Forgiveness As Fertilizer

Posted on May 2, 2011 by Revelations on the Path

“Digging in the dirt, to find the places we got hurt.”
~ Peter Gabriel

There are many resources and much information out there about forgiveness as a path to personal freedom and hallelujah for that! The often overlooked beauty of forgiveness is the opportunity to embrace the human and the imperfect within ourselves. It is a chance to turn over the rock of our every day, conscious mind and allow the squirmy, scary bugs we most try to conceal to come out into the light, to be seen and to be embraced.

In this moment and in every moment we have the opportunity to let the past go, to forgive and to move on. So in this moment, let us forgive. Forgive our trespasses so that we may forgive those that have trespassed against us. Forgive and set yourself free. Forgive while you walk. Forgive while you talk. Forgive while you eat. Forgive in this breath, forgive with the next. Forgive to sleep better at night. Forgive to reveal more beauty in your face, forgive to better see it in the face of others. Forgive for a good reason. Forgive for no reason. Forgive to release the past, forgive to clear your future. Forgive to release shame. Forgive for goodness sakes! Forgive for the fun of it. Forgive to move on. Forgive just to forgive.

Forgiveness frees us from self-judgment when we realize we are not alone. That every person has a rock somewhere in the corner of his or her garden where they hide those aspects of self they find the most unforgiveable.

The blessing of forgiveness is that now every one of us has our own garden ready to be cultivated in that soil those squirmy bugs have made rich. Forgive yourself and bless the fertile soil in which you are now ready to plant the new seeds of Creation.

I forgive, I release and I let go. I am free in the Spirit. Yes, I’m only here for God! Joyfully it is and joyfully I let it be. Amen.

~ Christine R. Peña

* Published in the May 2011 edition of the Agape International Spiritual Center‘s monthly magazine, Inner Visions as the reading for Tuesday, May 3rd. All rights reserved.

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Gateway

Posted on March 24, 2011 by Revelations on the Path

Photo Credit: slipgrove

Be a lover of gateways. Approach them softly. For once you pass through there will be changes and much that you will gladly lay aside.
~ The Book of Runes

Life is never static. Change is always happening, whether we like it or not. Choice is always available, whether we recognize it or not. But how will we choose?

Will we choose from a place of conscious awareness of the Infinite nature of who, and whose, we really are? Or will we choose from that limiting place where we continually tell the same old story about what we can or can’t do based on the past?

Here’s an idea. Draw a line in the sand. Right here, right now. Say to yourself, “However I feel about it, good, bad or indifferent, the past is the past. I release it now. Everything that has come before this moment is behind this line I’ve just drawn. Everything that happens after this moment is out there, beyond this line.”

For just this moment, be aware you are standing right there on that line. This is the moment of choice. In this moment, all the power of Creation is right there in your hands and at your feet. This is the moment for meditation, contemplation and prayer.

The Druids developed a practice of drawing runes for guidance. One of the rune symbols is Thurisaz, which represents this sacred place of contemplation prior to choice. It is a place of non-action and it is also called the Gateway rune. Thurisaz is associated with Thor, the God of Thunder, so it is a powerful place to stand indeed.

Honor the change that has brought you to this point and honor the Spirit within that already knows the answer. Remember: You have choice. You have power. You have the God of Thunder on your side.

I am a powerful creator in tune with the Infinite as all possibility. I honor this moment and choose in harmony with Divine Guidance. And so it is. Amen.

~ Christine R. Peña

* Published in the April 2011 edition of the Agape International Spiritual Center‘s monthly magazine, Inner Visions as the reading for Thursday, April 14th, opening night of the Revelation Conference. All rights reserved.

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Gifts Of The Dark Night

Posted on February 26, 2011 by Revelations on the Path

The birth of the Self is always a defeat for the ego.
~ Carl Jung

A bad day for the ego is a good day for the soul.
~ Michael Bernard Beckwith

When reading the colorful brochure advertising the joys of spiritual life, the dark night of the soul rarely makes the cover. In fact, if it’s mentioned at all, you’ll find it in the fine print after you’ve already signed the contract. But what is the dark night of the soul?

The phrase came from a poem written by the Roman Catholic mystic St. John of the Cross in the 16th century. It refers to the time in spiritual practice when things become desolate and old identities and ways of being are dying. When one goes to meditate or pray there is a feeling of disconnection or separation from Spirit; there may be a profound sense of isolation and loneliness.

