encouragement – Page 6 – Generous Wisdom

Advent Doesn’t Matter.

Yes, I admit it! I could give this post a million different titles, and I choose this one. I’m hoping somebody somewhere wants to read the next line:

Unless it does.

Truly Advent doesn’t matter. And truly it does. It depends.

It’s the circumstances and the details of our lives that decide it. I’ve written about Advent in the past, as have countless others over the centuries, because it’s such a valuable practice. It has a great capacity to hold us, nurture us, remind us, and strengthen us. It gives us guidance and rhythms just like Lent, and my personal favorite, Ordinary Time.

I’m admitting another thing now – I’ve been wanting to write and post for the last five months, and I didn’t . I felt like I couldn’t. I even had ideas and inspiration, notes, and time! And still, nothing. I wanted to write abut my favorite liturgical season and how it wasn’t in any way – by any stretch of the imagination – ordinary. Indeed, it had become extraordinary. And I was keenly aware of this, checking in with the calendar, marking the days – how many do I have left before Advent? How many days…??? And then it was Thanksgiving and I knew my time was up. The kids wanted “the tree!” and “the lights!” And I…I just wanted a little… more… “ordinary time…”. Ya know?

But, since I had discovered the advent wreath and acquired the appropriately colored candles, squished them into the holders with tin foil and found a church sanctioned guide, I stepped into Advent anyway, begrudgingly, unwillingly, miffed that I hadn’t the energy to put as much thought and visual aides into it for the kids as I had in past years. How will they practice if I don’t have a practice-thing set up for them?? I worried. You know, a practice-thing, like something tangible, something they can put their hands on, move around, something that is a touchable representation of how they are readying their hearts for the Christ child. (If you’re a teacher, you’re thinking, or shouting out, “Manipulative! You mean, manipulative!“)

Yes, a manipulative. But I went with memories instead. It’s all I had. So I sat at the table and lit the first candle, forgot to open that church sanctioned book and asked the kids, “Remember when we used to put the stars on the heart? At the old house?”

“Do you mean the ornaments on the tree?” the little one suggested.

“Oh, we’ve done that, too, here at this house, with a poster on our wall under the crucifix. But I was thinking about how we decorated our hearts for Jesus. Every time we did something kind we glued a gold star on the big heart by the kitchen. Remember?” (For your visualization, these are all cut out of 20-year-old-faded construction paper.)

Blank stares.

I patted myself on the back at this point for not dropping into despair about how all my efforts were for not. I comforted myself with the knowledge that seeds had been planted, and started talking with them about love, faith, peace, joy, and how lots of people think of the candles and the weeks of Advent in a variety of ways.

Amid answering questions like “Why purple? Why’s only one pink? What’s Gaudete?” I asked them, “What would you like the theme of this week, the first week, to be?”

In the gap, my husband called out, “Hope. Hope.”

And so it was. We talked about ways we can be hopeful, which is hard, and we came around to creating a bit of positivity. We’re in the house together a lot now and sometimes things get pretty grim, so practicing a positive attitude seemed hopeful.

No need to wonder how it went because I can’t even remember last week. However, this week is Peace and it occurred to me to send two of my bickering children to “The Peace Stairs” and find peacefulness together. (This is one of the many gems I received from our short years in Montessori school.) It was successful.

Personally, I struggled with some pretty difficult emotions the last three days and instead of fighting them, ignoring them, or diving into them, I chose to let them be. Yeah, I gave those emotions some peace from my judgment and shame. I allowed them to be there, and I stopped telling myself I shouldn’t have them. Instead, I acknowledged that these challenging emotions were present, and I spoke these observations out loud to three other people, my husband and two oldest children, who noted that some days feel heavy and some light. There was a great peacefulness in this experience of being seen and seeing others. So, some more success.

I’m not sure, of course, how the rest of the week will play out, or the following weeks either. But it doesn’t matter. The whole aim of liturgical seasons like Lent and Advent is to develop positive habits that continue after the season has ended. There can be a lot of pressure wrapped up in figuring out what one is going to do or not do for times like these, but I’ve thankfully worked in room for transition time and ease and not really caring about what day we start on and when (or if!) we finish. We just keep trying, keeping pressing on, keep practicing. These positive habits are a Life Thing, not an Advent thing.

