Toss me the Ball, will ya?

It's been one year since I started my Oxygen Church blog. I'll never forget, it was Thanksgiving Day 2009, in the morning, and it poured out of me.

As I reflect on a year's worth of ideas, thoughts, musings and writing, I'm thinking about ideas, and creativity, and how often the sparks come so quickly, romance me and sweep me up. But sustaining the energy, generating more impulse, and feeling the drive to take ideas to the next level - yeah, not so much.

I suppose I get "high" from the pushing out of an idea, but so often I'm left flat, confused & unsure of where to go next. I mean, it's just me and the creation, together, eye to eye - what do I say to it? How do I inspire it? How can I get it to make me breakfast?

How will anything following an initial creation feel as fantastic? What could bring me that level of bliss, after such a birth?

I'm a generator of sorts, an entrepreneur, the CEO of the "Berman Think-Tank." I'm being honest here when I say that I really don't want to follow things through. Can't someone else do that? But alas, I get so frustrated and annoyed and angry when I feel like things aren't moving and growing. But it's my job to keep things going, right?

Arrrggh!

I must remember that everything is always moving and growing, even when I feel fixed and inactive. Why do I so often forget that? I'm like a 40-something...eh uh...I mean, a 20-something first learning the Art of Patience.

Doesn't the story go that God created, marveled and then threw us the ball? Very simply put, but I wonder:

Am I marveling? And do I ever consciously throw God the ball?

If, in my reality, God & I are having an ongoing co-creative game of "catch the ball", it's not EVER possible to forget that I'm always moving and growing, and that my ideas have Life, that I'm active, and engaged, and conscious, and energized (with stinky pits) but you get what I'm saying, right? I'd be in the God Game, huffing and puffing sometimes, but still - BREATHING.

I never consciously throw God the ball, I'm too controlling I must admit. So perhaps for me, it's sometimes "Be Still and Know", and sometimes "But Still ... But Still ... OK, OK. I Know".

It's a practice, on so many levels, and if the one thing I take from today's Oxygen Church musing is "stop judging yourself!" then I'm off to a good start. The Game is on! So for now, I'm off to the school gymnasium; I have some things to learn, and I'm working on my throwing arm. Plus, I hear knee-high tube socks with those stripes are back in style. Oh yeah.

I Cannot Tell a Lie

It's true. I cannot tell a lie.

If you're looking to plan a surprise party, I'm not your gal, believe me. If you want my opinion about something, just ask. If you want to know who finished the Mint Chip, it was me.

I cannot tell a lie. Well, I actually can, and that gets me into a lot of trouble. You see, it's been challenging for me in my life to own up to my misgivings, to take responsibility for my actions. I'm about 3 1/2 when it comes to this stuff. I'm realizing just how much I fear the consequences. Really, what could happen, someone might get mad? I'd get fired? I could get sent to my room?

So I lie to myself, I make up stories about the story. Change it around a bit (who will know anyhow?). I pretend things are different. Twist and turn the idea of it all. Anything so I won't get into trouble, see others get mad, be the cause and reason for the world's demise (yes, it’s all MY fault).

The truth as I know it is that when I'm not owning my responsibility for any given situation, I'm not being honest with myself, and with others. I’m denying the honest truth of me and it's not the position of service I choose to be in. My denial process sort of elongates and perpetuates the untruths, & keeps all the good, juicy stuff at bay. I guess my process is a tight little ball of past conditionings and, truth is, it's just waiting to be unraveled (and knit into a deliciously warm angora parka).

If you only knew the to-the-core guilt I felt when I tried a cigarette for the first time. I felt it was wrong but I wanted to be cool and I wanted to know what the others knew. Oh, did I torture myself for trying that cigarette. Me and Shakespeare could've written some amazing stuff together.

But if I had known what I know now, I could have allowed myself that very moment of being the kid who was experimenting, who was experiencing life. 30 something years later I'm still learning to be at ease with my decisions, trusting that I'm standing on a foundation made up only of honesty and truth. That Marlboro-y outward experience wasn’t the truth of me - The truth of me is in my cells, and no experience can take that away. Say it with me: No outward experience can take away the beauty and truth of who I am. Good.