The dark night can be triggered by outside events or internal circumstances, but what is taking place is the melt down of the internal landscape. All the structures that have held the ego in place seem to collapse leaving the spiritual practitioner in the midst of spiritual crisis.

At this point in practice it becomes difficult to sit with the emptiness one may feel inside, but it’s a crucial stage to weather on the path. This stage signals our movement toward spiritual maturity. This is the point at which the ego is being sacrificed, or made sacred. It is a time of waiting and purification. It is a time to prepare for the birthing of the true self.

On the other side of the dark night, freedom awaits you. Profound love is seeking expression through you. Open your heart, embrace the darkness and allow what is false to fall away. The truth of who you are can’t be outlined on any brochure. The gift of the perilous journey is a return to your Oneness in God.

I embrace the darkness knowing I am giving birth to my true self. I am more than this. I am the beloved of God. And so it is. Amen.

~ Christine R. Peña

* Published in the March 2011 edition of the Agape International Spiritual Center‘s monthly magazine, Inner Visions as the reading for the Wednesday evening service on March 9th. All rights reserved.

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Forgiveness Ritual

Posted on January 30, 2011 by Revelations on the Path

It was on this day in 1948 that someone shot the messenger and silenced a voice dedicated to the idea that every human being deserves to live a life of peace, love, harmony and balance. On this day, 63 years ago, Gandhi breathed his last breath on this human plane, but right before he died he looked at the man who shot him square in the eye and he forgave him. To the end of his life this simple, yet powerful man demonstrated to us all what a world living in peace could be like, including the critical component of forgiveness.

On this day, think about someone who weighs heavily on your heart, someone you wish to forgive. Write the name of that person on a small white piece of paper with a red pen. Fold the paper and put it inside any small jar or glass container. Cover the paper with honey and close the jar.

Each day for nine days straight, light a small white tea candle and place it on the closed lid and silently send forgiveness to whoever you have named. Open your heart up and let the love in. Forgive and heal with sweetness and light.

At the end of the nine days bury the piece of paper in your yard, or in a pot of soil. Release the person completely and know the work is done. Buy some flower seeds or plant something fresh in that spot. Any time that person comes into your mind, bless them with love and light and let the thought go. Enjoy watching the new growth of what you’ve planted and know you have changed and grown, released and moved on as well!

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Chasing The Dragon

Posted on December 31, 2010 by Revelations on the Path

To paraphrase Mr. Lennon, “And so this is New Years… and what have you done? Another year over and a new one just begun.”

Log on to anyone else’s blog today and you’ll read a lot of nattering on about the endless parade of New Year’s resolutions. Log on to a spiritual counselor’s blog and you’ll get an earful about how resolutions never work, but intentions do. Log on to my blog and I’m talking about addiction on the one day of the year all the amateur drinkers are out there on the streets making a lot of noise when high falutin’ spiritual people like me are inside meditating at the stroke of midnight. And of course, since this is my blog post, that’s not really what I’m going to talk about at all, but let’s get this party started ‘coz midnight is gettin’ close!

First, are you familiar with the term, “chasing the dragon“? It’s been rolling around in my head a lot lately and I’m going to go with the first definition in the Urban Dictionary link there because that’s what rings true for me when I think about the term.

I’ve been using the term beyond the context of drug use because this kind of addictive behavior can also pop up as a pattern of thought. It’s especially pervasive around the holidays because we tend to give “special days” such as Christmas, Hanukkah, New Years, our birthdays, anniversaries and etc. extra emotional weight. So if we have had wonderful experiences of Christmas in the past, but this year things don’t look or feel the way we would like them to, sometimes we pull out those old emotional ornaments, those ghosts of holidays past and we look to comfort ourselves with our emotional memory blankets. Emotionally we are chasing the dragon trying to get back to that place where we’ve convinced ourselves that everything felt good and right.

We do this with relationships too. Ever notice how that boyfriend or girlfriend you were always fighting with can suddenly transform into the long lost love of your life when scented with the absence that makes the heart grow fonder? Ah yes, remember that night when you had your first kiss? Remember how he or she made even a trip to the grocery store an event? So now you go to the grocery store and find yourself getting sentimental over the spaghetti sauce that trips that emotional ripcord. And while you are there in the pasta aisle mooning over what’s his or herz namez you don’t even notice the attractive guy checking you out over by the Kraft dinners.

