Rumi and the Art of Falling and Flying

Posted on May 14, 2011 by Jennifer

This is the first poem I ever memorized as an adult. It’s by Jalaluddin Rumi, a Persian mystic poet, and translated by Coleman Barks.

The way of love is not a subtle argument,

The door there is devastation.

Birds make great, sky-circles of their freedom.

How do they learn it? They fall. And in falling

Are given wings.

—Rumi, trans. Coleman Barks

Have you ever felt the devastation of love? Have you ever ached for someone as you watched them go down roads you knew were destructive? Have you ever loved someone with such intensity that everything else fell away from your conscious awareness, like leaves from a tree? Have you ever held a sleeping infant on your chest, like a baby bird? Have you ever been rejected? Have you ever longed for union with God so deeply that you stayed up all night weeping? Have you ever chased a dream only to fall and scatter your faith and pride across the floor like a spilled treasure box?

All true love—the love of spouse, children, friends, dreams, can be devastating. It can also be sheer ecstasy. But just as tears are shed while laughing or crying, love both hurts and thrums with the joy of the adventure. And learning to love and be loved is most definitely an adventure.

***************

I watched my three sons learn to walk. I watched them all go through the stages where they crawled across the floor, reached up for a hand-hold, grabbed the edge of a table, and slowly lifted themselves onto wobbly knees. I watched those boys sway, teeter, and fall. I watched them reach for that table again. I watched them take their first steps, arms held high at the shoulders, feet stuttering and plodding. I saw the look of amazement in their faces as they stepped haltingly towards me and then rushed—no, flew–into my arms. I saw the look of utter frustration as they fell over and over again. But never once did they stay down and cry for too long. Every time they fell while learning to walk, every single time, they got up again. Now they play baseball. Now they ride bikes. Now they go to dances. Now they are in the coolest rock band around. They fly.

So when you fall, rise again. The billy club has no place in the adventure of love. Self pity and remorse have no place in the heart of the one teetering and stumbling towards freedom. You once had the fierce determination of a baby learning to walk. Your body remembers, your cells remember, your heart remembers the complete focus you had on your goal. Deep inside, your heart remembers the spunky, desperate attitude of never giving up. It remembers wanting to walk so badly it risked bloody lips, skinned knees, and endless befuddlement and feelings of powerlessness. Of course, many of us were spurred on by the waiting arms of a loving, smiling parent. So what? Our dreams are doing the same thing for us. They are waiting, with outstretched arms, encouraging us all the way. GOD is doing the same thing. He is looking “a long way off,” like the father of the prodigal son, and yearns with a love for us that is electrifying in intensity.

And we can do this for each other. Who doesn’t fall or falter? Why not catch one another instead of taking everything so horribly seriously and personally? Are we not mirrors for each other anyway? Are we not brothers and sisters on the journey? There are no subtle arguments here. There’s no room for complaining. Rise up and grab the edge of something, even if it’s the tattered edge of a childhood dream. Lift yourself up. And it’s OK to let someone else carry you once in awhile. It’s OK to let them take your hand and lead you around the room as you step, looking wide-eyed at the world. Most of all, it’s OK to fall.

***************

At least the devastation is a door Rumi says. At least it leads someplace. It’s not merely pain for pain’s sake. It has a purpose, as annoying as that might be for some of us. Believe that the place it really leads is outwards—it leads to a ledge where the leap of faith must be taken. You walk through the door of devastation only to step out into open air, a thousand feet high. But there, about 20 feet away—just across a little cloud, is your goal. You look down, you leap, and it turns out the 20 feet is an illusion—it’s really 20 miles and you end up flying for years before you land on the other side. But think of it—you’ll be flying. How cool is that? Heaven is in the journey—literally.

For the wings are only given after you fall; when you’ve left the safe nest of old, regurgitated ideas, and are hurtling straight down towards the open, gaping jaws of a cat. It’s then the wings appear. They sprout from your shoulder blades as you begin wildly flapping your arms. They don’t form however, if you simply fall—they grow out of your desire to live your dreams. They grow from your instincts for survival and greatness. You need to at least try to fly…and then grace will suddenly, and quite unremarkably (since in heaven living your dreams is common place) pull wings from your shoulders and you will find yourself rising, soaring, and circling in freedom.