Perhaps these types of accepting realizations are the very needed steps in our lives which allow us to move into a deepening acceptance of our inner truth and light. When we don't stand in our own truth, acknowledge all the good that we are, and know that it's okay to make our own decisions (and trusting that all the results, or consequences are purposeful), then we're surely caught up in a lie.

As I start waking up to this, I am becoming more aware of the spiritual undertoe that has been pulling me and throwing me to and fro all these years. I think it’s been kicking me (in a sweet, ballet kind of way) 'round and 'round until I woke up, to this point, right here, right now. Even as I write this, I’m even just slightly more awakened than I was a minute ago. Now that’s progress, good honest progress.

So I think: How will honesty change me? Could honesty emprision me? Will I really get into trouble if I tell the truth? Will people still like me? Will I still like me?

I guess I have to start right where I am, in this space, my own personal minute, reminding myself that I am the honest truth. I want to drive on a road paved with wisdom stones. I'm perfect as me and the Truth in my heart is love, peace, compassion, creativity, joy and success. Through this practice, I can begin to operate from this great place. I will know when I'm not being honest, or authentic, or truthful. I will know.

Imagine our world if we all operated from honesty. There would be no holding back. There would be no judgments. The air would be so clean with love and forgiveness. Truth is, we really do all go through the same life stuff, don't we? Just different details. Just details. Let's begin to own up to everything (yes, just admit you ate the last scoop).

This whole process is the kind of service my heart longs for. It knows the truth of it all and I'm learning to ease those roadblocks away because the Light longs to shine and those blocks create way too much shade for me. Plus, I always start and stop around them and it’s very unnerving.

So Come on people! Will you join me in the Honesty March? Together we’ll stride through the un-roadblocked streets of life, being the Truth, honest through and through. Making a statement, a promise together that we'll live from our very Truth-core, and trust the perfection in it all. Really, how long do you want to stay in your same old story? (Ok, that was really for me. I cannot tell a lie).

Newsworthy.

I've been told that I bury my head in the sand when it comes to the news, world events, politics.

Yes, it's true, I don't watch TV or read the news. I have had good intentions of being in-the-know, turning on and tuning in, but then I lose my interest shortly after my re-entry. Actually, it's not just that I lose interest, my body and soul actually screams "STOP IT NOW!". It disturbs me from the core. Why is that?

Someone once told me that I just don't want to look at the dark sides of myself which are reflected in the day's reports. Ok, ok, I get it. The Shadow.

But could that be the whole reason?

I have a general feeling there is nothing new about the news. Nothing new, Ever. NEVER. In my opinion, it's just different places, different people, different advertisers, different outfits and hairstyles on the newscasters. Honestly - Can anyone actually argue the point that any given turn of events happening in 2010 did not ALSO happen in 1910, 1810, 1410, the year 10, just in a different shape, size, color?

From my perspective, the constants in all the world's events, since the beginning of time, are: Nature/God and People, and the interplay between them.

But Help! What do I do?? I have to be hip, current, able to discuss politics at cocktail parties. If I watch the news like everyone says I should, then what am I asking to be informed about? The same events that have been happening since the beginning of time? My own dark sides? My desire to get lost in other people's stuff? Am I procrastinating on making changes in my own life, and do I have a subconscious desire to be advertised to?

I do take total ownership for all my cynicism yet is it in the realm of possibility that if we all, and I mean we ALL, just stop watching the news? Like, make May "Don't Report to Me" Month. Then we could begin focusing on the changes and peace which, without a doubt, needs to occur within us (we always have inner work to do, right?). I'm guessing that if we all just pulled back from the drama for a short while, we could spend more time fortifying ourselves, our families, our communities.

Now THAT's what I'm talkin' about!!

Let's look inward, then outward in High Def. Create our own commercials, advertising us and our dreams, kind of like Mad Men but without the 10am whiskey and Lucky Strikes. Be our own anchor, forget the new hairstyle and show up for work in our old stretchy pants. Create stories of ourselves newsworthy to us, our community, the world. Go to the video tape play by play of a morning peace practice. Each day, create a 20-minute segment of what our own personal world looked like today. Create generous, creative and loving news that's worthy for all. Be live from a green field reporting the big news headlines of the day, like:

"Sun shining, didn't blow up at my spouse"
"Ate dark chocolate, smiled at my neighbor"
"Gave $3 to hungry man, called an old friend"
"Started a women's group, got rid of jeans too tight for my butt"

Report your story on your own personalized teleprompter, Re-Write History, win an Emmy, Make your speech. Forget what those news people say, ignore what they report, until you feel ready and steady in your own personal and inward changes to be able to step out into the world and initiate change in your own community.

