I just started a fresh journal, a plain white book contained in a durable leather cover. I know that the pages within are going to house some pretty remarkable observations this year. As such, I decided to begin the first entry in a manner I've previously reserved for moments of extreme self-realization or questioning.
I opened my first entry in prayer with the words "Dear G-d."
I think I'd like to share some of that first entry as a way of assessing where my beliefs lay today, the day before I leave for Orientation and then finally journey to Peru.
Dear G-d,
To the being and presence I devote myself to, the G-d who creates and destroys - I am here, I am listening. You know all this - it seems funny to even write to... You.
You have known these thoughts even before they were formed. I'm beginning to really understand that.
What has become tense in my heart is my inability to share with others how happy and overjoyed I am that I believe in G-d. How can I share this? I know I can and do through my actions - simply an expression of the love I feel.
But how can I invite others to have a loving relationship with their creator? It removes people from inward hate and outward vain. It restores my soul to simply accept the love of G-d.
Why do I feel it? How?
I feel fortunate in that I was always given an open invitation to believe - never a rigid expectation to accept certain mysteries as fact.
I have been able to maintain the mystical, magical elements of a faith that has so easily become a concrete, immovable and exclusive doctrine.
I experience the freedom to layer the stories and messages I've learned from Christian spirituality with a personal devotion to nature, physical meditation through dance and yoga and contemplative meditation found in other faiths of the world.
I believe that every living creature came into being through a loving creator - a presence among this universe that cradles all.
I believe that there are answers available to all of us - answers that are revealed not when we demand them but when we accept that we are not in the driver's seat.
I believe that giving up control is an answer in and of itself. A truly liberating answer to so much of this...
Giving up control is not a state of passivity. No. It is an active state of listening, openness and curiosity in living and breathing in a new way.
I am less afraid to relinquish my own expectations because I believe in a loving G-d who directs my life and cleaves out each passage of self-awareness.
I am learning to really trust the life that I have been given, the path that G-d has laid out for me.
And even my most controlling and ambitious moments were provided by G-d so that I may experience the sheer joy and relief of letting... it all... go.
My resistance has all been part of the design - so that I may witness with my own understanding my life truly resting in its place. I was always where I was meant to be and now I have an even more glorious view, a more clear vantage point.
In this new place, I'm asking less "Who is G-d?" and "Why am I here?" but more "How do I share this with the people I love?"
How do I articulate my beliefs? beyond actions? or is that really the best way?
All I know is I believe in G-d and I will tomorrow. And despite the three over-stuffed bags of material items I'm bringing with me to Peru (which do not include my family's dog Mikey, as pictured above), the most concrete aspect of myself that I can bring is my growing relationship with G-d.
I opened my first entry in prayer with the words "Dear G-d."
I think I'd like to share some of that first entry as a way of assessing where my beliefs lay today, the day before I leave for Orientation and then finally journey to Peru.
Dear G-d,
To the being and presence I devote myself to, the G-d who creates and destroys - I am here, I am listening. You know all this - it seems funny to even write to... You.
You have known these thoughts even before they were formed. I'm beginning to really understand that.
What has become tense in my heart is my inability to share with others how happy and overjoyed I am that I believe in G-d. How can I share this? I know I can and do through my actions - simply an expression of the love I feel.
But how can I invite others to have a loving relationship with their creator? It removes people from inward hate and outward vain. It restores my soul to simply accept the love of G-d.
Why do I feel it? How?
I feel fortunate in that I was always given an open invitation to believe - never a rigid expectation to accept certain mysteries as fact.
I have been able to maintain the mystical, magical elements of a faith that has so easily become a concrete, immovable and exclusive doctrine.
I experience the freedom to layer the stories and messages I've learned from Christian spirituality with a personal devotion to nature, physical meditation through dance and yoga and contemplative meditation found in other faiths of the world.
I believe that every living creature came into being through a loving creator - a presence among this universe that cradles all.
I believe that there are answers available to all of us - answers that are revealed not when we demand them but when we accept that we are not in the driver's seat.
I believe that giving up control is an answer in and of itself. A truly liberating answer to so much of this...
Giving up control is not a state of passivity. No. It is an active state of listening, openness and curiosity in living and breathing in a new way.
I am less afraid to relinquish my own expectations because I believe in a loving G-d who directs my life and cleaves out each passage of self-awareness.
I am learning to really trust the life that I have been given, the path that G-d has laid out for me.
And even my most controlling and ambitious moments were provided by G-d so that I may experience the sheer joy and relief of letting... it all... go.
My resistance has all been part of the design - so that I may witness with my own understanding my life truly resting in its place. I was always where I was meant to be and now I have an even more glorious view, a more clear vantage point.
In this new place, I'm asking less "Who is G-d?" and "Why am I here?" but more "How do I share this with the people I love?"
How do I articulate my beliefs? beyond actions? or is that really the best way?
All I know is I believe in G-d and I will tomorrow. And despite the three over-stuffed bags of material items I'm bringing with me to Peru (which do not include my family's dog Mikey, as pictured above), the most concrete aspect of myself that I can bring is my growing relationship with G-d.
