Forging a grown-up faith.

Posted on August 14, 2019 by barbmorris

I’ve been receiving more requests for coaching rooted in spirituality after writing “A letter from God to her daughters who observe Lent.” These writers are seeking coaching based in progressive Christian faith and practice. I want to help, and so I want to be transparent about my own spiritual life.

My husband and I walked the Camino de Santiago in 2014. Experiences of God were common for me on the Camino, although it was still mostly walking. One of those experiences has shaped my spirituality — how I imagine and connect with the Divine — in profound ways.

I was alone for a few hours on the 17^th day of the 35 days it would eventually take us to walk to Santiago. We were walking between Castrojeriz and Fromista, across the vast central Spanish plateau called the Meseta, on a cold, rainy day. Jed stayed behind in the village we’d just walked through to buy lunch. I continued up the next hill alone, surrounded by other pilgrims also walking up a hill in the cold Meseta rain through the sticky Meseta mud. Gradually I became aware of a presence beneath me, in the earth, sustaining me and communicating with me. This presence felt muscular— “a womb-like heart,” I wrote in my journal. The presence felt incredibly big, and it overflowed with love. I knew this presence was love. I was connected to it, and through it to the pilgrims walking around me, to the trees at the top of the hill, and to the hill itself.

I was connected to everything in the universe through this deep loving presence.

I understood that day that the only thing God requires from me is to accept this connection, maintain it, and strengthen it. To stay connected, and to flow with what comes through the connection. That’s it.

This Camino experience was deeply physical, a mosaic composed of feelings and images. There were no words. I simply and clearly knew something then that I hadn’t known ten minutes earlier. And I still know it.

Here’s the thing we often forget about religion. It’s made up. It’s constructed. Religion is a container created by humans to hold experiences of God, Other, Ultimate Reality, Oneness, whatever you want to call the Divine. In Christianity’s case, it’s an invented response to experiences of Jesus – a Jewish peasant healer killed by the Roman Empire because of his love-based, rebellious, socialist message. His followers experienced his presence after his death, and they told resurrection stories about him. A loosely organized religion began to coalesce. When Constantine converted to Christianity, the church become aligned with dominant culture and spread across the Roman Empire.

Once created, religious containers take on a life (or a death) of their own. Communities begin to protect and pass on the container at the expense of the experiences the religion was created to hold. A couple of millennia later, that container sits on our shelf, cracked and dusty but still prominently displayed and precious.

I’m a child of the Christian church, gestated in mainline Protestantism. I was born into an Episcopal family, and the Episcopal Church has been my Christian place for the most part. I’m a member of “the Episcopal branch of the Jesus Movement.” My personal experiences of Jesus, both in church and not in church, are precious to me. Yet I seem to have most of my experiences of the Divine outside, under trees, on mountains, beside rivers, swimming in lakes, sitting on rocks in the sun. I also find much wisdom and solace within Buddhism.

People who contact me to explore coaching together usually want to answer these questions: How do I reconcile this Jesus-shaped place in my heart with my adult knowledge and experience? How do I navigate this uncharted territory with integrity and faithfulness? And how can I be true to what I know about God while keeping the peace in my family?

For me personally, the question I’m living is: How do I reconcile my adult experiences and beliefs — my Camino experience, loving Jesus, and the oneness I feel with God in creation among them — with conventional church affiliation and Sunday morning worship?

I don’t know yet. This is a work in progress and probably always will be.

Here’s what I do know:

I’m not required to accept any authority but my own. I can trust my own authority and experiences of the Divine. I’m connected to the deep heart of God. My job is to stay connected. That’s all. That’s it. God will do the rest. My spiritual practice is doing whatever helps me allow, maintain, and strengthen my connection to God, and, through God, to all beings. Sometimes my practice is going to church. Sometimes it’s sitting on a rock with my feet in a river, praying. Sometimes it’s Vipassana meditation. Sometimes it’s none of the above.

