(audio version)

*Note: As Jesus is dying on the cross, there’s a moment when he sees his mother and “the disciple whom he loved” standing nearby. In a tender exchange, Jesus invites them into a new relationship with each other and, “from that hour the disciple took her into his own home.” (John 19:23-27, text below). Here’s a reflection on that moment and the power of everyday love.

It’s the contrast of it I keep thinking about. For Christians, Good Friday, the day Jesus died, is probably second only to Easter as the most consequential, most significant, most holy of days. A day when the world’s hatred and God’s love seemed to hang in the balance. A day when Jesus straddled the chasm between this world and the next, feeling the weight of humanity on his shoulders. A day that felt cosmic in scale. And yet Jesus was focused on something so…domestic.

One gets the sense the very angels of heaven were looking down on him, but instead of looking back, Jesus looked downward too, where he spotted the tear-stained face of his mother and the disciple tradition calls John, and says:

Woman, here is your son. John, here is your mother. Take care of each other.

It seems almost irresponsible of him to take his eye off the larger prize like this; to let himself be so…distracted. I know it’s his own mother and one of his dearest friends. But still. Surely there was something more important for him to be doing. Why not at least spend his last precious breaths addressing the crowd? Why not tell us one more time what we are to do in this life and what really matters?

But maybe that’s exactly what he’s doing. Could it be, that in this almost private exchange, we are witnessing not just a touching moment, but a teaching moment?

What really matters?
The everyday, ordinary relationships around you.

What are we to do?
Take care of each other.

I know it feels like the world has lost its mind these days. I know every morning there’s another worrying headline and the list of injustice, stupidity and greed seems endless. I know it appears that the darkness might really be winning this time. And I know you don’t know what to do, or how to respond, or how to hold it all. I don’t either.

But I do wonder if this moment in Jesus’ life gives us at least a partial answer. This moment so long ago, when the world had lost its mind, and injustice was endless, and the bad guys seemed to be winning…and Jesus focused on something so unimportant.

With the enormity of the problems around us, the global turmoil, and the endless crises, we can feel like we need to be focused on something bigger. Our small daily efforts to do right by those around us just don’t seem like enough.

But I will remind you, the darkness would love you to think that. The forces of hatred and cruelty would love you to think your everyday attempts to help your neighbor, write your representative, recycle that bottle, assist a stranger or care for a child don’t really add up to much.

Those forces would love for you to buy the lie that this world belongs to greedy billionaires and the rest of us, spending our days making dinner, shoveling the neighbor’s walk, and sitting with a friend in the hospital, are just extras in their movie.

Those forces would love you to get discouraged and lose hope because you came to think of those efforts as just distractions, too insignificant to make a difference.

Because those forces know the truth…that the healing, the wholeness, the salvation of this world, will come not in spite of such distractions, but through them. Because like water over stone, the difference they make is both imperceptible…and unstoppable.

If you would like to explore my other writing, here is the link to my Substack homepage, called The Open Gate. I also do one-on-one coaching, helping people stay sane in this crazy world we’re living in by staying grounded in their deeper Self and the larger Mystery around us. You can learn more about Soul Coaching here.

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John 19:23-27

When the soldiers had crucified Jesus, they took his clothes and divided them into four parts, one for each soldier. They also took his tunic; now the tunic was seamless, woven in one piece from the top. ²⁴ So they said to one another, “Let us not tear it but cast lots for it to see who will get it.” This was to fulfill what the scripture says, “They divided my clothes among themselves, and for my clothing they cast lots.” ²⁵ And that is what the soldiers did. Meanwhile, standing near the cross of Jesus were his mother, and his mother’s sister, Mary, the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. ²⁶ When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing beside her, he said to his mother, “Woman, here is your son.” ²⁷ Then he said to the disciple, “Here is your mother.” And from that hour the disciple took her into his own home.

For those of you celebrating Holy Week, I thought you might enjoy a video reflection I was asked to do for Holy Monday focusing on the passage from John 12 in which Jesus talks about how a grain of wheat has to fall into the ground in order to bear fruit. And even if you don’t come from a Christian background, you may appreciate the larger themes of letting go of “me” and “my” in order to find a richer, more meaningful life.

Wishing you inner peace and outer presence,

Ian

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(The lilac bushes in our backyard)

*A quick note to paid members…I still have memberships on pause, so you’re not being charged anything for these occasional posts. If I start writing more frequently, I may turn on memberships again, but I’ll be sure to give you lots of notice if and when I do. Thanks, as always, for your support. Warmly, Ian

(audio version)

The other day, for some reason, I had the idea to pretend that that very ordinary day was the only day of my life. Not the last day of my life, the only day. I did not imagine, in other words, that I had lived 57 years and hoped to live another decade or three, when suddenly I knew it was all coming to an end. Rather, I tried imagining that life (everyone’s life) only lasts for ONE day, and I was in the middle of mine.

Which, it turns out, feels very different. When I imagine this is the last day of my life, I feel sadness, regret, and a sudden desire to immediately do everything I never did. But to imagine everyone gets one day and that’s perfectly normal and I’m not getting short-changed and nothing is wrong…well, then it loses its sting. Now there’s no need to eat an entire chocolate cake, climb a 14er, and tell everyone that I’ve ever loved how much I love them. There’s just this one day. And I’m just passing through it. No past, no future. Just an experience of being alive for awhile.

It takes a little practice to move from this just being an idea to really letting it sink in, but I invite you to try. Because at least for me, some interesting things happened. I found myself, for example, standing at the counter at 1^stBank, fascinated by the teller’s intricately-decorated fingernails. And there was the tiniest little purple rubber duck sitting on her countertop that I normally would never have noticed.

Normally, I would have been thinking about my next stop, or the next day, or the next…something. Because when you assume you’re going to have hundreds, if not thousands more of these ‘day’ things, then any one of them isn’t especially special. But when you only have one of something, it suddenly becomes precious.

I think part of the gift of this was the blessed break from having a past and future. True, there was nothing to plan, achieve, dream or reminisce about - and those things can be really fun to do. But there was also nothing to worry, fear, regret or feel sorry about. When I really sank into the feeling of “My whole life is just this one day,” everything became more simple, and the world became more interesting, and I felt more present and peaceful. Even the most ordinary thing, like that little purple duck, seemed fascinating. And fascinating things, like the little purple buds opening on our lilac bush, seemed almost miraculous.

I’ve been continuing this little game for the past few days. Whenever I remember, I just pause and try to imagine this day is all I get…and when I surrender into it, something shifts. I become more awake. I want to soak in every second of every moment. I feel grateful for just about everything. And I don’t feel so consumed by the state of the world, or the direction of my life, or who did what to so-and-so. Instead I just feel a simple appreciation, enjoyment and curiosity about whatever life is presenting. Instead of turning on the radio in the car, I want to watch the world go by – the tired mom at the bus stop, the sun lighting up the clouds, even the sound of traffic is more interesting now because I can let myself just be interested in it. I’m not invested in it in the way I usually would be.

Now I know there’s a problem with this. For one thing, it’s very likely I am going to have a next day, and many of them. So a certain amount of planning ahead is required. And even if I wasn’t, I still choose to care about the world and its future and that comes with its share of worry and fear. But with the way the world is right now, that worry and fear can become all-consuming, and stepping out of it now and then to spend a little time ‘as if’ can be a helpful corrective.

Have you ever been on a speeding train looking out the window? When you look down the track at where you’re going, things seem relatively steady and in focus. Equally, if you look backwards at where you’ve come from. But if you look straight out the window at what you are passing right now, it’s just a blur, right?

Well, I think that’s a bit like how we spend our lives. Rushing toward the next thing with excitement (and worry) or looking back at where we’ve been with nostalgia (and regret), so much so that those are the only things in focus. This experiment is like slowing down the train, almost to a stop. Nowhere to go. Nowhere to come from. Just looking straight out at this one single, ordinary, precious day, suddenly in focus like never before.

Hi Everyone,

I hope this finds you well and looking forward to the new year. As you can tell, I’m not writing on Substack much these days, but I do hope to occasionally send things out that I think might be helpful, like the reflection below, adapted from a sermon I gave recently.

It draws from a passage in the Gospel of Matthew (Matthew 2:13-23) just after Jesus was born. In it, Joseph receives three dreams from an “angel of the Lord” that guide the family to safety. It prompted questions for me about whether I really believe there are guides from the other side (angels) trying to help me. And if there are, am I listening? The sermon also reflects a bit on the challenge of having ‘faith’ in a world that is so often hard and unfair. You can find the scripture text at the end of the article and there’s an audio version if you’d rather listen to it.

