Tag Archives: spirituality

What I've Learned About God in My Garden

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In this season of spring, renewal and rebirth, I’ve been thinking: what have I learned about myself—and about God—from being a gardener?

 

From studying his work I’ve come to know the workman. I’ve come to better understand his garden, his creation, his creatures.

 

I’ve learned that each of God’s flowers, however imperfect, is perfect to him. God doesn’t make mistakes; he doesn’t make junk. Like every thing in my garden, and like every other creature in God’s garden, I’m perfect as is. I was meant to be as I am, as I have been, as I will be. Through me and through all his creations, God expressed his will, and declared it good. I am his will, and I am good.

 

I’ve learned that God loves diversity, or else why would he have created anew each flower and each snowflake? I’m different from every other creation, and my uniqueness is holy. When asked what he had learned about God from his studies, Darwin replied, “God seems to have had an inordinate fondness for beetles” (the very diverse species which Darwin particularly studied as a young man.)

 

I’ve learned that God doesn’t mow down dandelions because they’ve been bad. I’m not individually judged, targeted, punished, or rewarded. God’s world works the way it works exactly as he meant it to work. Along with every other creature, I’m subject to his inexorable laws of cause and effect, laws he quite deliberately set in motion. Sun shines and rain falls unpredictably and arbitrarily on all of us, and there’s an inexorable and unprejudiced justice in that. God’s not in the business of interfering with cause and effect.

 

I’ve learned that God is in the business of nurturing the processes of life, and of celebrating life’s cycles. Like all his creations in his garden, I was supposed to be born and I’m supposed to die, and—if I’m lucky—I’ll have some time in between to grow.

 

I’ve learned that I’m expected to turn toward the sun and try hard to grow bigger and stronger and smarter, to understand God’s laws and live fully within them. I’m also expected to accept disease, decay, and death as a natural part of life.

 

I’ve learned that I’m loved. God is bounteous, and provides richly for each creature whatever it needs to live the life he expects of it until its time to die. If I ask for something and God doesn’t give it to me, I don’t need it.

 

I’ve learned that I’m not just a unique flower; I’m also the air and the soil and the nutrients, the rain and the light and the whole ecological system supporting me. My identity is dual—I’m both an individual and an integral part of a whole. I’m a unique self and a larger self.

 

I’ve learned that, just as each creature does its part to support all of life, it is supported in return by all of life. I am meant to support all of life just as if it were my self—which it is. I do unto life as I would have it do unto me, I treat others as I would like to be treated. Life blesses me, and I bless life.

 

I’ve learned that although flowers die, life is eternal. When my unique body/identity/self dies, my connected self will spring forth renewed, born again. I’m part of life, part of God, one with God—and life/God/self go on forever.

 

I’ve learned from my garden to let go of my insistence upon fairness and equality in earthly outcomes, and to accept instead whatever God offers. Life abundant and life eternal are God’s precious and generous versions of love and justice. I tend his garden humbly, contributing my own invaluable and unique gifts in appreciation and peace.

 

Happy Easter, happy Purim, happy spring to all! Happy season-of-welcoming-new-life-birth-rebirth-cycles-processes-growth-nurturing-beauty-and-joy! And happy gardening….

An Appreciation of Gardeners….

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Many people take a gardener’s work for granted. They shouldn’t! Here are twelve of the important roles a gardener plays….

 

First, a gardener is a laborer.

 

You work, lift, haul, dig, sow, reap. You eat bugs and dirt and pain and sweat and cold. You love the outdoors, sun, water, and the feel and smell of dirt.

 

You turn to your garden to create, not to consume. You know that work is the one prayer that most deserves to be answered. You feed the hungry. Your work is sensuous and sensual, and you find joy in its direct experience. You are close to the soil and fully connected to the earth. You are here, now. Your work is love made visible.

 

A gardener is a good neighbor.

 

You’re a giver—of bouquets, bulbs, jam and apples, of cucumbers and conversation and kindness, of assistance and advice. You’re a teacher of both the old and the young. You know that a single seed in a paper cup holds a world of science and wonder.

 

You’re prepared to pass on a whole lifetime of gardening traditions—in times of prosperity, or in times of disaster. You decorate your community. You spread beauty and knowledge.

 

A gardener is a horticulturist.

 

You’re a student of plants, a botanist, a collector, a taxonomist, a geneticist, a specialist. In order to care for your plants, you study their whole world. You understand losses and surprises, setbacks and triumphs, persistence and patience.

 

A gardener is a scientist.

 

You enter your garden not to escape reality but to observe it more closely. You compare. You take notes, keep records, write journals. You analyze your failures and improve on your successes. You inquire and experiment and expand your knowledge.

