Walking on Water

Walking on Water

Walking on Water A Step-by-Step Guide

Claire Summerhill

iUniverse, Inc. New York Lincoln Shanghai

Walking on Water A Step-by-Step Guide Copyright © 2005 by Claire Summerhill All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. iUniverse books may be ordered through booksellers or by contacting: iUniverse 2021 Pine Lake Road, Suite 100 Lincoln, NE 68512 www.iuniverse.com 1-800-Authors (1-800-288-4677) ISBN-13: 978-0-595-34191-7 (pbk) ISBN-13: 978-0-595-78962-7 (ebk) ISBN-10: 0-595-34191-8 (pbk) ISBN-10: 0-595-78962-5 (ebk) Printed in the United States of America

this book is dedicated to Michael R. Fordham

thank you for believing in miracles

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

THE BEGINNING: A Story ......................................................1 A long time ago, when one man stood atop a storm-tossed sea and didn’t sink, he gave us all a guide to accomplishing anything that seems to us to be impossible. CHAPTER 1: See the Spirit on the Water..................................11 As you abandon your current belief that what you want is impossible, you take the first step toward a new reality where dreams really do come true. CHAPTER 2: Accept the Invitation ..........................................23 Over and over, and in countless ways, the Universe beckons you to leave what you know behind. When you accept this amazing invitation, your life begins to transform. CHAPTER 3: Let Go of the Boat ..............................................35 Yes, it can be terrifying, but when you release your tight grip on your past experiences and limitations, surprising and completely unforeseen opportunities open before you.

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CHAPTER 4: Take the First Step ..............................................49 Choosing exactly what you want in your life at this moment, and then manifesting what you have envisioned leaves you forever enlivened and empowered. CHAPTER 5: Walk on Water ....................................................67 It’s been called nirvana, enlightenment, bliss, blessedness. Knowing yourself as you really are and experiencing fully your connection with all that is, your experience of life will never be the same. CHAPTER 6: Start to Sink ........................................................77 When you can welcome what appear to be failures or setbacks as simply part of the flow of the walking on water process, these experiences lose their ability to cause you pain. CHAPTER 7: Take God’s Hand ................................................89 The familiar “Lord’s Prayer” provides a summary of the seven steps to Walking on Water, or accomplishing that which seems impossible. THE END: A Final Word ..........................................................97 Seeing what is possible and then living into that reality, experiencing fully the sweet and delicate balance of choice and surrender, of sinking and soaring: this is what it means to be fully alive. For Further Exploration ............................................................101

THE BEGINNING A Story

Once, not so very long ago, and in a place not so very different from this, there lived a brash and ambitious young fisherman. He was an impulsive man, head-strong and competitive. You know the type—always wanting to be first, always wanting to be right, always wanting to be the best, and willing to give his all to whatever he decided to do. A man of big dreams, who loved more than anything to be the center of attention, to bluster, to attack life head-on. How he could brag about his exploits, his wondrous accomplishments! He was a realist too, though. Being a fisherman had forced that on him, perhaps. He knew the realities of storm-tossed seas, torn nets, and damp, exhausting nights of battling the elements with nothing but an empty hold to show in the morning for all your efforts. One night, so the story is told, Simon (for this was the young man’s name) had fished with his companions late into the night with little success. A contrary wind had come up, buffeting the small fishing boat, and by the fourth watch the tattered sails had been drawn up to spare them further damage, as Simon and the others braced themselves in the small craft to ride out the rough seas as they waited for dawn.

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Then one of Simon’s fishing pals saw a strange thing across the water. It was difficult to tell for sure, in the dim pre-dawn light and the misty spray of the sea, but it looked like a person almost, or a spirit, standing amidst the waves, or moving towards them. A reflection, or a trick of the light perhaps? Some of the men, frightened that whatever it was came to them as a warning of impending danger or an omen of evil, hunkered down amidst the sodden gear and provisions and hid their faces, hoping the strange apparition, whatever it was, would be gone when once they dared look again. With their faces hidden, they called out, some more bravely than others, “You, whoever you are: Go away! Leave us! You have nothing to do with us nor us with you!” But Simon was not this sort of man. He squinted through the semi-darkness and spray-drenched fog to see what it might be that was now hidden by the waves, now more apparent. A shadow? A reflection? But something about the form seemed so familiar, as what seemed to be arms reached out for balance, or blessing, or in a kind of communion with the deep. One sees strange things at sea at times, after a long and fruitless night of fishing. “You there!” he shouted in the direction of the strange thing he saw. “What kind of thing are you?” The others, hidden in the nets, trembled to learn that the strange harbinger of the unknown was not yet gone, and moaned that Simon would be so forward. What was wrong with the man? Had he no concern for them? Did he not know the danger of challenging an unknown spirit? But as the wind stilled for a moment, Simon saw, astonished, that the form was not a specter at all, or a trick of the light, but only his good and amazing friend, the man known as Jeshua! “I should have known,” he muttered to himself, a little annoyed that he hadn’t guessed this from the beginning, and yet still not quite sure either what was real and what was not. This guy was always up