Wishing you peace and joy in 2026!

Ian

(Audio Version)

I want to start with a Christmas poem that has become something of a favorite of mine. It’s called: For Maia and it’s by someone named Gary Johnson.

For Maia

by Gary Johnson

A little girl is singing for the faithful to come ye
Joyful and triumphant, a song she loves,
And also the partridge in a pear tree
And the golden rings and the turtle doves.
In the dark streets, red lights and green and blue
Where the faithful live, some joyful, some
troubled,
Enduring the cold and also the flu,
Taking the garbage out and keeping the
sidewalk shoveled.
Not much triumph going on here—and yet
There is much we do not understand.
And my hopes and fears are met
In this small singer holding onto my hand.
Onward we go, faithfully, into the dark
And are there angels hovering overhead?
Hark.

I love the way the poem weaves in favorite Christmas carols. And I love the image it paints of a little girl (Maia, I’m guessing) holding hands with the poet (her grandfather, I’m guessing) as the two of them walk the neighborhood; Maia singing with the untarnished hope of a child for the faithful to come, joyful and triumphant. While grandpa, looking through his grown-up eyes, sees neighbors fighting the everyday battles of overflowing garbage, snow-covered sidewalks, and the flu…and thinks…not much triumph going on here.

She looks with the fresh eyes of innocence, and he looks with the realistic eyes of experience. He knows, like we do, how unfair this world can be. He’s seen, as we have, how the greedy and the power-hungry get their way. How the poor and the weak fight for scraps…How life, for any of us, comes with struggle and sorrow.

And maybe he wonders, like we have, what kind of God would allow such a world. And why things have to be so hard. And as sweet as he finds his granddaughter’s singing, I get the sense he’s questioning what’s so great about being among the faithful.

He seems to be thinking maybe it really is a dog-eat-dog world. Maybe we really are on our own. It certainly seems sometimes, as if God has abandoned us; gone absent when we are most in need.

And then that wonderful line:

“And yet, there is much we do not understand.”

In our scripture today, it’s days after that first Christmas and Emmanuel is now in the world, but so far not much has changed. King Herod, pushed to madness by the threat of this new light, determines to snuff out all the young lights across Bethlehem. It must have been awful.

Matthew quotes Jeremiah (31:15):

“A voice was heard in Ramah,
wailing and loud lamentation,
Rachel weeping for her children;
she refused to be consoled, because they are no more.”

No one looking out over Bethlehem during this, could be blamed for losing their faith. The forces of hatred seemed to be having their way. God seemed nowhere to be found.

But there is much we do not understand.

For just before Herod went on his rampage, something unlikely happened. A young mother and father quietly slipped out of Bethlehem with their newborn son. The father had been warned in a dream, by an angel of the Lord, to take the family to Egypt. They probably went by night, quietly, unnoticed. And thus it happened, that the light of the world was saved.

Now for you, this evidence of holy intervention might not be enough. You might reasonably argue that if God’s angel could whisper in the ear of Joseph, why didn’t he whisper in the ears of those other parents too?

And on some days, it’s not enough for me either. I don’t know why things have to be the way they are. I don’t know why God seems to traffic in whispers and dreams instead of billboards and bullhorns.

All I do know, is that when God came to Joseph, Joseph did something that changed the course of history: he listened. He took the dream seriously. He was open to the possibility that sometimes dreams are not just dreams. Even if it didn’t make sense to him, he was humble enough to know there was much he did not understand.

And I wonder how much of the suffering our world has endured might have turned out differently if more of us, were more like Joseph. Maybe, as insignificant as it seems, our willingness to listen for angelic whispers plays a larger role than we think.

So let’s talk about listening. Not just listening in the regular sense, like listening to your friend, or to a podcast, or pretending to listen to a sermon, like you’re doing now. I mean that particular kind of listening that Joseph seemed so good at, the kind that pays attention, not to the noise out there, but to the quiet wisdom in here.

Think about how much time you spend listening to the world around you – to the newscasters, the nay-sayers, the pundits, the professionals. And how little time you spend in quiet, in silence, in simple receptivity, saying: Speak Lord, your servant is listening.

And imagine for a moment how different our world might be, if we all started the day with a little bit of Holy Listening. Or what if we all developed a habit of periodic pauses through the day, just to hear what God might want to whisper in our ear. Or what if, and I know I’m dreaming big here, humanity got to the point that in any given situation we were more interested in what God wanted than what we wanted.

I know…it’s not going to happen. At least not any time soon. Which probably means we’re going to continue to suffer unnecessarily, and the Herods of the world are going to continue to have their way.

But if our scripture today has a message for us, maybe it’s that all it takes is one average Joe (or Jolene) willing to listen for God, to keep the light of the world alive.

You know, the old English word, “Hark,” simply means: to listen. It was popular in Shakespeare’s day, but has largely fallen out of use, except of course when we sing, “Hark, the Herald Angels Sing.”

The word “hark” is related, though, to a phrase we do still occasionally hear: “harken back.” And there’s an interesting story about how the two are connected.

In the 1800’s, the word ‘hark,’ was already barely used, but was revived by hunters, who, when their dogs had lost the trail, would yell: ‘Hark!’ It was a signal to the hounds to return. And they would then ‘harken back” to where they last picked up the scent.

I tell you this because it seems to me that as grown-ups, we can become so jaded by the ugliness of the world, or the struggles in our own lives, that we “lose the scent” of the Holy. And what we need is to “harken back” to a faith that came more naturally to us as children.

This is, I think, what often happens at Christmastime, when we’re sitting quietly by the Christmas tree, or attending a candlelight Christmas service, and suddenly our hearts are welling up. We may dismiss these moments as simple nostalgia or sentimentality. But I think more is going on.

Like the little girl in the poem, I think, we are feeling again the Mystery of God and the holiness of life. Getting in touch with a part of us that knows that even though terrible things happen in the world, there is still an underlying beauty and sacredness our grown-up minds can’t explain, but our hearts feel.

So, in these tender days after Christmas, before the noisy machines of the world start whirling again, I invite you to find some moments when you can just sit quietly…and harken back. If your heart has, perhaps, been a little too hardened by the world this past year, let it soften again. See if you can feel again the simple faith you once had in the goodness of life. And let yourself entertain the possibility that there could be angels wanting to whisper in your ear.

Who knows, in doing so you might unknowingly contribute to keeping alive the light of the world…or at least your own.

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Scripture Text: Matthew 2:13-23

¹³ Now after they had left, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Get up, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you, for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him.” ¹⁴ Then Joseph^[h] got up, took the child and his mother by night, and went to Egypt ¹⁵ and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet, “Out of Egypt I have called my son.”

¹⁶ When Herod saw that he had been tricked by the magi,^[i] he was infuriated, and he sent and killed all the children in and around Bethlehem who were two years old or under, according to the time that he had learned from the magi.^{[j] 17} Then what had been spoken through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled:

¹⁸ “A voice was heard in Ramah,
wailing and loud lamentation,
Rachel weeping for her children;
she refused to be consoled, because they are no more.”

¹⁹ When Herod died, an angel of the Lord suddenly appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt and said, ²⁰ “Get up, take the child and his mother, and go to the land of Israel, for those who were seeking the child’s life are dead.” ²¹ Then Joseph^[k] got up, took the child and his mother, and went to the land of Israel. ²² But when he heard that Archelaus was ruling Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there. And after being warned in a dream, he went away to the district of Galilee. ²³ There he made his home in a town called Nazareth, so that what had been spoken through the prophets might be fulfilled, “He will be called a Nazarene.”^[l]

Hi Everyone,

My summer of hitting the pause button (explained HERE if you missed it) is going deliciously (going camping in Taos next week with my son!) So, no new writing from me, but I wanted to pass on recommendations for three other Substackers in three of my favorite subjects: psychology, poetry, and spirituality.

In the category of psychology, I think some of you might really enjoy the writing of Richard Bourne, writing HERE at 365 Days of Becoming. I don’t know Richard and I’m not getting any free merch for the plug (Richard, if you do have free merch…I’m open). But he writes beautifully, and will be especially helpful for those working on healing from childhood pain and old patterns of coping. Also check out his list of Archetypes HERE that I found creative and thoughtful.