 

A gardener is a naturalist.

 

Your expertise is not only in plants. You know soils, weather, birds, insects, fungi, microorganisms and micronutrients, pathogens, pollution, and pesticides. You recognize your biological reflection, your genetic double, in every garden creature and plant.

 

You celebrate the messiness of evolution and sex and spring and birth and rebirth. You’re an ecologist, a biologist, a zoologist. You know the connectedness of creation and your place in the web of life.

 

A gardener is an activist.

 

Your garden shows that you care—about healthful food, clean air and water, and earth-friendly horticultural practices; about soil conservation, wildlife habitat, about smaller and larger ecosystems, about native plants and species extinction.

 

You understand that the one power you have that will never corrupt you is your power to make something lovely. You’re a bioethicist, a political animal, and a steward of our children’s future.

 

Your garden is a statement of how you relate—to the land, to family, neighbors, community, to the present, past and future, to your country and to other countries, to your planet. You found out, in your garden, who you are and who you want to be, what you stand for.

 

A gardener is a creative artist.

 

You nurture the beauty in each plant. Your garden is an expression of your individual style, your philosophy, personality, your personal rules and directions and themes, your knowledge base, experiences, and interests. Through your garden, you give form to chaos.

 

You paint picturesque garden compositions. You demonstrate that substances obeying their own laws do beautiful things, and you demonstrate that there is no beauty anywhere that is not totally dependent on relationship. You co-create living masterpieces.

 

A gardener is a traveler on a mythic journey.

 

You venture through a beckoning gate into a mysterious world of uncharted paths, on a timeless hero’s journey through secret passages and hidden turnings, to your life’s destinations….You sometimes stop to smell the roses, and maybe slay a dragon(fly) or two.

 

A gardener is a philosopher.

 

A garden is a philosopher’s church, a place to worship Mother Nature and the mysterious workings of the universe. In a garden, you seek, find and create meaning.

 

In your life, as in your garden, your purposes and interests and opportunities change with the seasons. In your life, as in your garden, you live and make choices within a limited framework, with considerable constraints, making the most of what you have, and working what is already there. In your garden, you see reflected your own birth, reproductive urges, decay and death, your battles with disease and disorder, your struggles to grow, to compete, to seek light.

 

Along with your garden plants, you share the tender mercies of rain and sun and nourishment. You dance a ring around your rosies, your pockets full of posies. You come from dust, to dust return. Ashes, ashes, we all fall down.

 

A gardener is an historian and a storyteller.

 

Your garden tells, not only your story, but its own story—how you made it, what your plans and impulses were. Your garden reveals all the things you can’t resist doing and all the things you never got around to.

 

Perhaps your garden tells the history of the land itself—its geology, topography, its last owners and previous uses. Your garden may reflect memories of beloved childhood gardens, as well as gardens you’ve visited in your travels, through art, literature, and in your imagination.

 

Last, a gardener is a mystic.

 

In your garden, you can be a dreamer, a spiritual seeker, maybe even a monk. In a garden, you accept life’s mystery, and attempt to recreate it.

 

You accept God’s grace, and his fierce, unexplainable logic. In a garden, you know God, for by the work, you know the Workman. Your work is your worship, gratitude, communion, and offering. You live in that infinite time, space, and distance that is the present.

 

Your smallest flower contains a universe. You are that flower, and you are the universe. You are the gardener and the garden, the fruit of the vine and the harvest.

 

(Thanks for insights, inspiration and images to: Carol Williams, Bringing a Garden to Life; Michael Pollan, Second Nature; Joe Eck, Elements of Garden Design; Ed Whitney (watercolorist); Henry Mitchell, The Essential Earthman and One Man’s Garden; Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet; The Holy Bible; and Mother Goose.)

A Bunch of Unreallistic Dreamers and Kooks–and Me

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A ragtag bunch of unrealistic dreamers and kooks shared our home while passing through Frederick on their trek from Oak Ridge, Tennessee, headed toward the United Nations in New York City, where they will join a rally for nuclear non-proliferation in early May.

 

Or were they a serious, hard-working, disciplined, organized, committed, and spiritual group of unique individuals taking small peaceful steps toward greater sanity in a nutty world?

 

Arriving after a 20 mile walk from Lucketts, Virginia, the group took a scheduled rest day (once every seven days) in Frederick, welcomed by members of the Frederick Friends (Quakers) and several other local groups, before walking off toward a night hosted by two Thurmont churches.

 

What did I experience? A disparate but remarkably purposeful and caring group of believers and non-believers—Christians, Buddhists, activists of many stripes, the old and the young, walking for a day or a week or a month or for thousands of miles in many countries. They are black, white, Asian, native American, from the U.S., Japan, Australia, and many other countries.

