AdventURE

This for Christians is undoubtedly one of the more joyous times of the calendar. Anticipating the incarnation of God and what that means is cause for celebration. It is my hope as I relate my personal journey that you can see yourselves in parts and come a greater understanding of who you are and who God is intending you to be.

This Advent season for me had me desire to be closer to God and to love and I finally went to my first ever spiritual direction meeting. For me it was enlightening as it had me assess where my spiritual life was and my current practices and relationship with God and where I want to go. Wow where I want to go. Where do I want to go?

First I can take that literally and say heaven. However, I took it personally..I looked at Jesus on the crucifix and knew what I always wanted was to get as close to Him as possible in this life. Many detours and distractions come every day..and so it takes a conscious effort for me to go back to the goal. There are more moments of silence than I care to admit. Waiting at the checkout line, driving, working out, reading, waiting for an audition. waiting while on shoot,..waiting for you can fill in the blank. In my daily life I do and wait. If I get in the habit of inviting Jesus in the wait, I will then take him into the do.

Oftentimes I have my goals based on my highest desires and that is good. I can stick to those goals if my heart is truly in it..but sometimes with time I find my heart wants something else more and I realign. Whether I stick to some goals or realign others...we have to have patience and perseverance as the choices of others and God's handiwork unfolds. 

I know many times some of my frustrations are with things not going according to my plan. When I set my plan but relinquish control of it to God then I am open to better possibilities. Those possibilities could lead to me to my goal or other goals I did not know were important to me. I can still persevere with my original goal and am learning that it does not all have to happen now and it will all work itself out anyway. As long as my goal is truly something I desire in essence a very high desire that I will meet at all costs then it will happen...if something else is more important than that is an indication that there are limits to my desire. But I learn and reassess and realign. My goal is to eventually have all facets and goals of my life align with what God has in mind for me.

This Advent for me is about planning, waiting and relinquishing control as I get closer to  Jesus and to God. And I am finding that approaching Advent in this way, has led me to the great mystery and that makes it the ultimate AdventURE.

Grow Up In Love

I sometimes dissect meanings of words to lead to some interesting viewpoints. Growing up is one that leads particular credence this season for me. It is my way of processing what happens as God unfolds love in my life. And this Thanksgiving holiday, I am grateful for the grace and insight of this phrase and where it has lead me to.

Growing up sometimes connotes what parents say to their children or what I have said about a past boyfriend. It can seem condescending or mean depending on the tone it is said in or it just a matter of fact. But rarely from my experience has it meant something unequivocally positive. 

Growing up can mean growing towards the heavens or expanding in a positive direction. Literally too we do grow up. But when it is meant for the inside...it can only mean a positive thing. We should always keep growing up..our soul, mind and heart expanding upwards towards infinity.

We all hold on to things and people out of fear and not love. We sometimes depend on parents long after we should depend on ourselves. We grasp and insist on our own way. Often those who claim to love us or that we claim to love the most choose their/our needs and wants over our beloveds. Those who claim to be in relationship will choose what they deem they want without consulting you in crisis moments. We or they too will recoil and withdraw in the face of that abandonment.

And its those times you realize both you and your beloved need to grow up. And sometimes it is apart and sometimes it is in relationship.

The guide should be love. Is it more loving to pull away or more loving to pull towards. Which choice will facilitate both parties growing up? If we pull towards family when they reject us or our beloved is that the most loving choice for both?

Will that allow you and the family member to grow up? It is hard to tease fear out of love but we must because it is by that purifying fire that we do indeed grow up and hopefully grow up in love.

The Season of Gifts

It always amazes me that summer seems endless when you are truly enjoying it, and then all of a sudden we are at the end of the year!

October bring all Hallow's eve and the gift of Saints. The personalities and their lives are varied but the one common thread is that they reach high above the earth and bring courage, love, humility and a reign of new miracles that complement the miracle of life we take for granted too often. Their example points us above and shows us what we are truly capable of - what a beautiful gift.

