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Posts Tagged ‘inspiration’

Blurring the Sacred and Secular

Written by Jennifer on 1st June 2010

Humans seem to love categories. We evaluate, assess and assign people and things to different, appropriate categories. We especially do this when it comes to all things that fall into the sacred/secular camps:

This for my spirit; that for my body

This for God; that for humankind

This for the Church; that for the world

This for the Eternal; that for the temporal

We even capitalize the really important categories.

This tendency of humans to divvy up the sacred and secular made my experience at a dear friend’s wedding this weekend particularly meaningful. At first glance, the traditional categories were in play. They had a religious ceremony, held in a church, complete with a Reverend. Yes, the religious ceremony included no proselytizing. Yes, the church is liberal, LGBT-friendly and active in social justice issues. Yes, the Reverend is a woman. But I stopped slicing and dicing along all of those particular lines so long ago that, by my account, the ceremony fell into the traditional, sacred category.

(The rehearsal; (c) Scott Gleeson Blue)

Which begs the question: what, then, blurred the sacred and the secular?

It was the reception that did it.

Instead of moving the party to another location – or another part of the church building even – the chairs used for the ceremony were moved to tables to the immediate left and right, leaving a dance floor in the middle. Together, we ate and drank and danced and laughed where moments before there had been prayer and communion and marriage vows.

(Dancing at the wedding; (c) Emre Edev)

Most people I know are longing for a richer experience of life. Are seeking out people and experiences that bring them a taste of their own powerful, creative existence (and that of the eternal). In this way, categorization along sacred and secular lines seems to get in the way. It cuts us off from the holy experience of daily living or the spiritually nurturing nature of watching someone do the robot in the middle of a circle of tipsy wedding guests.

To be fully alive, I have discovered that I need to allow that what is for my body is also for my spirit; what is for my fellow humans is also for God; what is for the world, is also for the Church; and what is for the temporal is also for the Eternal. The line between the sacred and the secular must get muddy and blur such that dancing to James Brown’s Try Me and eating roast pork also became holy acts.

Tags: celebration, inspiration
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Day 30: Community (30th Birthday Countdown)

Written by Jennifer on 17th March 2010

As a countdown to my 30th birthday on March 18, I’ve committed to offering 30 people, things and experiences I want to celebrate from the last 30 years. Grab a piece of cake and enjoy reading!

“Let there be no purpose in friendship

save the deepening of the spirit.”

~ Kahlil Gibran

Tomorrow is the big day and I find myself here with one last opportunity to highlight something from the first 30 years I want to celebrate. The choice has become obvious because as I look back at all of the experiences I have celebrated this last month, I am keenly aware that not a single one of them occurred in isolation. They are centered in community.

One of the difficult tasks of this exercise turned out to be that there were too many things I wanted to include. There were certainly too many people. I cannot tell you how happy that makes me!

My world is filled with individuals and groups of people who have generated so much meaning in my life. There are my best girlfriends, spread around the country; my in-laws, who are among the most welcoming people I have ever met; friends from nursery school through college; my amazing and tremendous coaching colleagues; my neighbors and the strangers who smile on the subway; the family members I didn’t mention and friends whose names did not take the spotlight; and there is you.

I will post tomorrow – on my birthday – from Marrakech, but as I wrap up this series formally, it is with a heart full of gratitude for the fact that every single day of my life has been touched and gifted by my ever-evolving, always organic community.

I have been graced with 30 years of love and it is that – more than anything else – that propels me with eagerness and and an open heart into the next chapter of my life.

Tags: celebration, change, inspiration, sustainability
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Eternal Ephemera

Written by Jennifer on 24th November 2009

Most of us have those boxes – old shoeboxes or plastic bins the size of small trunks – that get filled up with the ephemera and memorabilia of our lives. The medals we won doing the backwards crab walk at Field Day in the 3^rd grade; the Girl Scouts uniform with a sash full of patches; the scholarship essays that resulted in bonds that will be worth face value by the time Medicare kicks in.

And for me, during a recent basement organization project, it also included pained poems written by my teenaged self and love letters from my very first boyfriend.

I’ll spare myself (and that first boyfriend) from sharing the details of said ephemera here. I will offer, however, that which was most fascinating to me, most surprising about what I’d written: the person I am now, I was then and the person I was then, I am now.

I have long believed that life is not only a process of creation, but one of discovery and I am more convinced of that now than ever before. Underneath the teenage experience and angst in my journals and poetry is some core part of the same person who shows up today to write this blog. I am certain it is the same person who will (I hope) one day write about what she’s experiencing in 2045.