Second, in the category of poetry, I invite you to check out the writing of Laura Barr, HERE at In Brief. I think Laura does more with fewer words than just about any poet I know. Her most recent poem, Poetic Justice, is heartbreaking and gorgeous.

And finally, in my favorite subject, spirituality, my good friend Elizabeth Jameson is offering a class this fall (online or in person) that I think is going to be really special.

It’s called The Inner Alchemy of Wisdom and it will be “guided by the voices of mystics and poets who have walked through darkness and found beauty still waiting on the other side.” If you want to explore mystical spirituality as a path to living with more joy and freedom, I think Elizabeth is an incredible guide and resource. You can learn more about her and her work HERE. Below is the class invitation she just sent out (which you can also read on her homepage HERE).

Okay, that’s all for now!

With love and joy,

Ian

Here’s Elizabeth’s recent post about the class…

I have this sense that something is converging—a crossing of sorts.

It’s tender, almost raw. Like standing at the edge of a threshold and not yet knowing what waits on the other side. As if we are holding our collective breath.

For so much of my life, I’ve been oriented toward achievement, going with the societal flow that honors doing, producing, proving our worth. That drive has served me—helped me survive, helped me build. But it also left me exhausted. Beneath the striving, there has always been the fear of not being enough.

Perhaps you can relate.

Over these last few years, I have felt the invitation to let go. Have you felt it, too?

To rest in simply being.

To trust I don’t have to earn my place here—that the love I’ve longed for is already here, holding me, holding you, holding all of us.

This love is within, is who we are at our deepest, truest center.

Is there a deeper generosity you are trying to trust? Yearning to trust?

And I wonder, are you able to be who you really are in your own life — all in — without holding back?

If not, what keeps you from fully trusting, from letting go into the arms of love in any and every circumstance? What hope lies within your heart to live your precious life from the inside out rather than the outside in?

Can you sense that there is enough—

enough time, enough love, enough grace to meet what comes?

Can you keep showing up—

imperfect and real?

When I look back over the last few years, I see how much has been stripped away—roles, identities, illusions. At times it felt like devastation.

And yet, in that emptiness, there is a freedom I didn’t know was possible.

Available to all of us. Beckoning to all of us.

An Invitation

In the spirit of that trust, I’ve created a space for those who may feel themselves at a threshold too.

It’s called The Inner Alchemy of Wisdom.

It’s not a course in the usual sense. It’s more like a circle of fellow travelers, guided by the voices of mystics and poets who have walked through darkness and found beauty still waiting on the other side.

We’ll sit with the ancient questions:

✨ Why is there suffering?

✨ How do we live with it?

✨ What does it mean to be changed by love?

We’ll listen—not just to words on a page, but to what stirs in us as we open to those voices.

There will be silence. There will be reflection.

There will be the kind of learning that begins not in the mind, but in the body and the heart.

You just have to feel the nudge that something in you is shifting—and be willing to honor it.

Are you standing at a threshold of loss, transition, or reawakening?

Are you spiritually curious and open-hearted, drawn to mystery rather than certainty?

Do you feel that inherited religious frameworks are too small for your lived experience—but who still long for a bigger, deeper Love?

Are you seeking gentle guidance and authentic community?

Do you value contemplative practices, soulful storytelling, and honest reflection?

If that sounds like you, you are welcome here.

Just as you are.

🌀 We begin in late August.

Read more about the journey and how to join here.

With tenderness and hope,

Elizabeth

Note: When I wrote A Benediction for Mothers a few weeks ago, I mentioned I’ve been experimenting lately with what is a new kind of writing for me. Part poetry, part blessing, part theological reflection, these benedictions have been an enjoyable creative outlet and I would welcome any feedback you have (either in the comments or by messaging me directly). With this benediction, I attempted to write something that could be recited at a bedside or other poignant moment near the end of a person’s life. Let me know if you think it would work for that, or why it might not.

Audio version:

A Benediction for the Dying

Life is full of crossings-
moments when one step further
and we are no longer who we thought we were.
Moments that require all our bravery to face.

And it may seem
like this river you must now traverse
is like that. But it’s not.

Unlike before,
what is asked of you now
is not courage, but surrender.
A surrender not of something,
but into something,
like a river
releasing itself to the Sea.

A surrender born not of defeat,
but of trust, as you begin to understand
what your heart has always known:
that this whole beautiful mess
has been a love story.

Have you not glimpsed,
from time to time,
that invisible thread of grace
weaving everything together?
Or noticed the way mercy finds its way
into even the most desperate corner?
And despite life’s hard edges and sure defeats,
would you not still call it
miraculous?

Not that your life has been free of pain,
which you would not have wanted anyway.

Nor free of fear,
though you see now
there was nothing, ultimately,
to be afraid of.

Nor free of struggle,
or confusion,
or loss,
which are more valuable to the shaping of a life
than any blessing ever could be.

But in the end,
has it not been a life of meaning
and beauty,
and something trustworthy?

And if living has been worthy of your faith
why not your dying too?
Are they not doorways inside the same house,
sourced from the same Mystery?

And as you stand at this river’s edge
that so many have crossed before you,
can you hear that same Mystery
whispering to you now…

You are perfectly safe-
you always were.
You have everything you need-
you always did.
I am right here beside you-
I always have been.

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Note: A benediction is “a good word” often given at the conclusion of a religious service as a kind of blessing. When I was a pastor, I loved that moment when the atmosphere changed and the Mystery felt almost tangible. Lately, I have been playing around with writing benedictions on various subjects, and what follows is part of that experiment. I know we all have very different experiences of motherhood and those experiences are often difficult, complex, and painful. So I offer this with clear acknowledgement that I do not in any way intend to speak for mothers or anyone else’s experience of motherhood. These are the thoughts of an outsider looking in, based on my own limited experience as the child of, and a husband to, two mothers who have been such blessings to me.

(audio version)

A Benediction for Mothers

In the middle of life’s ordinariness,
you suddenly found yourself at the center of a great mystery,
at the center of the great mystery.

Your body, which a week ago seemed so unexceptional,
had become a miracle; a universe unto itself,
giving sustenance and sanctuary to another.
Your life would never be the same,
and you knew it.

The truth is, it is too much to ask of anyone,
to hold the enormity of it,
the sacredness of it,
the weight and wonder of it.

Thank God the task is so often given to young women.
The rest of us would crumble.

You were frightened at times, of course.
But mostly you just felt blessed. And curious.
Lying at night, you wondered who they would be,
this awakening soul who, for the rest of your life,
would never not be on your mind.

This person who would demand so much of you,
depend on you, reject you, adore you, infuriate you.
And, in return, leave you changed in ways you still can’t explain.

On the day you became two,
you looked into those bright eyes
and something ancient opened.
A connection, not just to them,
but to a wisdom beyond your own.

You still knew nothing.
But you also knew that everything you needed,
was within you.
It was the first paradox of many.

Like how this child could feel so completely of you,
and so uniquely not you.

And how you could so desperately
need a day to yourself,
and then when you got it,
ache to be near them.

And how you could feel so eager,
so hopeful for their future,
and so frightened for it too.

They say that being a mother is to forever have your heart
walking outside your body. But it’s not true.

Being a mother is to have, walking outside your body,
something you love more than your heart,
more than your own life,
more than you knew you were capable of loving,

where it can dream and laugh and do tender, beautiful things,
and where it can struggle, and feel pain, and lose its way.

Could there be anything more difficult?
Or more marvelous?
Is there anything in this human experience
more deserving of our collective awe?
Or, in the end, more holy?

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From a recent journal entry…

This morning I feel within myself.
Sufficient. Contained. At peace (well, at least relatively so).

How to stay?
How to resist the trails that lead me away from myself?

The events of the world beckon.
My insecurities beckon.
My phone beckons.

I could spend hours in their gravitational fields. Days. My life.
They are my favorite bones to chew.

But to do so is to slip into abstraction; to live a step removed from what is real, what is alive; which is here, in this not-yet-interpreted, ethereal moment in front of me. This moment even before I’ve decided chair is chair, leaf is green or tea is hot, when creation unfolds namelessly, three-dimensionally and freely. This moment that reveals my worries and daydreams to be flat and lifeless by comparison.

Awake in this moment, the world is alive…fluid, ever-new and wonder full.
Lost in thought, the world becomes background, unnoticed and unnecessary.