My spiritual practice is doing whatever strengthens my connection to God, and, through God, to all beings. This is my call.

When I look at the Christian tradition through this lens, here’s some of what I see:

Language that places God outside or above creation weakens that connection.
An emphasis on sin, on our badness instead of our belovedness, weakens that connection.
I experienced the presence that day on the Camino as most like a womb, yet beyond gender. Patriarchal words and ideas weaken that connection.
Eucharist strengthens that connection.
Jesus stories strengthen that connection.

It’s not heresy, and it’s not sin, to melt that cracked, dusty vessel down and forge a new one. I believe this is our responsibility and our vocation. Death and resurrection is, after all, what Jesus was all about.

I wish church on Sunday morning was right there with me. It’s not. So I’m very intentional in my church attendance. Sometimes I don’t go for weeks, and I choose mountain or river or studio church instead. And then I go back, because something in me needs this occasionally anachronistic Christian tradition to feel whole. I’m focusing on letting go of what doesn’t serve me and choosing to live in unknowing for as long as it takes. I suspect this is the work of a lifetime. This work feels uncomfortable often, especially because I’m married to the rector. I’m working to find that elusive and shifting balancing place where I’m living in integrity, being present for my husband, and feeding and being fed by others who love Jesus.

I want community to do this work within – the work of forging adult faith, engaging the sacraments and stories, and participating wholeheartedly in rituals that allow, maintain, and strengthen my connection to God’s deep heart and, through Her heart, to all beings.

I say “forge an adult faith,” not “find an adult faith,” because, for me, this process requires melting down and separating out what’s useful from what’s not. Forging faith requires acceptance and endurance of the refiner’s fire. Forging faith requires discernment of what nurtures us and our world. Forging faith requires courage to honor our experiences. Forging faith requires trusting resurrection and joining with God to make something new. Forging faith means creating a new vessel for the Holy One in our midst, and holding that vessel lightly.

This all sounds like a lot of work, doesn’t it? So why bother? Why not walk away? My rational, quantitative left brain asks this over and over.

Walking away is the answer for some of us. It’s not my answer. Since you’re reading this, walking away probably isn’t your answer, either.

My current response to my brain’s protestations is that my heart knows things my brain doesn’t. My heart remembers what it felt that day on the Camino – the bottomless peace and love flowing from that bigger, deeper, holy heart – and it won’t let me walk away from this spiritual journey. To live in integrity, for me, requires that I take faith and spirituality seriously. To be whole, for me, requires forging an adult faith, one component of which is Christianity.

If any of this resonates with you and you’d like to talk further, please contact me to schedule a free no-obligation consultation. I’d love to connect!

Resurrection

Posted on April 20, 2019 by barbmorris

We’ve domesticated resurrection. We’ve tamed its wildness. We’ve turned resurrection into cute, fluffy sweetness. Picture the typical Easter symbols – frolicking lambs, fluffy bunnies, downy chicks, fluttering butterflies, waving daffodils.

But what if the green blade riseth as a knife?

Resurrection is no gentle thing.

Metamorphosis is inherently destructive. Egg shells shatter as the chick hatches. The caterpillar’s destruction is necessary for the butterfly’s existence.

Beloved, I am sick to death of meekness. Of pleasingness. Of niceness. I crave clarity and focus. I want to be a sharp-edged blade forged in my life’s fire.

Ask yourself: What must die for life to be freed?

What if, on your journey of rebecoming, you have uncovered a warrior within? What then?

Will you embrace this inner warrior, or will you command her to drop her sword and spear? Will you nurture your inner insurrectionist? Will you feed her and clothe her? Or will you send her away hungry and alone?

Will you dare to speak your heart’s desire?

Will you dare to be a weapon in your own hands?

Will you dare to trust your aim?

May we whet and wield our strength. May we see clearly and give voice to truth. May we defend the defenseless. May we walk away from labels and roles that cage us. May we excise from our lives anyone who wants us small and afraid.

