Midweek Faith Lift
September 8, 2021
Who You Really Are!
Rev. Deb Hill-Davis
In a Tree House
by Hafiz
Light
Will someday split you open
Even if your life is now a cage,
For a divine seed, the crown of destiny,
Is hidden and sown on an ancient, fertile plain
You hold the title to.
Love will surely bust you wide open
Into an unfettered, blooming new galaxy
Even if your mind is now
A spoiled mule.
A life-giving radiance will come,
The Friend’s gratuity will come –
O look again within yourself,
For I know you were once the elegant host
To all the marvels in creation.
From a sacred crevice in your body
A bow rises each night
And shoots your soul into God.
Behold the Beautiful Drunk Singing One
From the lunar vantage point of love.
He is conducting the affairs
of the whole universe
While throwing wild parties
In a treehouse – on a limb
In your heart.
Wow….thank you, Hafiz! This life journey is a continual process of “getting beyond” who we think we are to who we really are! Out on a limb! When we try to “think” about this, what we think we are, to who we “really” are, it can get really murky and confusing. It helped me to think about it this way. Think about a clay vessel, a pot that is designed to hold water or some kind of contents. What really makes the pot? It is the walls, the sides and the solid vessel, or is the emptiness inside? Which part of this pot is the most real, the most important, the most valuable: the walls or the empty space? So let yourself sit with that Zen-like question as we contemplate together who we really are, the walls or the empty space!
In our human journey, we all have this outer form, our shape, our “pot” if you will. And inside this shape, we discover a lot of “stuff” that helps us identify who we are and begin to establish a sense of our personhood, our “self-ness” that is differentiated from other persons. As we grow, the capacity of our “pot” grows, too! Sometimes it gets filled with all kinds of beliefs and ideas about who we are that don’t really fit with what we know to be the truth of us, of our identity, our sense of self. We hear and see and experience feedback and judgment that if our pot is too different from all the rest, well, that is not ok, and there is not a real place for us other than the scrap heap of misfit pots, kind of like the island of misfit toys!
So who is the Big Shot Hot Pot who is making these kinds of decisions? And why has that belief found its way into my pot? And do I want it? That my friends is when we begin the real journey of discovering and appreciating and expressing our true selves; who we really are. We empty the “stuff” that is not really true of us and we acknowledge what is true and allow it to rise to the surface. We find our voice, our true human identity. We often describe this as a journey of faith, of letting go and letting God. We trust that the Universe supports us in this journey, that “God’s will” for us is good and only good, even when others may express their objections and disappointment in us.
Now I describe our human journey in this way today, to especially honor all who are openly living their truth as GLBTQ and more. We need to pause and acknowledge that this is a path of “being who you really are” that has required much courage, self-acceptance, and self-love to sustain. As we have continued to wake up as a culture, as a society, as a people, this journey has become somewhat less fraught with danger and peril, but not completely. May we all continue to wake up!
On a personal note, I want to acknowledge my ex-husband for having the courage to come out at age 37 after years of trying to be what he was not. After 14 years of marriage and 2 kids, he could no longer pretend. While it hurt like crazy to have our whole life fall apart in that process, what we each were able to realize is the true freedom that comes from being who you really are. It hurts more to pretend than, to tell the truth. When the un-awakened folks say that “marriage is between a man and a woman” I say you are confusing form with substance. It is not the shape or appearance of the pot, it is recognizing what the pot truly is that matters.
Now as we continue on this path of examining what is in the pot, we can begin to be more of a witness, letting go of our attachments to what we “think” is so important to have in our pot. So often, what we want in our pot is what we think will help us “get somewhere.” We want more money, a house, education, to have children, to retire, to travel, to lose weight, to have more….of you name it! What we are chasing and chasing often gets us nowhere except more and more frustrated. I remember when I was much younger consciously deciding and then actually losing a lot of weight. I got a lot of praise and positive responses for having a slimmer “pot” but then I realized that skinny people had just as many challenges, problems, and so on as heavier people.
What if instead of nowhere, we changed our perception and the word “nowhere” to “now here?” Same seven letters, but a whole different perspective. And then our question is what is “now here?” Tara Brach describes this as a path of awakening. On page 308, she says:
We may at times have a sudden and profound insight into our true nature. However, making ourselves at home in this truth….usually depends on a gradual unfolding. For this reason, the process of realizing who we are is called a path of awakening. While a path implies getting somewhere else and different, in spiritual life the path opens us to the awareness and love that, T.S Eliot writes, is “here, now, always.”
While we like to say, “let go and let God” the truth is that we “let go into God.”
We let go into pure awareness, into the emptiness that is the essence of the vessel. When we can stop trying so hard to fill the vessel, to do something to use it, we can begin to appreciate what the emptiness brings, the power and joy of not knowing.
We have scripture that supports this letting go into God, into the Christ in Paul’s letter to the Colossians
Colossians 3:8-14
8 But now you must get rid of all such things—anger, wrath, malice, slander, and abusive language from your mouth. 9 Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have stripped off the old self with its practices 10 and have clothed yourselves with the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge according to the image of its creator. 11 In that renewal there is no longer Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and free; but Christ is all and in all!
12 As God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. 13 Bear with one another and, if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each other; just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. 14 Above all, clothe yourselves with love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. (NRSV)
In this emptying of ourselves, letting go of our attachments to what we “think” defines us, makes us who we are, we are free to witness, to be fully present, and to love. Sometimes that requires us to speak up, to tell the truth, and be seen and heard. It is not easy, but it is necessary. The “real world” is beyond our thoughts and ideas. We see it through the lens of our desires, our wants, divided into pleasure and pain, right and wrong, inner and outer, inside the vessel or outside of it. When we begin to see it as it is, we see that our “vessel” is full of holes; it is permeable and it allows the light of love to shine through, the energy of love to flow through.
And then suddenly, our “vessel” is so much bigger because it is no longer limited to what we can measure or to what we think it can hold. We have let go into God! We have stepped beyond the vessel into the vast energy of the Universe, the energy that is us and more than us, the energy of love that holds us. And in that space, we allow all that is to be, asking only to show up with pure awareness and pure love. That is when the true mystery unfolds when miracles happen and pure joy is our experience. There is no “control” here, no “figuring it out,” just the ecstasy of knowing the Presence of Love. It is a mystical experience.
Myrtle Fillmore speaks of it this way in How to Let God Help You on page 63. She says:
We are learning about things that were mysterious. We are knowing ourselves better and better; we are finding that there is something in us that understands better than the intellectual self. We are beginning to find a new heaven and a new earth. The things we have thought to be beyond our ken are gradually coming into our knowledge. We are gradually coming to know that we are one with Him who knows all, one with perfect life. We are finding that the Spirit within us is greater than all else.
As we walk this spiritual path together, we hold the light and shine the light of love as we celebrate together who we really are!
Blessings on the Path,
Rev. Deb