Awake in this moment, I am alive. I sense my own pulsing. I am aware of my self, being alive. Lost in thought, I become an observer, a bystander; no longer in the movie. Just watching it, planning it, critiquing it.

Awake in this moment, the Holy is alive. And only in this moment is a true encounter with the Holy ever possible. Lost in thought, the burning bush is missed while I’m busy contemplating burning bushes.

Can I find the courage (or is it trust?) to put down my bones and lift my head.
Sniff the air of the living world around me.

Audio version:

You can explore other posts by visiting my homepage HERE.

NOTE: Two quick links for you: I preached the other day and thought some of you might enjoy it. It’s a remix of an Easter sermon I gave years ago. And second, Elizabeth Jameson and I are teaching a new class starting April 23 on a book by Sufi master, Kabir Helminski. You can learn more about it and register here.

(Paid subscribers can find the audio version of this post at the end.)

Hi Everyone,

For this installment in the Spiritual Sommelier Series, I want to introduce you to Riyaz Motan. Riyaz is a spiritual guide and therapist I first heard on a BATGAP (Buddha at the Gas Pump) interview. Riyaz speaks with such beautiful authenticity, vulnerability and gentle wisdom.

Sadly, out of nowhere in 2023, Riyaz was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer. Knowing he may not have much longer to live has added a profound dimension to his message. Unfortunately for us, Riyaz hasn’t written any books for me to point you to, but there are a number of interviews available on his website, including THIS beautiful talk he gave in January (it’s about 38 minutes).

At the time, he thought it might be the last public talk he would be able to give. I’m glad to say he is feeling well enough to speak again on Zoom this Saturday, April 12, where he’ll be interviewed by spiritual teachers: Adyashanti, Jonathan Gustin and John Prendergast. If interested, you can learn more and register for it HERE. The talk is free, with an option to donate to support his medical expenses.

At the start of Riyaz’s January talk, I noticed that twice he used the word ‘poignant’ to describe his experience of living with a terminal illness. ‘Poignant’ is an interesting Old French word that originally meant ‘sharp’ or ‘pointed’ and referred mostly to food, like sauces and spices, that would sting the palette.

These days, when we say something is poignant, we mean it stings not the palette, but the heart. We mean something has startled us from our tendency to sleepwalk through life by the power of its truth and meaning. And in a culture that encourages us to drift from distraction to complacent distraction, our hearts are hungry for meaning, even when it stings.

And probably no subject is more stingingly meaningful, more full of aching truth, more poignant, than our own impermanence. The only guarantee life offers us, as Riyaz says, is that someday we will die.

Understandably, this is a topic most of us prefer to avoid. It brings up powerful and painful emotions of sadness, fear, regret, and even anger. This life is such a precious thing. And the thought of it going away, of us going away, can feel almost unbearable.

Nor does it help that we don’t know what happens after we die. Do we go somewhere else? Do we someday come back? Do our individual spirits dissolve back into some larger Spirit? Or do we just…end? We don’t know. We may have ideas and intuitions about it. I know what my heart tells me. But in the end, we just don’t get to know.

What a strange situation we find ourselves in. What a mystery all of this is. And what courage it takes to be born into the world, told nothing about from where we’ve come, why we’re here, or what happens to us when we leave. Whose idea was this, anyway??

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As I pulled into the campground, I felt a familiar anxiety rising up. It was getting late in the day, I didn’t have a reservation, and it looked like all the spots might be taken. Was there another campground close by? What were my other options? I’m a little embarrassed to admit how panicky this kind of situation can make me feel. After all, (as I’ve often told myself) I could always just drive home if I had to. I did have a place to sleep that night.

Halfway around the campground loop, I slipped into what turned out to be the last spot and exhaled. Ahhh…home sweet home for $19. Filling out the fee envelope, I remember writing ‘1’ in response to the question, “Number of occupants?” But that turned out to be not quite true. Because the next morning, reaching for my water jug, I noticed that residence had been established in the groove of the handle…by a little brown spider.

Normally I might have helped him be on his way, but given my own housing scare the night before, I felt, if not compassion, then at least a little campassion. Live and let live, I thought, and decided my new friend looked like his (or her?) name was Spike.

Now I know a spider isn’t everyone’s idea of a camping buddy. But in the timeless words of Bob Dylan, “we all need a little shelter from the storm.” It can be a harsh world, and making our way through it, whether we’re on two, four, or even eight legs, is far more precarious than we like to admit. Spike was just after the same thing I was: a little protection from the elements, a ledge over his head, a place to call home for a while.

Which got me thinking about…shelter. It’s so basic. So primal. So ancient. Every living thing has to have it, at least now and then. And yet, the complexity of modern life has distanced most of us humans from how important shelter really is. We walk in and out of our homes every day without giving them the attention, or appreciation, they deserve.

Sure, we might contemplate what tile to choose for the new backsplash or wonder how to fix a loose cabinet door. But how often do we pause and feel just how much we depend on the heat flowing so generously through the vents, the water pouring so willingly from the tap, and the not-just-proverbial roof over our heads?

I think that’s part of why I like camping. The absence of things I normally take for granted brings the reality of my own fragility into clearer focus.

And with fragility comes humility.

And with humility comes gratitude.

And gratitude is, well, one of the secrets to a meaningful life.

So here’s a little something you might try. The next time you arrive at home, just as your hand touches the handle of the door, pause a moment. What you are about to do is so easy to take for granted. But instead of rushing in, take just a second to feel how lucky you are. Think about the staggering 770,000 Americans and 150 million people worldwide who can’t do what you’re about to do. And maybe even whisper a quiet ‘thank you’ to the Universe, God, or your lucky stars. Having a place to rest your head is a blessing (even one you share with a spider).

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Here’s a picture of Spike tucked into his ‘tent.’ After three days together I couldn’t bare to shoo him away, so we came home together (a 7 hour drive) and he stayed on our back porch for two more days. The next morning he was gone.

And finally…I’m excited to announce my next online class with my colleague, Elizabeth Jameson. We just finished a class on the book, The Wisdom Jesus, with 30 participants and here’s what one participant had to say:

“Ian and Elizabeth are rare and wonderful guides for anyone longing to travel the spiritual path. Every person, no matter one’s religious background or affiliation (or even lack thereof) will feel seen, respected and welcomed by their warmth and wisdom.”

Our next class will explore the wisdom of the book, Living Presence, by modern-day Sufi master, Kabir Helminski. This is a beautiful book, full of insight for living more attuned to the Mystery that is as close as our own breath, and yet never within our grasp. The class will take place on Zoom on Wednesdays from 11:30 to 12:50 (Mountain Time), for 6 weeks from April 23- May 28. The cost is $111 and you can register HERE.

Please feel free to pass this on to anyone you think might be interested!

Until next time,

Ian

The other day I was bemoaning all the things I needed to get done. My car was due for an emissions test (still is), I had to get our tax documents together (finally did that), my new glasses were ready for pick up (yes, I now wear glasses), the kitchen was a mess and on and on. You know how it goes.

But when I heard myself saying, “Ugh, I have to get a post written for Substack,” I paused. Wait a minute…I love to write. When it’s not going well, I want to pull out the little hair I still have left, but even then, I love it.

So instead of, “I have to,” I tried saying, “I get to.”

Now I know that sounds like advice you might pick up at Hobby Lobby. But sometimes trite makes right, and I have to admit I felt better; like a little corner of my grumpy heart opened and some gratitude slipped in. Maybe even a little joy. “That’s right.” I thought, “I get to do this. The truth is I’m lucky to write these posts.”

But that’s an easy one. What about all those other things? No one would mistake getting an emissions test for a privilege. Organizing the taxes and cleaning the kitchen are not things we’re ‘lucky’ to do.

Or are they?

I mean, slow down a minute. Let’s think about this. Isn’t it actually the case that everything we do is a privilege? Isn’t it deeply true that all of this is a ‘get to’ situation, especially compared to, well, not getting to?

I know our world feels pretty scary right now. And I know on a personal level, things can get pretty awful sometimes. But it’s still a gift to be here. And certainly, we can wish for and work towards making life better. But between a bad day and no day at all, I’ll take bad every time.

Because there’s a preciousness within each moment that is independent of how well that moment is going. And I don’t need to remind you, this being alive thing is a limited-time-offer and your ticket may be stamped for a shorter trip than you think. If you don’t like being stuck in traffic or taking out the trash, well, some day you won’t have to. But you also won’t get to.