May we be faithful to ourselves and each other – our comadres, companions, fellow warriors on the Way.

Embrace conflict as a whetstone that sharpens and hones you.

Trust yourself to throw your spear. Trust yourself to know which suckers need to be pruned so the tree can thrive. Trust yourself to see what needs to be done, and do it.

Most of all, trust the deep Love in whom you live and move and have your being. Remain rooted in her. Live in and from her.

Nurture. And destroy. Both are holy. Both are required for resurrection.

Ordination

Posted on April 3, 2019 by barbmorris

ORDINATION

You say you’re waiting for permission.

You say you’re waiting for direct orders from an irrefutable voice. A voice from the heavens: This is my daughter, in whom I am well pleased.

Listen to her.

An ancient ritual, laden with pomp and circumstance– Proper form and order.

An ordination with weighty words and codified gestures, performed by men wearing heavy gowns and rings of gold, who seal decrees with wax.

You on your knees on the floor of a long narrow dusty hall ruled by straight lines.

My love, that’s not how this works.

My ordination comes through rock and stars.

This holiness is swimming in the mighty river welling up in you that will not be dammed.

This holiness strips your old tough too-small skin from your body with gentle-edged hands you’ve forgotten you had.

This holiness is living in new thin porous skin permeable to excruciating joy.

I consecrated you with blood and salt water at your birth. I bestow upon you daily ordinations. I tell you of your belonging every moment.

Hear my voice in the piney wind, songs of birds and frogs, and laughter. Feel my hand as butterflies and bees, sun on skin, feet in cold river. See me in seasons’ spiral, cycles of day and night, everyday dying and rising.

Your sweat and tears taste like ocean.

You know my wordless urge and tug in a baby’s cry and the need of a friend. Or a stranger.

Here’s your permission: Daughter, you are here.

You are flesh of my flesh and bone of my bone. Breath of my breath. Blood of my blood.

I feed your body with my body.

Anoint yourself with oil and honey.

Stand up, and walk.

Do your work.

©Barb Morris, first published in April, 2017. Stock photo edited on Canva.)

Are you a Mother of Dragons?

Posted on March 29, 2019 by barbmorris

Choose a name that helps you do hard things. Camino de Santiago

Our Western Scrub Jay is now the California Scrub Jay, because the American Ornithologist’s Union says so. The AOU recently split the former Western Scrub Jay into two species – our West Coast species, now called California Scrub Jays, and the interior Western species newly christened the Woodhouse’s Scrub Jay.

What difference does this name change make to the no-longer Western Scrub Jay? And what does this new name for a common bird have to do with healing, the theme of my recent blog posts?

The jays in my back yard and all over Central Oregon don’t seem to care what name we give them. They’re blissfully unaware, still going about their Scrub Jay business – mostly dive bombing cats and people and other birds, squawking, and searching for food.

You, however, are not a bird. You are a human, with a human brain busy thinking thoughts that create feelings, which lead to actions with consequences. The names you use determine your thoughts, so how you name yourself is vitally important. Names are powerful.

I became firmly convinced of the power of names while walking the Camino de Santiago in 2014. The Camino was hard for me. My feet hurt pretty much constantly. I longed for privacy. And I never felt clean. About 200 miles into the 500 miles my husband and I walked across northern Spain, I read a blog post by my life coach mentor, Martha Beck. Martha describes her practice of giving herself an airport name, much as itinerant travelers give themselves “hobo names.” Martha writes that the hassles of travel become easier to endure when she imagines her airport hobo self enduring the waiting, rushing, and not being in control. Her inner airport hobo only knows airports, so she doesn’t constantly compare airport life to how life should be. Travel becomes a much lighter thing.

