This is My Hope

You know what I find amazing about God? He doesn't belong to any one religion. As much as we'd like to think so, we can't own Him. We create all these little puny boxes, and this one's labeled "Christianity" and that one's labeled "Jewish" and that one over there is "Muslim" and right here we've got an "unbeliever" in whatever sense of the word. But what a lot of people overlook is: God is in all the boxes. But most of all, He is outside the boxes too. And once you climb out of your particular tiny box you've been cooped up in all your life, you'll see that He's a lot bigger than you ever imagined. And you'll see that He doesn't care what's inside of your box, because whether you're outside or in, He is working there. But if you choose to stay inside that box, there is a good chance you'll never see the larger picture. You'll never experience freedom and a love that embraces all things. You'll never truly grow, because that box is cramping your roots. And you're roots are trying desperately to escape the walls you're enclosed in, and if you don't give your roots that freedom, parts of you will die. Your joy, your light, your soul. If you want to find God and free your soul, climb a mountain, deconstruct that box, float down every river you come to, take every path that calls your name. Because wherever you go, God is there. And wherever God is, there you are.

8 Things I Have Learned from Eat, Pray, Love (hopefully for good)

Several posts ago, I wrote briefly about Elizabeth Gilbert's book Eat, Pray, Love and how much I enjoyed it. I also shared several of my favorite quotes, which is a very very small piece of what I liked about the memoir because I found myself wanting to quote almost everything. However, I did not share what I got out of the book personally, and, for my own benefit more than anything, I feel the need to make a list of what I got out of the book. Because I am certainly thinking and acting differently now that I have read it. If this makes any sense at all, I feel like a more intentional person, or at the very least, as if I am shifting in that direction. So here are some things that I got out of Eat, Pray, Love:

1. I don't worry as much anymore. About a number of things. Currently, I'm not worried about when I get married or who I will marry. That part of my life is best left to God because any time that I try to make things happen, it never works out. Liz jumped the gun with her marriage and found out later that it was not what she wanted at all. During this period of singleness, I am learning patience, as well as, trying to figure out who I am, what I want, and what love means exactly.

2. I'm not worried about money. I used to worry about it all the time, and I was a stingy person as a result. But I have been finding that there is joy in giving my money to benefit other people. It makes me want to keep giving more, and in the end, I always find that I have either enough or more than enough, and that God keeps on blessing me.

It is important to clarify, that I do not give so I can reap blessings from God (even though that is a nice thought, blessings, that is). My main reason for giving is because I hate the selfish, ungrateful person I become when I am hanging onto every penny and then squandering it on things for myself. Deep down, I really despise that person. It took a force of will to make myself start giving a portion of money away each month. I didn't want to. I really didn't. Finally, I asked God to please show me who I should give to because I kept coming up with excuses as to why I should keep putting it into my bank account. But giving away my money when I have bills to pay helps me build trust in God. It shows me that He will always take care of me and that I have so much to be grateful for because I live in a house, I have enough to eat, I have more than enough clothes, and I am surrounded by family and friends. Not to mention, I have several jobs on top of all that.

While I already had the above thoughts circling in my mind before I read her book, Liz seemed to validate these ideas and show them in action. And while before, I tried not to worry about money, the difference is that now I do not worry about money.

3. I find myself praying and talking to God more. I find myself wanting to have quiet time so I can discover what God is saying to me and what my heart is telling me. I want the same peace of mind, the same joy and simplicity that Liz Gilbert found from her meditation practices. I also see that peace of mind is a choice and that it is not an impossible thing to want, but if I do want it, then I am the one who must ask for it and do everything I can to attain it.

4. I find myself looking at life through a more humorous lens. Sometimes I take things way too seriously, and I miss out on a lot of fun and laughter. Perhaps I should laugh at myself more, and maybe if I smile more in general, it will start feeling more natural. This is a hard thing to do when you are already thoroughly irritated, but it's worth a shot. The old medicine man in Bali gave Liz the simplest meditation to practice: Just sit and smile, he told her.