Some day we won’t get to stub our toe, or argue with our spouse, or try to make our country better. It’s all going be over, and more quickly than we probably think. Our lives are soap bubbles, here one minute and gone the next.

But while they last, we get to see, sip, and savor the world around us. We get to laugh with, listen to, and love the people in our lives. We get to weep, worry and wonder what all this might mean. We get to be alive. We are alive, my fellow bubbles! Think of the countless souls that came before us who would give anything to have just one more day.

This day. This day when you get the chance to think differently about all the things you have to do.

It’s a big help in reaching a wider audience when you share my posts with others. So thanks for passing this one on to someone! Also, liking or commenting on the post increases its visibility within Substack (as well as making the post writer’s day)

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Also, please consider supporting my writing financially. If you believe in what I’m doing and want to help me keep doing it, then for $60, you’ll have access to all my posts for the next year (including a video teaching series) and have my eternal gratitude!

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Last fall, when I started writing here on Substack, I also started offering one-on-one spiritual coaching that I call Soul Work. To be honest, I wasn’t sure I would like doing it. And I definitely wasn’t sure I would be any good at it. I set a goal of working with about 10 people, which I’ve been doing for about five months now. And while I’m still not convinced I’m very good at it, I like it more than I thought I would. So in the next month or so, I’d like to expand from 10 to 15 people or so, and I’m writing today to ask for your help.

I considered making posters advertising myself as a Spiritual Guru and hanging them around our neighborhood, but my family nixed the idea. They pointed out that this kind of thing grows best by word of mouth, from people who trust me.

So my request is…if you know someone who might be interested in what I do, would you share this post with them or forward my website to them?

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And what is it that I do, exactly? Fair question. I believe life is, at its core, a spiritual journey and that, as the saying goes, “We are spiritual beings having a human experience, not human beings having spiritual experiences.” But life also gets busy, and hard, and distractions abound. So I think I help people remember, and live more tethered to, their deepest, truest self (their soul).

How? Well, that depends on the person. Some people I work with are just beginning to explore their spiritual life. Others have been at it a long time. But in general, I find myself returning to some core themes like helping people learn to live in the present moment, let go of the need to control so much, and stay mindful that our lives are a gift and all of this is a Mystery.

My training and experience are in theology, so I’m not a counselor and I don’t do therapy. A person might bring me a specific issue or problem, but we look at it through a spiritual lens. I also draw from my own life and challenges, of course, of which I’ve had my share. And in addition to my roots in progressive Christianity, I also draw from the Buddhist, Jewish, Sufi, and Hindu teachers, poets and mystics that have been so important to me.

At a practical level, my fee is $150 for a generous hour together, which we can do over Zoom or in person (I live in Denver). And if that isn’t in the budget, I do hold a few spots open at a discounted rate of $100, so feel free to ask about that. I meet with most people on a regular-ish basis, some every two weeks, some less frequently (and a few more so). I’m also happy to meet for single sessions, as needed.

The easiest way to reach me is through the Contact Page on my website and I'm happy to arrange for a phone call to tell someone more about soul coaching. Finally, I recently asked some of the people I work with to reflect on their coaching experience. Below are some of the things they shared.

Thank you in advance for passing this on to anyone you think might be interested.
I truly appreciate it.

With gratitude,

Ian

“When I first engaged in soul coaching, I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect. I knew I was looking for something distinct from traditional therapy or leadership coaching—something that could guide me on a deeper, more personal level. In my months with Ian, I’ve found exactly that.”

“Ian’s thoughtful coaching has been transformative. I wholeheartedly recommend Ian to anyone seeking guidance on their spiritual journey or looking for a coach who creates space for curiosity, introspection, and meaningful growth.”

"As someone who often leads with my head when making decisions and interacting with the world around me, I've been delighted to develop new tools during my work with Ian. Our sessions have helped me awaken the wisdom contained in my heart and intuition, which has improved the quality of both my personal and professional relationships.”

“I'm now more focused on the present moment and can live fully into all the possibilities it brings. I highly recommend working with Ian if you're looking to be more present and engaged with your loved ones, work, and the world around you."

“Ian is offering my wife and me a chance to look deeply at the experience of this life with all its seeming contradictions. Ian has a remarkable clarity and an inspiring faith…It is a real gift to have someone to talk with who isn’t so afraid…It’s been quite a ride and we’ve just gotten started.”

“Ian mentors with compassion and encouragement…He has a broad spectrum of experience in many aspects of spirituality, in both Christian and other contexts. We’ve had a good time discussing my past paranormal and metaphysical experiences, and he is a valued companion for my spiritual journey.”

“After decades of tending to my spiritual journey in a variety of ways, Ian’s coaching is leading me to a fresh, freeing and untethered exploration of the vastness of God’s mystery.”

“I am on a pilgrimage, with Ian as my guide, to deepen/expand my spiritual life as I embrace the mystery of God with awe and wonder…Ian’s coaching provides a safe place to let go of old ways of thinking and to embrace and explore the places where I need to stretch and grow beyond my comfort zone.”

“Ian challenges me and takes me beyond my traditional faith boundaries to spark my curiosity to more deeply explore and embrace the mystery.”

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While reading the news this week, there were more than a few times when waves of fear washed over me. They were so big, and so potentially paralyzing, that I started a list of reminders to help me deal with them. Nothing particularly brilliant or new here, but I thought it might be helpful to share.

Feeling afraid for our world?

Start…by doing something. Anything. It can be political, like writing your representative, giving money to things you believe in, or joining a community working on something together. But non-political things count too…like being kind to a stranger or shoveling your neighbor’s walk. Do something that adds to the good in the world. Because action gives you a sense of agency. And fear hates it when you feel empowered.

Then remember…that other people are doing good things too. All the time. There are literally millions of good acts transpiring all day, every day, everywhere.

Which means…you are not alone and this is not all up to you. Do what you can, accept that you’re just one person, and then go for a walk.

Because despite our troubles…this world is still beautiful. Stunningly so. And you’re not doing anyone any good by not noticing that. In fact, you will have more energy, more joy and more love with which to address the world’s troubles if you take care of yourself.

And then (and this is a biggie)…try to hold what you fear within a larger context. If you’re of a more ‘woo-woo’ bent, like me, that might mean trusting that this world is held by a deep and loving Mystery (like a pillow on a chair) and all of this will, ultimately, turn out to be a love story. If you’re not quite so sure about that (and who could blame you these days), then maybe trust, as the good Dr. King said, that the arc of the moral universe is long, but bends towards justice. Or have faith in the goodness of humanity, which has proven again and again to be remarkably resilient, given enough time.

Why do this? Well, let’s say your fear is the size of a bowling ball. Put it in a bucket of water and it’s hard to think of anything else. Put it in a swimming pool and it’s hardly a bother. Seeing things within a larger context helps a lot.

And finally…come back to this moment. Take a breath. Look around. Fear is a story. And you’re allowed to take breaks from the story. So just sit here for a moment. Rest. Smile.

As needed, repeat.

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As I sit bleary-eyed on the couch each morning with my tea and journal, the chair across from me looks patiently back, waiting for the game we sometimes play. Once awake-ish, I start by focusing my attention on the yellow-knit pillow nestled in its corner, and before long, the chair fades almost completely into a blurry-green background.

Then I switch, concentrating now solely on the chair. And just as easily, the pillow almost disappears from my awareness.

Then the hard part…I readjust my gaze, and by not completely committing to either, I can keep some attention on both, at the same time.

What, you don’t start your day this way? Well, stay with me a minute, because this simple illustration, I believe, gets at something really profound.

Think of the pillow as what spiritual-types call the “manifest” world, which means basically everything you see around you. And let the chair represent the Unmanifest or spiritual world; that which gives rise to, and sustains, everything you see around you.

(I know, I jumped right into the deep end of the pool today.)

Most of us are focused almost exclusively on the pillow. We go about our days completely absorbed by the beauties, bewilderings, dramas and decisions of everyday life. So much so, that we hardly give a thought to whether there’s a chair there in the background. But what if there is?

I believe (joining countless generations of mystics, poets, priests, priestesses, and ordinary folks) what seems impossible to our rational minds…that our everyday reality is held by an even deeper reality; by a big, beautiful, green chair that we have lots of names for like God, the Universe, Spirit…or what I recently saw someone refer to simply as GUS.