So I gave myself a Camino name: Junebug. My new name made a huge difference! It was Junebug whose feet hurt. Junebug who slept in a dorm room with 40 other snoring pilgrims. Junebug who couldn’t quite get clean. Junebug took her suffering more lightly than Barb seemed to be able to. Junebug knew she could do this hard thing, and persisted in walking to Santiago when Barb wanted to bail. All Junebug knows, and all I needed her to know, was how to put one foot in front of the other and find joy in the journey.

Long haul hikers on the Appalachian Trail and the Pacific Crest Trail do something similar. When I queried the American Pilgrims on the Camino Facebook group to ask other pilgrims had given themselves Camino names, I was told in no uncertain terms by several men that THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A CAMINO NAME. IF THERE WERE, YOU CAN’T GIVE IT TO YOURSELF. YOUR COMPANIONS MUST GIVE YOU YOUR TRAIL NAME. (Not kidding about the caps. They were very firm about the rules.)

I call bullshit. Sweetheart, you can give yourself any name you want. You already are. Ask yourself if the name you call yourself is a good name. A healing name. A holy name. Is that name helping you get where you want to go?

Are you naming yourself “Bad”? “Fat”? “Stupid”? “Lazy”? “Too Old”? Or some other strength-sapping or energy-draining epithet?

Think of the names nuns and monks choose when they take monastic vows – their new names are symbols of their intention to become new people.

Do you want a new name to symbolize and empower your work and the new person you’re becoming? Do you need a new name to help you do hard things? Choose one, and use it.

Name yourself Powerful. Brilliant. Beautiful. Persistent. Strong. Epic. Name yourself Daenerys Targaryen, Mother of Dragons. And don’t let anyone tell you that you’re not allowed to. That you have to follow their rules. That you can’t.

Choose a holy name. Choose a healing name. Choose an empowering name. Use that name to remind yourself who you really are. Decide where you want to go, and choose a name that will help you get there.

Names are powerful. Choose well.

Love, Junebug

Photo credit: Jed Holdorph, June 2014 on the Camino de Santiago.

Living a Healed Life

Posted on March 22, 2019 by barbmorris

A woman meets her soul: photo of child and bear

The source of your woundedness isn’t what you think it is. The reason you feel broken isn’t what other people did to you. You don’t feel broken because of the things that have happened to you. The source of your wounds is your beliefs. You feel broken because of your thoughts about those people and those events.

This is good news.

You can’t change other people, and you can’t change the past. What you are totally and completely in charge of is your thoughts and beliefs. The source of our sickness is who we believe ourselves to be – our foundational metaphors. If we’re swimming in a polluted worldview, our lives will be sick. (Last week’s very long post goes into this concept in detail.)

We heal when we learn to think healing thoughts. It’s that simple.

Two things I’m not saying: I’m not saying that others’ bad behavior is okay. I’m not saying you should overlook someone else’s violence or tolerate boundary violations, and just think happy thoughts. I’m not telling you to forgive, although that may happen.

I’m also not promoting the Law of Attraction – the belief that my thoughts make things happen in the physical world. This is different. The work I’m talking about changes who I think I am, which then affects the world around me. There’s a big difference between the magical thinking of manifesting 101 and the hard work of learning to think healing thoughts.

I am talking about solid neuroscience. We see what we tell our brains to look for. If your worldview is negative, you’ll find ample evidence to prove your beliefs, and you won’t change your mind. Your polluted metaphor has shaped your brain in profound ways. Your current worldview is like an eight-lane neuron superhighway that’s easy and automatic. And so very unhelpful. Our brains want to stay on this wide, fast, easy street precisely because it’s easy and automatic. Back in cave woman days, when resources were scarce, our brains evolved to favor the easy and automatic. Learning new ways of thinking and building new neuron pathways requires energy, so our brains, still stuck in survival mode, resist it.

Most of us aren’t currently living in food scarcity, in fear of saber-toothed tiger attacks. We can afford the resources to rewire our brains, if we choose to. But, because learning to think healing thoughts is uncomfortable and often not supported by your family and friends, you must make it your priority. Your health and wholeness must be your priority. If it’s not, you won’t do it. Why not? Because rewiring your brain is freaking hard, scary work.

