Simplification

 "Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication." ~ Leonardo da Vinci

 

Unfolding understanding may appear intricate at times, but it's a rather astonishing thing when clarity arrives.  Things are what they are.  And you see it.  You may not see everything, but you don't actually need to.

There's a lot of talk about truth these days, how to find it, how to know it, how to tell it.  It is not entangled.  It simply is.  Deeper truths are spiritual.  Deeper truths, you feel.  

Even so, this is our human journey.  Shallow "truths" demand our attention.  They can even be captivating.  They may indeed be true, or they may actually be false.  Or often they are some combination of the two.  

The simple path is liberating.  Suddenly things deepen.

 

 

Forest Path photo by Susan Larison Danz.

All the Angry People....

"...but angry people are not always wise..." 

~ Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

Lately, I cannot help but notice...the "world situation" is making any number of people angry, and in very personal ways.  Because world situations are always very personal - they have to do with human life.

It is indiscriminate, the outrage.  If you are angry about something, and the more openly you express that anger, I can just about guarantee there is someone across "the divide" who will match it willingly, or even without thinking.

Sure, I have felt it, I have at times expressed it.  Openly.  And not so openly.  But I'm thankful I have gradually learned throughout my life to find a way to deal with it (even if imperfectly).  I'm dealing with it now.  Right here.  Right now.  Because something made me angry earlier today, and I consciously chose a different approach.

I claim no particular expertise, except to know what I have observed:  When we are angry, we are generally judging more than we are observing, and we are very rarely breathing, or at least not particularly well.

What if we could do our best to put our anger on a shelf and decide to understand instead? 

What if we could actually make an attempt to glimpse the other side? 

Wouldn't that be astonishing!?! 

(OK, fine, that last remark was just a little bit angry, because you see, I'm just a little bit angry about the anger itself and what it's doing to our lives and to our society.  I choose to see mine too, when it arises.) 

What if you could try on someone else's shoes by trying on their hearts?

You might begin to hear.

And some of "them" might very well begin to hear you too.

I must include a warning.  It takes a lot of courage to "try on" someone's heart, to allow yourself to understand.  Because the absolutes begin to fade, and that can feel uncomfortable - if you decide to tell your friends, some of them might choose to judge you, and you need to let that go. 

The starkly outlined blacks and whites begin to shift.

Some say they blur to shades of gray.  And you may see the gray at first, the mind sees gray, you may only see the gray, the mind sees ambiguity.  Keep going through the gray, keep going, keep on going (this is a very important step, it's still in process for me too).  Because when you keep on going, when you consciously choose to understand, you begin to see the colors, at first they come in softly.

There is a knowing that is impossible, yet real.  It embraces every contradiction of the mind.  It is a knowing that can only arise from Love, from heart to heart to heart to heart.

And the anger falls away.

You can look into "their" eyes, completely, without flinching...you can look into their eyes and See.

And the tears begin to flow.

The New Earth doesn't exist on one side of the bridge or on the other.  The New Earth is the Bridge.

Mirror, Mirror

Love yourself enough to authentically BE who you truly are.

Somehow my morning posts transitioned to night, but I'm determined to do my best to keep writing even though it's late and I'm tired.  It seems the lesson to which I keep returning lately is simply Let It Be.

Tonight I find myself reflecting upon the topic of mirroring and authenticity.  I have a tendency to mirror people I'm talking with, and it's something that has been with me a very long time.

When in balance, I sense it's a form of empathy and understanding, a way of gravitating towards those things which mutually resonate, surfacing those aspects of yourself that genuinely overlap with another person.  They say when we imitate body language, for example, it can actually be a way of developing rapport.

I used to travel often to the Ozarks in Missouri, and before I knew it, I just couldn't seem to help taking on a bit of a twang in my voice when enjoying a conversation.

Yet how do we know when mirroring is out of balance?  How do we know when we are masking our authentic selves?

As I have been writing, I literally heard them say on the radio "You've got to love yourself."

That says it all.

The Mirror of Intolerance, The Mirror of Understanding

Although the focus on Chick-Fil-A appears to be waning somewhat today, it is not so much this particular controversy that is significant, but what it has to say about not only a significant rift in our society, but a rift within our hearts.

Whether we characterize what surrounds the Chick-Fil-A controvery as a freedom to speak, freedom to act and/or freedom to marry issue, we can choose to view it as an opportunity for battle or as an opportunity for understanding.