Then before you know it we come to the American holiday of Thanksgiving. This holiday is all about being thankful for the gifts we have. Those gifts may include family, friends, a loving spouse, children, health, food, material goods, a job, intrinsic gifts we have, or a faith that is so strong that even if we don't have the normal blessings listed - we know His providence still will shine the choicest blessing on us. What a gift to reflect on how much there is to be thankful for. It is such a blessing to do this that we should aim to do it daily. For everyday has gifts galore and in the most unexpected ways.

Then comes my favorite month, December. It is a glorious excuse to shower the people you love, the people that need love and everyone that comes your way that month with all kinds of gifts unique to the season. Extra kindness, patience, smiles, embraces, kind words, cards, gifts you buy and gifts you make. It is the season of gifts commemorating the greatest gift we have ever received. That our creator, our God, came to us in the form of a human, a man, and showed us how to love. Yes he redeemed us with his sacrifice and example, but he also redeemed us by showing us that love can be terrifyingly beautiful beyond what we could have imagined. The cross shows us how beautiful Love is and what men are called to. It is ironic that what seems like self sacrifice and denial is exactly what fulfills and lifts a man to a higher station. The gifts literal and symbolic this month are the most beautiful gifts of all.

May we all embrace the fall and winter seasons and the gifts that can transform us as we head into the new year. May we embrace the the season of gifts.

The Journey Toward Love

In some sense we all know that there is a choice we face every day and every situation; namely whether to choose fear or Love. The choices we make become habits and the habits become our character. Yet even a character can be changed by repeatedly making choices that go against it until new habits are formed and the habits become a new character. It can be a cycle for some but for most character change is difficult. And in relationships it becomes more poignant. We fall often but if we learn..all is not lost. If we choose fear then we are trapped.

Life, indeed God who is Love, tests our hearts. In many ways it can not be anticipated and some of us fear that mystery but unless we open we can not experience what journey Love has in store for us.

I know I do not fully embark on that journey until I am sure of who the person is and what I am getting myself into. Nevertheless, I risk more than most because the only way to know is to get involved and even if you are cautious there is emotional involvement. I can handle that and I know it is part and parcel for the course.

I think too intuitively we know whom we can open up to and trust. It surprises me that some people we spend a lot of time with and never truly reveal ourselves. It is a mystery how Love unfolds and how Love redirects. I find it fascinating and also the best opportunity to get closer to God.

And here-in is our biggest fear. To truly let God in and be in relationship with HIM. Because if we are there is no hiding and that nakedness is both sacred and scary for us at times. It is true we turn to HIM in our greatest need but in the moments when we are a little vulnerable and can let that deeper connection go, we do.

There is no question the culprit who influences us to choose fear over love is present. But the power to choose Love over fear is never very far away--it is in our hearts and the biggest help is when we get down on our knees.

God bless us all in your journey toward pure, powerful and glorious Love.

Peace be with You

It has been a long while. My life this year has been a whirlwind. It began with hopes of major changes in both my personal and professional life and they came quickly. The first was with my personal life. It is normal to get caught up in romance and put all your hopes onto a relationship. Some are valid based on the interactions, but a lot is projected. This was my particular experience.

Major decisions were embarked upon quickly and the stages of dating went from fast to very fast in the course of 3 months. My day job had unique challenges as well and the weight of the crazy work environment finally took its toll on my health and my emotional well being. My relationship was a significant support during this challenging time.

Then some long anticipated changes began being possible, with-in reach and set in motion. I moved to So.Cal in Mid- May and the shock waves of rushing a relationship during the next month and a half were settling into my bones. After some quakes, a rupture finally happened. Emotional fall-out is normal, and the breathing room necessary to discern was finally created.

It's odd that what often seems like a set back whether it's losing a job, losing a relationship or losing anything you thought you had--can turn out to be the biggest blessing possible. The pain of loss is real but the space created makes you re-evaluate the situation..see why and how things happened to create the loss and then act on any remedy that seems possible and prudent.