Why does healing feel so scary? Why do we resist it?

1.This wounded place is familiar. When we accept the healing that’s always offered, we choose to travel an unfamiliar road into unknown territory – the opposite of easy and automatic. Our brains resist this.

2. When we regrow and expand parts of ourselves on our journey toward wholeness, it can hurt, just like when blood flows into your leg that’s been asleep, or into a frostbitten hand. You get a functioning limb at the end of the process, but the process can hurt like hell.

3. We’ve constructed our lives based on being one particular shape. When we let our shapes flow and grow, the lives we’ve built will inevitably be disrupted. Healing leads to change, and change always destroys one thing while something new is created. Metamorphosis is naturally destructive.

When we regrow and expand a part of ourselves, our new shape can cause friction. We rub against others differently. They might not want to stay connected to us. We might not want to stay connected to them!

4. These newly grown or uncovered parts, like babies and puppies, will be messy and disorganized, at least for a time. They are raw and vulnerable and sensitive. So healing can cause feelings of incompetence and lostness, which are especially disruptive for those of us who put a premium on feeling competent and confident.

Our armor has been our protection. Our armor has also been constraining, a too-small skin. Armor has kept us safe, but it’s also been heavy, clanky, and inflexible. When we uncover, shed layers, grow new limbs, we can feel raw, exposed, and ungainly.

So why choose to heal, if healing is uncomfortable, painful, and disruptive?

We are created by God, the Ultimate Wholeness, in whom we live and move and have our being, to be whole, holy, and healthy. The Holy One wants us to heal.

A healed life is a powerful life. When we stop spending our time and energy staying small and playing nice, we can use our time and energy to change the world. We can stop scoping for danger and worrying about being acceptable, and start seeing the broken places around us where we can bring healing. We can use our anger for good, rather than stuffing it because we’re afraid someone (looking at you, patriarchy) won’t like us.

Because we’re adults now, and we can keep ourselves safe. Because we have an inkling we’re not living the life we were put on this earth to live. Because we know there’s more joy and love on the other side of healing. Because once we see the ways we’re choosing safety and smallness, we can’t unsee them. Because choosing to stay armored and small requires more energy than finally shrugging off the armor to run light and free.

Because living as people who trust ourselves and our good hearts, people listening to our souls, is our calling.

The choice to heal, to learn how to feel fear and act in spite of the fear, makes us invincible. Unstoppable. And legions of invincible, unstoppable warriors leading healed lives will change and heal our world.

Two of my favorite “thought work” resources are Kara Lowentheil’s blog and podcast, Unf*ck Your Brain (heads up: Kara uses salty language) and The Work of Byron Katie. These two resources are very different in tone but their aim is the same: choosing thoughts deliberately.

As always, if you’d like to talk more about these ideas and get some immediate clarity, please schedule a no-cost, no-obligation call with me here.

Image: The Bear and the Child, kid-lit.net, photographer unknown

What is healing, anyway?

Posted on March 16, 2019 by barbmorris

In “A letter from God to her daughters who observe Lent,” I suggested that, this Lent, rather than “focusing on the ways you’re not good enough and the ways you fall short, you commit to your own healing.” To my astonishment, the post has been viewed over 45,000 times. Clearly it struck a chord with many of you.

But what exactly is “healing”? Like most important words, “healing” means different things to different people. This post explores what I think healing is, the number one reason we don’t heal as well as we could, and ways to explore what healing might mean for you.

First, some etymology. Our modern English words health, healing, whole, and holy all spring from the same root in Old English, hāl. So our healing and health are rooted in being whole, and our wholeness is a blessing to the world. We’re holy wherever we are on our journey to wholeness simply because we’re created by and rooted in the Holy One.