Your Heart’s Desire, Part III, Paragraph 3

Posted on May 11, 2011 by Jennifer

You might be thinking: This is the third week of discovering my Heart’s Desire, and my life hasn’t radically changed for the better yet. I haven’t even found my Heart’s Desire. It’s the same old same old. To which I say: Breathe. Go slow, go far. Take time to read the Tortoise and the Hare or the Three Little Pigs. Seriously. I am not trying to belittle any concerns. There are profound and practical lessons to be gleaned from these stories and others like them. Slow and steady wins the race is crucial for me to keep in mind when the temptation to get into a manic burst of enthusiasm about your Heart’s Desire occurs. Usually these types of explosions propel us to crash and burn in a short time and we give up and complain it’s not working. Building my dreams in a solid brick house, made of persistence and faith, is much better than building my dreams in a house made of twigs. So breathe, and stick with it. The view is grand.

Paragraph 3, by Emmet Fox

But how is one to find his true place in life? Is there any means whereby you may discover what it really is that God wishes you to do? You may feel inclined to say: “Even if it be true that God has some splendid thing that He wishes me to do, and to be, how can I possibly find out what it is?” Perhaps you may even be tempted to add: “I am a very plain, everyday sort of person; my circumstances are extremely restricted; the conditions of my life are just drab commonplace. How then can there be something wonderful, beautiful, splendid awaiting me? Or, even if there were, how could I possibly get to know about it?” And the answer is divinely simple—already in your past life from time to time, God Himself has whispered into your heart just that very wonderful thing, whatever it is, that He is wishing you to be, and to do, and to have. And that wonderful thing is nothing less than what is called Your Heart’s Desire. Nothing less than that. The most secret, sacred wish that lies deep down at the bottom of your heart, the wonderful thing that you hardly dare to look at, or to think about—the thing that you would rather die than have anyone else know of, because it seems to be so far beyond anything that you are, or have at the present time, that you fear that you would be cruelly ridiculed if the mere thought of it were known—that is just the very thing that God is wishing you to do or to be for Him. And the birth of that marvelous wish in your soul—the dawning of that secret dream—was the Voice of God Himself telling you to arise, and come up higher, because He had need of you.

Commentary, Questions, and Exercises by Joseph Anthony

The secret’s out. Fox tells you what Your Heart’s Desire is: It’s God whispering into your heart. It’s the “wonderful thing He is wishing you to be, to do, and to have.” And Fox calls this process, “Divinely Simple.” There are no complicated formulas here, no mental gyrations. You simply need to learn to listen to the secret wishes that God is whispering into your heart. “But why,” you may wonder, “doesn’t He shout it out so I’m clear? Why whisper? There is so much noise and clutter in my head (heart); how am I ever going to hear a whisper? That does not sound simple.

As you have noticed, I have taken a cue from Fox regarding how he gives voice to the doubts that might be running through your mind. We both know these voices well because we’ve struggled through them to the other side. And that’s the kicker. Most of us stop when the going gets tough. We are so conditioned to have everything easy, fast, “on demand,” that when the journey starts hitting a few bumps or it slows down to a veritable halt—we jump ship. We jump back onto the computer, the TV, the magazines, the food, the money, the drugs, the lust, whatever. We run. If it stops “feeling good,” we stop. We are so trained to live our lives based on our feelings that the slightest hint of annoyance or set-back makes us stop and, like a butterfly, flit to the next flower.

This journey takes commitment and persistence—the two keys to any achievement or success.