For me loss also creates the space to truly invite God in more deeply, to pour myself into him and feel the peace that comes. All we have is today and in the sweet surrender to God...we find our guilt, our blessings and our needs. And HE gives us his mercy, his assurance that we deserve not only the blessings we have but even more, for HE is a generous God. And, he fills the void of our needs by opening the many doors spiritually, emotionally and physically.

I can never say how or when HE communicates with each unique individual but Love/God is always the same. May we have the courage to reach for HIM during our little and big changes and in the changes we plan and the ones we don't. Life is truly a gift, and one of the sweetest fruits of heart-felt prayer is peace. Peace be with you.

GOD is Gracefully Pro-Choice Making Beautiful Pro-Life Possible

This is an emotional weekend for most pro-life advocates in the bay area. Pro-life what does that mean? Well in the popular culture it means we value the life of the baby in the womb. We value him/her at the moment of conception as a life. Can he/she survive on its own? No. But neither can a baby after it's born. She/he still needs her/his mother/caretaker or they will die, and they are dependent for quite some time.

But I argue pro-life means valuing EVERY life. Planned, unplanned, down sydrome, criminal, Muslim, gay...the list is endless. The moment we say one life can be ended because of xyz we become a Conditional Pro-Life movement. I recently saw Les Miserables..the movie. I had seen the play many years before. As much as we love the moral, we shirk the responsibility of what it means to be a Christian.

When we advocate for a criminal whether it's a Jew in hiding in Nazi Germany or in a small Church where a priest líes to defend a thief, the message is the same. It is not about man's law. It is all about valuing LIFE. It's not about the second amendment and the real roots of why that came to be. It's about why is someone else's life worth less?

We make judgements about whose life is worth less..and when we do that we make God's pinacle creation worthless. We are humans capable of great good and yet evil is present in us. Do we condemn our Creator for giving us that condition and freedom? Every time we judge one being less than another, every time we want to control people so that they don't end a pregnancy or don't go to war or don't have the right to guns, we deny our God given right to choose.

Of course there are and should be laws---but in the end if love/God weighed the most in our individual decisions, we would not be fighting for this or that as much as we do. We would always be PRO-LIFE -- FOR pro-choice, anti-gun, pro-peace, occupy wallstreet, pro-life, NRA, Just War, Free market (the labels never end)advocates. Because in the end we all have LIFE, the gift we as Christians believe God gave us, and that is this what it means to be PRO-LIFE.

God bless us as we struggle to live out what our hearts dictate. God bless us with courage and confidence to love when it is most difficult. God bless ALL life...no matter how it is created, in what stage or the choices we judge it makes.

When we judge human life and all the varied forms...we judge God--and who are we creatures to judge our Creator. HE gave us choice from the very beginning knowing we would make mistakes and yet he deemed that freedom still good. We are not called to judge people even if we have to judge positions and actions. We are called to witness and love.

Let us remember how the angel asked Mary to participate with God. It was not thru force or a threat or thru education...it was thru humble supplication. May we learn from this example.

Yes in the end most of us do not choose LIFE in some moments but that should not dishearten us. We should praise God/Love for being gracefully PRO-CHOICE because that makes the beautiful PRO-LIFE possible.

The Culture Wars--a short reflection on MLK day.

I have thought often that a show on the Culture Wars that invites dialogue instead of an us against them mentality would be so beneficial to society. Some of us sit the whole conversation out...because it is a war. There are wars of words, hateful and judgemental emotions, threats such as losing your job or friends and it is no wonder so many sit it out in the public square.

Those who do participate often are caught up in the judgemental rhetoric. I get emails from pro-life and pro-marriage groups that are sometimes encouraging but often they say couch their language with words such as outrage, fight, and paint the opposition as pure evil with a cold and calculating agenda. I sometimes wonder how much of that is just a projection of the way the themsleves function. Regardless, most of it leaves me cold and I have no desire to support them monetarily.

As we approach MLK day let us remind ourselves that fighting unjust laws or fighting to prevent unjust laws can have the face of courage that embraces self-sacrifice, vision, and love.

God bless us all in our quest for truth, love and true freedom.