As it should be

Easter Sunday Messages

Somehow it makes sense all this happens today. An important day in
my upbringing as a Christian, though lately I realize I don't
completely get it. Fortunately, I've been in a church where that is ok.

Easter Sunday, an end and a beginning in the church calendar, in my
current spiritual journey.

Everything I thought I knew and understood was proven and debunked.

I am at once alone, the only one who can decide my actions, decide
the path to follow when a break in the road is reached (which is
daily, really).

Only I can decide.

Yet, I am not alone at all. Just ask and receive.

Five-thirty a.m. the phone rings. Tears, indecision. I wonder what
I did to end up alone at this moment. Then, the random calls start.
I sit and wait and listen until one thing feels right. I expect
obstacles, I worry, then suddenly arms and tears and voices rally
around me, encouraging me to do what I need to do, there is no right
or wrong.

I know all this.

We sing joyously and somehow for two hours I laugh as tears wait
behind my eyes. Now is not the time. It is Easter. It is
celebration. We are free to be ourselves with unplanned pauses and
dances in the service. It is all exactly as it should be. Not how
we planned, or even how we want.

Eternal life starts now. Eternal is not about time, but about
abundance and infinity, a love that knows no end. Love enemies even
if we do not condone their actions. Love and take care of each
other. This is the example and promise of Jesus, Buddha, Mother
Theresa. She too felt the paradox that you must love so hard it
hurts and only then does the hurt go away.

And Easter is not death and suffering. The suffering is not what
saved anyone, but the always existing; always present eternal life in
us. The suffering is just part of human life. Likewise, we all have
this eternal life inside of us, this love that is boundless, that
starts here and now.

I leave, but am not alone. I stop in the sanctuary and kneel alone
opening my heart to guidance. I will not rush. If it is meant for
me to make it, I will.

I go now to my suffering mother not because I can relieve her
suffering, not to keep her here, not because there is anything to
say, but simply because I need to be there and not here to sit and
love and love and love, knowing it is just the beginning of this
eternal life, this bliss, this comfort and peace she will know. It
is what feels right and it is the path that opened without resistance.

But I do not wait. Each breath is a pray of love and peace. I know
it is boundless, transcending time and distance, like this eternal
life and love and Buddhahood that lives in each of us. We may only
meet somewhere over Arizona or Texas or . . . but I know it will all
be ok, not matter what.

It is all as it should be.a

What to do instead of sitting in rush hour traffic

Day three of working in Santa Monica. Day three of finding ways to
avoid the two-hour crawl home. I know better than to look for a
short cut out.

Good Friday. Not good enough. At least today the sun broke through,
casting a soft light perfect for my planned adventure. Everyone
heading east, I turn west on Wilshire. I have no destination, just
go to the end and follow the ocean, leaving behind the shops and
shopping of Third Street, winding down towards the PCH. As I drive
north I pass roads leading home and know, Friday with no obligations,
I could just drive and drive.

The sunset tonight is a pale rusted gray, like an old yellowed
photograph. My recently washed car is already dusty from drought
conditions. All the metal and glass, the murkiness of the view
annoys me. I watch a motorcycle pass with envy. An even better way
to drive north, endlessly, holding on as the wind sings to me, me
singing into you as you speed us further to no where we need to be.

Instead I roll down the window and turn up the heat as the cold wind
whips my hair.

I listen for a place to beckon me to stop. Topanga Beach. Surfers
strip off their wetsuits in the cold air behind cars lining the PCH.
I make a u-turn, park, grab my camera, wrap my scarf around my neck,
and head down to the beach.

It's a surfing beach. My next adventure beckoning. When it is
warmer, I tell myself. As I approach the stairs descending to the
beach snuggled between cliffs, I pass two men getting read to put on
their suits. One is old with grey hair and a small pooch belly. So
can I, I think. So can I.

But not today.

No board, no suit, no guide.

Today I just share the space, the peace of the ocean.

Stepping onto the beach, I sink into the sand. Each step in the sand
brings an acute awareness of balancing, as the sands constantly shift
under me, never predictable, never the same.

I observe through the camera, then without.

My first lesson. Just watching. First floating, waiting in the
ocean, white and grey with only hints of blue now. The water looks
calm, but as the surfers ebb and flow, I know its strength lies
beyond visibility. Just because you can't see it, doesn't mean it's
not there. Then, from some source unknown, the ocean swells and the
surfers awake, moving to meet the potential wave. A few time it just
right, the wave breaks, the surfer hops up and then, it looks like
just standing, just letting the wave take you home.