We can take comfort in the fact that God has been whispering His wonderful plan into our hearts all along. In fact, He ever stops whispering—as long as we have a pulse—He’s calling. But like the miner who stopped digging an inch away from the richest gold mine in the world, we usually stop when things haven’t materialized the way we want them to or in the time frame we deem appropriate. We need to, with the help of friends, push through the doubts, pain, failures and discouragement that inevitably crop up. I naively think that just because I hear God’s plan the road will rise to meet me–that it will all run smoothly; that no glitches, bugs, inconveniences, snags, or otherwise negative experiences will ever happen again. And while I do believe that once we hitch onto our dream, the road does rise to meet us. However, that does not mean there won’t be frustrating days. But when I look at the lives of those who have achieved their Heart’s Desire, or that have true peace of mind, or helped change the world for the better on a large scale, all of them, without exception, went through struggles, heart aches, failures, and pain. True love, they say, travels a gravel road. But not all the time. Sometimes it’s smooth. The point is there are always ups and downs, just as the landscape doesn’t stay the same. And if we can succeed in viewing these ups and downs as helpful and instructional, instead of as good or bad, then we will achieve peace of mind even before we’ve reached our goal.

One last thing: Some might call these whisperings–intuition, and I would agree. They are the “still, small voice.” And like Elijah, we hear that voice after the storms of doubt calm, after the earthquakes of discouragement settle, after the fires of undesirable passions cool. But how do we calm these storms and settle the earthquakes or put out a fire? Discipline. We must discipline our thinking and learn to toss out the thoughts we don’t want to think. We must get into the habit of “move a muscle, change a thought.” We simply keep moving through the difficult feelings. We can lean on the strength of our friends. We can know that sometimes the weather affects our moods and so our feelings will change. We needn’t always analyze every thought or feeling. Feel the feelings and keep moving. The feelings will change, but your Heart’s Desire will not.

And the message Elijah heard wasn’t an admonition, threat, or a punishment. It was a question: “What are you doing here?” In effect It said to him, “Why are you hiding? Your life is waiting. Don’t live your life on the safe side. Get out of your cave and rise. Your life is waiting. There is service for you to do.”

So please bear that in mind. God has need of you. And if He has need of the duckbilled-platypus, the aardvark, the giraffe, and the ladybug, He has a plan for you, and it is indescribably wonderful.

Question 1: Do you feel discouraged or doubtful that you will ever hear God’s whisperings?

Question 2: Do you feel annoyed that Your Heart’s Desire has anything to do with God and listening for His call?

Question 3: Do you believe in intuition?

Question 4: What things have you dreamed of doing, being, or having that you have never told anyone for fear of ridicule?

Question 5: Are you willing to find someone–your buddy, me–someone you can trust that you can tell those wishes to?

Question 6: When you think of that secret wish what, if any, negative voices come up instantly? Whose voice is saying the negative things?

Question 7: Do you believe God has need of you?

The ability to hear the whisperings of God takes work and practice. In the next few weeks we will get into very specific exercises on how to clear the channel and learn to listen. For now, try these as a daily discipline:

Exercise 1: God speaks quietly, the negative side shouts and repeats itself constantly. Describe those thoughts that most frequently run through your head and practice, thought by thought, “tossing them out,” which means replace a negative thought with a positive one. Pick a short, positive, inspirational saying or prayer to repeat every time a nasty, yucky, fear-based, resentment-based thought comes up. Remember: progress not perfection. Just begin and keep vigilant and steadfast. And remember, you are not fighting the negative thoughts—only noticing them and replacing them with positive ones. The negative ones are often charged with strong emotions, and the positive ones might feel false, but keep going anyway, the feelings will change, guaranteed.

Exercise 2: Do something really, really nice for someone today, and do it secretly. The more I help and serve others the quieter my head becomes.

Exercise 3: Practice moving a muscle and changing a thought whenever you notice yourself getting into a fear-frenzy or find yourself feeling stuck in a warm pile of self pity or bitterness. Move and breathe.

Keep on keeping on. As the journey might seem to get harder, the fruits will soon be sweeter.

See you next week for

Part IV, Paragraph 4
of Your Heart’s Desire

Victim–the Ultimate Sacrifice

Posted on May 10, 2011 by Jennifer

The word victim used to be one of my favorite unconscious words. It meant freedom from care. It meant long, leisurely hours doing nothing. It meant permission to spend as I pleased, speak as I pleased, in fact, do anything I wanted. I say “unconscious,” because I wouldn’t go around using it all the time, but if you ever questioned me or called me to the carpet for something I was doing wrong, I would bow my head, slowly lift my face to meet your eyes, and then spill my tale of woe. I was the way I was because—because of them, because of you, because this happened or that happened, because this didn’t happen or that didn’t happen; because of anything except for myself. And the longer I lived in this place, the closer I came to completely sacrificing my life—for that is what the word originally meant in the Latin—“a living creature killed and offered as a sacrifice to a deity or supernatural power (http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=victim&searchmode=none).”