“Soul” is another big word that means different things to different people. When I think of my soul, I’m imagining the place within me where I experience connection to my Source. The soul is like the stem connecting the pear to the branch; the channel water follows from the underground aquifer to the spring; the tree’s taproot reaching down to nourishing soil. Our souls are the conduit for God’s healing—healing that’s always waiting for us.

Our souls speak in metaphor and image. What healing is for you depends on your primary metaphor. (A metaphor is a sort of shorthand label for a worldview – a frame through which we perceive our lives. I’ll use both words interchangeably in this post.) That frame, that metaphor, is profoundly important.

We have metaphors we live within, whether we are aware of them or not. We swim in our metaphors like fish swim in water. It’s crucial that the water you swim in is healthy, unpolluted, life-giving water.

So many of us are swimming in polluted metaphors, because we live in a culture steeped in judgment, conflict, and competition. We live as though life is a courtroom, or a war, or a test. Or all three at once.

So many of us learned in school that the goal of life is to follow the rules and get it right, whatever it is. In this elementary school worldview, we compete for good grades and approval. We are pupils and God is the strict taskmaster doling out affirmation sparingly, and only to those who achieve perfection.

So many of us learned in Christian churches that life is a courtroom, and God is a stern judge who demands retribution for our infractions of His law. We are so bad, in fact, that He needed to send Jesus to die for our sins, because we could never otherwise repay Him for our transgressions. In this metaphor, we are defendants constantly trying to prove ourselves worthy of love and acceptance.

I learned the war metaphor growing up in a family with addiction, scary conflict between my mom and dad, and physical violence. I woke up this morning, as I often do, already tensed for battle. “Life as war” is the metaphor I automatically gravitate to. This worldview tells me that every day is a battleground where survival is achieved through appeasement, keeping my head down, and staying camouflaged. In this metaphor, I am caught in the crossfire, vulnerable to collateral damage in someone else’s war. And those in charge, including God, don’t care in the least about me and my well-being.

These three polluted metaphors have common elements. They’re highly regimented and rule-bound, full of fear and straight lines and doing what you’re damn well told. All three feature a separate and distant God who rules from the top down. These metaphors say “need to, have to, can’t, shouldn’t.”

Friends, here’s good news. These metaphors are not the truth. They are, to put it bluntly, incorrect. These worldviews are socially constructed by institutions that benefit when we stay in line, stuck in fearful consumerism, competition, and addiction.

I know these metaphors are false because they aren’t grounding, loving, and compassionate. Love created us from Earth to live lives grounded in the deep knowledge that we are lovable and so very enough. We’re created to live in joy and purpose by the Holy One who is the source of joy and purpose. We don’t have to prove anything.

When you read the descriptions of these three metaphors, how does your body feel? Does your upper body tense? Does your breathing become more shallow? Do your eyes squint and your focus narrow? Does your heart rate increase?

A metaphor that creates stress is a destructive metaphor.

Healing happens when we live within healing metaphors.

Our worldviews must grow from the bedrock truth of our goodness to be healing for us.

Perhaps true repentance is trading in a polluted metaphor for a healing metaphor. The word often translated as “repentance” in the Bible is the Greek word “metanoia,” which literally means to have a “new mind.” To have our minds blown open. Our metaphors live in our brains. We can change our brains. We can have new minds. If one or more of these destructive, poisonous metaphors feels familiar, you can choose a new one. A healing one.

[Biblical Interlude: (Some readers don’t give a rat’s rooty-poo about the Bible. For others, scripture is deeply important. If the Bible is unimportant to you, feel free to skip this paragraph.) In Romans 12:2, Paul admonishes his readers not to be conformed to this world, but instead to be transformed by the renewing of their minds, so that they will know the will of God and be better able to follow it. In chapter 8 of his letter to the Romans, Paul contrasts life in the flesh and life in the Spirit. He says that life in the flesh leads to death, and that life in the Spirit leads to more life. (The word “flesh” is better translated as “world.”) I understand Paul to be talking about living within rigid and static metaphors – living in a false metaphor rather than a worldview that springs from our belovedness. Life in the Spirit is life lived within a changing, flowing, healing worldview. And what is choosing a new metaphor but a “renewing of your mind” that will lead to transformation?]