But it's not.

A moment shifts out of the moment, forward or back. The surfer seems
to fling himself into the water. From the beach, it is a silent
ballet, though I imagine the sounds, all inside, of the heart
beating, of breath as the water crashes around your body, the head
going under, all sounds at once muffled and amplified. I fill with
fearless confidence and dread at being the surfer. It seems a place
to start, this beach. (Later, a surfer friend tells me this is
actually a rather advanced beach because of the rocky bottom of the
ocean here).

The sun dips further behind some clouds, the evening progresses from
a sepia photo to pure black and white. I begin my journey back
inland, driving up Topanga Canyon.

I am thankful for rush hour, for pushing me to the ocean, into
myself, challenging me to find my direction, to get up again,
fighting to keep balance, as supermassive black holes spin and
speckle my life but cannot suck the life out of me.

I am my own vibrator

One of my favorite parts of the Life of Pi is when the Iman, the
Rabbi, and the Priest all meet and discover the main character has
been a model devotee to each of their respective religions and start
to argue over his soul.

After my retreat in Florida, I found myself with a spirituality had
outgrown the confines of even my liberal Christian church. I began
to explore other less 'organized' religions.

First, I attended the Self-Realization Center, hoping to find a place
where one way is not placed over the next. The front alter has
pictures of Yogananda, Jesus, Buddha, and several other gurus. Yet,
one is still held above the rest, known as 'our guru' or 'our
master.' The saccharine songs did little to lead me to God. The
meditation and Om chanting did. If only we did this the whole hour.

However, my seeking for something less structured, less dictating,
less shepherd leading the sheep was not quenched here. I went back
for an evening meditation. Leaving with the same feeling of
dissatisfaction. Lovely place, but nothing to leave home for.

I returned to my church with a new appreciation.

A friend from yoga has been inviting me to Buddhist meetings. Today
I went. "We chant for about 45 minutes and then have a discussion
afterwards," she warned me and was amused at my enthusiasm. "I talk
all day. The more chanting the better." I expected a circle on the
floor and lovely chants in some ancient Indian language. This is a
different branch (denomination, in my Christian vernacular) of
Buddhism. The chanting was urgent and relentless. The words felt
jammed in my mouth. I could not find the beginning or the end. What
was I really saying, in my garbled accent? I was instructed to keep
my eyes open and focus on a character in the scroll. They stubbornly
wanted to close to draw inward for the meditation. The voices around
me carried me and there were long moments of synchronicity. I do not
know how long we chanted. I was given a small sutra/prayer book in
which we prayed to the founders of this branch of Buddhism. I felt
hoodwinked. I do not want to replace one dictator for another, one
'right way' for another. Afterwards, they kindly shared their wisdom
about this chant and this branch of Buddhism, dedicated to peace and
connecting individuals to their Buddhahood.

However, I was not clear how this chant is different than my own
meditations at home, my yoga practice, my singing in the choir, the
Om chants at the Self-Realization Center, singing along with Donna
DeLory on the ski lifts at Mt. Baldy all which have in glimpses,
revealed to me my Buddhahood, my connection to the moment and the
world around me.

I will continue to seek a place to meditate and chant as inspires and
heals me. I am learning I don't need to do anything except to be in
myself, in my divinity, in each moment. Beyond that, each spiritual
community is just a lovely harmony to my core vibration.

It's in the cards

She pulled one more card. The Empress. This was her inspiration for
her Queen of Hearts costume at the Mad Hatter's Ball back in
college. The stains remain on the hem of the red taffeta
bridesmaid's dress she always meant to have shortened for formal
parties that never happen. A nice memory, but no insight, she sweeps
up the cards into a pile and wraps them in the tattered pink scarf
and puts them away, still as uncertain as ever.

Disciplined meditation has taken her away from her comfortable
rituals. The cards mock her with their insipid vagueness. She
recalls hours spent in the library with her best friend randomly
opening books, giggling at answers to life's most dire questions,
usually having to do with men and sex and love. Then, the prompts
were needed. Now, she knows, the answers are not in drawings that
have been passed down for generations or rituals devised by modern
school girls.

She sits and waits, focusing on the picture in her mind and the words
written in her heart.