What deity was I sacrificing myself to? Selfishness. What supernatural power was I offering myself to as a living (dying, really) sacrifice? Sloth. I worshipped myself. I was an ego with legs. And whatever I felt was gospel. I did whatever I felt like. And if I didn’t feel like doing something, I wouldn’t do it. After all, I had to “honor” my feelings, didn’t I? That’s what I heard from the TV, the movies, the magazines, the internet, the guys in my men’s groups, and so on. Plus, and here’s where the sloth comes in, if I claimed victimhood, then I didn’t have to change. All I would have to say is, “Oh, I can’t help it, it’s just the way I am. I was just dealt a raw deal, that’s all.”

I truly lived a powerless life. But because I looked, from the outside, like a responsible person, and because I would do the occasional nice thing, I could rationalize and justify my slothfulness. Little did I know, or should I say, little would I let myself come into the conscious realization of–was how empty and disempowered my life really was. I didn’t even have to clean my room—as an adult, mind you—I was just a disorganized, creative, genius.

Consciousness of who I was meant work; it meant responsibility, and who wanted those? Work was well, hard, and responsibility meant more work, and thus I was in a catch-22. I couldn’t help it. It was my genetics, my environment, my addictions, my upbringing. Granted the things I most often blamed my life upon happened 20-30 years ago and I was the one still carrying them around, but that was beside the point. I was a lost, wounded cub.

I won’t belabor the point—I think you get the picture. I lived in a fantasy that I was a victim, and hence I stayed immature and self-centered.

Thank goodness I do not live that way anymore. Today I live an accountable life, aware of my motives, aware I need to make amends when wrong, aware I need to shoulder responsibility and make changes so I don’t sacrifice myself to the beast. But luckily I do not need to shoulder my responsibilities alone. Luckily I do not need to make changes alone. I lean on some pretty trustworthy and loving friends who share the load. So now, I really am free. I accept the responsibility for my thoughts (the ones I think, that is, not the ones that just zoom through), and for my actions. And my life has never been fuller. And the willingness to make changes, even difficult changes by taking directions from others, has opened the way for my Heart’s Desire.

“Yes,” you might be saying, “I agree with you about not being a victim, but what about the painful, damaging, traumatic things that really did happen? Those events clearly changed my life. What about those?”

There are no easy answers. And I mean that literally. The answers are difficult not only to hear (for some), but to live (for all). The answers involve an unremitting willingness to feel painful feelings, take painful stock of why I do what I do, make painful changes, make painful amends, forgive others–in short–to embrace the pain and then don’t hurt anyone. For there are victims in the world. I was a victim at one point in my life. Things happened to me that I had no control over. The point is I do now. With therapy, the help of friends, prayer, and so on, time has moved on, and I am responsible today to live in today—not the past—today. And today I live in victory, and I am filled with power—God’s power, and I use that power today to help others. And that’s a pretty good deal. It makes the channel just that much clearer to hear God whispering my Heart’s Desire.

The Promise of Mother’s Day

Posted on May 8, 2011 by Jennifer

Yesterday, as I was driving to Barnes and Noble to write a little bit about Your Heart’s Desire, I realized today is Mother’s Day. As some of you know my mom passed away three months ago. And as the knowledge of this day dawned, as if on cue, rain began to fall. It was a soft, gentle spring rain. On the left side of the road, however, the sun shined through billowing clouds. And as thoughts of my mother branched through my mind, my heart thrummed with grief. Yet I knew, any second: “She’ll send a rainbow.” And sure enough, just when the pangs of hurt swelled into tears, a rainbow– low, and shimmering, bloomed across the sky. It was full—with the purple particularly radiant. I hurried to park the car to get out and stare. My heart leapt with gratitude.