We do this with our spiritual lives as well. We begin mediating and get past the initial unfamiliarity of sitting still –being instead of doing – and we move on to a somewhat comfortable phase. And then we have this, “OH MY GOD!” fantastic 360 degree mountaintop consciousness experience one day and then, the next day? Nothing. Thoughts like, “My nose itches”, “I’m hungry” or “Did I remember to buy creamer for the coffee the last time I was at the store?” pervade the meditation instead.

Inside we find ourselves longing to return to that blissful mountaintop experience. That first kiss of spiritual intimacy. And then, ah, the game is on! Emotionally and spiritually you are no longer experiencing reality as it presents itself to you, instead you are chasing that dragon, that spiritual high that you felt when you were at the meditation retreat or with that group or alone in your bedroom.

It’s like the story about Buddha achieving enlightenment underneath the bodhi tree. How many of his students heard the story and ran out searching to sit under the same tree, sitting in exactly the same pose hoping to catch enlightenment via the “imitation is the most sincere form of flattery” rule?

So what’s the point? The point is when you are emotionally, spiritually or mentally grasping for a memory or trying to recreate an experience, no matter how comforting or pleasurable it might be, you are stunting your own growth because you are missing the next experience that is right in front of you.

Because what is in front of you in the next moment, in this moment and in every moment is this vast and open field of limitless possibility. And the truth is that this opportunity is open to us all the time. Our “New Year” can start whenever we choose. We can put down the pipe of our addictive thought patterns and emotionally free ourselves.

How do we do this? We WAKE UP. And the good news is that there’s support available. Join a meditation group, find a spiritual community or find an experienced spiritual counselor to work with like me!

The nice thing about New Year’s is that there are so many other people considering change in their lives right now that the YES factor supporting us is HUGE.

Hey, Happy New Year! And if I don’t see you somewhere soon online or IRL, I’m with you in the YES factor in 2011!

Love & Blessings,
Christine

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Commitment: Onward, Through The Fog!

Posted on December 10, 2010 by Revelations on the Path

When contemplating the quality of commitment, the first place I went was the dictionary where I noticed the abundance of references to the word in relation to prison, mental institutions and other forms of unpleasant sounding confinement. I laughed. No wonder it feels like such a heavy, burdensome word to me! In fact in looking at the definition of the word the only two synonyms I can get behind that demonstrate the possibility of the word on the upside to me are: pledge and promise.

When I ponder the word commitment right along side penal institutions and mental institutions, I also think about the institution of marriage. What a bad rap the bonds of holy matrimony have gotten because for some of us they might as well all be the same thing!

But I remember too the moment of high resolve I had when I stood in a church lo’ those many years ago taking the vows of matrimony and how I believed with all my heart in what I was doing on that day. So too I remember the day, many years later when I took my vows as a practitioner and reflected on how they were more sacred and meant more to me than my wedding vows because the pledge that I was taking that day was a much larger commitment. I was not committing myself to just one person, as a practitioner I was committing to revealing God through my service and my spiritual practice creating a vibrational ripple in the Universe uplifting and transforming all.

In the awareness of that commitment, the question for me when I look at this word now is what does commitment mean to me in relation to my ministry? What am I committed to as a Rev. on the path of ministry? And how do I feel about the idea of being committed to that?

The interesting thing is that I don’t exactly know what it is that I have said “Yes” to as a minister on the path because, well, I’m on the path. And as such I can only see where I am right now, know where I’ve been and perhaps, on a good day when the fog clears, maybe I can see a little farther ahead as to where I’m going. Most of the time though, I’m lucky if I can see where my next footstep should be and I pray that I don’t trip and fall on my keester along the way!

But what I do know is that I have said, “Yes” to a larger vision that is waiting to burst forth as my life. And because the vision is birthing itself through me, as me, I know I am uniquely qualified to mid-wife it.

So what am I committed to as I continue to hold the space for this faceless vision as my first ministry? I am committed to being honest and authentic. I am committed to deepening my spiritual practice through prayer, meditation and visioning. I am committed to holding the space of unconditional love wide open for whatever wishes to reveal itself as the work I must do as a minister.