 

As I juggle my own daily logistics, I wonder how the peacewalkers manage to arrange nightly lodging (on the floors of welcoming libraries and churches) how they eat breakfast, lunch, dinner, get medical care, manage personal possessions and sleeping bags…. But all seems smooth and organized. Every day they rise for interfaith prayer, and are walking by 7 a.m. They walk fast, carrying peace banners from many nations, smiling and waving and sharing their energy and positivity, even after walking fifteen miles. They are efficient and tidy, leaving their accommodations spotless.

 

I expected to host exhausted walkers who would collapse until noon in every corner of my home. No, they rose at dawn for prayer. One visitor, a Buddhist nun, magically produced from a small suitcase, a portable office. She spent the morning using her brief “rest” to email and call far-flung colleagues, and to plan a future walk converging in South Dakota. Willing hands produced a light breakfast and a feast for lunch. The young people wanted to explore Frederick’s downtown, while the rest shopped Goodwill, mailed pressed flowers and letters home, and then planned their evening presentations for curious townsfolk–about why they joined the group, why they walk, why they’ve stayed.

 

After everyone had left, I thought about what their work meant to me. I was most struck by how reversed I now felt about who and what is crazy.

 

Although I always have respected the peacewalkers’ cause—nuclear non-proliferation—I admit that I invited them despite a feeling that this was a crazy bunch of people choosing a crazy life and a crazy goal.

 

Now I’m thinking about cutting out sugar and caffeine and alcohol, as many of them do, for more energy–and maybe I’ll start fasting, too. I’m considering rising a little earlier to meditate and pray, and I’m asking myself what example my way of life offers to my children, and to others. I’m thinking again about moving forward on some impossible dreams of my own, thinking about taking the next step and then the next, as the peacewalkers courageously do each day, keeping the faith in humanity and possibility.

 

I’m thinking that maybe the life I see on TV, the commercial life, the fast life of the contemporary west, my life, is perhaps not the best context from which to decide who is crazy or not, nor from which to determine what is a balanced, healthy, useful life. I’m thinking that maybe I’ll try to shake myself free of contemporary culture just long enough to reconsider the possibility that nuclear tragedy isn’t necessarily inevitable, nor that working for change in our government policies isn’t necessarily a waste of time, and that joy and meaning and energy may come more readily from a purposeful, disciplined, giving, hardworking, kind, and open life.

 

I’m thinking I’ll keep an eye on the internet for the next time any peacewalkers come anywhere near my town again. I’ll download their schedule and join them in solidarity and respect, for a few days, or maybe I’ll plan a vacation around them. Maybe others will do the same, and maybe someday, as they hope, huge throngs will crowd around them in appreciation and support as they stride purposefully, idealistically, determinedly through the towns of the world. Yes, it’s true, they’re dreamers. But they’re not the only ones.

What If…?

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What if it’s not important to be right?

What if, instead of deciding who to love, we just love everybody?

What if no one can explain God, but it’s fun to try anyway?

What if the best way to help others is to love them just the way they are now?

What if the world is the way it is because God made it this way on purpose?

What if trying to change people just doesn’t work?

What if talking problems over with God always helps?

What if god doesn’t care whether you capitalize her name or not?

What if you’re perfect (ly human) just the way you are right now, and so is everyone else?

What if there’s no past and no future—only a long line of nows?

What if they gave wars and nobody came?

What if we treated everyone the way we’d like to be treated?

What if everything is possible with God’s help?

What if the differences between people don’t matter?

What if we’re each completely lovable in our own way?

What if everyone helps and no one hurts?

What if religion is about opening hearts and minds? 

What if thoughts and ideas are the most powerful things in the world?

What if we live our own lives and let everyone else live theirs?

What if no one has unfriendly thoughts about anyone (including themselves)?

What if things change only when we change?

What if the world is as we are?

What if what God wants for us and what we want most are the same things?

What if people explain God different ways, while God stays the same?

What if we don’t need to worry about mistakes?

What if life is supposed to be the way it is?

What if we already have everything we need?

What if people who were upset only got smiles and help?

What if the things that separate people aren’t important?

What if there’s nothing to be afraid of?

What if the best way to help the world is to love it the way it is right now?

What if people who suffer injustice never added to it?

What if everyone knows what’s true, but no two explain it the same way?

What if giving up guilt frees us to give and love and be happy again?

What if we decide to see only good?

What if we go on forever?

What if God is love?

What if there are more questions than answers?

What if the questions and the answers change as we change?

What if human minds are smaller than God’s?

What if we’re not meant or expected to understand everything?

What if living in faith means choosing, even though we can’t be sure?