The rainbow, that Promise of eternal life–of ever unfolding creation in spite of darkness and tears, spanned an iridescent bridge across the sky connecting Heaven and Earth. And it was beyond beautiful. It was my mother’s love stretching down in a gesture of flowering luminosity.

And then, after about ten minutes, it began to dissolve, and the backdrop of the dark, late afternoon sky stood steely grey. But the dark clouds had been touched. The colors were still there announcing themselves through the many rooms of those drifting castles, kissing the faces of any silken-clad angels sleeping on downy beds.

And I can keep moving. She sent a rainbow, and so I, in turn, send it to you. Obviously my Blackberry’s camera does not capture the brilliance of the rainbow’s triumphant gateway, but you get the idea.

So remember, when the going gets tough; when the hurt hurts; when the memories flood your chest and cast their fragrance through the rain of your tears, there is always Light; and there will always be rainbows. Glorious, heart strumming-mixtures of rain and sun, with the rain being just as crucial to these celebrations as the light. These Promises have been made for you, for me, for all of us. Pursue Your Heart’s Desire, find your true place in God’s Universe; find your voice and instrument in His choir of Love and His orchestra of Service—and shine. Let the Light catch your tears and through them proclaim rainbows of Hope to everyone you meet.

Worrying and Fretting

Posted on May 7, 2011 by Jennifer

I used to take a warped sense of pride at proclaiming I was a worry wart. I guess I figured it showed how much I cared about the person or circumstance I was worrying over. It should be added right here, that I used to garner a fair amount of attention from being a worrier. I would worry, fret, and otherwise get myself into a tizzy of despair, only to find myself seeking comfort in various people, behaviors, and circumstances. To take comfort is human. It’s just that some people get to liking comfort so much they become addicted to it, and so create situations in their lives as to ensure the need for more comfort. Life becomes one elaborate smoke screen of negative self-indulgence. Behind the smoke the real issues lurk, like deer in the fog, or monsters in closets.

Being someone who likes playing with words, I decided to head over to the handy etymology website (http://www.etymonline.com/) and check out the origins of the word worry. It turns out worry is related an Old English word, wyrgan, which means, to strangle. What an appropriate use of the word! Worry strangles our Heart’s Desires. In fact, digging deeper into the word, it is also related to an Old Norse word, virgill, which means rope. Worry then, is a rope we use to strangle our own dreams. It’s also a frayed, twisted rope we use to connect ourselves to negative comfort-seeking behaviors, hence destroying our dreams in the process.

And even more fascinating are the roots of the word, fretting. Fretting is related to an Old English word, fretan, which was used in reference to monsters and Vikings, and it means to devour or eat away. When I’m fretting away at some concern, it’s eating away my energy to think and act creatively towards my Heart’s Desire. If this condition gets bad enough, the worrying and fretting strangle my dreams and then devour them. These are not pretty images are they?

The solution? Substitution, repetition, and action. Substitute the worry-thoughts and the fret-thoughts with positive, healthy affirmations. Repeat these every time the worry thoughts try to crowd in with their handfuls of rope. Repeat them when you’re not worrying or fretting. Record your positive affirmations on a cassette or cd and listen to them while you’re walking or about to go to sleep.

Going through a creative visualization and transforming your worries into positive images can also be a form of substitution. Once you’ve transformed them then repeat their positive counterparts.

Finally—action. It’s hard to stay really worried if I am purposefully engaged in constructive actions related to the achievement of my heart’s Desire. Move a muscle change a thought. When you find yourself entranced, literally under the spell of worry–move, get up. Dance, wash the windshield of your car, take out the trash, pull a weed, something—move your body and break the spell—let go of the rope of worry and move freely through the world.

Our Heart’s Desires are too important to be strangled and eaten. Once this happens, not only are we depressed and start that endless, empty drifting through our days, but we become victims. And that’s the next word we’ll study. Look for it in a few days.

In the mean time, inventory your worries and your blessings. Once you get your worries written down replace each one with a positive opposite. Repeat those words every day. Use your list of blessings as affirmations, and please, keep moving.

Part 3 of Your Heart’s Desire
arrives Wednesday, May 11.

