right here is where I am right now

I've had a number of conversations recently about living in the now. These conversations have peppered my path for a while now. I also have come across a quote that makes sense to me. In her book Dance of the Dissident Daughter, Sue Monk Kidd writes:

"In the trek across the gorge, we often scan about for shortcuts. During that period, I often wished some wise woman who'd been there before me whould appear and tell me how to zip through it. If she had, though, she probably would have admonished me to give up seeking a shortcut and just be where I was (emphasis mine).

There is deep wisdom in giving up the fight to make it go away. When we instead come home to our path, we come home to what is. You are where you are. So be there. Stop trying to protect yourself from the harshness of right now, fleeing into a long fabrication about how it's going to be one day. That's a way of avoiding the here-and-now truth of our lives." (p. 96)

I've got some places to walk in the next while where it is very tempting to engage in a fabrication about how it's going to be one day. My prayer for myself is to face the here-and-now truth of my life. For I believe there is deep and lasting freedom in the here-and-now places, if we are brave enough to stand in them.

interview questions from Connie

I met Connie last November at the Path workshop up at Linwood House. I admit that I barely know her, but I think (and hope) that she is a kindred spirit. She intrigues me. Living a life of profound authenticity and integrity, Connie has a way of getting straight to the nitty gritty, all the while opening my eyes wide to the wonder in amongst life which is often painful.

I asked Connie to set me some interview questions. I'm more than a day late to this particular meme, but there we go. Here goes....

1. You have a keen social conscience, Lisa. Where does that come from in
your own personal story?

I've been a reader since I was a little girl. I still remember the sharp burst of joy and pride when I finished my first lots-of-words book, Raggedy Ann & Andy. I think that I read because I like to see how other people tackle life (or at least, how the authors have them tackle life). So I've long been aware that I am one among many, living one life amidst many different paths.

I've had the joy and privilege of doing a fair bit of traveling. Getting out of my own landscape - geographic, social/cultural, political and economic - opened my eyes again to the fact that in Canada, we have an extremely privileged life. I actually choose to travel as a spiritual discipline, as it widens my boundaries in a way that simply isn't possible staying at home. A couple of years back I had the amazing good fortune to visit South Africa twice in a 3 month period. I intellectually knew of the poverty and had heard stories of apartheid, but to live a small part of the story with that beautiful country made a deep imprint on my soul. So that was a big contributor to my socialization as a global citizen.

I admit I was very chuffed that you said I had a social conscience, as I feel like I'm a lot of talk and very little action. When I feel I'm not doing my part, I try to remember one of the best pieces of advice I've ever received: "if you're going to eat an elephant, you've got to do it one bit at a time". That applies to being almost everything, and certainly social change.

2. As a lawyer, many would see you as tough minded and quick thinking, but I
intuit that there is a deeply sensitive side to your nature, which at times
might cause you pain, or even confuse you. What do you learn from your
hidden woundedness? Or again, how does this aspect of self inform who you
are and how you work in the world?

Oh Connie, you have eyes that see! I have had to put a great deal of effort into creating healthy boundaries from my work. And yet just by being me, I get soul-nicks from the work I do. I believe that I bring an unusual amount of empathy to my work, particularly because I can often intuit the hidden wounds in my client, and if it's appropriate, I can then create a space for that wound to come into the L/light. One of my deep fears and deep areas of woundedness personally is the fear of rejection. Because I work with separating and divorcing families, this comes up all the time for clients. I think because I fear rejection and try to bring that into the light, I have a lot of space and compassion for people who are also grappling with rejection.

This question is making me think a lot. I may come back and add more to this answer later.

3. Where do you find community at this point in your life? How does
relationship in faith community impact your own spiritual journey?

Ouch, sore spot! I yearn, yearn, yearn for community and have yet to find one to settle in. I have recently started going to a church here in town that seems to be very friendly, so I'm feeling hopeful. Community is a very large part of my spirituality, as I like to chew ideas over to help them make sense. When I first started going to church at age 16, I had an amazing community and believed that to be not only the norm, but kind of a given. I have been disappointed in Vancouver by my lack of community and feel the loss keenly, even 6 years after moving here.

As much as I both want and need community, I am also leary of it. My faith journey has changed so much in the past several years and there are still very tender spots that I are wary of letting institutional/conversation church people touch. So I both want to be in community and am afraid to be in community with people who are following the box-God that no longer makes sense to me. And at heart, I am also very orthodox, so I get a bit freaked out when I go to the very liberal churches that talk about the jesus not being real. Picky, picky.

4. Who has been central in the development of your own personal theology and
what was it about that individual, (theologian, activist, writer, artist,
historical figure) which sparked your own growth?

My friend Dann Pantoja has acted as a pivot point in my spiritual life. He was one of the first Christians I met that didn't need me to agree with him theologically in order for us to have a deep spiritual friendship. Dann and his wife Joji were my landing pad when I was going through the "emerging transition" that Brian McLaren writes about in his first book, "A New Kind of Christian". Incidentally, that transition was going on at the same time a serious romantic relationship was breaking up, so I was a total mess. When he'd ask me how things were going spiritually, I used to tell Dann "me and God, we're good. But me and Jesus? We're not getting along so well right now". We'd laugh, but then not need to dissect why things weren't going well. That tremendous respect and freedom to journey along my own path helped me create space for my own voice.


5. How important is prayer to you? If it is important, what concern lies close?

Formal prayer or prayer times are not important to me. That said, I have a huge fondness for the Anglican liturgy and in particular, compline. I pray, instead, by breathing and living. I have at times undertaken the Examen, which I love and find extremely fruitful. As I said above, me and Jesus aren't doing so good these days, so prayer, or at least the "quiet time prayers" of my evangelical background, seems hypocritical.

Yet none of the above derogates from the fact that I am a born intercessor. When I am in spiritual situations with others, it feels natural to move to prayer. Nothing gets me fired up like freedom issues, or at least, that's what I call them. When I see people locked up spiritually, I can't help but pray. It's second nature.

Thanks for the questions, Connie. I've appreciated the chance to think and write.

And because this is a meme, here are the so-called rules:

1. leave me a comment saying "interview me"
2. I will respond by asking you five questions, selected for you.
3. you will update your weblog with the answers to the questions.
4. you will include this explanation and offer to interview someone else in the same post.
5. when others comment asking to be interviewed you will ask them 5 questions.

not just semantics

I've been thinking today about the difference between the meanings of the words naming and labeling. I was talking with some close friends this morning about a recent experience I had and was struggling to tell them about what had happened. Once I got it out, I realized that I could simply name my experience; that is, tell my version of what had happened and tell them the feelings I had felt when the experience was happening. It felt clean and neutral. I didn't then need to go on to label the experience; that is, to determine whether it was good or bad, whether I had done the right thing or wrong thing, whether the other person was right, wrong or indifferent. I didn't need to pigeonhole the experience by labeling it. It's like I didn't start traipsing down the road of whether what happened was legitimate or not, but instead just accepted that it had happened and had had an impact on me. A much freer way of being, me thinks.

On an entirely different note, a friend gently mocked me today for going to a theological lecture tonight instead of to the movies...."wow, you really know how to party!". In truth, I'm too serious too often. How 'bout suggesting fun activites for me to loosen up? I'm open to *most* suggestions!