What if it’s OK to talk about all of this?

How I See the World (Today)

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Every person creates his or her own unique “reality.” Reality is not something “out there,” but something “in here,” created (during youth) as each person’s unique brain interacts with its particular environment, attempting to make some kind of systematic and predictable sense out of the relatively narrow set of confusing experiences and nonsense correlations it is confronted with. Thus, each individual arrives at adulthood with a unique belief system and worldview different from any other's. Much of adult learning consists of unlearning what we came to “know” about life in childhood that doesn’t happen to be so.

 

No one’s perspective is complete, or objective, or “right.” No one knows what he doesn’t know. No one ever achieves a complete understanding of anything, nor will anyone ever get anything completely “right” or “perfect”—no goal, no relationship, no choice, no idea—except, of course, that we are all perfect and right in the sense that we are all at every moment just exactly what we were meant to be, i.e., perfectly human.

 

Nature reveals a lot about the way my-unique-view-of-God works. “By the work, ye know the workman.” Nothing in nature or science contradicts anything I think or believe.

 

People are a completely natural part of nature.

 

Every person is born capable of the complete and astonishing range of human behavior, from the depths of depravity to the pinnacles of goodness.

 

It is written in the (very fallible but often wonderful) Bible, that when God “created” man and nature, he declared that both were “good.” I like the wisdom here. Who are we to argue with God, to call ourselves fallen and evil and sinners, when the creation-God of so many cultures has declared us “good,” and the earth good, just exactly as we are, just exactly as it is? We are exactly as God intended us to be—capable of all things, on this best of all possible worlds. We did lose peace, though, when we chose to see ourselves as separate from each other and God/higher power, and thus somehow shameful. (If you don't believe in a higher power, sin and evil and hell and such aren't issues for you….)

 

It’s interesting and fun to try to figure everything out, but only if you approach life as a wonderful surprising adventurous process with no goal at all but what you are doing right now—and not as an impossibly difficult and dangerous maze with a mysterious end  reward or goal. But whatever way you choose to look at life, you’ll still never figure it all out or get it “right.”

 

Since none of us knows what we don’t know, and since we don’t know what part of what we know isn’t so, then with each moment-to-moment choice we make, we act out of a  particular belief system, which is, in a sense, our unique and chosen faith about “how things work.”

 

There are two very general but very different things one can choose to put one’s faith in: fear or love. We all grow up with a mixture of the two faiths.

 

In any given decision moment, we decide to put our faith into either the one or the other–but we can never choose both at the same time, because fear and love can’t coexist in any one mind in the same instant.

 

The word “love” as I use it comprises all the good stuff humans are capable of—caring, hoping, kindness, forgiveness, acceptance, gentleness, giving….

 

The word “fear” as used here comprises all the bad stuff we’re capable of—like defending, attacking, controlling, hurting, hating, anger, greed, pride….

 

All of us have learned a lot of very reasonable, logical, arguable, cultural and personal reasons why we shouldn’t choose to act with faith in love in various situations. However, if we decide we want to, we can learn to recognize and drop each of these barriers to love, one by one, by seeing them as beliefs that don’t serve life very well. We can unlearn them, moment-to-moment.

 

Whichever way we decide to go, both kinds of faith–faith in fear or faith in love–are shots in the dark. In fact, that is what faith is, a shot in the dark. Faith is acting as though you know something to be true, when actually you don’t, at least not unarguably. You never know anything for sure–no matter how strong your faith–but you still have to choose how to act. Faith is choosing to act as if you know something and trust something for sure, when you don’t.

 

You can act, moment-to-moment, as if you know that being loving will out work for the best in the long run for you and for everyone else. Or, you can act as if you know that things will work out for the best if you choose to “fight back,” defending and protecting yourself against all the bad stuff you see in others.

 

All decisions and all actions, large or small, require courage, and all people (even those labeled the most “evil” in history) take only the actions they’ve decided will work best for them, based on what they think they know and don’t know.

 

“Love beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.” Being a loving person means having faith in the good intentions and sincerity of all others, all the time. We need to “believe” what others tell us, even when what they tell us seems completely unbelievable–because in some respect, from their viewpoint, they do believe it.

 

As Jesus was crucified, he said, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” We need to forgive ourselves and each other all our mistakes, small and large, because we are all  just wandering around and acting in the dark, doing the best we can, and you can never know what choices makes sense from another person’s worldview, or why. Besides, you'll never “forgive and forget” your own mistakes until you first learn to forgive and forget the mistakes of others. And the weight of constant self-judgment is exhausting.

 

When you treat all others as you would like all people to treat you, you are acting out of a faith in love. When you make an exception to this universal rule, which is the foundation of all human ethics, morals, and religions everywhere in the world, you are acting out of your faith in fear.