Musicals and Muses

It is praise band Sunday. Normally I skip praise band Sundays, but
there was something about songs from Godspell and my explorations of
other spiritual communities reinforced that this one needs and
deserves my energy, is unique despite its current struggles.

I entered fifteen minutes late, normal for days I don't have to be
there early for choir, greeted by a church filled with palms and
sunshine and an energy I have not felt there in a while. Perhaps
residue from yesterday's wedding. Joys were actually shared this
week, something else we have not heard in too long. Even a sermon
entitled "It's A Matter of Life or Death" could not dampen the spring
energy. Amazing considering a good portion of the congregation
teeters on this tightrope in sickness and age.

To close the service a new soloist sang Gethsemane, Jesus final plea
to God before dying. As our now ex-choir director (yes, it was just
this morning) banged out the swelling music moving through denial,
anger, desperation, and acceptance and the voice followed in a mellow
tenor, I felt the same beauty and elation I feel in listening to my
new Muse CD, which I realize can best be described as Broadway
musical mixes with Radiohead and Depeche Mode (political liberalism
and romantic melodrama). (Now I regret not getting tickets for their
show next week as this is music that needs to be experienced live,
like all good musical theater. Damn my inability to commit to plans
more than a week in advance!)

Somehow, this connection opened my spiritual muse and I was able to
envision this church, if it could maintain this energy of love and
hope and springiness, as a living and vital spiritual force in the
community, one that brings hope and love (things most people now do
not associate with 'organized' religion, which is funny considering
how unorganized this church can be).

Secrets are rarely as secret or scandalous as we anticipate. (Last
week, skeptically, I watched The Secret [what, you haven't heard
about it?]. I recently found out some of the stars of the secrets,
such as Ester Hicks, a prominent leader in the teachings of positive
thinking and the law of attraction, have distanced themselves from
it. I can only guess because, though containing many, many good
points, there is an overwhelming and implicit focus on using these
laws of existence and thought for material acquisition, conveyed
through choice of soundbites, but more by the juxtaposition of
materialistic images.) In The Secret, the big deal is simply we are
our thoughts. We are what we eat, but even more, we are what we
think. Sitting in the pew this morning, I realized this is true
collectively as well as individually. If we believe our church is
dying, it is. If we believe our school is underperforming, it is.

I stuck around today for the meeting where church business is
discussed, like the sudden resignation of our somewhat volunteer
choir director. Try point out the secret to others and it is amazing
how they want to just retreat into justifying their belief. I heard
dozens of reasons why we are dying, struggling, victims of
circumstance and district officials. No wonder.

Perhaps this is how this church and I attracted each other. Perhaps
this is why a choir director with amazing talent and vision (with,
possibly, an ego and temper to match -- I do not know details) was
attracted to us for one month, enough time to bring a vision of
something different, of hope, of seeing ourselves as the loving and
enduring community we are.

Musicals and Muses

Musicals and Muses

It is praise band Sunday. Normally I skip praise band Sundays, but
there was something about songs from Godspell and my explorations of
other spiritual communities reinforced that this one needs and
deserves my energy, is unique despite its current struggles.

I entered fifteen minutes late, normal for days I don't have to be
there early for choir, greeted by a church filled with palms and
sunshine and an energy I have not felt there in a while. Perhaps
residue from yesterday's wedding. Joys were actually shared this
week, something else we have not heard in too long. Even a sermon
entitled "It's A Matter of Life or Death" could not dampen the spring
energy. Amazing considering a good portion of the congregation
teeters on this tightrope in sickness and age.

To close the service a new soloist sang Gethsemane, Jesus final plea
to God before dying. As our now ex-choir director (yes, it was just
this morning) banged out the swelling music moving through denial,
anger, desperation, and acceptance and the voice followed in a mellow
tenor, I felt the same beauty and elation I feel in listening to my
new Muse CD, which I realize can best be described as Broadway
musical mixes with Radiohead and Depeche Mode (political liberalism
and romantic melodrama). (Now I regret not getting tickets for their
show next week as this is music that needs to be experienced live,
like all good musical theater. Damn my inability to commit to plans
more than a week in advance!)

Somehow, this connection opened my spiritual muse and I was able to
envision this church, if it could maintain this energy of love and
hope and springiness, as a living and vital spiritual force in the
community, one that brings hope and love (things most people now do
not associate with 'organized' religion, which is funny considering
how unorganized this church can be).