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to something. And even though this was a great part of what Simon loved about his friend, it could be quite disconcerting at times as well. “Hey, it’s just me!” Jeshua called across the water. “Don’t be afraid!” Simon waited a minute before responding. The possibility remained that the thing was an illusion, an hallucination brought on by the weariness of a long night at sea. He feared looking foolish in front of his friends, and there was always an element of danger too, in communicating with spirits, who could take a familiar form if they wished, to draw you into their evil. And yet, somehow the heart-stopping risk of it excited him too. “If it’s really you,” he answered, trying to sound brave for his fisherman friends, and matter-of-fact for Jeshua, if indeed it really was Jeshua, “ask me to come out there on the water with you!” That shrug was Jeshua’s, all right. He was never the type to force anyone to do anything. “Well, come on then, man, if you want to. What’s stopping you?” Without allowing himself time to think about the utterly insane thing he was doing, Simon threw his leg over the side of the boat. His foot shook a little as it found the first rung of the rope ladder, but that could have been from the cold, or a result of the stiffness that often follows a night at sea, and he scrambled quickly enough down the rest of the way, letting his feet find their own way. As he reached the level of the water, he turned toward the open sea, one hand still holding tightly to the rough twisted rope. “Don’t look down,” he commanded himself. “Whatever you do, just don’t look down.” His eyes met those of his friend standing now only a few yards from him in the midst of the waves. He took a deep breath, let go, and took a step toward Jeshua. The water felt odd under his feet. Not like the wooden shell of a ship or the dirt floor of a house, but very soft instead, smooth, silky, rather like walking on soft pillows of imported linen. He felt himself

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sinking into the softness even while it supported him. For a moment, he had the oddest sense that it was not this water supporting him, but that the entire universe was holding him up, embracing him, that he was one with all of creation, with everything seen and unseen, now and forever. It was as if his legs and feet were of the same element as the water, the sky, the swirling strands of sea plants, the familiar fish. And then it was as if he could no longer feel his feet and legs or hands and arms as separate from him. He felt as if he were expanding, growing larger and larger, and as if he were moving higher and higher until he could see and feel and experience and be everything that existed or had ever existed. It seemed as though doorways, passages, castle gates, perhaps the very portals of heaven itself, were expanding and opening in front of him, opening and opening, then falling away behind him. He could see deep, deep into the sea and out, out over the land and up to the stars and see everything in the universe at once, every form of teeming, expanding, inter-connected life. Everything was startlingly clear and brilliant; the very air itself glimmered with a powerful, pulsing light glistening with possibility and freedom. And there was a strange vibration in the air, as if somehow everything were vibrating in unison, a pause between drumbeats, the clarity of a perfect note echoing in stillness. No time, no space, no water or sky, just Jeshua’s eyes, and himself, looking into the depth of those eyes. But then, unexpectedly and without warning, the cold slap of a particularly boisterous wave against his leg brought him back to himself with a start. He glanced down at his legs and feet, suddenly his own again, separate and distinct, and yet undeniably part of him as well. A second dark foam-capped swell smashed against him, this time reaching nearly to his waist. A panic like none he’d ever known before enveloped him. What in god’s name was he doing out here?