As I find myself nearing this Thanksgiving holiday, I am surprised to note that I feel most thankful for the simple fact that I am me. Not because of what I have or what I’ve done or who I know – although I could fill tomes with gratitude for those things. And not in spite of all my shortcomings and limitations. I am thankful because there’s this essential, unchanging part of me that is amazing.

Last week, I had the opportunity to see that very first boyfriend and I copied two of those love letters and returned them to him. While the letters were addressed to me, they speak volumes about who he was, who he no doubt still is. It is my hope that they offer him a window into his own beautiful self and that he feels gratitude for that essential, unchanging part of who he is.

May you, too, celebrate with much thanks the beautiful person you are. What a tremendous gift!

Tags: ephemera, gratitude, inspiration, self
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Holiday Expectations

Written by Jennifer on 2nd November 2009

Most people I know like to complain about three things this time of year: their jobs, the weather and the upcoming holidays. For that reason, I’m borrowing an article from my most recent newsletter that offers three tips on how to create the holiday experience you really want.

If you want personalized attention in creating a different holiday experience this year than you have in the past, please check out the Holiday Warm-Up Coaching Special. (Plus, register by November 6 and receive 25% off!)

Pre-Holiday Tips

For those of us who live in the US, the holiday season begins in November with Thanksgiving. Expectations about holidays can run high, with internal and external messages telling us how the season should be. This time of year can also be quite painful, highlighting family dysfunction and lost loved ones.

The good news is that it doesn’t have to be this way! Here are a few simple tips to help you end this year right.

#1. Get over the fantasy.

No one has a Norman Rockwell life (and would you really want one, anyway?). There is no normal family and no right way to experience the holidays. Know yourself and know those you’ll be spending time with enough to recognize what can and can’t be.

For example, my parents are divorced and some of my siblings are half-siblings. I also have step-siblings. And a step-mother. And a half-step-sister. Could I ever have a nuclear family dinner on Christmas eve? No. Never. Please don’t make me.

Which brings me to the next tip.

#2. Identify what you really want.

And I’m talking about the bigger want, the meta-desire, if you will.

Here’s what I want: to feel loved, to give love, to have time to reflect on where I’ve been over the last 12 months and to really connect with myself, my spirituality and those I love. Only a handful of events could make fulfilling those wants really difficult. Baring those, as long as I don’t attach those deep desires to a fantasy experience, I can have what I want – whether I’m on an island in the Caribbean sipping mojitos or trekking back and forth between parents’ houses.

#3. Give only what you can give freely.

My marriage therapist taught me this principle years ago. If you can’t give without resentment, it’s not a gift and you shouldn’t do it. This applies to material gifts and it also applies to time.

When I first moved back East to where my entire family lives, I just went along for the ride for the holidays, going from house to house, accommodating everyone else. And then I got resentful. So I had to learn what I could and wanted to give and then communicate that to those I love. You know, keep good boundaries. The holiday’s are much better these days.

It’s not always easy to recognize the choices we have when it comes to creating the holiday season. When we do, a whole new path of freedom opens up to us. I hope the tips help you as you begin thinking about new ways to experience this season.

And don’t forget to check out the Holiday Warm-Up Coaching Special to create the personalized holiday experience you’re longing for!

For those of us who live in the US, the holiday season begins in November with Thanksgiving. Expectations about holidays can run high, with internal and external messages telling us how the season should be. This time of year can also be quite painful, highlighting family dysfunction and lost loved ones.

The good news is that it doesn’t have to be this way! In addition to suggesting you take advantage of the Holiday Warm-Up Coaching Special, here are a few simple tips to help you end this year right.

#1. Get over the fantasy.No one has a Norman Rockwell life (and would you really want one, anyway?). There is no normal family and no right way to experience the holidays. Know yourself and know those you’ll be spending time with enough to recognize what can and can’t be.

Which brings me to the next tip.

#2. Identify what you really want. And I’m talking about the bigger want, the meta-desire, if you will.

#3. Give only what you can give freely. My marriage therapist taught me this principle years ago. If you can’t give without resentment, it’s not a gift and you shouldn’t do it. This applies to material gifts and it also applies to time.

Tags: change, happiness, holidays, inspiration
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The Slow Path of Consciousness

Written by Jennifer on 16th October 2009

Autobiography in Five Short Chapters

by Portia Nelson

I walk down the street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk
I fall in.
I am lost … I am helpless.
It isn’t my fault.
It takes me forever to find a way out.

I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I pretend I don’t see it.
I fall in again.
I can’t believe I am in the same place
but, it isn’t my fault.
It still takes a long time to get out.

III

I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I see it is there.
I still fall in … it’s a habit.
my eyes are open
I know where I am.
It is my fault.
I get out immediately.

I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I walk around it.

I walk down another street.

Tags: change, inspiration, sustainability
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