Secrets are rarely as secret or scandalous as we anticipate. (Last
week, skeptically, I watched The Secret [what, you haven't heard
about it?]. I recently found out some of the stars of the secrets,
such as Ester Hicks, a prominent leader in the teachings of positive
thinking and the law of attraction, have distanced themselves from
it. I can only guess because, though containing many, many good
points, there is an overwhelming and implicit focus on using these
laws of existence and thought for material acquisition, conveyed
through choice of soundbites, but more by the juxtaposition of
materialistic images.) In The Secret, the big deal is simply we are
our thoughts. We are what we eat, but even more, we are what we
think. Sitting in the pew this morning, I realized this is true
collectively as well as individually. If we believe our church is
dying, it is. I we believe our school is underperforming, it is.

I stuck around today for the meeting where church business is
discussed, like the sudden resignation of our somewhat volunteer
choir director. Try point out the secret to others and it is amazing
how they want to just retreat into justifying their belief. I heard
dozens of reasons why we are dying, struggling, victims of
circumstance and district officials. No wonder.

Perhaps this is how this church and I attracted each other. Perhaps
this is why a choir director with amazing talent and vision (with,
possibly, an ego and temper to match -- I do not know details) was
attracted to us for one month, enough time to bring a vision of
something different, of hope, of seeing ourselves as the loving and
enduring community we are.

The Yellow Wedding Dress

It just slipped out. "I'm never going to get married." What she
really meant was, "I will never marry you, so get that idea out of
your head for good now." Dropping that line, "When we get married,"
he shook her off balance like the many mini-earthquakes did when she
first moved to Los Angeles. She jumped by throwing out this comment
with the swiftness of a flyswatter squishing an innocent fly. A
sharp pain spirals up her calf through the back of her knee as she
steps on the gas.

She new it was a mistake as soon as she said it. Not because she has
any doubt that she did not want to marry this person, but because she
knew in her heart that she did want a partner, either in a formal or
informal marriage.

That is, almost April, that ominous month, she refused to let another
wedding be salt in her wound of loneliness. She zipped up the
strapless cotton dress, yellow like Gilma's wallpaper, falling in a
slight A-line around her pale legs, and slipped on low black heels.
This wedding is for her, she barely knows the groom, a member at her
church. She gracefully wraps her black pashima round her shoulder,
fluffs her hair one last time, and steps out into the bright, warm
afternoon.

Walking up the steps to the white stucco chapel, she slips her
sunglasses into her purse. She enters, a bit overwhelmed by the
silky spring dresses and tuxes. Her decade long avoidance of
weddings is apparent as she tries to remember wedding protocol.

"Blackstock or Westfield?" inquires one of the tuxes.

"Um, I'm with the groom," she answers hesitantly. She is bad with
last names.

"Really, we've never met? I'm Dean." She smiles, explains she only
knows the groom as members of this church. He directs her to another
usher who seats her next to one of the older church ladies. A
quartet plays as the church ladies around her loudly gossip about the
dresses of the women and the handsomeness. Everyone mills about,
getting seated, waiting for the event to begin. She closes her eyes;
her inner peace holds.

As the ceremony unfolds, as lovely as it is for this couple, she has
visions of her own wedding, little fantasies to which she holds no
particular attachment. It is not so far off. It could happen. She
imagines a hundred varieties, here in her church, in a foreign land,
bilingual, Christian, Catholic, or something other, large or small.
It could happen. She reads the program with poems and quotes of love
and remembers the glimpses she has had in her life, she knows it is
real, possible, and one day, perhaps, sustainable.

After tears and laughter and varied proclamations of love and
devotion, everyone files out of the church. She lingers with the
other members who are here just for the ceremony, just for something
to celebrate.

"Beautiful guitar playing," she compliments her choir director.

"I hung in there," he nonchalantly responds as his wife and kids run
up the aisle. "I can't wait to sing at your wedding." Normally
outraged by such presumptuousness, She silently chooses to accept the
compliment that she seems to still be marriageable, though a bit odd
from this person she has only known a month.

"I would love that. Though I my wedding will probably be overseas,
somewhere beautiful and exotic, so if you don't mind a bit of
travel," she allows herself to voice one of the several fantasy
weddings concocted during the ceremony. "If I win the lotto, I'll
even pay for your plane ticket."

"It only takes a dollar."

"What, to get someone to marry me?" she jests.

"Not with you looking as pretty as you did today sitting there in
your summer dress," chimes in his wife as she wrangles the children
running through the pews.