This morning two of my fellow ministerial students and I all visioned together on the phone for ourselves and for each other and it gave me a chance to reflect on how valuable it is to be in that space of knowing without knowing. Knowing God has a Divine idea for each of our lives and that we already are uniquely qualified to step up and accept that job offer without having a clue what the benefits package is or even what the job title or the job itself might be.

I do walk in this space of being committed to that which is unknown and perhaps at this point in my journey is unknowable. This level of commitment allows me to deepen in faith and in trust knowing that no matter what I see in front of me on any given day that God has gone before me and made clear the path and that it is, indeed, leading me to exactly where it is that I need to go.

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Confessions Of A Love Observationalist

Posted on December 5, 2010 by Revelations on the Path

Love

A couple of months ago I read Henry Drummond’s essay on the Bible passage 1 Corinthians 13. I’m guessing that most people, even those that consider themselves non-religious or non-spiritual, have heard this Bible passage or some variation thereof. It’s one of the standard go to readings people often toss in the wedding ceremony.

I read Drummond’s address, published in 1880, entitled “The Greatest Thing In The World” under a little bit of a time pressure as I had checked it out as a library book and I didn’t want to renew it because I had many other things on my list that I wanted to get to, but I’ve been contemplating the reading and the subject matter, love, ever since.

Something about this passage and his exploration of it has been having it’s way with me. It’s not something I’ve been actively thinking about, it’s gone beyond that. He breaks down love into nine ingredients, which he calls the Spectrum of Love. What has happened is that this reading has moved into my visceral experience of life.

Without making a conscious decision about it, I’ve become a love observationalist. I watch love in action as it is happening all around me. I notice people who are patient with their children, a wife humbly serving her family a meal, a friend who spontaneously springs for my coffee, the woman who held a door open for me when I had my hands full… In my awareness of these nine qualities suddenly the whole world is opening up and appearing to me as this well choreographed every day dance of love.

My heart has been a keen barometer identifying that which is love and that which is snake oil so badly wanting to be love. And one can’t blame the snake oil or the salesman trying to sell it because in the next moment the real deal may burst right through the act. Because the truth is, anyone who is interested in love becomes teachable and is fair game for love to have it’s way with them.

Contrary to what advertisers would like to have us believe ’round about Valentine’s day every year, love is not a purchased act of doing, love is a way of being. And although we can be in committed love relationships, why should we limit ourselves to only experiencing love when THE ONE, the mystical soulmate who I hear we are all supposed to be waiting for, appears?

The opportunity to love, to give and receive the full spectrum of love or to experience any of the nine aspects along the way is open to us in every moment. Love is a way to unconditionally accept and appreciate ourselves. Love is a way of dancing with our heart wide open with others in the world.

Love tells me you look lovely today. May I have this dance with you?

Dance Hands

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Gone From My Sight

Posted on August 14, 2010 by Revelations on the Path

I am standing upon the seashore. A ship at my side spreads her white sails to the morning breeze and starts for the blue ocean. She is an object of beauty and strength. I stand and watch her until at length she hangs like a speck of white cloud just where the sea and sky come to mingle with each other.

Then someone at my side says: “There, she is gone!”

“Gone where?” Gone from my sight. That is all. She is just as large in mast and hull and spar as she was when she left my side and she is just as able to bear her load of living freight to her destined port.

Her diminished size is in me, not in her. And just at the moment when someone at my side says: “There, she is gone!” there are other eyes watching her coming, and other voices ready to take up the glad shout: “Here she comes!”

And that is dying.

— Henry van Dyke

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Forgiveness Is Freedom

Posted on June 18, 2010 by Revelations on the Path

“To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover the prisoner was you.”
~ Lewis B. Smedes

I spent a little over two hours this afternoon in downtown Los Angeles behind bars, voluntarily.  I went there to meet with a group of women who know very little about me and about whom I know even less.

What I do know is that they are in a detention center and they say, “Yes” every week to coming and sitting in a circle with me.  We pray, we listen and we talk to one another.  They never know what to expect from our time together and truthfully, neither do I.