I believe there’s something ‘More’ going on here (in the William James, Varieties of Religious Experience, sense). Something that feels both intimate and completely unknowable. Something undefinable, ineffable, and yet as natural and close as the air we breathe. Something intelligent, but also more than what we think of as intelligence. Something loving, but also greater than what we think of as love.

But if this GUS is really there, why don’t we experience it more often? Well, when we’re totally absorbed in day-to-day life, rushing from here to there, constantly lost in a stream of inner dialogue about what’s next on the list, we don’t give ourselves much chance, do we?

Which is why every religious tradition ever has told us we need to step back from the pillow now and then, find a quiet room, tune out the busy world, and focus for a while on the chair. This, we call meditation. And it does two important things.

First, it gives us a much needed break from our lives. As this magnet someone once gave me puts it:

Meditation, if nothing else, is a chance for a few minutes of respite…from the world, from our worries, from our selves. It’s like nap time in kindergarten - you didn’t always want it, but you needed it (and so did your teacher).

But more importantly, meditation gives us perspective. When the pillow is all we see, when we’re too close to our own problems, and too convinced of the stories we’ve told ourselves, things can start to feel too heavy, too serious, and life really can start to feel like a shitshow. Much of our world is caught in this right now. And it feeds on itself, making things feel even worse than they are.

Meditation resets our nervous system within a larger context. Even if we don’t experience GUS while we meditate, by turning our gaze toward the Unmanifest, we see the manifest more clearly.

We see that this world is not a shitshow. Far from it.

Life is incredible, miraculous, mysterious. And even when things are really hard, our lives are still full of small wonders like dragonflies, dogs, dark chocolate and Douglas-firs…and that’s just off the top of my head from the ‘d’ list.

That’s the gift of meditation. It’s a reality check.

But the real point is to then step back in the drama, holding some attention on both the manifest and the Unmanifest, at the same time. This, we call mindfulness. Which is about the closest thing I know to the secret to life.

With all that’s going on these days, I know it can feel almost irresponsible to step back from the issues of the day, even for a moment. But it’s precisely because the world feels so intense that we must learn to hold both the forest and the trees, the chair and the pillow, the manifest and the Unmanifest, at the same time.

Only then can we bring the wisdom that comes with being in the world, but not (completely) of it. And the awareness, while we go about our ordinary days, that this world is anything but ordinary.

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In this second installment in the Spiritual Sommelier Series, I want to introduce you to an idea I love. It’s an image, actually, and a deceptively simple one that has, I think, the potential to shift how we see just about everything.

I came across it in Rabbi Lawrence Kuschner’s conversation with Krista Tippet at On Being. Rabbi Kuschner is an author, an expert in Jewish mysticism (Kabbalah), and the scholar-in-residence at Congregation Emanu-El in San Francisco. The interview is close to an hour, and well worth the time if you have it. If you don’t, the image I want to share is in the first 12 minutes. Click HERE to listen. I’ll wait patiently till you’re back…

What’d you think? Pretty cool, eh? Moving the little circle (the dot we are) inside the big circle (the vastness God is) is so simple. And yet it changes everything.

I think the traditional view that we are outside of and other than God reflects a deeply ingrained fear that we’re ultimately alone and on our own…that we’re ‘down here’ (whatever that means) and God is ‘out there’ (wherever that is), and God could disappear on us at any moment, which is a little terrifying.

This fear helps to explain why so much of our theology ends up framing our relationship with God through a lens of reward and punishment. You can almost picture us, looking up at God with our puppy dog eyes, hoping our good behavior and right beliefs will translate into treats (good fortune, eternal life, parking spots). And at the same time, we’re afraid that when we make a mess on the rug (and boy can we make a mess) we’ll get a slap on the bottom…or worse.

But what if that’s not how all this works at all? What if our relationship with God is much more mysterious, much more beautiful, and much more…intimate.

I think that’s what I love about the image, the intimacy of it. The way it conveys, without a word, that being human is so entangled with the Divine that it would be impossible to tease the two apart. I love the way it suggests that the apparent separation is a kind of illusion of the mind; an understandable by-product of our limited time-and-space-bound existence. I love the way it hints that everything we see might be shot through with the light of God (even the not so shiny stuff).

The mind wants to separate…this from that, up from down, in from out, Divine from not-Divine. But in those mystical moments that Rabbi Kuschner talks about, we catch glimpses of a deeper truth…that all of this is also one single thing.

The Big Bang Theory suggests that everything began from a single point, smaller than an atom, that exploded into everything we see. And thus, we can fairly say that to be human is to be made of stardust. In many religious traditions, including strands of Christianity, there’s a similar idea - that God, existing before time and form, chose to manifest (explode?) into creation. If true, then we are not just made of stardust, but goddust too.

When Rabbi Kuschner said, “Now put the little circle inside the big circle,” something in me went: Yes, that’s right. Even if my mind doesn’t quite know what that means, something tells me it’s closer to true than our being outside of God, separate, alone.

These days, even the idea that we are in a relationship with God doesn’t feel quite right to me. It’s not close enough; not intimate enough. I now believe that at the deepest level, to be human is not to be with God, it is to be of God.

As the Apostle Paul said 2,000 years ago:

“For in (God) we live and move and have our being.”

And Meister Eckhardt said 800 years ago:

“The eye through which I see God is the same eye through which God sees me; my eye and God's eye are one eye, one seeing, one knowing, one love.”

And as the Baal Shem Tov, 300 years ago, said it about as simply as you can:

“There is nothing but God.”

I know to the rational part of our brain these quotes don’t make much sense. When I’m in a linear, logical mood, they fall flat. They just sound like so many words. It’s only when we drop out of our thinking mind, into a heart-wide-open space, a nothing-but-the-present-moment space, a deeply-trusting-mystical space, that we can begin taste the truth of them.

Which is why I love this image. At a rational level, it seems childishly simple. And yet, the more we sit with it, feeling our way inside the circle, the more it can touch something in us beyond anything our minds could hope to grasp.

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Church-work is cyclical. As a pastor, you mark time by the coming and going and coming again of the liturgical seasons. Even a pastor having a crisis of faith knows that Advent, Christmas, Lent, Easter, Pentecost and their less-glamorous but sensible-shoed-sibling, Ordinary Time, will forever be followed by…Advent, Christmas, Lent, Easter…

For 21 years these were the touchstones of my work schedule. And having circled that same track so many times, I wasn’t sure I would ever know how to walk in a straight line again.

So this past May, when I said good-bye to being the co-pastor of Montview Boulevard Presbyterian Church in Denver, I wondered how I would deal with my newfound lack of ecclesiastic structure. At first, to be honest, I hardly noticed it. It was summer, after all, and I could just as easily have been on sabbatical.

When September arrived and it did not even occur to me that Kick-Off Sunday (the annual marker of Fall programming) had come and gone, I thought maybe I was going to be fine. When Stewardship Season came and I had no urge to remind people to get their pledges in, I thought maybe this transition just wasn’t going to be that hard for me.

Then came the first Sunday of Advent; the beginning of the Christian Calendar and my favorite time of year. That’s when I felt it…a weird disorientation, like my body was telling me it wasn’t where it was supposed to be; not doing what it was supposed to do. I told myself what a gift it was not to be the one people hoped could explain the world’s issues and evils. I told myself I could focus more on my own issues and evils for a change (God knows they could use some attention). I told myself it was time to move on.

Then came Christmas Eve. Now you have to understand, Montview is a church that attracts almost 2,000 people to one of five services on Christmas Eve. The staff spend weeks planning for it, and if I can brag for a moment, I think Montview does Christmas about as well as anyone. But it’s quite a day behind the scenes. The first of two Children’s services (complete with live baby in the live nativity) starts at 2pm. And the day ends ten hours later with clergy and staff collapsing in a back room with a drink in their hand, toasting the newborn Jesus and thanking God it’s over.

But this year I was at home with my family, eating delicious chicken pozole my son made (a new tradition!) and opening stockings with the three people I love most. It was wonderful. Restful. Special.

Did I miss being at church? Well, I certainly didn’t miss waving good-bye to my family after lunch on Christmas Eve Day (knowing I wouldn’t see them until Christmas morning) so that I could help the four scripture readers (average age: 9) practice their lines before the 2pm children’s service.

But I did miss reminding the one reader who had the daunting task of saying the word ‘homage’ three times in seven verses not to pronounce the ‘h’ (only to have them, inevitably and adorably, pronounce the ‘h’ at least once).

