Speaking Truth in Love

Speak the truth in love.  Ephesians 4:3

To speak my truth with courage, wisdom and love has been my personal prayer for years.  I always considered it a sneaky ‘two-fer’ prayer because in order to SPEAK my truth, it was necessary for me to KNOW my truth.  

It sounds like such a simple thing; knowing my truth.  I was raised by my parents, church and school to respect the rules and traditions of my family, community, church and country.  I crossed my heart and pledged my allegiance to those lessons.

As I grew I began to question some of those teachings.  Were some of them misinformed or flawed?  Or maybe just wrong?!  Just as I was taught that kindness and respect were keys to a happy life, I was taught to fear the unknown and avoid risk. I’m still sorting through my lessons on love and relationships.

I recently read something that has been helping me with this life-long quest for truth.  ‘Say your truth - kindly, but fully and completely.  Live your truth, gently but totally and consistently.  Change your truth easily and quickly when your experience brings you new clarity.’

And so, Ruth continues to learn.  And pray.  And grow.

Published as God in the Life of Our Members for Pine Ridge Presbyterian Church, March 2015

Everything Fits

To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under heaven.  Ecclesiastes 3:1 (KJV)

I suppose in every time since the beginning people have wondered ‘what is this world coming to’?  In the turning of these last 4 seasons - I have buried a brother, uprooted a mother, closed down a home, wept for a baby born with little chance of survival, prayed with a friend dealing with cancer, and watched as the world appears to be imploding with violence as a result of ages-old hatred.  Living hurts.

I have also celebrated a son living his dream, hiked to the bottom of the Grand Canyon living mine, spent a year closer to my mom than I have been in 40, laughed until my stomach hurt with friends, sung and danced with little ones at VBS, and held that precious baby who seems to be beating the odds.  Life is wonderful!

My mentor reminds me constantly that ‘everything fits’, which sounds harsh in the face of sorrow.  She also reminds me to ask ‘what am I contributing?’ in any given situation.  And I am reminded that there is a reason, a season and a time for everything.  May my contribution in everything be loving.

Published for God in the Life of Our Members, Pine Ridge Presbyterian Church, July 2014

This Little Light

Even so, let your light shine before men; that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven. ~ Matthew 5:16

Once upon a time, not that long ago, I was a Sunday School teacher for the 3 and 4-year-old class at my church.  The story one Sunday was ‘let your light shine’. We made candles out of toilet paper rolls and coffee filters and sang ‘This Little Light of Mine’. The children love this song, as children have done for ages.

The Jubillaires, a group of dedicated folks who sings for nursing homes and retirement communities in the area I live,  also was singing ‘this little light’ for the residents of the communities we visited.  Most of the residents sing with us, pointing their ‘candles’ in the air and circling them around, just as they did when they were children. 

Such a lovely lesson taught to encourage me to be everything I can be, helping others and demonstrating the love of God. Why am I, then, sometimes afraid to serve?  To put myself out for others?  To think ‘who am I?’ 

As Marianne Williamson famously wrote, “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. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

I read her words and remind myself “You are the light of the world.” ~ Matthew 5:14 and “I can do all this through Him who gives me strength.” ~ Phillipians 4:13

And, then, I remember to say ‘yes’.


Published in God in the Life of Our Members, Pine Ridge Presbyterian Church, February 2014

The Greatest of These ~ Reflections on an Election

Photo by Lorna Dennis-Corso

A verse from the bible has been echoing in my heart during this election season - one that seems so fraught with anger.  Anger is not something to be ignored, but it seems inappropriate when it comes to who we are as a country and a community especially given the fact that when all is laid bare, we all want the same thing.  We all want to be happy.  We want to be safe.  We don't want anyone to suffer, especially the elderly, the infirm and the children.  And we want those children to have the chance to learn more and travel farther and be even safer and happier than we have been.

That verse comes from Corinthians 13 and is most commonly associated with weddings, not elections.  No matter, here it is: 

"Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres."

Within a few days decisions will be made about who will be administering the laws of our land. Whoever 'wins' or 'loses' there are going to be a lot of angry people, if the papers and the social media are any reflection.