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He floundered, and felt himself beginning to sink. His arms and legs flailed wildly as he fought to keep afloat in the tumultuous sea. Two opposing waves approached him, and one broke over his head, submerging him. He came gasping to the surface, arms churning, struggling for breath, trying to catch a glimpse of the boat, to find a piece of bouncing flotsam to grab, anything. There was no surviving these storms, no matter how strong a swimmer a man was, no matter how hard he tried. He knew that. Gasping for breath, he swallowed instead a huge gulp of the gritty water. Jeshua! Where the hell was he? For an instant anger surged through him with the thought that his friend had somehow tricked him into this, and then abandoned him. But then the memory returned of what it had felt like for that unbelievable instant that had seemed to last forever. The clarity of it, the ringing reality of it. “Save me!” He shouted into the wind. “Save me!” He choked again as water filled his mouth instead of air. Then he felt Jeshua’s hand on his, and suddenly he was on the surface of the water, and it was calm where they were, even though the storm raged on unabated around them. The sea wasn’t holding him up now, though, nor the universe. He felt more like a baby must feel, he thought, helpless and totally dependent on another’s care. Jeshua offered his familiar lop-sided “what’s-up-with-that” grin, shaking his head as if the whole thing had been more amusing than dangerous. “Sorry, man. It really isn’t as hard as it looks.” Simon groaned. “Yeah, right.” He gripped his friend’s forearm with both hands, knowing that if he let go, even for an instant, he’d be right back in the midst of it again. He shivered despite himself and spat out a mouthful of water. He was past caring what anyone thought, past caring about much of anything. When they reached the boat, Jeshua held onto him until he was safely inside, then spoke softly to the wind, which ceased almost as suddenly and unexpectedly as it had come up.

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This book is about learning to walk on water. We’ve skipped across burning coals, wandered into the dark subterranean caves of our psyches to face our inner demons, confronted our shadows, maybe even been to hell and back, and yet many of us still haven’t learned this one simple and helpful thing: how to walk on water. There are seven steps in the process, of course, because seven is a good number, easy to remember and not too overwhelming, once even thought to be magic, and a good number of chapters to have in a book.

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The seven steps to walking on water are these: (1) See the Spirit on the Water. The first step in walking on water is to abandon your current beliefs that what you want is impossible. Just as Peter, when he saw something strange approaching, was willing to give up his convictions about what was or was not possible, so we must be willing to let go of even those conventions and constructs we think we know absolutely to be true. (2) Accept the Invitation Most of us have had many, many opportunities to step off the familiar path and go in a new direction, but for some reason, even when we can see clearly that our current choices aren’t bringing us what we desire, we stay stuck where we are. The second step in walking on water is to open our hearts and accept the invitations the universe offers. (3) Let Go of the Boat There are times in our lives when we must simply “take the plunge,” step out of the airplane, quit our job, toss out our security blanket, tell our spouse we’re leaving. In the third stage of the process, we learn how to release our hold on the security of the known and familiar.

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(4) Take the First Step Because letting go and taking a first bold step in the direction of our dreams often happen very closely together, it’s easy to confuse them, and think they are one action. Separating the two and clearly seeing the difference makes both possible. Step four is about choosing, about identifying specifically what it is you want. It’s about setting and reaching goals, envisioning and manifesting dreams, creating your life as an artist creates a work of art. (5) Walk on Water There is a bliss in letting go of your personal self and knowing your oneness with all that is. There is a power and freedom and joy in simply being. Mystics and maharishis, saints and yogis, poets and prophets—all have tried, with varying degrees of success, to describe this experience for us and lead us there. Now, prepared by steps one through four, you are ready to embrace this adventure. (6) Start to Sink Though step six may seem to be the easy one, most of us exert a great deal of energy in resisting the idea that there is nothing wrong with failure. How we fight it! How we pretend, hiding our true feelings, fearful that if anyone knew the “truth” about who we were, they would certainly despise us. In step six, we learn that making mistakes is not only okay, it’s actually an important and necessary part of the process of creating miracles in our lives. (7) Take God’s Hand We are not alone. However it is that we envision or experience “God”—as personal or universal, as protective father or loving mother, as a close and intimate friend or as the power that holds the planets in their places, or as some combination of all of these—there is an undeniable power in knowing and acknowledging our connection to this power. The last step in the process of walking on water, symbolized by Peter’s reaching out to take Jesus’s hand,