Your true self, your soul, speaks in metaphor and image. Because we live in a culture that considers knowledge to be only that which can be weighed and measured and proven with numbers, many of us have lost touch with our soul’s wisdom. You will never fully heal if you’re living in a damaging metaphor. We heal when we relearn our soul’s native tongue, and dwell within metaphors of wholeness, joy, and purpose.

What metaphors might create groundedness, wholeness, and peace for you? Perhaps one of these: A Redwood tree. A spring of living water. A hummingbird flying from flower to flower. A boat sailing on the ocean. A pilgrim on a journey. A butterfly emerging from her chrysalis. A snake shedding its skin. A bird incubating eggs. A stream flowing in the desert. An oak tree. A peaceful cloister. A lively temple. A warm house. A growing garden. Granite. Sunlight. Flame. A mother or father caring for their child(ren). A community. A loving friend. A soccer team. Bees in a hive. A fern unfurling in springtime. And so many more, probably as many more as there are souls. I want to keep going with this list! Your soul’s metaphors may be numerous. Your soul may fly from flower to flower like a hummingbird, too.

In these metaphors, God is interwoven, part and particle of the world, feeding, healing, growing, and wild. These metaphors are open-ended, flowing, growing, and use words like “choose, desire, want, will.” Many of them are drawn from the natural world, because, after all, human beings are just fancy animals.

How do you feel when you read these? I can feel my breath deepen, my heart slow down, my arms and neck relax, and my focus widen.

When I feel that my body is tense and anxious because I’m falling back into my familiar battle metaphor, I remember, eventually, to choose a different one. You’ll know when you’ve connected to a healing metaphor when you feel more grounded, whole, and peaceful.

Traditional spiritual practices for getting in touch with our connection to God and our soul’s wisdom include formal worship, chanting the psalms, silent retreats, Lectio Divina, Centering Prayer, walking labyrinths, pilgrimage, and daily prayer time.

Here are some less-traditional ways to explore what your soul’s healing metaphor(s) might be.

Stream of consciousness writing (Morning Pages are one example)
Meditation
Vulnerable conversations with trusted friends
Intuitive painting
Collage
Art journaling
Contemplative walking
Photography
Reading and writing poetry
Reading and writing fiction, fairy tales, fantasy
Yoga
Running
Sitting on a rock, under a tree, atop a mountain, next to a river…
Dancing
Playing
Gardening
Building something
Sweaty physical labor
Working with a coach or spiritual director

There are so many more methods for connecting with our soul. They seem to involve getting out of our thinking heads and into our bodies.

This “Soul Whispering Process” has been helpful to me and my clients. It might be helpful to you, as well. Download it here.

Choose one or two of these, or something completely different, and practice them consistently. Be patient.

Parker Palmer says the soul is like a wild animal to be approached slowly, quietly, and reverently:

“Like a wild animal, the soul is tough, resilient, resourceful, savvy, and self-sufficien: it knows how to survive in hard places…. Yet despite its toughness, the soul is also shy. Just like a wild animal, it seeks safety in the dense underbrush, especially when other people are around. If we want to see a wild animal, we know that the last thing we should do is go crashing through the woods yelling for it to come out. But if we will walk quietly into the woods, sit patiently at the base of a tree, breathe with the earth, and fade into our surroundings, the wild creature we seek might put in an appearance. We may see it only briefly and only out of the corner of an eye—but the sight is a gift we will always treasure as an end in itself.” Parker Palmer, A Hidden Wholeness

Awareness of the metaphors in which we dwell is crucial to our healing. If you tend toward stress, scarcity, and fear, you’re swimming in a polluted worldview. You have the power to choose life-giving, free-flowing, healing metaphors to live in.