And it seems that we all have a decision to make.  Do we choose to be angry with the results if they aren't what we wanted?  Or do we choose another way?

 Angry isn't the way I want to go through life.  It isn't the way I want to be with my neighbors and friends and family based on what they believe in and why.  And it certainly isn't the way I want to react to the people elected to represent us and make the decisions about our city or state or nation.

For my part, I am praying to choose respect and a sense of wonder over anger.  I pray to remember that people I love and admire voted for the people that are elected.  I am praying to choose love over 'being right', whatever that is.  And I am praying to remember the last part of that bible verse.....

"Right now three things remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love."

Nothing Ever Goes Away

Nothing ever goes away until it has taught us what we need to know.
~ Pema Chodron ~

Hard words to hear unless we are in the midst of something wonderful or new and exciting.  

Most of the time, though, this idea comes to us when we are in the middle of a world of what seems to be hurt or sorrow or pain.  And at these times, the last thing anyone wants to hear is that it won't 'go away' until something is learned.  

But maybe that's why happiness and joy and laughter can seem so fleeting.  We learn quickly that this joy and this laughter are the ways we want to be - are meant to be - in the world.  We learn quickly and so it leaves us in order for the next lesson. 

It is the sorrow and suffering part that seems to be the hardest to figure out and seemingly the most enduring or constant parts of our life.  Why do bad things happen to good people?  How can a loving, omnipresent and omnipotent Presence or Spirit or God or Divine, if there is one, allow the kinds of suffering that seem so prevalent?  People are starving.  Children die of diseases that are non-existent in more 'advanced' nations.  Tsunamis and hurricanes wash away towns and lives and livelihoods.  Sons are killed in battle and daughters are used cruelly. 

If God truly cared, wouldn't all this suffering be unnecessary? Why does it seem some are born to a lifetime of sorrow and others seem to be uncommonly blessed?  How can we escape it?  How can we be safe and happy?  What will guarantee that we will never hurt again?

From these questions all religions have been born.  From this wondering,  answers have been devised to keep generations of people tied to varying belief systems.  (Superstitions, some would say.)  And big business has been made from the promise of an easier life in the hereafter. 

Is it possible, though, that we have to endure this life to get to the next?  Maybe 'endure' is even too harsh.  What if living this life with all its pleasure and pain, praise and blame, fame and disgrace, gain and loss experienced to the fullest is the key to true peace and happiness?

Jesus said the poor would always be among us.  The Buddha said that life is suffering, and made that tenet the first of four 'noble truths'.

Maybe it is as simple as knowing that all things pass, good and bad, and that the more we cling to anything, the more unsatisfied we are.  Is it only by accepting and letting go of anything and everything that things will flow more easily into and away from our experience?

Maybe a better question to ask is 'What am I contributing?'  If what I contribute is anger and fear and aversion of any kind, then maybe what I am contributing allows that which I want to push away from me to be fed by those emotions.  And hungry animals have a tendency to stay close to the master that feeds them.  

What I want to contribute is love and kindness toward a situation or person for whatever 'is'.  That doesn't mean I approve or condone, it just means that I see and understand that it is there partly for my benefit - for my chance to learn something about me that I didn't know before. 

If my contribution is equanimity, then hungry animals either decide to feed elsewhere, or they decide to change their diet.  

Either way, everyone wins.



 

Good Choices

Nate is spending a couple of days with me.  Every morning his mom has whispered to him to make 'good choices' before she heads off for her day.  He smiles and looks off in his six-year-old 'oh, mom' kind of way and says 'ok'.  And my heart is touched again and again as I think of this very tender moment and all its inherent possibilities.

Good choices.

Oh, what simple advice!  How completely life-changing if those were all that we made.  And why is it that we don't?  After all, most of the time, deep down we know what those good choices are. 

And yet.  We don't make them again and again, over and over.   Ad infinitum.  Ad nauseum. 