I grew up and spent parts of my adulthood immersed in the evangelical mindset, though my anguished doubts prevented that mindset from fully taking hold, even as a child (I believe many people have such doubts, yet are afraid to express them). 

To better understand why so many people refuse to tolerate that which they have been emphatically told is forbidden, one must look within their hearts.  Are the majority of these people truly hateful?  No, I would say they are not.  But they are indeed fearful, fearful most of all not of what resides in the hearts and inclinations of strangers, but what resides within their own hearts and those of their loved ones.

And it is through this secret that the true key to healing can be found.  Healing society begins with healing a single heart, one person at a time.  And as Consciousness expands, many hearts miraculously will be healed, not through confrontation, but through Transformation.

I could choose to focus on why Fundamentalists feel they must follow the rules in the ways they have been told they must be followed, based on many years of my own experience and reflections on such things.  The rules they choose to emphasize shift with the times, the teacher and often selective amnesia unfortunately, as there are countless rules to choose from in the Book they have literally elevated so high that this Book has been thrust above even their Creator.  And though they feel they are saved from the rules by Grace, that doesn't mean they can elude them, as their lives must reflect the rules, lest they appear they were never saved at all.

It is a subtle irony that the rule against idolatry is the very rule being broken to deify the Book - idolatry elevates an object over the direct Guidance of God, the direct Guidance to be found in every heart, the very hearts they are told not to trust, instead placing blind trust in a Book (because the Book tells them so), with penalties for getting it wrong severe beyond imagining.  I say this not to judge, but because I love them enough to speak.

And that's when compassion and understanding must come into play, as we disarm our inclinations to fight and discover a way to understand, a way to truly heal that which ails so many in our society, their denial, doubts and hidden anguish masked from view.

The real reason many cannot tolerate that which is seemingly different from themselves is that it's actually not all that different after all, the secrets hidden in their hearts rebelling not against God, but against a Book, not against what is unnatural, but against what is natural, including just about ALL forms of sexuality.  It is a rebellion against their very selves, which they are told are evil to the core, when in truth at the core is God omnipresent.

And next, all they must do is look to a loved one - a child, a sister, a brother, a dear friend, a neighbor breaking "the rules", yet exhibiting selflessness, compassion and love for their fellow mankind - and the agonizing discrepancies they perceive are almost more than they can bear, because Love is in their hearts resisting fear, resisting judgment, resisting words on a page that do not resonate.

So when they can't resolve this inner conflict within, they externalize it to "the other", to that stranger they are told to disavow, even when it's really none of their business what vows or choices others choose to make.  When they infringe upon the choices of others in a free society, the choices others make regarding their own lives, their own marriages, their own bodies, they enslave society itself to their hidden anguish and dysfunction.

If we address and heal the rifts within each heart, it is then that we will truly heal the rifts in society.  The real battle is within, yet as Consciousness expands, victory is within our grasp, for ALL of us, triggered by the omnipresent Love of God within.

This Tuesday I will be talking to inspiring author Mark David Gerson on my radio program The Frontier Beyond Fear.  Mark David writes poignantly about his own coming out as a gay man in his newly released memoir Acts of Surrender.  Mark David has also written from the heart in his blog regarding what he sees in the Chick-Fil-A controversy.  I know it is going to be quite a conversation.

[Note: Waffle Fries and Holding Hands photos originated from Wikipedia Commons and are used under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.]

September 11: Choosing to Forgive

A year ago today, I wrote a spontaneous, heartfelt essay on my personal recollections and reflections on the impact of September 11. The expression of my journey guided me to the following words, worth repeating today. You can read the entire essay here.

"In retrospect, I now realize the tremendous gifts fear gave to me. It was fear that led to my heartfelt prayer to the Creator of the Universe, tearfully begging to be shown "the way", whatever it might be.

And the way was indeed shown, though it took years for me to begin to understand, a journey of progressive understanding that continues on this September 11 too, nine years later.

The way had to do with unconditional Love. The way had to do with unconditional Forgiveness. The way had to do with lasting Peace.

I have not forgotten what happened on September 11, 2001. I have not forgotten on a personal, national or global level. I have not forgotten the many people who died that day. I have not forgotten the many people who died in the days and years that followed, on all sides of the resulting wars, including many innocent children and civilians, in addition to soldiers. But there is a difference between forgetting and letting go.