 

When you come from a mental place of being “right,” (“I am right about this”) you automatically make all the people who disagree with you “wrong,” which doesn’t work very well either.

 

Everyone, without exception, is deserving of our respect for their courageous (or timid) efforts to negotiate a life that is often difficult and painful, and always challenging and confusing.

 

“Vengeance is mine saith the Lord” means, “Vengeance isn’t yours.” Things may not seem fair or just from our own narrow perspectives, but God has a different, bigger, better, longer, more just picture, one we usually don’t get. We can ask him to share it with us, though. When confronted with problems, I often ask God to help me “see” things his way. And so he does.

 

God gives us all the good spiritual gifts we ask for—strength, insight, wisdom, help, comfort, understanding, forbearance, patience, and all the others, which can make a huge, even miraculous, difference. If we feel bereft, it’s because we haven’t asked for help. I don't think that God interferes with nature, but rather, works with it.

 

When we act out of fear, we deprive ourselves of the nicest state in the world, feeling harmless and safe and loved and lovable and peaceful.

 

Others generally will treat you the way you treat them. Others generally will see you the way you see them. So if you want others to start seeing you and treating you caringly, you go first. And be really patient—it can take a long time to change old patterns, both yours and theirs.

 

We can decide to look at the world and people lovingly, or we can decide to see the world and others fearfully, moment-to-moment, over and over again. Our lives and choices are not about “what’s out there.” Everything we see and do is always about “what’s in here.”

 

I choose to live as much as possible as if the past and future don’t really exist. This approach has a lot of freeing implications concerning “identity” (i.e., it’s much more fun to think of yourself as nothingness-full-of-possibility than to drag around a heavy burden of past and future.) The present is the only time I can be happy, be creative, can give and receive, can fully experience life; I’ve also found that whenever I notice I’m afraid or mad or sad, I can be sure I’ve been thinking about the past or the future, not the present. So I try to stay in the present….

 

In this world which often seems hopeless and terrifying, and despite having very little knowledge, and often no reliable human hand to hold—my challenge is to take the next step with love.

 

Sometimes the result of putting our faith in love seems unkind or unjust or unfair to ourselves, but it is always nobler to suffer injustice than to add to it. When we put our faith in love, at the worst we will do no harm.

 

God is what comforts me when I ask for comfort; God is what inspires me when I ask for inspiration, what creates through me, what loves through me, the light I see in the eyes of every person, all the beauty of nature, all that thrills me and brings tears of gratitude, all that connects me with everyone and everything that is, all that is profound, awesome, true, good, meaningful, the highest and best in man and nature. God is all the answers and all the questions, all the pain and all the joy, the beginning and the end of everything. That's as close as I can come to defining my personal God, and my personal belief system.

 

I don’t “know” any of this stuff, except through my individual experience and learning; every time I act with love, I feel confirmed in my faith in love, and every time I act in fear or anger or hatred, I am even more miserable. I choose to believe all this because it works for me in my day-to-day life. It’s also interesting and fun/light. What others learn is often different, what works for others may be different, and what others choose to believe is often different. I don’t think I’m right and I don’t think you’re wrong—we just have different realities, as does each person on this planet….

 

These are some of the things I try to remember as I go through life. I don’t ever get them right, though, and that’s OK too. How I see things will continue to change as I keep learning and growing.

Acceptance 7 – If I accept something or someone, does that mean I have to put up with them?

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Who can foretell the future? Miracles happen all the time. Things change, and the changes often seem miraculous, spontaneous, amazing. So, will you have to put up with anyone, or anyone forever? Maybe not.

Changes have happened before in your life: one morning you woke up and something was different, better than it was, something that was really hard before. If you accept something, just for now, that acceptance will be the beginning of a change, and that change will lead to other changes you can't know about, and some day you'll notice that whatever it was that you were putting up with or fighting or being miserable about just isn't a problem anymore.

What changes can happen if I accept something/someone?

Good question. Here are some changes that have happened to me as I've learned to become more accepting: I'm happier–more often, more consistently. I get over stuff quicker. I spend less time worrying, analyzing, wishing, angry, upset, miserable, frustrated, struggling, wrestling with problems. I spend far less time fussing about stuff that happened in the past, or yesterday, or an hour ago, and much less time stressing about how the future will play out for me and mine.

I get along with other people better than I used to, although the challenges just keep on coming. No one ever (ever) gets anything, or everything, “finally” right, once-and-for-all. Instead, what I've learned about acceptance helps keep me chipping away, making small improvements in things, day-by-day. But my relationships are improved, and continuing to improve, and they're easier, and more fun, and more rewarding, and less often stressful, and less often chaotic and awful, and much more long-lasting.