The agreement I made with myself and with them is that we would meet for the next five weeks in a row and talk about forgiveness.  Self-forgiveness.  The faces in the group change from week to week as people are shuffled in and out of the facility.  Some are awaiting sentencing, some will leave free, some will go to another facility and face more jail time – more waiting.  So while they are waiting, we talk.

This week to introduce the topic of forgiveness in a broader sense I brought the documentary “Forgiving Dr. Mengele“.

The doc is the story of one woman, Eva Moses Kor who not only survived the Nazi death camps, but survived the medical experiments performed on herself and her sister by Dr. Josef Mengele, nicknamed “The Angel Of Death”.  When she was freed she went to Israel, but the anger at what she had experienced kept her captive in her mind.  Through the same stubborn survival mechanism that kept her alive in Auschwitz, she chose to free herself by forgiving those who had harmed her, infuriating her fellow survivors.  It was a brave choice made by a brave woman and it’s a powerful movie to watch.

With time constraints we only watched the first half hour or so of the movie, but we were all riveted by what we saw.  With this as an introduction, we walked into the open field of limitless possibilities.

We talked about the concept of self-forgiveness, the blockages of guilt and shame. We talked about the rewards and the tools of mindfulness, prayer and meditation and how to continually weed our thought garden. We came back to choice, one of my favorite subjects and something I need to remind myself of often. (We have the choice to decide how we want to feel, think, believe and act in every moment. No one has that choice, but us.)

There was much laughter as we recognized our own humanity in the words shared by others and reverence as we recognized each others strengths. At the end of our time together a woman who had been completely silent and avoiding eye contact since we first began the group burst into tears and shared about how she could not forgive herself for how she had treated her children. The rest of the group was completely still, listening to her with rapt attention. I looked around and watched as the eyes of some of the others filled with tears of self-recognition and empathy.

Our time together seemed too short, but as we closed the group the smiles and the laughter came back. As we were straightening up the chairs in the chapel where we have our weekly group, I noticed the arms of one of the women who has shown up ready to go every week. On her arms were scars of cuts in various stages of healing. She looked up at me and gave me the biggest and most beautiful smile. Instantly I understood. Yes. That’s what we’re addressing here. Others can hurt us, but long after they are gone we continue to punish ourselves.

In a world that coined the slogan, “Just Say No”, we say YES to moving past this. Whatever “this” is that we can not bear to forgive ourselves for. We look each other in the eye. We smile. We gather our tools, and we move forward. No longer emotional self-cutters, we walk as a group in agreement.

In each moment we have a choice. Today I choose to forgive myself and in doing so I set us all free to abide in greater love.

And so it is. Amen.

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Life: Come As You Are

Posted on June 13, 2010 by Revelations on the Path

“Love is everywhere, it has no distance.  All you have to do is stop the resistance.”
~ Matt Zotti

Life.  This is it, you know.

Life is loving you now.  Not ten pounds, the right partner or the right job from now.   So whatever it is that is keeping you sitting on the shelf, biding your time, holding back your greatness, withholding your love or waiting for an occasion to use “the good china” – give it up, let it go, break it out and go for it.  Life is moving along and taking you with it, ready or not.

You are perfect as you are.  Deal with it.  Accept it.  Let people love you for it.  Celebrate it, move past it and dance!   The music is playing, so dance now because if you wait to be asked you’ll miss this song and this song could be the song you’ve been waiting all your life to dance to.

Don’t wait, don’t hesitate and don’t anticipate.  This moment is your moment to love!
This is your moment to shine!   This is your moment to bring everything that is richly and uniquely YOU to the table and you are the dish we’ve all been waiting to share.  You are tasty, delicious and one of a kind.  Who else but you could do what you do?

Be you!  You is perfect!  You is who I want to meet on the street if yer neat or petite or have two left feet.  It doesn’t matter if yer fatter or if your patter isn’t hip, I won’t trip because it’s YOU that makes me flip!

Let me love you as you are.  Let me see the scar.   I’ll not laugh, I’ll give you a bath and in the aftermath we’ll write your epitaph about who you were, this formless blur.

Life.  This is it, baby.  So let me love you, love you, as you are.

I let go and surrender to the flow of Life.   I dance with love, share with flare and let go with gusto.  All is well.  And so it is.  Amen.

* Published in the June 2010 edition of the Agape International Spiritual Center‘s monthly magazine, Inner Visions.  All rights reserved.

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