Holy Everything

 Its a beautiful Sunday morning in June, a day inviting both the slower pace of a Sunday as well as the invitation of Mother Nature beckoning with her delightful June temperatures and low humidity.  A day holy with my rituals of Sunday, a day holy with the temple of Mother Nature in June, and a day holy by commiting to receive all that the day brings to me as a blessing...as hard as that is for my mind to wrap around at times!

Growing up in a Catholic family, holiness was taught as obeying rules and rituals and obeying the men who ministered for God.  And so at 5 years old, I asked to become an altar girl and after being laughed at by the priest for asking,  I announced to my parents I was no longer Catholic, indignantly saying I knew God would have said yes to my request to become an altar girl. My parents, to their credit, did not defend the priest's response and instead encouraged me to participate in what still had meaning for me in the Catholic faith.

The joy and inspiration of my childhood faith-the majesty of Christmas midnight mass, the soothing sound of the Latin chants, the transcendent beauty of the church music and singing-did become part of the rituals and holidays created in my own non-Catholic family.  For I had learned an important truth in not rejecting the holy still being offered through the Catholic faith....holy is not the obeying of rules and rituals...holy is everything, everyday, and everywhere.

Holy is the reverence I feel as I view the sunrise over the ocean as majestic as any cathedral, holy is the gaze of an infants eyes in mine dissolving all doubt of angels, holy is offering our smiles to those unknown with a frown, and holy is embracing what is true for us through experience,  even if lacking in obedience. When we begin to live as the daughters and sons of God all faiths agree we are, then we begin to live in conscious awe, in conscious reverence, in conscious faith holy is everywhere.

This weekend we are in Brooklyn, NY for a birthday celebration for my younger daughter with the family and friends who live here. We visit once a season or so, enjoying what residents love about living here, including awesome and inexpensive cuisine from around the world through simply a subway ride. Last night we chose dinner in Tibet courtesy of a restaurant the size of a large walk-in closet and sipping Tibetan hot buttered tea, I studied the autographed pictures of the Dalai Lama near our table.

Noticing my interest, the owner of the restaurant showed me another picture near the register and he proudly pointed out the words the Dalai Lama had written across the photo...."Don't give up your dream". He told me how he had spoken with the Dalai Lama at a recent meeting of Tibetan exiles living in New York City and how his despair at being exiled from his beloved home and culture had transformed into renewed tending his dream for peace instead.

Dreams are critical for our life human and without our dreams, humanity would not unfold. Our imagination plants the seeds of dreams and we tend to our dreams with our thoughts and the actions we engage on behalf of them. Dreams have their time and their way and need the courage of our heart and our deepest faith in both humans and life. When we despair of a dream ever becoming, embracing patience and commitment serves the dream while the "proof" that our eyes and minds demand does not.

So honor the dreams that come through you, trusting as you tend to them with faith, they will grow, and that they come to you in faith of your tending as well. The Dalai Lama had simply reminded this man exiled from all he had known that his dream to return through peace was impossible only when he give up on it. For while a dream's time to be is not be in our control, keeping up with our faith in our dreams is....