I don't fall apart at disasters or setbacks or disappointments quite so quickly, I'm less easily discouraged, and I'm more able to learn from my mistakes faster, and I move on afterward more quickly. I'm less sad, and spend much less time feeling depressed. I'm kinder, more loving. Calmer. Peaceful-er. More easy-going. More relaxed. More friendly. Less defensive. Less hostile. Warmer. Happier in my own skin. Gentler.

I'm more effective in the world, and a better advocate for the changes I want to see in it. I'm less shrill and self-righteous and angry and polarized, oppositional, contentious.

How is that for starters? There are other things, but these are some of the kinds of changes that can come with acceptance. And yes, I have more money these days, a happy marriage, more leisure time, too, all of which have come to me as I've learned acceptance. Being me feels so much better now than it did back then, bigtime.

Next: Where do I start with acceptance, on myself or others?

 

Acceptance 6 – Is acceptance Christian? Or is it based on some eastern philosophy or religion?

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Jesus accepted what God gave him to be and to do, accepted the life and death and work that was given him by his father. Jesus's prayer was always, “Thy will be done.” Jesus made acceptance an important part of every prayer. He tried to accept God's will: “Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.”

And what is God's will? Well, look around at what he made. If God is all-powerful and all-good, is it likely that he goofed up in his intentions when he made the world and all the beings in it? Or did he make them just as he wanted them to be, in all their diversity and potential, and then called them “good?” If God made you and the earth and everyone else on the planet, then what he made must be his will. He must have meant to make people who were capable of mistakes and failures and weakness, or he wouldn't have done it. You are God's will, and so is everyone else, and so is the earth, just as it is, along with all of its possibilities.

When someone dies and people say, “It's God's will,” what do they mean? Do they mean that God is mean and wants innocent babies to suffer and die? Or do they mean that God made all things possible on this best of all possible worlds, and called that good, and that we must accept any of those possibilities as part of his vision. God meant for the world and the people in it to be just exactly as it is and as they are. If God had meant for each of us to be perfect, to never mess up or suffer or fail; if God had meant for the world to be without pain or problems, he would have made it that way, would have made us different. We are God's will, and so is his earth.

Look and see: God's will is us, and everything around us. You are God's will, and so am I, and so is everyone else, and so is the world, as it is. Because he made us, because he made it so. And yes, God also made us ambitous for happiness, and for goodness, and for love, and that too seems to be his will.

Adam and Eve rocked along pretty happily in their beautiful garden until they started to find fault with everything in it, including each other; until they began to notice with dismay their own nakedness/sexuality; until they ate of the fruit of the tree of good/evil right/wrong, and started judging everything and everyone along those lines. After that, they were miserable, because they started finding fault with everything that God had made, with each other, with sexuality itself, which, it should be quite evident, is God's will.

God gave us the necessary brains and hearts to live in his beautiful garden helpfully with one another. We can choose to spend our lives picking at and poking at and being angry about everyone and everything and ourselves all the time, labeling everything as good and bad, right and wrong. Or, we can accept ourselves and his world and everyone in it as he made us, as is–and along with him, call it all “good.” Who are we to argue with God? And besides, it's a lot nicer and more fun living acceptingly inside his beautiful garden with him, than wandering around outside it in the wilderness of the desert, wailing in pain and resistant to everything and everyone, resistant even to God, maybe even especially to God.

Life is just too lonely without him, without the world, without each other, without our own selves as our best friends. We've all “done” lonely, and it doesn't work.

Next: If I accept something or someone, does that mean I have to put up with them?

Acceptance 5 – Isn't it better to change something rather than just accept it?

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When a situation isn't working, of course, change it if you can. But what is the best way to go about changing something? How can you be good at bringing about change? Are you going to be able to change things well if you're all upset and angry and emotionally strung out about stuff? Or would you be better, more effective at making changes if you learned to be calm and OK about whatever is, “as is,” first, and yet still wanting and willing to improve it? That's why it's so important to at first accept each person, each situation, yourself, life itself, just as it is, just exactly as they are. To be able to say, “this is me, this is them, this is life, this is what is,” without adding all your own reactions and emotional and mental stuff to it. When you can do that, when you can learn acceptance–then you will start to make and see big changes in your own life and in the lives of others around you–and even in the world.

So, does acceptance mean giving up? Settling? Resigning yourself forever to something or someone?

No. No one ever has to accept anything forever, because it's not possible to accept the future in the present. Just as you can't experience the future now, you can't accept things that might happen in the future, now. For instance, you can't accept being a parapalegic forever. The future is vague, unreal–too big, too hard, too far away to deal with in the tiny instant of time–now–that you have to do anything in.

