Spiritual wisdom from Elizabeth Gilbert

Jan 10, 2008 | Hope & Encouragement, Sovereignty, Spirituality, Women's Voice & Power, Women's Wisdom, Writing

I’m about 2/3 of the way through Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. Not only do her words make me wish I could travel through Italy, India, and Indonesia; she continues to offer up occasional paragraphs that let me pause, consider, and tab some pages for later-reflection (or blog posting).

My latest tabbed page was #192:

God dwells within you as you yourself, exactly the way you are. God isn’t interested in watching you enact some performance of personality in order to comply with some crackpot notion you have about how a spiritual person looks or behaves. We all seem to get this idea that, in order to be sacred, we have to make some massive, dramatic change of character, that we have to renounce our individuality…To know God, you need only to renounce one thing – your sense of division from God. Otherwise, just stay as you were made, within your natural character.

She goes on to say that she likes to imagine herself this peaceful, ethereal, super-spiritual, and quiet woman. But in reality she is erratic, fast-moving, earthy, talkative, and even loud!

She wonders about finding God in the very person she most truly is vs. striving toward the more perfect self she’s daydreamed or convinced herself she ought to be.

Brilliant! We all ought to wonder the same.

Just stay as you were made. There’s a statement that flies in the face of how most of us live each and every day! It’s also a statement that eloquently and powerfully invites us to embrace that we are, indeed, made in the Divine’s image – just as we now are, not as we’ll one day be. It invites us to stop our striving and struggling to be perfect, more of something, anything, everything! It invites us to take inventory on who we most truly are and wonder how we might just find God dwelling right there – in us – now.

Just stay as you were made.

Oh, how I long for that to be true. It lets me breathe easier. It lets me think that perhaps I can be kinder to myself (and others, as well). It lets me consider that maybe, just maybe, God is closer than I think and that I don’t have to strive nearly so hard to know God’s presence, God’s compassion, God’s love.

Just stay as you were made.

Could it be? May it be!

For it was you who formed my inward parts;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works; that I know very well…(Psalm 139:13-14)

Just stay as you were made.

May it be so.

Happy 47th Birthday to Me!

Nov 30, 2007 | Hope & Encouragement, Mothers and Daughters, Sovereignty, Women's Voice & Power, Women's Wisdom, Writing

After writing posts for both of my daughters on their birthdays, I thought it only fitting that I do the same for myself!

Happy Birthday to me!

This has been a full, rich, painful, beautiful, long, amazing, surprising, miraculous, arduous, labor-filled year. I have known many tears, much frustration, and deep anguish. I have also known more laughter and life than ever before. I have been struck again and again by how amazing it is that both can coexist and frankly, be enhanced when juxtaposed to one another.

I’ve had many conversations with Emma and Abby this past year about what it means to let more than one thing be true at the same time: disappointment and hope, sadness and joy, frustration and desire. And this has been a year of that being enfleshed within me – on their behalf, certainly, but powerfully, on my own.

I have found much strength within me these past twelve months; strength that has enabled me to make difficult decisions and then live with the ramifications of such, strength that has allowed me to survive – and even thrive – in places I’d feared (and avoided) for many years. And that strength has, amazingly, not made me tougher, harder, or colder; rather, its enabled me to feel more tender, compassionate, and “present” to my own heart and the heart’s of others. I’m grateful.

Last year at this time I could have never been convinced of or prepared for the twelve months that were about to commence. Note to self: be glad you don’t know the future! Out of curiosity, I went back to the past – to my blog posts from about a year ago to see what I was writing. I came across some October, 2006 reflections on the women of Proverbs 1 and 31 that were amazingly prophetic for the year that was to come:

These women – metaphorical and real – are who I want to be: wise, listening to and living with those on the margins, gaining strength through perseverance and struggle, dignified and fearless, forever laughing with the abandon of a child. God knows and loves this woman. I am becoming this woman.

Indeed, I am. I feel more wise, more able to listen to those who are unseen, forgotten, or harmed, strengthened through perseverance and certainly struggle, more dignified, more fearless, and often laughing both with the abandon of a child – and with my own children.

I am this woman. Amazing.

That’s a year worth celebrating in the midst of acknowledging and grieving its losses and pains.

Another year older. Another year of being the grateful recipient of consistent, unpredictable, mysterious, and precious life.

White-Knuckling Clarity

Sep 4, 2007 | Hope & Encouragement, Women's Voice & Power

I got an email from a woman today. In an attempt to describe her life these days, she said, “I am white-knuckling clarity.”  I love that! So descriptive. So palpable. So familiar.

I wrote her back and told her I may blog on that three-word phrase, one that feels so indicative of what is true about women: our innate ability to persevere while bearing so much.

It would be one thing to just stay on the side of perseverance: grinning and bearing it, bucking up, holding our own. Any of those sound at all familiar? It’s another to just bear incredible weight: being a martyr, suffering in silence, keeping our truest feelings safely tucked inside. Sounds familiar too, doesn’t it?

But what does it mean to find clarity in the midst? And what about white-knuckling clarity? This woman is choosing to hang on, but not just for the sake of such. She is hanging on so that she can discern where she is, who she is, how she is to be. She is choosing to stay in the tension between persevering and bearing weight. She is holding on tight and keeping focus. She can acknowledge the high-stakes reality of life and the need to see and act with discernment and wisdom.