5. I don't feel the need to criticize "religion." Well, the many facets of the Christian religion. Growing up in a Christian home, it has always been something that has hovered over me. Lately, it is not something I want to focus on anymore. I would rather work on myself and try to love people more because that is one thing I have a hard time with. Until then, I just want to forget about everything else.
In the past, when someone had a different viewpoint than me on the subject of religion, I felt a sort of unresolved discontentment. This comes from my Christian upbringing, I suppose, where one is told that we should be "evangelizing" all the time and "saving" people. I have never been all that comfortable with modern sales-pitch evangelizing, but for a long while, I felt a certain amount of guilt whenever I let a moment pass when I could have been "witnessing" to someone. And that is all I'm going to say because I'd rather not bore myself or anyone else for that matter. There is one part in the book where someone tells Liz, if someone tries to argue with you about a certain aspect of their spirituality, for instance, they are trying to tell you that their way of praying is the best, simply say, "I agree," and then go home and pray your way. I found it amazingly reassuring and relieving that I don't have to make people see my way, and I don't need to get disgruntled if they think or do something different than me. It's simply not that important. There is also a quote that I like from Ralph Waldo Emerson: "God enters by a private door into every individual."

6. Life is a brilliant adventure. What more can I say? Except that I don't feel like I'm tapping into the adventure part of life very actively. But I should start. And it's not that I should, but that I want to.

7. God does answer prayers. Sometimes in a timely fashion, sometimes not. It struck me as very awesome and very revealing that Liz's prayers were answered, often in humorous, ironic ways. Sometimes right away, and sometimes later down the road when she least expected it. But they did get answered. Somehow, and this book has a lot to do with it, I feel more confident with my prayers. When I pray, I expect things to happen. For some reason, before, it had always been a question.

8. Good things will come in their own time. Life may seem miserable and full of despair now, but if I could see several years down the road, I would see that I have nothing to worry about at all. Any pain I am feeling now, will make the good things that happen later all the more meaningful.

Eat, Pray, Love

I'm reading Eat, Pray, Love right now, and I think I'm falling in love with it. Perhaps because I feel like I'm becoming a better person as I'm reading it. The kind of person who is more sure of herself, less afraid to make mistakes, and more willing to live fully in the present. Liz Gilbert just took me on this amazing trip to Italy, and now I am living with her in an Ashram in India soaking up the wisdom that she is soaking up from the unique people around her as she learns the art of devotion, develops a yearning for God's presence, and makes me want to teleport to that very spot in India right this second. She describes her first night there, in the cool temple courtyard surrounded by the gardens, underneath the starry midnight sky, accompanied by the voices lifted up in song with the beat of the drums increasing in speed and excitement as they greet the approaching new year.

Even though I am not physically there, I feel like her experience has become a part of me, a kind of yearning for more beauty and more sacredness in my life. Because that is what I felt when I read that particular passage. I felt as if I were stepping into something sacred and passionate.

And then there are the people who speak words of truth and encouragement into her life, words that propel her on her journey of healing. Here are some of my favorites:

Teenage Indian boy: "Take seriously. Make punctual. Be cool and easy. Remember--everything you do, you do for God. And everything God does, He do for you." 131

Richard from Texas: “Stay put Groceries. Forget about sight seeing—you got the rest of your life for that. You’re on a spiritual journey baby. Don’t cop out and only go halfway to your potential. You got a personal invitation from God here—you really gonna turn that away?

Liz (aka. Groceries): “But what about all those beautiful things to see in India? Isn’t it kind of a pity to travel halfway around the world just to stay in a little Ashram the whole time?

Richard from Texas: “Groceries, baby, listen to your friend Richard. You go set your lily-white ass down in that meditation cave every day for the next three months and I promise you this—you’re gonna start seeing some stuff that’s so damn beautiful it’ll make you wanna throw rocks at the Taj Mahal.”

More from Richard from Texas:

“Big deal. So you fell in love with someone. Don’t you see what happened? This guy touched a place in your heart deeper than you thought you were capable of reaching, I mean you got zapped kiddo. But that love you felt, that’s just the beginning. You just got a taste of love. That’s just limited little rinky-dinky mortal love. Wait till you see how much more deeply you can love than that. Heck, Groceries—you have the capacity to someday love the whole world…”

Liz responds to this epic, heart-revitalizing statement: “But…I seriously believed David was my soul mate.”

Get ready for another epic piece of wisdom from Richard:

“He probably was. Your problem is you don’t understand what that word means. People think a soul mate is your perfect fit, and that’s what everyone wants. But a true soul mate is a mirror, the person who shows you everything that’s holding you back, the person who brings you to your own attention so you can change your life. A true soul mate is probably the most important person you’ll ever meet, because they tear down your walls and smack you awake. But to live with a soul mate forever? Nah. Too painful. Soul mates, they come into your life just to reveal another layer of yourself to you, and then they leave. …”

So that’s just a little taste of the book and some passages that opened up a different way of thinking to me. If you ever get the chance, this book is a great read.