No one can accept being in pain forever, and fortunately, no one needs to, because it's not possible. But one can accept pain, or anything else, for this moment. Just as the only time we can live, laugh, love, be kind, be cruel, whatever, is in the present moment, the only time we can accept anything is while we're in the middle of right now, during the process of living with it. It's impossible to accept for tomorrow, because tomorrow isn't real. Who knows what strength or wisdom or support or change the future holds? Or disaster, for that matter. Paraphrasing Jesus, today's troubles are enough. Don't worry about tomorrow's, because tomorrow will be the time to take of them.

In one sense, acceptance means settling–but just for right now; resigning yourself, for this moment; giving up resisting and struggling and fighting against whatever it is you don't like, in this present instant. That's a hard enough task for now, and it is enough to bring the peace that is the beginning of change.

That's it. That's all. That's all acceptance means. And when you accept “what is” in your life, right now, without adding all the usual amount of stress, struggle, and strain that everyone tends to add to the bad stuff in their life, then you're in a good position–you're aware and present and capable of working in the here-and-now–the right place to start effectively making the changes you want to see in the future.

Next: Is acceptance Christian? Or is it based on some eastern philosophy or religion?

Acceptance 4 – Why should I accept something that's wrong or bad?

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We were all raised by people who had ideas about good and bad ways to act, right and wrong ways to live, etc. Whether or not we still agree with any or all of those ideas now, we still are stuck with the little judgment-machine they created in our heads that is always talking at you, yelling at you, whining, making demands, arguing with you, scolding you or telling you off. Sometimes our little judgment-machines are busy doing all those same things, except this time they're directed toward everyone else in our lives–not to mention all the situations in our lives, and in the whole world. All those stupid little voices won't shut up about what's right/wrong good/bad about ourselves, about others, about the world. They just never shut up, do they?

And have you ever noticed how some people are still listening to these voices even long after they're all grown up? In fact, that's when the voices kick in bigtime: when you leave home–when you leave the real voices (your family, etc.) that started the whole thing, behind you. It's almost like your brain is afraid to leave them behind, afraid you won't be safe without them. so you bring them along with you wherever you go.

It's paradoxical and frustrating and ironic, and still sad-but-true: most people never quite seem to learn how to outgrow the too-loud, irritating, guilt-producing, naggy, nasty parental voices they accumulated during their first eighteen or so years, even when they long ago outgrew their parents, and even when the parents have changed and are now treating them more respectfully and kindly.

If you're still run by your thoughts, your voices, all it means is that you've never quite outgrown reacting to all the stuff in your life from a judgmental, parental right/wrong good/bad basis. It's as if you were five years old again, and your mother or father or some other person from your past was talk talk talking disapprovingly all the time in your ear. And you haven't learned yet to nod, smile, acknowledge what they have to say with no reaction, thank them for sharing, and then go about your business with a quiet mind.

Until you learn acceptance, you'll always be thinking about everything in terms of good/bad right/wrong. No matter what happens in your life, you will always be about finding fault–with yourself, with everyone else, with your life or the world. You will, unfortunately,  waste so much time and energy noticing how wrong everyone else is, or obsessing about every one of your own little mistakes, or talking about how messed up the world is getting to be, along with everybody in it.

Many people have learned acceptance. They're the ones out there who really don't seem to worry much about any of that right/wrong good/bad stuff. Instead, they cheerfully go about their own business getting along with everyone, liking everyone, getting things done, and being pretty happy in their own skins and in their own lives. People who are accepting seem to pretty much like people and life and themselves the way they are.

Which one of these two types of people would you rather be? Which type has the happiest life? The most fun? Which type is probably the most effective, regardless of what it is they choose to do with their life and time and energies?

Both types of people have to live on this same planet, with the same species, with the same opposite sex, with parents, children, neighbors, bosses, relatives, co-workers. Both types are found in all walks of life, in all races and ethnicities and nations, all ages and colors and genders.

But the unaccepting ones always seem to struggle so much. Too often, they find life and everyone in it, and even themselves, distasteful, even dreadful, all-in-all quite unacceptable. And yet others, the accepting ones, somehow manage to muddle through their lives with a certain amount of cheer and fun and flair, despite their own inevitable set of life's troubles and pain.