A Creative Visualization For Breaking the Spell of Fear

Posted on May 6, 2011 by Jennifer

One day I had enough of being afraid of violent things happening to me. Just because I suffered from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, that didn’t mean I had to let it run my life. And in reality, it didn’t. I still functioned in the world. Some of the violent fears I had were being afraid of people breaking into my house, or of people (strangers) being in my house when I got there, or hiding under the bed, in the closet, in the shower. I used to be afraid of being shot at red lights, or in parking lots, just to name a few. But here again they didn’t necessarily own me, they just took up a lot of soul-space. I would still enter my house even while being assailed by violent images. I still took showers (you’ll be glad to know). I still drove my car, and so on. So these irrational fears didn’t stop me from living, they just stopped me from living fully. I see now, while I did suffer from PTSD, some of my bizarre fears were subconsciously designed to get me sufficiently upset so that I would run to my addictions for comfort.

One night, I was home alone and began to get attacked by these types of fears. Instead of giving into them however, and sliding head-first into a pool of panic-induced sweat, I found myself angry. I had had enough of playing these violent images over and over in my head. I got sick and tired of being sick and tired. They were draining my energy, both creative and physical. They were causing me to view the whole world as hostile and evil. They were, as I mentioned, driving me towards my addictions. In short, they were crowding me out of my own life.

And then this idea struck me that I never had before: create a visualization in which I ask the terror-thoughts to manifest themselves into beings and invite them to the table for a little chat. I couldn’t believe my mind’s ears, but I did it. My intuition was fired up. I began imagining each one of the violent thoughts as being a real person. I invited the burglar to come in through the window and have a seat at the table. I asked the weird guy under the bed to come out and join us. He got up, dusted himself off and stomped to the table. I went and opened up the closet and shoved away the shirts on hangers to find the skeleton crouched up, like a dead crow. He crackled and snapped as he rose up, stepped from the clutter, and clicked his way to the dining room. The guy in the shower shouted: “What’s going on? Why’s everybody coming out of their spots?” “Out!” I commanded, “Get out of the shower and into the dining room. Now.” He grumbled like a disappointed kid and pouted his way out of the bathroom. I also invited any stray ghosts, monsters, and all around evil-doers who just happened to be loitering in and around my house. And they all came, an odd parade of creatures, padding and dragging, and slithering and slimming their way to the table.

When we were all settled I pulled up a chair and said, “Alright guys. This needs to stop. What do you want?”

There was an uncomfortable silence among them. The skeleton guy opened and closed his lower jaw. The shower guy was using his knife to dig dirt out from under his fingernails. I winced. The thieves and monsters sat looking glum, like I had just ruined their party, and in fact, I had.

“Come on,” I said, “you all want something. Do you need attention? We’ll you’ve got it.”

“Do you want…”—I continued, but was interrupted by the guy from under the bed: “We want to be loved,” he burst out.

“Loved? What do you mean?”

“I mean loved, you know, the way you love the happy guys with wings you let hang out with you while you’re praying or sitting cross-legged and doing whatever that is you do.”

“Meditate.” I said.

“Whatever. We want you to love us like the radiant ones that live in your heart–those guys. After all, we can inspire you too.”

I looked at them all for a long time. They looked down at their feet and began sobbing. Big glops of snot plopped on the floor from one of the monster’s noses.

“You have a strange way of asking to be loved,” I said.

“It’s the only way we know how,” said the skeleton, who sat wringing his boney fingers.

The others nodded.

“Alright,” I said, “here’s the deal, I will learn to love you, all of you, as long as you stop terrorizing my head.”

“Once you start to love us,” said a green-eyed werewolf, “we will automatically stop lurking around trying to scare you. We’ll want to go to the movies with you and stuff.”

“Oh, I see,” I stammered.

“And there’s one more thing,” said a Boogyman who lived in the basement.

“What’s that.”

“Once you love us and get to know us, we’ll all want to go home.”

“Home?”

“Yes. The reason we’re here is because you keep us here, and we’d like to go home.”

“Really?” I said, a bit surprised.

The gathered monsters all agreed. They said if I could get to know them well enough, see them for what they really are, they would be free to go back into Nothing, which for them is home sweet home.