Turn off the news and turn on your life. YEAH! Make commercials that sell everyone on the idea of you, the changemaker. Smile wide at your new connection with Nature/God and people. Glow from the inside out. It'll be a whole new story. Now that's news I'm willing to watch.

From the Mouths of Babes.

At the Library recently there was a little girl in front of me in line checking out some videos with her dad.

"This is my second time seeing White Fang!" she exclaimed.

"Wow!" I said. "I bet you'll learning something new each time you see it!".

She smiled and said, "You're like my dad; he said the same thing".

Dad and I looked at each and exchanged smiles.

"Kind of like life, huh?" I said. "Learning something new every day, An adventure!"

I saw the back of her long blond locks as they turned to leave, and with that sweet little voice of promise, she exclaimed back to me, "Have a great adventure today!"

There was nothing like it.

Wind in my branches.

The wind has been furious these past few days. Its sound and movement truly frightens me, it always has. Branches are falling all around me, and then being wisked away with all sorts of other debris and soil, and the walls are creaking. Man, the whole thing is creepy.

This morning, we had no caf - coffee. Not my perfect scenario, but I took my cup 'o low-test and headed back under the covers, and with the shades pulled up I stared through the dewy window pane from my downright position, I began to think about the trees - does it hurt them, all that movement? When they lose their branches, do they feel any sort of -- anything?

The decaf was kicking in and I began to ponder life, and its movement. The breezy and sometimes harsh way it drifts and moves me, shakes me. Sometimes like a bay breeze, and sometimes like a hurricane. Sometimes leaving me stripped of all I've known, and sometimes letting me keep a little bud or two. Just like those trees outside (whether they know or feel a thing), with branches and even sometimes the trunk moving to and fro, I'm always rooted. Always. Let me say it again - I AM ALWAYS ROOTED. Not that I realize this truth as often as I'd like, but when I do, it truly shatters me in the best way.

With all the movement happening in & around me, and in all the storms that rumble up through my belly and release out into the world, I can never be without my roots. Life hurts a lot, truly, and sometimes I have no idea what direction is THE direction, or Why I am the way I am, and why others are the way they are, or Why the world is what it is, and why I should trust the purpose and interconnectedness of everything, and what exactly IS the purpose? (I honestly think if I was caffeinated, I would be way too jacked up to think this pensively at 8am).

It's still really windy out there, but as I sit and share this marvel with you I can almost envision jumping up and into that windy force and going for a sweet little ride. For just this moment I can do that and I can remember home, my roots, my sense of grounding. Not so scary. So I'm off to sail with the wind in my branches, all the way around this wild place. Definitely stopping at the market on the way back, for real coffee of course. (there's just so much thinking a girl can do).

Faithfully unexpecting.

My friend Jennifer shared something with me back in Sept and it will never ever ever leave my heart:" Maybe it's time to dust off the dream" (perhaps not the precise wording but you get the vibe). So It's the first week of the new year of a new decade and I've been reflecting on all the dreams and ideas and visions I've had in my life up until now. There are ALOT and I feel like a bit of a slacker (I'll only allow that feeling for a minute or so). I think I have been on the periphery of my own life. WOW. Let me scream it from the mountaintops - I have been on the periphery of my own life!! OK, not a bad thing to realize at all. So what to do, what do to. Hmm. Well, the truth of it is I am BEYOND grateful for my journey, for my choices, for my years, for everything. I'm 40 something (yes, I am) and I feel free from the expectation I was married to (more like shackled to) in my younger years. I can choose new paths (or old ideas I want to dust off) and jump into life in 2010 with the skills, expertise, networks, faith and confidence of right now. I'm moving in and through the much-lighter muck of my "Adventures-in-Not-Knowing", with alot more happiness and motivation in the pursuit. My knapsack is filled with faith and the road is welcoming. I do need a new pair of walking shoes, though. There will be many miles traveled on this year's road.