Materialism, Spirituality, and Jane Goodall

The other day at work, I wrote:

I’ve been thinking about money lately. How our lives, in a way, revolve around it. How it can either trap us or free us. How it seems we can’t do anything without it. We need money to eat, travel, buy the things we want. Sometimes I wish I wasn’t so dependent on money. I wish I could be like Jane Goodall and live among animals in the forest…

I think everyone feels like that from time to time. We want to escape this chaotic structure that doesn’t always seem to make sense. But even Jane had to leave the haven of her forest in Gombe, Africa to go back to England or to teach at Harvard, or as she did in her later years, face the harrowing long weeks where she traveled the world to advocate for animal rights.

If you couldn’t tell, I am nearly finished reading Jane Goodall’s memoir, A Reason for Hope, where she describes her early life, her passion for animals, and how she came to study chimpanzees in Africa, which became her life’s work. It is a good book, very thoughtful and thought-provoking, and in one of the last chapters, in almost perfect timing with my own thoughts, I thought I found an answer (or something close to it) to the Western materialism that invades our lives and, at times, seems to box us in.

Jane aims at where such materialism began. Growing up in England during World War II and witnessing the horrors of Nazi regime, she reflects that the luxuries we now take for granted, were simply unavailable back then. At that time, however, she learned the true value of food, clothing, shelter, and life itself. Often, they did not feel it was their right to own a bicycle, television, dishwasher or other amenities that so many people find necessary for daily life.

She writes, “Of course, I understood why those who had lived through war or economic disasters, and who had built for themselves a good life and a high standard of living, were rightly proud to be able to provide for their children those things which they themselves had not had. And why their children, inevitably, took those things for granted. It meant that new values and new expectations had crept into our societies along with new standards of living. Hence the materialistic and often greedy and selfish lifestyle of so many young people in the Western world, especially in the United States.”

She continues by wondering if such young people were content with such a lifestyle? This is where I fall in sometimes. I have so much, especially compared to many others in less developed countries, but sometimes I find myself wanting more and feeling unsatisfied. When this happens, when I get caught up in money worries, I find myself wishing I could disconnect from all of it, all the concerns for money and jobs and material things I think I need.

Jane says, “Often their behavior suggested that they felt something was missing from their world. Was it, perhaps, a craving for meaning in life which had led to the emergence of the hippies, the flower children of the late 1960s and early 1970s? Was that why so many young people of wealthy parents had left their families to seek new experiences? They had tried living in communes…experimented with drugs, traveled to India in search of gurus. Desperately, or so it seemed to me, they had sought to escape from the soul-numbing materialistic hedonism of their time.”

She also speaks of the newfound or growing interest in Native American cultures and their reverence for the Great Spirit, the Creator, which I have always admired. Sometimes, I find myself wondering what life would be like, what this world would be like, if we had stayed closer to the earth, not defiled nature and instead lived in harmony with it. Of course, I think these thoughts as I am sitting in a small office, facing a computer screen.

So what is the answer? How can we forego the materialistic tendencies of our culture and become in tune with the Great Spirit that is flowing through all life, through all animals, waters, trees, and even humans?

Jane transitions to focusing on our spirits to fill the void. Her insight makes sense and is a new way of understanding “love thy neighbor as thyself.” Afterall, how can we love ourselves and live up to the standards we set for ourselves? She says, “Suddenly it seemed clearer and I thought I understood. The “self” that we had to love was not our ego, not the everyday person who went around behaving thoughtlessly, selfishly, sometimes unkindly, but the flame of pure spirit that is in each and every one of us, that is part of the Creator…That which is loved, I realized, can grow. We had to learn to understand and love this Spirit within in order to find peace within. And only then could we reach out beyond the narrow prison of our own lives, seeking reunion with the Spiritual Power that we call God, or Allah, the Tao, Brahma, the Creator, or whatever our personal belief prescribes. Once we had attained that goal, our power to connect with others so that together we could create a better world, would be immeasurably greater.”

I know that is a lot to quote, but somehow, in the midst of all my worries and musings, those words encouraged me. It put my focus, not on money or materialism, but on the Creator and what money can do to help other people. There are so many good things I could discuss from Jane’s book, (which I may get to later) but for now, I’m going to stop right here.