“OK,” I said, “I’ll try. Let’s start now by getting to know each other better. Let’s order a pizza. Anyone like pizza?”

And at that question the rowdy crowd began cheering and shouting which toppings they wanted, and they never terrorized me again. I have learned to love them in the same way I would a group of frightened children, and I have even been able to listen to them and let them inspire me to write or sing, and more importantly, I have learned to let them go. Sometimes I remember them and they poke their heads out from around the corner and wave. But then I just look up from the ground and blow them a kiss and move on with my day, and they vanish like deer into the mist.

Today I walk freer than ever before, especially after having made amends and gotten right with my fellow human beings. The world’s a lot less scary when I stop projecting my own misdeeds and judgments. Once you make restitution for harms done, it’s just a little bit harder to be a complete jerk, and thus there are fewer scary guys hiding in the shadows.

I am presently doing variations on this same process with my doubts and worries. I have even begun doing this for my positive thoughts. I creatively visualize myself sitting down to dinner with people I admire: Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King Jr., Helen Keller, Emmet Fox, Bill Wilson, and so on. I pick their brains and ask them questions. I ask them what they want me to do, and then I do it. I ask them, in short, how do I honor them and love them? And they are always eager to tell me how.

How can this type of creative visualization be helpful in helping you follow Your Heart’s Desire?

Tomorrow we will play with the words, “worry,” and “fretting.” So tune in then.

Your Heart’s Desire, Part II, Paragraph 2

Posted on May 4, 2011 by Jennifer

Welcome back! I’m glad you’re here. You’re one of the brave ones.

Paragraph 2, by Emmet Fox:

Whoever you are, God has not made you without a definite purpose in view. The Universe is a universe; that is, it is a unified harmony, a Divine Scheme. There can, therefore, be no such thing as a misfit, or an unwanted or unneeded piece. It could not happen that God could create a spiritual entity such as you are, without having a special purpose in view, and this means that there is a special and particular place in it for you. God never repeats Himself, and so He has never made two people alike, and it is for this reason that no two people could ever do quite the same work, or express themselves in quite the same way. That is why, rightly understood, there really need be no competition. There need be no such thing as, say, two thousand people struggling for the same place in life. Whatever the place may be, there can only be one person who can fill it perfectly; and there are one thousand, nine hundred and ninety-nine other places somewhere waiting for the other people if only they will find them.

Commentary, Questions, Exercises by Joseph Anthony

This paragraph brings me a lot of comfort. I used to feel like a misfit so I would go around trying desperately to gain acceptance. But no matter what I did, how I changed to meet your expectations, I always felt alone—like I didn’t fit in—a misfit. Luckily that changed when I truly accepted that I was a child of God.

I also appreciate Emmet’s mention of not needing to compete. If you take what I just confessed and translate it into daily, social situations, I was always competing, vying, conniving, and otherwise manipulating others for center stage. And my competitive streak went even deeper (or should I say, shallower). Since I was primarily focused on material gain back then, I would even get anxious before heading out to yard sales or garage sales, for fear I would miss buying something I absolutely needed—I didn’t know what it was—but I was missing it, and some mean old lady or eBay-junkie was going to get it!

As I said, I am not the same person I was then. Now I can rest easy in God’s care. I needn’t compete for anything, let alone my heart’s desire. Even if more than one person is doing what I want to do—it’s wonderful. I can trust that my dream will bear fruit if I am committed and faithful.

So here are the questions and exercises for paragraph 2:

Question 1: Have you ever felt like a misfit? If so, what have you done to remedy that feeling?

Question 2: Do you believe Mr. Fox when he says that there is a place for everyone, and that no part of the universe is unwanted?

Question 3: Do you feel wanted?

Question 4: What are your thoughts about competition? Is there ever such a thing as healthy competition?

Exercise: Reflect on and describe your reaction upon hearing that you are special, that you are wanted and valued, and that there is a place just for you, in the Grand Scheme of Things.

Remember: find a buddy and work through this process with them. As Piglet once said: “It’s so much friendlier with two.”

Next Wednesday–Part 3!

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Monthly Archives: May 2011