The differences between accepting and non-accepting personalities are clearly not differences in wealth. It's not about rich or poor (although money can be really very nice and helpful to have, and not even about who is right or wrong, or good or bad, or better or worse, or luckier or unluckier–although good things do tend to happen to accepting people. The biggest difference about accepting and non-accepting people (and this is a matter of learning, of choosing) is how they deal with the bad stuff in their life–whether they accept it, or fight it. If they spend a lot of time reacting to everything around them, listening to all their own little judgmental voices tell them all about how awful they are, and how awful everything and everyone else is…they're going to be both unhappy and ineffective. People who dwell on the “bad” and “wrong” stuff about themselves and the people around them, who spend too much of their time making unhappy judgments about “what is,” and thinking about how other people should act, and what other people should and shouldn't do, and all the mistakes they and other people have made, make themselves crazy.

Instead of all this crazy-making reacting and judging, some people learn to go through life without continually over-reacting, without judging, and instead, just accepting “what is” just the way it is, and other people just as they are, and themselves, and the world, just as we are, and it is.

Unaccepting people notice every little “wrong” thing about themselves, about others, and about the world, and make themselves miserable over it all. Accepting people don't spend much time worrying about all the right/wrong good/bad stuff. Somewhere along the way, they learned to accept things as they are, and not to waste time dwelling on how things aren't or ought to be. Accepting people have learned to focus on “what is” in life, instead of “what ought to be.” They've learned not to waste time worrying about what other people do or don't do or should or shouldn't be.

Accepting people–happy people–go about doing what they do without bothering to name it or anyone good or bad or right or wrong (i.e., judging everything and everyone.) Unaccepting people spend their life being upset about how awful life is, how disusting, how shocking. They spend life being righteously indignant about how wrong other people are, and how unfair, unkind, unjust, uncaring.

Accepting people rarely bother with all that negativity and hostility, which is not to say that they don't work hard for the changes they want in their life and in the world–we all do. Just like everyone else, accepting people have to work hard to make the changes they want to see in themselves and their own lives and in the world. It's just that they don't get all upset about everything and everyone while they're waiting and working and hoping for change. Which is good, because if they did that, nothing would ever change.

Acceptance is about accepting things as they are right now, while working to let go of your angry, resistive stuff about things-as-they-are, working calmly, peacefully, cheerfully, to change the things you want to be better and different.

Next: Isn't it better to change something rather than just accept it?

Acceptance 3 – What does it mean to accept something?

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Acceptance is easiest to define by saying what it is not. It's not giving up, or giving in. It's not settling or resigning yourself to anything.

Acceptance–the kind I'm talking about–is only about right now, this very moment–or at the very most, only about today. Acceptance has nothing to do with accepting anything at all forever, for tomorrow, or for the future. No one can foretell the future, so why would anyone ever accept anything “forever?” You can only accept stuff for now anyway, since unimaginable turns of events occur, and things often change when we do nothing at all. No one knows what the future holds.

To accept something for now means to take whatever or whoever it is in your life that seems to be causing you pain, and practice non-resistance. Don't resist it. Don't do anything about what has happened. Don't push it away, don't rebel against it. Don't scheme against it, don't analyze it, don't think about it at all if you can. Don't get upset about it, nor do anything about it except just let it be, whatever “it” is. Don't judge it, don't label it–right/wrong or good/bad, difficult, impossible, torturous, terrible. Just let it be what-it-is, as much as possible without any reaction at all, and stay in that space for a little while.

Acceptance is not about sitting and thinking about something. Acceptance isn't about imagining something, nor visualizing it. And it's certainly not about hearing yourself talk about it, or listening to your inner voice or inner voices talk at you about it, or about any of the bad stuff in your life (which would just make you even more unhappy.) Again, acceptance is not about thinking, talking, visualizing, or even feeling. It's about just knowing, being aware, but without all the added resistance.

To accept something–anything–that you don't like about your life, just know it “is,” know all about it, hold it lightly within–without pushing it away. Just be there, be here, with it, for awhile. Acceptance is staying with what you used to resist, staying with it just for now without running away, without avoiding or defending or escaping or flinching or squirming and without fighting back or fighting against anything about it (and/or all the feelings that might come up about it.) Or if the feelings do come up, stay with them, accept them, and be with them for awhile.

You'll find that your reactive feelings will come and go. Accept that. Thoughts may come and go, and images that you don't want, just accept that they keep coming up, and keep letting them go. Just stay quietly with all of your crazy-making stuff, and don't, just for now, do anything about it, nor do anything else. Sometimes acceptance feels hard and sometimes its easy, and sometimes it's scary and sometimes peaceful. Sometimes the hardest thing is slowing down long enough to be still with whatever is making you crazy, when what you want most is to do anything else but that.

What happens when you accept “what is” in the present about yourself, your life? When you stop for just long enough to accept “what is” and who you are–just for the moment, without all your crazy and mental and reactive and stressed and freaked-out non-accepting stuff attached to it?

Try it.

Next: Why should I accept something that's wrong or bad?