Let’s give Mary Oliver the last word:

“What I want to say is
the past is the past,
and the present is what your life is,
and you are capable
of choosing what that will be,
darling citizen.
So come to the pond,
or the river of your imagination,
or the harbor of your longing,
And put your lips to the world.
And live
your life.”
from Mornings at Blackwater

Image: The Bear and the Child, kid-lit.net, photographer unknown

Postscript – God’s letter to her daughters who observe Lent

Posted on March 7, 2019 by barbmorris

Dear friends,

God’s letter to her daughters who observe lent has received over 30,000 views in the three days since it was published. I’m astonished by the response. Many readers commented, most expressing gratitude. Some commenters criticized my post, calling my words unbiblical, ungodly, and “evil.”

Although I don’t enjoy criticism, I am learning to handle it. But the criticisms, by extension, are leveled at readers for whom the post resonated deeply. These readers’ comments shared their pain, brokenness, and vulnerability, and they did not sign up for critique. So I’ve turned off comments today, although you can still read the ones previously posted.

Some of you have asked permission to share and quote in sermons and articles. Thank you, and yes.

Now, on to a few common themes expressed in the comments and on Facebook.

Where’s God’s letter to his/her sons?

That’s not the letter that’s mine to write. I am a woman, speaking to women in a patriarchal culture and patriarchal church. As several of you pointed out, the letter’s message applies to men and other genders as well, probably. I can’t speak to that with integrity. If God has given you words for her/his sons, please share them in the comments. I’ll collect your responses for a future post.

My husband, an Episcopal priest, is considering using “a letter from God to her daughters … ” as a starting point for his sermon this Sunday. He may preach about cultural burdens placed on men in the context of Jesus’ temptations in the desert. If he does, I’ll link to the recording here. You can also read a summary of his sermon on his blog.

Thank you to those of you who have asked permission to substitute non-gendered language and repost. I am grateful.

The hubris of “putting words in God’s mouth”:

First of all, this was a literary device. I tried writing this piece several different ways, and the words eventually told me they wanted to be a “letter from God.” This may only make sense to other writers. The device was evidently effective, given the response. Some readers referred to the piece as poetry, which is a good description, I think.

Secondly, I am not delusional. I do not think I am God’s ordained mouthpiece. I do not believe I speak Truth with a capital T. That said, I do believe that, through our soul’s connection to the One and to each other, we receive messages for others as well as ourselves. I don’t think this communication with God is weird or mystical or uncommon. Communion with the Source is what prayer is, and creativity. It’s actually very ordinary. We connect to the Heart of Life, and then we flow with what It gives us. I simply shared what was given to me in a way that worked for the words. Please share what is given to you, as well. I am not special in this regard.

My words are “evil” because they depart from God’s inerrant revelation as given us in the Bible. Therefore, I’m leading people astray.

Ouch. What can I say? I respectfully disagree. I’m not leading anybody. I’m just following Jesus.

I think we are, some of us, following Jesus in a different way. Some of us don’t identify as followers of Jesus at all. We have very different beliefs about the Bible and its interpretation. We have very different beliefs about and experiences of the nature of the soul, ultimate reality, and truth. We will never agree, and that’s okay. As long as we are kind.

I ask that, when we feel the need to point out the error of another’s ways and to tell them how to live correctly, we consider whether our words are compassionate.

To those of you who shared dissenting opinions carefully and thoughtfully, thank you. To those of you who responded to the criticisms carefully and thoughtfully, thank you for stepping in to protect your sisters and defend me.

Going forward, I will delete comments that I judge to be disrespectful and unkind, in order to create a safe and healing space.

Clearly the message in “God’s letter to her daughters who observe Lent” was a balm for many of you. I’m glad. May we accept the healing that’s always offered, knowing the Holy One is within us, holding us, and yearning for our wholeness.

I’m wishing you all a blessed Lent.

Peace,

Barb

Photo credit: Ahna Ziegler on Unsplash