Back in my fundamentalist church days, I learned about the great opposition- the never-ending battle between flesh and spirit.The flesh, they taught us, was where sin came from, and it was bad, very bad- the body, its desires, its longings. The spirit, on the other hand, was where god lived. And you could not be both in the flesh and in the spirit. It was one or another. Which meant that you were, at any given time, either right with god, or wrong with god. Saved or backslidden. Godly or in the flesh.
As much as I’ve tried to delete the useless file space in my brain taken up by outdated rubbish like this, remnants of this "flesh-shame" remain. I know this because it seems that I often create a distance between me and god when I am truly inhabiting my body, when I let my desires and my fleshliness come to the surface, its as if I do not know how to let both sides co-exist and intertwine. I want new beliefs.
I want to find god in my flesh and flesh in my god. I want to believe in a god that thinks all of me is divine. I want to think all of me is divine.
I want to learn how to be exactly who I am, and know that is exactly who I’m supposed to be, in this moment. There is nothing to change or fix. No side to choose. There doesn’t have to be this relentless dichotomy. How can I be my fullest self and know that "it is good?"
Ego, ego, all this talk about ego, about death of the ego. I don't want to kill my ego! I don't want to kill any part of me. I want to live, to be fully alive- me, my spirit and my ego, one big happy fully embodied and inhabited human being, for as many days as I’m allowed. I want to own my ego, and not be owned by it. I want to own my flesh but not be driven by it. I want to fully inhabit this life of mine. I’m so tired of the relentless self-judgment- all the things I should be doing, thinking, feeling, being; 'AW, FUCK IT' is what I say.
I am ready to simply BE who I ALREADY am.
How to balance the inspired desire to grow, change, evolve with the expansive, soul-affirming desire to simply BE. For example, when meditation comes up in conversation, there is a part of me that immediately "shoulds on myself": I should be a meditator. It would be good for me. Why don't I meditate like other spiritual people? I should start meditating. It would make me more spiritual, it would make people think I’m more spiritual, I could be enlightened. Enlightenment! Ooooh....
Stop: No, maybe I shouldn't be a meditator. You know why? Cause I'm not. And maybe what I'm NOT is exactly right, too! Somewhere along the line, I picked up the man-made concept that spiritual people meditate. But I challenge that concept with the notion that just as Rumi said there are a 'hundred ways to kneel and kiss the ground,' there are a hundred ways to connect to spirit, meditation being just one of them. I connect to spirit when I walk. When I dance. When I write. Can I stop judging myself for not meditating now? Sure, someday I’d love to be all Zen and chilled, mind emptied, floating around in space with my fingers in mudras, but right now my fingers prefer snapping and typing and touching and doing other fingerly things.
So today I surrender any notion of what I "should" be. Maybe someday I will be those things. Maybe not. If not, maybe I’m not supposed to be those things.
Today I relish the divinity of my flesh, my spirit, united.
Today I surrender self-judgment and allow myself to fully expand into my own perfect me-ness. I’m not supposed to be anything else except this, who I am, right now.
Today I want my actions and my words to come from the most real parts of me- and I want to know that the most real parts of me are the very best parts of me. I reject nothing.
Filled with gratitude for the opportunity to simply exist, as me, right now, right here.
Right now, right here, right me- it's all right. It's alright! Even the wrong is right! It’s all a gift and today I open wide and revel in this simple revelation: I am.
*********
"You do not have to be good,
You do not have to walk on your knees for miles repenting.
You just have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves."
- M. Oliver
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5 comments:
This is great, LIsa! In our church, when they offer a blessing it includes the phrase, "May the work of your hands be blessed..."
So - I hope your fingerly things are blessed. I like that thought.
lisa you are perfect and Divine just as you are. The ego is the part that attempts to seperate from your soul (spiritual) self. Letting go of the right and wrong of it is this perpetual conflict of duelism. You are meditating when you dance and sing and move and swing. It is accepting the ego and knowing what it does looking to dominate the soul from expanding. I believe that when we become aware of this in the moments the ego is making shit up we can be aware of it plan and not feed the ideas that it feeds. We can take the ideas and shift them to our souls awareness of acceptance.
that blame and shame comes from this distorted perspective some humans have, attempting to repress the whole of the soul. Some people believe without ever asking themselves is THAT true. They are like sheep being lead to slaughter. I can tell you from my own experience that when you have union with spirit/soul in what you do it turns it magical in my experience. Love expressed without attachments or illusions is the only thing that is Real. SWWWWEEEEEEETTTTTTT.
Just love and you will be love, see love in all things as they are, everything is as it is. You are love expressed.
beautiful, just absolutely beautiful and right on for this preacher's daughter! I resolve that God adores me just as I am, in all my passion and all my thinking. I choose to embrace the God of the universe who I am made like and he/she/me is love!
Thanks so much for sharing your soul!
@sandywright
thank you for the beautiful, affirming comments. i'm appreciative and moved. xoxox
Love this... absolutely love this! So how are you progressing? I'm a little behind on the conversation curve here... so I need a catch me up response. ;-)
BTW, I found you off FB, we're "friends", kindred spirits.
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