal of colleagues, loss of my beloved, and illness have all broken me open, much in the way lightning splits a tree. The key is to know what I believe about a breakdown, to know what the conversation rattling around in my mind is around this divine activity.

Throughout my life, each breakdown opened me wider, like the way water carves the Grand Canyon to be ever deeper and expansive. The breakdown I find myself in right now feels and looks like shattered glass, and I want to find all the shards and put them back together, but there are too many pieces. Once again, I am trying to make things fit, to make them work like they once did. In trying to do this, I wind up closing off what life has opened wide in me, as a result of a breakdown. It is, as the Sufi Hazrat Inayat Khan says, “God breaks the heart again and again and again until it stays open.”

So here I am in the midst of a breakdown, and the middle of this journey, or any journey, usually is the toughest – I call it the hallway of transformation. I have left the old doorway, but I don’t quite see the new one. The middle time is the hardest, it can be the darkest because I am dying to the old ways, and haven’t quite been born to the new ways, so I can’t quite see my way. This is when an invitation is extended to walk in trust, which pushes me to the edge of my knowing because I want a guarantee. And yet, today, all I get is trust, trust my soul can see in the darkness.

I don’t wake one morning and look in the mirror, and say, “Wow, will you look at that? I’m all transformed! TADA! Boy, I’m sure glad that’s over!” When I am in the hallway, I have to trust, knowing that if I am not vulnerable, willing to show my flaws – if I am not opened by this experience, there can be no transformation because I am closed down to the possibility of contact with what is yet to be, shut off from the possibility of transformation, of new life. This is the darkened hallway, and even as I look out my window, I can see mother-nature is in the hallway too. Under the current of a cold winter, new life is working its way to the surface.

But life is a really series of breakdowns, which essentially call me to open wider and wider, to go deeper than I have ever gone before. At every turn in my hallway, there is an experience that will raise me up, and wear me thin until there is very little, if anything, remaining that I recognize. And in that moment I can allow the breakdown to debilitate me, or strengthen me in order to find my way to the surface too, just like mother-nature. It depends on whether my understanding of life has been deepened, and if I have become willing to keep my heart open, allowing those pieces of shattered glass to lay where they are, knowing I am midwifing a new creation, a new precious moment of celebration.

What I have today is trust, it is the light that leads me through the darkened hallway, it is the practice of living and breathing a new life, a transformed life, one I couldn’t see from the shore I was standing on. It is how I find my way between the depths of my pure being and the danger of experiences that are painful. It is how mother earth finds her way each spring, for the old must break down for the new to be born. Spring is a time of intentional renewal, of hospicing the old and midwifing the new so that I might live as my truest self, basking in the glory of all that is good, true and beautiful.

The Chosen Part of Catholic Things

I recently sat in St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City, a mecca for Catholics. Ironically, I think it’s a mecca for anyone deeply rooted in a religious tradition. I am surrounded by the trappings of my past, of all that is Catholic: stained glass windows my great grandfather worked on, statues and carvings of the saints and stations of the cross, the smells of incense, dust and old lady perfume, candles flickering everywhere, holy water fonts at every doorway with fingers dipping repeatedly for blessings, rows of straight-hewn pews with missals lining the backs, hushed voices whispering the rosary, the genuflecting faithful, charity boxes marked for the poor, gilded sacraments, and echoes of the voices of choirs and cantors of centuries gone by.

Confessions of a drama addict

I am a drama queen. There I said it. I don’t like it, but I said it. My therapist told me that once – what does he know. Although, it’s probably a safe bet that he didn’t say it with quite the same intonation or the way that I am saying it now, and I’m pretty sure he didn’t say “queen.” But I know that’s what he meant to say! I think his words actually were “drama addict.” Which is just as bad.

A consciousness of being is a privilege

I woke this morning in a cosmic haze. By that I mean when I opened my eyes it took me a moment to come into my body. I had been elsewhere, astral traveling I call it. As I have journeyed the terrain of depression into the mystical life, of joy and suffering and back again, I have become increasingly and acutely aware of my place in the cosmos. It seems really hard to put it into words so that it makes sense to someone who has not experienced it. Suffice it to stay that I have moments of seeing myself and the rest of the world as one, as the energy we are, as the stardust that began 14 billion years ago.

The Eternal Growing Season

As I look out my window and listen to the soft sounds of rain against the glass I am reminded of the rain’s fresh, cleansing power. I know with rain will come the new life of spring. I watch my world coming to life – seeing the daffodils and crocus peak their sleepy faces from under the dirt. I feel the anticipation of new growth that marks the beginning of our Lenten season.

My laboratory of loving

So here we are again, February 14th, National Singles Awareness Day – I mean Valentine’s Day. For weeks approaching this day all thoughts turn to love. All the hoopla of this holiday leads my thinking into greeting cards, presents, flowers, love poems and romantic dinners. Because these things are love, aren’t they? That’s what Hallmark says. As someone navigating the waters of romance singly, perhaps I have become a little jaded. If I stretch my brain I might be able to call these things tokens of “love,” but I can’t say they are the activity of loving – sorry.

Empty Hands

I used to live on the 3^rd floor of an apartment complex. With no one living above me I didn’t have to worry about being kept awake by bowling practice, or have a track team abruptly breaking into my quiet, contemplative mornings. On the flip side though, I had to learn how to strategically carry numerous things from the car in one trip. On a frigid winter day, or during a hot, humid July I am quick to abandon the idea of the health benefits of going up and down three flights of stairs multiple times. And I discovered I could get $125 to $150 worth of groceries in one trip!

Things are not what they seem

How many times have I heard, “Things are not what they seem?” It’s usually given as a warning, someone speaking it with the energy of “watch out” because you can’t know what’s coming your way! I can hear Lerch playing the organ in the background… creepy, howling, discordant chords of caution emanating from the bearer of the ominous warning. Frankly, I don’t really need someone to scare me or warn me, I do pretty well on my own, with my own monkey mind and internal dialogue.

Baggage Claim

Did you ever listen to the announcements about claiming your baggage? I mean really listen to the words? In case you didn’t know it, there is baggage claim etiquette. Or maybe I should call it Baggage Claim Standard Operating Procedures. Here’s a few pointers:

Mary’s Journey is My Journey

If you think about it, doors are everywhere, we breeze through them hundreds of times a day, rarely noticing them. Doors offer us protection, solitude, safety. They can let someone in, or keep them out! They show us the direction in which we are headed. Stop and think about all the doors you have passed through since you got up this morning – they are a natural and integral part of our lives.