And beyond all of this, both can be true at the same time – Advent does, and does not matter, which is why I love Ordinary Time so much. We practice these things in ordinary time, too: Hope on Tuesday? Yep! Peace on Thursday night? You know it. Faith, Love, Patience? Wednesday at 4:16pm. Sometimes we succeed, and sometimes we fail, and the failures are successes when we look at then in the right light. So turn on the light!

For Practice

Contemplate what you enjoy or appreciate about Advent, and also what you don’t.
Create your own Advent practices that resonate with your truest self or express your inner light – something that you want to stay with you throughout the year.
Drop the stuff that creates negative energy, which might be a particular perspective, not necessarily a tangible thing.
Remember that Advent is here to serve you. You are not here to serve Advent.

Happy Advent-ing!

(Or Not!)

(Or A Little!)

Amy

The Universal Yogi

I do yoga in my mind. Do you?

I’m still Yoga-ing, friends. Are you?

Sometimes I think about doing yoga. And that is enough yoga for me.

During a challenging chunk of years bearing babies and growing a family, I was really down on myself for “not getting on my mat enough.” When I expressed this to one of my first teachers, she described yoga as “a fine fuel,” explaining that the hours and hours of asana, pranayama, and meditation (not to mention all the other limbs of yoga) I had put in prior to this moment were now sustaining me through this time. Heartwarming and uplifting, right?

It wasn’t just talk. I feel the truth of this statement even now: Yoga is a fine fuel. Yoga sustains me through times of challenge and joy. Yoga is pandemic-medicine.

Throughout illness and injury, during times of a thousand commitments, when caring for those younger than you, older than you, and right alongside you, inside moments of despair and moments of exuberance you don’t have to “do yoga” to “be a yogi.”

What I mean is, you don’t have to get on your mat and practice triangle pose or supta baddha konasana, warrior III or Trianga Mukhaikapada Paschimottanasana to “be a yogi.”

You just don’t!

Try this instead: First Person Visualization of Your Favorite Sun Salute

Set up in your favorite spot. Seated or lying down. With tons of props or none. (Or a little.)
Close your eyes and settle into your body.
Initiate a deeper, comfortable, inspiring breath.
In the forefront of your mind, visualize moving through your favorite sun salutation. As many rounds as you like. In synch with your breath.
Enjoy the benefits. (You still receive them!)

Happy Practicing!
(Or not.)
(Or somewhat.)
(Or Happy Practicing in a Different Way than Normal!)

Amy

The Universal Yogi

PS – I learned this kind of visualization practice from an AMAZING teacher – Jivana Heyman, founder of Accessible Yoga. So, so good.

The Spaciousness of Love, Revisited

Dear Readers,

I wrote the original version of this essay around 2018, revised it in 2020 and am now revisiting it again (2024). What you’ll find below is a more spacious version oriented toward finding ways to take right action and right rest. Both action and rest are necessary for a flourishing life. In light of tragic events throughout the world, revelations of social divides and injustice, the recent pandemic, climate extremes, and the continuing ripple effects of white supremacist patriarchal practices that have been passed down through the generations, action, rest, peace, and joy are our only way forward.

I hope there is something here that resonates with you, and that it helps you to reach deeply into your own heart; find new ways of loving and embracing yourself, so that you may find new ways of loving and embracing the people in your own community, and so on outward to your village, township, parish, county, city, state, country, continent, and world. My invitation is to start with yourself, and only then move outward, because you are just as worthy of your own love as your neighbor is. The Energy of Life lives in all of us and encompasses all things. The Creative Force of Existence is the hub; we are the spokes; this life is the rim of our ever-turning wheel of space-time. And the closer we get to each other, the closer we get to all the infinite expressions of the Wholeness of Being.

In the midst of every swirling bit of chaos in our world, I am reminded by my teachers that right action will look different for each and every one of us. For some of us, our first right step might be to hold our children, or our young people close and feel what it feels like to be safe. For some of us, getting involved in our community’s social justice groups is the most pressing immediate action. And others of us will be called to speak in loving kindness with family, friends, and neighbors, or write letters of repair, of trust and strength and hope. Still others of us will find ways to connect with our spiritual communities and allow the passion and guidance of our spiritual leaders, partners, and friends to bolster our hearts in gratitude and love.