I certainly didn’t miss the distracted squirming of some people in the pews who, to be fair to them, had been brought there against their will by family obligation or guilt or both, and who, it was clear to see, would rather be anywhere on earth than listening to me preach.

But I dearly missed the few souls who, almost every year, would tell us later they stumbled into church that night during a very hard time in their life and found something in a hymn, a sermon, or the Gospel story itself that gave them the strength to keep going.

I absolutely did not miss all those planning meetings, looking for typos in the bulletins, debating how many poinsettias to buy, and spending far too long on whether we had enough bobeches for the candlelight services. What’s a bobeche, you ask? Exactly.

But I missed with an ache in my heart the chance to look out at 500 people at the end of the service, as the lights are lowered and candles are raised (bobeches working perfectly) and together singing the last verse of Silent Night with lumps in our throats. You do that for 21 years and the year you don’t feels like you’re missing a limb (no matter how good the pozole is).

When something comes to an end that is deeply important to us – a career, a marriage, a chapter in our lives – we often have trouble feeling all of what we feel because we don’t think we’re allowed to feel two things that contradict one other. There’s only one of us, after all, so how can we have two completely different emotions at the same time? But we do.

I knew a woman who spent ten years caring for her sick husband. When he died, she missed him terribly, and she felt tremendous relief at no longer having her life consumed by caretaking. Then she felt ashamed, wondering if the sense of relief meant maybe she didn’t truly miss him. I’ve known people getting a divorce who feel overwhelmed by the loss of it one minute and a shot of excitement about the future the next. And then they feel so conflicted by this, they don’t let themselves fully feel either emotion.

We wrap ourselves in knots trying to decipher which feelings are the ‘right’ ones, so that we can stuff down the ‘wrong’ ones. But the truth is we are complicated, conflicted, contrary, cryptic beings that often can’t be reduced to one thing or another.

As Whitman put it:

Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)

Thinking of ourselves as containing ‘parts’ can be helpful here (from Internal Family Systems theory). We can learn to honor that one part of us can feel one way and one part feel another. And neither diminishes the trueness of the other.

Do I miss my old life at Montview? Honestly, no. I love having a slower pace, more time with my family, and the chance to focus on the parts of my work I enjoy most.

Do I miss my old life at Montview? Absolutely. It was such a special time in my life and sometimes I feel utterly lost without it.

Can I let both of these be true at the same time? Can I learn to sit in that paradox, resist the urge to reduce or resolve it, and even feel grateful that life is so beautifully complex and rich? You can bet your bobeche I’m trying.

Until next time,

Ian

[P.S. If you’re looking for a church, I hope you’ll consider trying Montview. I’m obviously biased, but I really do think it’s a special place, and not just for Christmas. And they do an incredible job of streaming services and classes, so you can join them from anywhere. Here’s a link to this year’s beautiful Christmas Eve Candlelight Service. Oh, and by the way, a bobeche is that little round thingie you slip over a candle to catch the wax.]

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Over the years, there have been a number of spiritual writers and teachers who’ve helped shape the way I see the world. I carry their ideas around like rubies in my pocket, turning them over in my hand for comfort and counsel. And I thought it might be helpful to your own journey to do a series of reflections on the ‘rubies’ that have been the most valuable to me.

It will introduce you to some spiritual writers/teachers you might want to explore further, and you may just come away with a few rubies in your own pocket (without having to read all those books!).

Or to switch metaphors, I’m officially offering my services as your spiritual sommelier. I’ll curate what I think are the best-of-the-best spiritual insights and offer suggestions I hope will pair well with your theological taste profiles.

Perhaps I could interest you in a well-aged, but surprisingly fresh, Hildegard from the Bingen region of Germany. Or a classic ’68 Merton with Japanese cherry blossom undertones. Or for something a little quirkier, maybe a nice Bourgeault, that at first confuses the palate with its unconventional nose, but finishes with notes both ancient and familiar. (Too much? That was too much, wasn’t it?)

Well, you get the idea. So, let’s kick off this “Spiritual Sommelier Series” with someone you’ve probably never heard of:

Kabir Helminski

Kabir is a sheikh in the Mevlevi Order of Sufis and he and his wife Camille co-direct a non-profit called The Threshold Society in Louisville, Kentucky where they offer retreats and workshops in the Sufi tradition. Sufism, you’ll remember, is the mystical branch of Islam and the Mevlevi order traces its roots to the teachings of 13^th century mystic and poet, Jalaluddin Rumi. (They’re also known for their Whirling Dervishes that you check out in this short video. So cool.).

I met Kabir about three years ago when I was fresh from a retreat at Ghost Ranch in New Mexico, where my heart had been blown wide open. Which is a wonderful thing, of course, but when it happens, you need something, or someone, to help you make sense of it. And for me, that was K. H. Okay, we didn’t actually meet, but I sure felt like we did, as I stumbled to the couch every morning with my cup of tea and his book, Living Presence; The Sufi Path to Mindfulness and the Essential Self.

I think I underlined something on almost every page, and I highly recommend the book if the time is right. If it’s not right, then it might seem a little strange (like many of the ‘wines’ in this series!). But with my heart wide open like it was, everything he said rang deeply true.

There’s so much in the book we could explore, and I’m sure I’ll come back to it in this series. But for today, I want to share the deceptively simple idea of “zhikr.”

Zhikr (also spelled dhikr) is the Arabic word for ‘remembering,’ as in remembering God, a very important idea to Sufis. But they don’t mean: “Hey remember when God showed up and did that cool thing with the bush?” They mean remember that God is here, now, in this moment. They mean don’t forget the holiness and mystery that is always all around us, and try to keep, say, 10% of your attention on that mystery, even as you go about your day. Kind of like the Apostle Paul’s encouragement to the Thessalonians to, “pray without ceasing.”

Here's what Kabir says in the opening words of the Introduction:

“The practice of presence invites us to a conscious relationship with God. Faith, righteous action, ethics, and social justice are all founded upon a state in which the human being remembers God. Yet, the capacity to remember God is related to the ability to be awake, to be here…This theme runs through all the great spiritual traditions. It goes by many names – awakening, recollection, mindfulness, remembering, zhikr – and by no name at all.”

So remembrance is similar to mindfulness in that it’s about being awake and “mindful” of the moment-by-moment unfolding of life. But the way Kabir talked about it opened something new for me. For one thing, he seemed to suggest that in that moment-by-moment unfolding, God really could be felt, experienced as a Living Presence (thus the name of his book). And second, he seemed to think we can learn how to initiate that connection with God and open to it any time we want.

Here he is again:

“We can learn to activate this presence at will. Once activated, it can be found both within and without. Because we find it extending beyond the boundaries of what we thought was ourselves, we are freed from separation, from duality. We could then speak of being in this presence.”

I think I had internalized the idea that we are down here and God is out there somewhere, and once in a while God makes an appearance…maybe while we’re watching a sunset or at the birth of a child. But Kabir was suggesting it really is true that this mystery we call God is right here, all the time, like water we’re swimming in. And that we can learn to feel the subtle sensation of that water against our skin.

When I read that in those moments we can “speak of being in this presence,” my whole body went: YES! Because in my heart-blown-open state, that’s what I was experiencing. I felt surrounded by something. I felt IN something. And, contrary to what I had been taught, it only took a subtle shift out of my thinking mind to experience it.

On those early mornings on the couch, if I first got really still and looked around the silent room, and then focused on opening my heart to the miracle and mystery this life is, and then stopped thinking long enough to just be in it, often there would be a subtle shift, and almost like stepping through a portal or waking from sleep, everything suddenly looked a little different.

What’s more, I would often feel a kind of buzz inside me. Something that felt joyful; sometimes even giddy. I would say now that I think my vibration was coming into harmony with God’s vibration. But at the time, I just knew I felt good. I felt joy…from within. And then it didn’t matter very much what was happening around me because, in this Presence, I felt totally at peace and completely safe. My mind would say, ”But you’ve got this and this and this to worry about!” And some deeper “I” in me would just smile back. It was, honestly, a little disorienting. But Kabir offered this explanation:

“This presence…is our connection to that greater Being to which we belong, but which is often buried beneath mundane concerns, bodily desires, emotional disturbances, and mental distractions. Through knowledge, practice, and understanding, this presence can be awakened. Eventually, we will not be without it – whether in speaking or moving, whether in thinking or feeling. Awakening this presence is the most reliable and direct means of cultivating our essential human qualities, of activating everything that we need to meet the conditions of our lives. Presence is the point of intersection between the world of the senses and the world of the Spirit.”