I could go on and on about this tension, this dualism, this so-very-familiar reality. But where I go for the sake of my own clarity is to the metaphor (and experience) of birthing. A natural miracle that is inherent only and powerfully to women – and not just those who physically give birth. All women instinctually bring forth life. To do so requires much perseverance and the bearing of much pain. To push new life into this world a woman must hold tension. She acknowledges the high stakes and acts with innate focus. She will persevere. She will bear much. She has white-knuckled clarity. Life is the result: hers and that of what she alone can bring forth into this world.

So, for those of you who are living in this tension – the temptation to just persevere or that of hunkering down and enduring endless labor – hang on! White-knuckled clarity is what you know best (whether you can believe it right now, or not). Hang on, stay focused, breathe, and trust in life! It cannot not arrive. Birth is inevitable. New life will come in and through you.

So I say, bring it on! I’m willing to keep pushing – white knuckles and all – even without an epidural! Life’s the result and that’s worth everything!

I went to a Power Lunch today

Aug 2, 2007 | Women's Voice & Power

I went to a Power Lunch today.

I know what you’re thinking: “Really, Ronna?! Are you now going to buffet luncheons and handing out your card, trying to drum up business?” No. Not that I shouldn’t be. There can be much value in that activity when done strategically and in the right groupings.

This was something far different. I sat in the Board Room on the 76th floor of the Columbia Tower in downtown Seattle. As you might imagine, the view was spectacular. If the unencumbered vista of the Puget Sound and the Cascade mountains weren’t enough, the Blue Angels were rehearsing around us for an upcoming performance. What a venue! And no buffet! We were served (as it should be, frankly…).

But that’s only the start of things!

I sat at the end of a long table surrounded by 12 amazing, powerful women. (Get it?! “Power” lunch?) We spent over 90 minutes together laughing, asking hard questions, reflecting, dreaming, inviting ourselves and one another into the most delicious, tantalizing taste of fuller, more abundant life.

I found myself caught up by the beauty of the view and the beauty of the stories by which I was surrounded. I found myself so curious about the lives, hearts, and dreams of these women. I found myself wishing for more and more contexts in which these kind of conversations with these kind of women could ensue!

Before I knew it, our time ended, I descended 76 floors to the street level, and went back to work, but not without taking something with me: a deepened sense of how beautiful women truly are, how much they can and do bear, how powerful they truly are, and how deeply they dream on their own behalf and on behalf of others.

My Power Lunch was hosted by an amazing entrepreneurial organization called Working with Power. Not surprisingly, it was founded by two incedible women who truly believe that we can live, work, and love in ways that enable, enhance, and empower our innate giftings as women; not having to function counter-intuitively, but naturally, spontaneously, freely, powerfully – and easily!!!

It doesn’t take long when in their presence to know that they’ve tapped into something. They themselves are powerful, beautiful, stunning women. But what I found most powerful, beautiful, and stunning was that they deeply wanted that for each of us! What a gift. What a blessing. What a lunch!

I’d encourage you to find a way to have a Power Lunch of your own – even if it’s by yourself. Find some way to recognize, acknowledge, and celebrate that you are powerful, beautiful, and stunning.

What might happen if you and all women actually believed this about themselves? What, indeed?

What would happen if one woman told the truth about her life? The world would split open.” (Muriel Rukeyser)

I’m deeply sated – and already hungry for the next course!!!

A Daughter of Defiance

Jun 24, 2007 | Mothers and Daughters, Women's Voice & Power

I’m working on a slide show for my parents’ 50th wedding anniversary celebration. In the process, I came across this shot of my mom – taken 45+ years ago.

There’s something about seeing her in this way – young, seemingly carefree, not knowing what the journey ahead would bring – that is so profound when juxtaposed to the word above her head.

DEFIANCE.

I’m compelled by this word…on behalf of women, my own story, my daughters, my mother.

Perhaps this will be the name of my some-day-hoped-for book: A Daughter of Defiance. And perhaps this photo of my mom should grace the cover…

Tiptoeing

Feb 24, 2007 | My sort-of Sermons, Women's Voice & Power, Women's Wisdom

I can’t tell you how tired I am of tiptoeing; of having to navigate through so many potential landmines that I feel I’ve traversed twice the distance required to get to my destination.

Why do I do this? Why do any of us? 

I sat at a conference today that was really not good. I’m being kind: it was horrible. And I needed to be there. It was important that I represent my employer, that I pick up my nametag and packet of information, that I check off the appropriate attendance box. What I wanted to do was stomp and scream and make a scene. But I didn’t. I tiptoed. 

I got an email today that implicitly asked me to tiptoe instead of stomp and scream. And so I did. I actually walked through a mine field and dismantled any hidden bombs so that others wouldn’t inadvertently get hurt. And as I tiptoed, I felt small, squelched, silenced. 

I could articulate all the details, but more than anything, I’m aware of how much ruckus is created when one attempts to walk firmly, boldly, even loudly into areas that most would prefer remain hidden and quiet: feedback on poorly conceived and run conferences, needed conversation about issues of gender and women in leadership, asking for shared participation and repentance in stories of harm… 

Tiptoeing is usually seen as a delicate and endearing way of remaining unheard and undetected; like a small child who wants to surprise a parent with a hug or a handmade card. I know that kind of tiptoeing, too. But today all I want to do is put on my loudest, heaviest, bulkiest shoes and stomp, stomp, stomp. I want my thoughts, feelings, motives, and heart to be heard and understood. And I don’t want to have to gather up all the potential landmines first. 

It’s late and I’m tired. Too much tiptoeing today. I might try stomping through tomorrow…not second guessing my every step but trusting that I know where I’m going and that I can actually get there without getting blown up.