May we be drenched in Spirit wisdom, and soaked in gratitude, hope, and love.

The Spaciousness of Love

If love is kind,
it is not cruel .
If love is not jealous,
it is content.
If love is not pompous,
it is humble.
If love is not inflated,
it sees rightly.
If love is not rude,
it is enlightened.
If love is not self-seeking,
it is generous.
If love is not quick-tempered,
it is tranquil.
If love does not brood over injury,
it is reparative.
If love does not rejoice over wrongdoing,
it offers compassion.
If love bears all things,
it does not turn away.
If love believes all things,
it does not deny.
If love endures all things,
it does not cede.
If love never fails,
it always triumphs.

There are jewels to be found throughout ancient scripture, and in this exploration, we’ll look to both Western and Eastern wisdom traditions. In the Christian tradition, the New Testament offers one approach to love and to loving. When we look in the tenth chapter of the Gospel of Luke, a scholar of Jewish law asks Christ, “Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus says to him in reply, ““What is written in the law? How do you read it?” The scholar responds with what we know as The Greatest Commandment: “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your being, with all your strength, and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.” Jesus replies to him, “You have answered correctly; do this and you will live” (Luke 10:25-8).

From this quick exchange it seems our purpose on earth is simple, our mission, obvious, and the answer to the question of inheriting eternal life, a short one: love. That’s it. Nothing more, nothing less.

However, as simple as love appears to be, isn’t it simultaneously complex? What, exactly, is love?

In his first letter to the Corinthians St. Paul articulates clearly and beautifully what love is and what it is not, what love does and what it does not do. And he acknowledges that our actions can be either devoid of love or infused with it. We can serve in bitterness and resentment or in humility and compassion. Even our most helpful of actions can be empty of love, performed in a negative spirit that crushes our own and that of the recipient. St. Paul even goes so far as to proclaim that love is the greatest of all virtues, greater than faith and greater than hope: “Love will remain even when faith has yielded to sight and hope to possession” (USCCB Commentary).

Thankfully we can look to these guidelines and explanations of love to give us a starting point, a kind of pathway forward, but I know how much I stumble and wander about aimlessly, how often I fall and clamber in the dark of my ignorance, for even though I hear the encouragement, “love one another as you love yourself,” it is as if I do not have ears; I still find myself begging to understand how.

The Greatest Commandment, love one another as you love yourself, assumes that we already know how we are to love ourselves.

Zen priest and founder of the Center for Transformative Change, Angel Kyodo Williams, describes love as space: “[Love] is developing our own capacity for spaciousness within ourselves to allow others to be as they are — that is love” (OnBeing interview with Krista Tippett).

If love is space, it is not a vacuum; it does not pull all things into itself but expands and allows people to be who they are. Love makes room for the full expression of the human experience. Unfortunately, there have been many times in which I’ve been loveless. I’ve had a habit of pulling all things into myself, making myself the center of the multiverse, sucking the life out of life. I have been selfish, judgmental, prideful, vain, and vacuous, full of disdain, contempt, and self-righteousness, as I suspect most of us have at one time or another. It is a crushing cycle to find oneself in, as it damages others, as well as ourselves, on multiple levels.

I want to choose space.

Choosing space is hard.

It’s helpful to remember that love is not passive; it’s an action, whether or not it looks like action from the outside. To love is an act of the will; it is to choose, and we can’t make choices without awareness. To be aware is to choose to see rightly, to see ourselves as we really are, without quite so many labels, inherited or created, without stories in which we are always the protagonist; but instead, to choose to see ourselves simply as expressions of Divine Being worthy of love, worthy of forgiveness, by our sheer existence. Awareness can help create this space to see, this space in which we can choose dignity, this space to act in love toward ourself and our neighbor.