I think back over the years and can remember times when the good choice was in front of me, clear as the sky can be blue or the path is straight in front of me, and I made the less-than-good one.  The choice to say unkind words instead of 'I'm sorry' when my pride was hurt.  The choice to run away from a school rather than stay and work it out with a professor who gave me a less-than-stellar grade on a first assignment.  The choice to stay quiet when caught alone, late at night, instead of raising my voice and yelling for help.  The choice to marry the boy from college instead of admitting to myself I wasn't - at all - ready for that commitment.  And then the choice to run away when it seemed too hard.

More.  So many more.

The Buddha said:  "Why do what you will regret?  Why bring tears upon yourself?"

I wish I knew that answer.  Maybe poor choices feel like an easier path.  Maybe staying quiet feels like the 'nicer' thing to do.  Or lashing out means that we can score a point on the one that hurt us.

Maybe the 'bad' choices seem like they are more fun and we deserve to be happy once in a while.   Don't we?  Or, contrarily, the less-wise choice seems to be what we deserve because we aren't really worthy of that much happiness.  Are we?

What would this world be like if that loving mother's words to her small son could be the words we all engraved upon our hearts then - or now!?  Bullying would not occur.  Self-loathing, which is really the premise of all cruelty, would be diminished if not dismantled entirely.

If all our sons were raised to make good choices, there would be no woman anywhere who suffered violence at the hands of any man.  If all our daughters were successfully instilled with the message of 'good choices', there would be so much less suffering for the sake of acceptance.  


Buddha finishes his wisdom by saying "Do only what you do not regret,  And fill yourself with joy."

This is a good prayer for ourselves.

This is a great prayer for our world.

The People Who Knew Us When

I'm just home from another high school reunion.  My husband refuses to go to his.  So does my brother.  So do many friends I know. 

I understand why, I guess. High school to many was the epitome of painful memories and the wish that things could have been done differently if we 'only knew then what we know now'.

But to me, that's kind of the point of being with these people from my past.  They did know me 'when' in that once upon a time of my awkwardness and insecurity - tugging on my skirt and wondering if everybody saw me trip up the stairs or hear me when I snorted when I laughed. 

They remember the same teachers with their pants pulled up to their chest or tugging to release their knotted knickers;  the same smells from the donut shop across the street;  the same songs that still light my fire and make me think it's a little bit funny.

They remember the pale yellow corduroy skirts and trousers that were proudly painted and worn during our senior year - a tradition from years gone by that seems to be sadly lost.

They remember the old school with the fabulous basketball arena and the smell of the popcorn on Fridays and the cockroaches in the lockers.

They remember the downtown that was vibrant and crowded with shoppers and toy stores and actual places to buy clothes and shoes and vanilla-cream-cokes.

They remember the tragic accident on a cool fall night that left some of our friends dead, others badly hurt, all of us forever changed.  We held on to each other a little closer that night and will always remember where we were when we heard the news and the names.  We were not - were never - invincible, and now we understood that a little more absolutely.  

They remember a me that no one else in my family or my immediate circle of friends where I live now - who I love dearly! - will ever know.

There is something timeless in being with friends who share those same memories.

We kid ourselves that the dramas are long forgotten and that growing up has meant all of it is behind us now.  We are still feeling insecurities and disappointments and as long as we are breathing, probably always will.  There are still words to be said, tears to be shed and closures to be experienced.  And that's all part of the remembering that is also so sweet.

How lovely to actually be able to say 'I'm sorry' to someone about something that has haunted a place in memory for decades. To actually be friends with the people that were only a dream then.  Or to make friends with people that for some reason weren't walking the same hallways at the same time or were taking different classes, going different directions but now we found we pretty much all of us ended up in the same place.

How precious to laugh until we cry about things that can never be explained to anyone unless they lived then and there and knew us 'when'.

We grew up.  But we didn't outgrow who we were then and how it shaped who we were to become.   It is said that every experience - good and bad - makes us the people we are today and that it is important to embrace them all and be thankful for how all of it did shape us. 

And I am.  And I do.  And I love these friends - newly found and forever held in my heart - for the way being with them helps me feel more like me.

And, after all, that is and has always been my prayer, even though I may not have known it as such at the time.

To just be me.