She shrugs, still not the best at accepting compliments.

Though work awaits, she lingers at the informal reception for those
not invited to the formal one later, chatting with the row church
ladies standing guard, volleying commentary about the fashions of the
guests.

"So, you're next?" asks a recently married man in the church.

"What makes you say that? I don't even have a date for tonight."

"Ah, that doesn't mean anything. As Stevie Nicks says, love can
change in an instance."

And so it could. In any direction. She smiles coyly at herself,
understanding, perhaps for the first time, the hope of weddings in
loving not only another, but oneself and love itself.

Walking up the steps to her apartment, she realizes the pain that has
been plaguing her knee for weeks is gone.

The Yellow Wedding Dress

It just slipped out. "I'm never going to get married." What she
really meant was, "I will never marry you, so get that idea out of
your head for good now." Dropping that line, "When we get married,"
he shook her off balance like the many mini-earthquakes did when she
first moved to Los Angeles. She jumped by throwing out this comment
with the swiftness of a flyswatter squishing an innocent fly. A
sharp pain spirals up her calf through the back of her knee as she
steps on the gas.

She new it was a mistake as soon as she said it. Not because she has
any doubt that she did not want to marry this person, but because she
knew in her heart that she did want a partner, either in a formal or
informal marriage.

That is, almost April, that ominous month, she refused to let another
wedding be salt in her wound of loneliness. She zipped up the
strapless cotton yellow dress, falling in a slight A-line around her
pale legs, and slipped on low black heels. This wedding is for her,
she barely knows the groom, a member at her church. She gracefully
wraps her black pashima round her shoulder, fluffs her hair one last
time, and steps out into the bright, warm afternoon.

Walking up the steps to the white stucco chapel, she slips her
sunglasses into her purse. She enters, a bit overwhelmed by the
silky spring dresses and tuxes. Her decade long avoidance of
weddings is apparent as she tries to remember wedding protocol.

"Blackstock or Westfield?" inquires one of the tuxes.

"Um, I'm with the groom," she answers hesitantly. She is bad with
last names.

"Really, we've never met? I'm Dean." She smiles, explains she only
knows the groom as members of this church. He directs her to another
usher who seats her next to one of the older church ladies. A
quartet plays as the church ladies around her loudly gossip about the
dresses of the women and the handsomeness. Everyone mills about,
getting seated, waiting for the event to begin. She closes her eyes;
her inner peace holds.

As the ceremony unfolds, as lovely as it is for this couple, she has
visions of her own wedding, little fantasies to which she holds no
particular attachment. It is not so far off. It could happen. She
imagines a hundred varieties, here in her church, in a foreign land,
bilingual, Christian, Catholic, or something other, large or small.
It could happen. She reads the program with poems and quotes of love
and remembers the glimpses she has had in her life, she knows it is
real, possible, and one day, perhaps, sustainable.

After tears and laughter and varied proclamations of love and
devotion, everyone files out of the church. She lingers with the
other members who are here just for the ceremony, just for something
to celebrate.

"Beautiful guitar playing," she compliments her choir director.

"I hung in there," he nonchalantly responds as his wife and kids run
up the aisle. "I can't wait to sing at your wedding." Normally
outraged by such presumptuousness, She silently chooses to accept the
compliment that she seems to still be marriageable, though a bit odd
from this person she has only known a month.

"I would love that. Though I my wedding will probably be overseas,
somewhere beautiful and exotic, so if you don't mind a bit of
travel," she allows herself to voice one of the several fantasy
weddings concocted during the ceremony. "If I win the lotto, I'll
even pay for your plane ticket."

"It only takes a dollar."

"What, to get someone to marry me?" she jests.

"Not with you looking as pretty as you did today sitting there in
your summer dress," chimes in his wife as she wrangles the children
running through the pews.

She shrugs, still not the best at accepting compliments.

Though work awaits, she lingers at the informal reception for those
not invited to the formal one later, chatting with the row church
ladies standing guard, volleying commentary about the fashions of the
guests.

"So, you're next?" asks a recently married man in the church.

"What makes you say that? I don't even have a date for tonight."

"Ah, that doesn't mean anything. As Stevie Nicks says, love can
change in an instance."

And so it could. In any direction. She smiles coyly at herself,
understanding, perhaps for the first time, the hope of weddings in
loving not only another, but oneself and love itself.

Walking up the steps to her apartment, she realizes the pain that has
been plaguing her knee for weeks is gone.