All this takes practice. When we work on our yoga mat to create space in the body for healing, we do so with awareness. When we work on our meditation cushion to create space in the mind for choice, we do so with awareness. And when the body is able to breathe and the mind is able to choose, we are able to work in our daily lives to create space in the spirit for loving ourselves. The hope is that if for a moment we can focus on the tree trunk, instead of the ever changing leaves, perhaps we will be able to notice, for even an instant, our constant spirit, instead of our changeable thoughts and emotions. And from inside this space, this separation between ourselves and our thought-feelings, we will find compassion for ourselves, for our families, for our friends, and for each person we encounter.

Creating space isn’t easy. It requires openness of mind and heart, and even body. This can be unnerving and can seem irrational. As human beings we strive to protect ourselves from the possibility of physical, mental, and emotional harm and to fulfill our basic needs. This is survival mode, and it causes us to lose touch with others and even with our truest selves. As we frantically search and scan our surroundings, our circumstances, we become absorbed with negativity. When this is our baseline, chronic way of functioning, we run the risk of closing in on ourselves, constricting our body-mind-heart/spirit, forgetting who we are, and who we are in relation to those around us.

We find spaciousness through embodied practices of curiosity & kindness. It really only takes a drop of curiosity, a kind pause, an open waiting, a question: What can I practice letting go of to make space for something else, something different, new, something like welcoming, or embracing?

Making space for ourselves, and making space for one another are true acts of love. Even paying close attention is loving, for where we place our attention, there also will our love be. Bringing our awareness to the present moment, including the people and events within that moment, and allowing space for the moment to be what it is, is living in love.

Our practices of the limbs of yoga – the yama, niyama, asana, pranayama, pratyahara, dhyana, dharana – combine with Spirit wisdom, will lead us to the answers. We’ll figure out what needs letting go of through embodied practice, listening to the wisdom held deep in our belly and deep in our heart.

So, we can’t quit. We can rest, but we can’t give up. We can’t deny ourselves the practices even when we are overcome with grief and anger – we take the grief and the anger to the practice with us. Just like we take the joy and the delight to the practice with us. We take everything to the practice. Practice is truly our own best teacher.

Yoga instructor Bryan Kest speaks of a yoga practice on the mat as being like a mini-day, or a mini-life in which we encounter obstacles and challenges, and we practice being with them with equanimity, so that when we go out into the world we function from this baseline of non-reaction, with gentleness and self-compassion as our default mode. Not only do we practice navigating difficulty as yogis, but we also practice nurturing ourselves through deep restorative postures and energy work that have the capacity to restore and bolster our right action in the world. And this is paramount – we must care for ourselves so that we can care for others. Continued, sustained practice creates in us the capacity to grow in wisdom and expand in love. It is when we deny what is present, when we hide from what is happening, when we close in on ourselves and shut everyone else out through fear that our chests tighten, our hearts constrict, and our capacity for love diminishes. Kyodo Williams encourages us when she says, ” for people who are not monastics, the world is our field of practice.”

And so we practice. We get on our mat every day; we let go of reactivity, harsh self-criticisms, vanity and pride, greed and grasping; we start to cultivate space for responding, for healing, for choosing, and for seeing rightly. We fail. We try again.

We welcome wisdom into our heart and out of our heart and begin to understand what it means to be wisely generous and wisely selfish. These wise-heart practices keep us from overextending or overwhelming ourselves, so that we pace, renew, and restore and keep going. We take that spaciousness off our yoga mat, through the doors of our worship spaces, out of the forests and into the moments and circumstances of our lives. We practice; we practice some more, and we practice again and unceasingly, like prayer.

Love is not cruel; it is supportive and humble. Love sees rightly and is enlightened. Love is generous, tranquil, forgiving, repairing compassionate, courageous, honest, eternal, and triumphant. Love is wise.

Love bears all things
because love is spacious. It’s big enough.
It’s always bigger.

Love bears all things because love is spacious. It’s big enough. It’s always bigger. When we understand this and put it into practice by giving ourselves the space to be who we are without judgment, we will be able to give this same non-judgmental, inclusive, curious and kind space to others. From this place we will hear the encouragement, “Love one another as you love yourself,” and we will know – because we live it, because we feel it in our bellies and our bones.

Space is ever-expanding.
So is love.
Love never ends.