I am finally finding a way of letting go the fear of those days. And it's been quite some time since I have felt any need for vengeance. Instead I have discovered understanding. Instead I am really beginning to see what true faith, forgiveness and unconditional Love actually ask of all of us.

When you begin to look through eyes of understanding, you realize that the entire event on September 11 (even if you believe in alternative theories on the subject) resulted from centuries of fear and vengeance, something that drove a few misguided people to commit an act they felt was justified by their own convictions.

We can question those convictions of course, but can we even dare to try to understand what might have made them feel this way? Can we even dare to end the silence of tolerance (which need not be silent at all)? Just as we expect the tolerant in other countries to take the lead in educating those in their midst, can we dare to take on the responsibility of educating and enlightening those in our own country plagued by eerily similar fears?

Wars breed more wars. Any student of history can see that this is true. Fear breeds more fear. Vengeance breeds more vengeance. Blame breeds more blame. Anger breeds more anger. Death breeds more death. This is true on both sides of any conflict. And sometimes the cascading domino effects of war go on for centuries. This is what happens when we choose not to forget, when we choose not to let go, when we choose not to understand, when we choose not to forgive, when we choose not to Love.

We have a choice. We can indeed choose to Love. We can indeed choose to Trust. We can indeed choose to Understand. We can indeed choose to Forgive. We can indeed choose to place our Faith in the Love that binds us all together on this Earth.

That is where I place my Faith tonight. I have released the angst of September 11, and I no longer believe reacting in fear has anything to do with Faith or Love. I have not watched a single news report today. I honor those who died, just as I honor those who died on every horrendous day, days that continue in some parts of the world, impacting people of many nations, not just ours.

I'm going to dinner in a while. I choose to visit a small family-owned restaurant run by a Moslem married to a Christian (not sure if she converted, either way is fine with me). I happen to know that these people have personally felt an impact from the fear and unreasonable bias that still have a strangle-hold on some who claim to be all about forgiveness, but are actually more interested in judgment, vengeance and a a skewed nationalistic furor instead (something that has led to more wars and death than can be fathomed). I look forward to a nice meal of spicy lamb tajine, a favorite of mine.

I invite you all to dine with us at the table of Universal brotherhood, sisterhood and Unconditional Love.

Understanding breeds more Understanding. Tolerance breeds more Tolerance. Forgiveness breeds more Forgiveness. Love breeds more Love. Joy breeds more Joy. Peace breeds more Peace. Faith breeds more Faith.

I have unwaivering Faith that true Peace on Earth will soon be in our midst."

My son and I dined at that wonderful Moroccan restaurant on Friday, now a favorite of his too. As a parent, I choose to teach tolerance and understanding, not vengeance and fear.

May all of our children learn these lessons well. And yes, I do believe they will one day know Peace, as miraculous as that may seem.

That day is coming soon...for all of us.

~ Susan Larison Danz

Awakening my Authentic Voice (...Again!)

I'm going to take the symbolic opportunity of Easter to resurrect my voice in this blog. For too long, I have viewed writing here as a far more involved exercise than it needs to be, surprising since in the past I have been known to write pages and pages and pages (and even more pages) per week on the Oprah discussion forum.

I think much of the blockage has had nothing to do with this blog at all, as even on the Oprah forum I have grown silent.

It has to do with finding a way to express my authentic thoughts with honesty, yet in a way that I feel helps foster peace, not division.

Ultimately I realize that it has much to do with my intent. It is my intent to be an individual contributing in my own way to peaceful co-existence on the planet. Yet if I avoid honestly expressing my genuine thoughts, even openly exposing wounds I seek to heal, there is not much point in expressing myself at all.

We will not discover peace through suppression of authenticity. We will discover peace through seeking to understand authenticity, even when we don't completely agree.

So I'm awakening this blog and my spontaneous voice once again. I hope to visit here often in the days and weeks to come, free from excessive editing, just authentically me. I'll even include authentic unpolished pictures from my genuine Oregon garden.

I will keep this entry short (in itself a novel approach for this blog! :-), but I invite you to visit a radio program I created earlier today ~ a quiet, contemplative time in which I expressed my hopes in finding common ground as we explore powerful Easter messages, transcending the often contentious particulars of specific beliefs ~ Easter Reflections on Love and Transformation.