This was so helpful! He was suggesting that dropping into the presence of the Presence is basically plugging into the world of the Spirit. And from there, we have everything we need to meet the demands of the world around us. I decided to give it a shot.

It was a radical shift from my usual m.o. of trying to manage and control everything in my life. “Remembering God” sounds so simple. But to put our attention there means being willing to put less attention on the plates we have spinning. It means we don’t take those plates so seriously, which requires a certain kind of surrender. And to our ego, that’s scary.

Our ego (which is just trying to keep us safe, bless its heart) says we’d be idiots to put our trust in some new-age-sounding, woo-woo-feeling, quote-unquote Living Presence. We’ve got things to do, places to go, deadlines to meet!

But what I started to see (and am still in the process of trusting) is that we can do all those things, and often do them better, while being in the Presence. As Kabir says:

“Whoever makes all cares into a single care, the care for simply being present, will be relieved from all cares by that presence, which is a reflection of Spirit. We can take a step back from the world of attraction, comparison, and dependence on externals, remember this vitality within us, and connect with it. Perhaps then we will be liberated from our compulsions, and we can learn to act through Spirit, rather than through our own limited egos…Eventually, we reach a certain invulnerability in relation to outer things, so that we do not depend on them, but live from this presence instead…Our work is to cross a threshold into emptiness and stillness. It is like entering an empty room that proves to hold a great presence. The apparent emptiness of simple presence is richer than the crowded experience of ordinary personality. We can either be empty with Spirit or full of ourselves.”

Now there’s a ruby for your pocket.

Until next time,

Ian

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This summer, when I needed to create a website for this new chapter of my life, I was drawn to using the phrase soul work. I like the way it combines two words that don’t usually hang out together. I also like that it reminds us there is something worth working on, worth paying attention to, that isn’t sold on Amazon, found on Google, binged on Netflix, or built by Apple.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not anti-tech. Heck, I had already engaged all four of those companies before lunch today. I just think the almighty algorithm has a way of making us feel smaller than we really are and I’m glad to be doing work that helps people think about their lives within a larger context.

I admit I do sometimes feel a little ‘quaint’ when I tell someone that what I do for a living involves something as seemingly obsolete as the soul. I was at a dinner party the other night talking to a hip young couple and asked them what they thought about the soul (I’m a ton of fun at parties these days). They cocked their heads to the side and squinted a little as they tried to compute the question. I might as well have asked their perspective on stagecoaches.

I know, of course, that the word ‘soul’ is loaded, and one that leads to loaded questions like who’s got one and what happens to them when we die. So it’s a lot to be confronted with standing there with a drink in your hand. But by ‘soul,’ I really just mean the deepest, truest part of us, which, I would like to think we all agree is still worth spending time on.

But I’m not so sure we do. Think for a moment about how many more ways there are of getting absorbed in the frivolous now than, say, fifty years ago…or a hundred years ago. Think about how much more time people had then (like it or not) to spend with their thoughts…while they plowed the field or washed the clothes or sat on the porch in the evening with not much else to do.

I’m not pining for the good-ole-days here. I’m pointing out what we’re up against. Things have changed and changed fast. But we’re the same easily-distractible, pleasure-seeking creatures we always were. If there is always a dazzling option to be had (or promised just one click away), what chance does our inner life stand? Bottom line, I worry we are creating a world around us that is so shiny, so entertaining, so enthralling that it’s getting hard to remember there is a world inside of us.

[Btw, that word ‘enthralling’ has always been a favorite of mine, so I looked it up to make sure I was using it in the right context. I learned that it originally referred to “being a servant of” or even “being enslaved.” Back in the 1200’s, a ‘thrall’ was a person who had been placed in bondage. So yes, it was just the word I wanted.]

I know many of us are concerned that AI might someday betray us, but I wonder if we should be asking if we have already betrayed ourselves. Have we curated an external environment so seductive, so captivating, that as a society we are almost completely in its thrall; no longer interested in tending something so subtle as the Spirit.

I hope not. And I know many, many people, and certainly many of you reading this, manage to live with all this amazing technology and entertainment while still making time for nature, silence, prayer, or Warrior II pose. But it’s not always easy, is it?

Life is more hurried and we are more frayed than ever, and sometimes a little Love is Blind on the couch is just what the doctor ordered. But I think we know this will only get us so far. To renew the deepest, truest part of us, we need time to just be. We need to garden, and sew, and go fly fishing. We need to journal and meditate and just stare out the window. We need to reflect on our lives and ask big questions about the meaning of it all. We need to do our soul work.

Spending time on your soul while living in such a shiny world will seem to some people like you’ve taken up stamp collecting. But waver not, my friends. The inner journey is where the real party is, and deep down it’s what we’re all hungry for. And as captivated as we all are by what’s around us, the truth is, the thing that enthralls us the most, still lies within us. And far from being obsolete, our soul is the one thing that never will be.

(Audio version of the following reflection)

Sometimes it hits me what a mystery all of this is…moments when I step out of ‘normal’ life and feel a wave of just how vast it all is and how little we know of what’s really going on.  It would probably be frightening, except that so often in those moments I have felt a deep sense that whatever is going on is pulsing with Love.

And then the moment fades and I’m back inside the story of my life, lost in some worry or daydream.

How interesting that this unfathomable mystery lies hidden in plain sight, just beneath the surface of our ‘ordinary’ lives.  We move through our days, struggling with what challenges us, enjoying what delights us, and paying the bills, barely aware of anything else.  So much of the time, life doesn’t feel vast or mysterious or pulsing with Love.  It feels plain, or boring, or hard.  Sometimes really hard. 

But the mystery is there.  And the mystery is here.  Right now, as I write this.  Right now, as you read this.  It’s sitting in the corner smiling, waiting for you to stop rushing long enough to notice. Or not.  How funny how little it seems to need our attention.  Sometimes I wonder if we’re not meant to notice it.  Maybe we’re supposed to just be lost in our stories; characters in the play. 

And yet, we have the ability to pause and see more. And there is such peace in the pausing.  Such freedom in knowing we are far more than just our worries and daydreams and dramas; and the world is far more than just its challenges and delights and bills.  So for a while, I rest here, smiling back at how, noticed or not noticed, this ‘mystery’ quietly holds our lives.

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In the weird world of quantum physics, there’s something especially mind-bending called the Zeno Effect. Scientists have discovered that (at least at the level of ridiculously small things) the mere act of measuring something can slow down its natural evolution.  In other words, the more often a subatomic particle is observed, the more slowly it changes. The reason for this seems to be that, when measured, whatever process of natural change the particle is undergoing has to stop for a nano-moment, kind of like pausing for a photo.

I came up with the following way of imagining it (and if you’re an actual scientist, who actually gets this stuff, please feel free to roll your eyes and correct me)…let’s say someone rides a bicycle from Point A to Point B.  If they stop every so often to take a selfie, it takes a little longer to get there.  If they stop for a selfie every two seconds, they barely move at all.  The Zeno Effect seems to suggest that constant scrutiny has a way of slowing down something’s natural progression. It’s the scientific explanation for what your grandmother always knew: a watched pot never boils.

My point?  Well, I wonder if, in these post-election days, the best thing we could all do is pay a little less attention. What might happen if we dared to put down our phones, close our laptops, and go for a long walk? My bet is it would almost certainly be good for our individual health.  And the wisdom of the Zeno Effect suggests that, counter-intuitively, it might also be good for the health of the world. 

As much as our need for control hates to admit it, sometimes the best thing we can do is do a little less.  How many parents would have been better parents if they had backed off now and then?  How many relationships might have survived had the couple given each other a little more space?   

When something is going wrong, it’s hard for us to believe the solution isn’t to press harder. But when we are stretched thin, emotionally-drained, and not operating at our best, we can end up doing more harm than good.  

I know we’ve all grown accustomed (aka addicted) to a steady IV-drip of breaking news, latest updates, and dopamine inducing self-righteousness. But my gut tells me it’s time to pull the plug for a while and get back to things we did before everything we did felt political. It’s time to go to a concert, play with the dog, invite friends over to not talk about politics. If we can extrapolate anything from the Zeno Effect onto a human scale, it might be to have a little more faith. Faith that there are larger forces than us at work. Faith that all of this is held by a Mystery much bigger than we can imagine. And faith that sometimes our job is to just get on the bike and ride.

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