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encompasses and includes the entire process of accomplishing or creating that which until now has seemed to you to be impossible. If you’re interested, these seven steps, in addition to preparing you to walk on water, also work for anything else you wish to accomplish or experience in your life, anything else that seems impossible or just very difficult. You may have heard these seven notions before, and in fact, it’s almost certain you have, but perhaps now you’re ready to listen and hear. As we set out together on what could be for you the adventure of a lifetime, you may wonder what qualifications I possess to act as your mentor and guide. I could say perhaps that my training and experience as an attorney and teacher and minister have given me unique insights into the ways people deal with the challenges and opportunities they face in life. Or that raising four children as a single mother and returning to school when I was nearly 40 prepared me to teach others seeking fulfillment and meaning in their lives. I could mention the marriage ceremonies I’ve performed or describe the miracles that occurred in the lives of countless people I’ve prayed for and with. I could tell you of all these things, but my only real qualification to act for a short time as your partner in this adventure would still be only this: I’m a human being, a searcher, a seeker, a fellow wanderer in this existence we call human experience. I have lived these seven steps, and know intimately both the terror of letting go of the safe and the known and the blissful joy of knowing myself as I truly am. I have been afraid and found courage. I have known both loneliness and the wonder of true partnership. And if it makes any difference to you, I’m especially experienced at step number six of the process: starting to sink! This one I’ve mastered!

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I invite you now to let go of everything you think you know, everything you’ve experienced up until now, and come with me into a new world.

“Above all else, I want to see.” —A Course in Miracles

Chapter One See the Spirit on the Water

Perhaps you’ve heard the story of Peace Pilgrim. When this remarkable woman was in her early fifties, she decided to leave her comfortable home and affluent life-style and strike out on her own for peace. She had money and possessions and everything she’d always thought she wanted in life, but somehow she was dying inside. It was if she could feel her own unique light being slowly extinguished. Maybe you’ve felt that way sometimes too. All the things she’d thought were important to her, the things she thought would bring meaning and joy to her life, had become empty and meaningless. She looked around her at the war, at the useless destruction in the name of religion, at the endless quarrels over power and resources. She saw the violence, the hate, the anger in her own city, and she decided that more than anything else she wanted to be an influence for peace. Peace Pilgrim decided that the best way she could help change the world would be to walk for peace. Leaving her home with only the clothes she was wearing, she set off and never looked back. Between the time she made that decision and the time she made her transition from this world to the next, she walked over twenty-five thousand miles for peace, teaching, talking and living peace. 11

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One particular story she told touched me deeply when I first heard it. Sheltering under a viaduct one night, she was woken abruptly from a deep sleep by a violent and angry young man brandishing a switchblade knife. She had no idea who he was, or why he had chosen to direct his anger and hatred toward her. She rose to her feet to talk to him, but he grabbed her, and pressing the tip of his blade against her neck, told her he was going to kill her. Where many of us might have responded with fear or anger or violence in such a situation, Peace Pilgrim’s first and immediate reaction was the need to love this unknown man, to extend to him all the love of God she had within herself. She stood still and embraced him, and let herself love him, unconditionally and with her whole heart. She consciously connected to the love inside him, and as she did so, she felt that love. She felt the god-ness buried and hidden deep within this hostile and angry stranger. Connecting to that truth, she called it forth. Then, as she told the story later, it was as if she felt an almost physical sensation of a shift or a movement, inside her assailant. Something that hadn’t opened for a long, long time loosened, eased, expanded, like an ancient chest well and tightly bound with rusted iron strips opening as easily and smoothly as the honored door to a sacred space. At the same time, something shifted inside Peace Pilgrim as well. The sense of herself as separate from this stranger slipped away as she looked into his eyes and saw herself reflected there. The man’s grip on her loosened, and he dropped the knife and ran away. The first step in learning to walk on water (or to do anything that appears to you to be impossible or difficult) is to abandon your current belief that what you seek is impossible: to let go of the thought that it’s impossible to walk on water, or to overcome a particular challenge or to reach your imagined dream. This might be seen as the easiest step, because after all, you don’t really have to do

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anything, except change the way you look at things, or it might be seen as the hardest step, because you have to change some beliefs that are pretty well ingrained and affect everything you think and everything you see. Some might call this step willingness, or even faith. If you can say, “I can’t see it now and I’ve never seen it before, but I’m willing to look, to let you show me,” then you’re ready for this step. Letting go of things is hard—there’s no question about that. But a lot of learning how to walk on water is about letting go. Letting go of your belief that life has treated you poorly, that you are not worthy of love, that your gifts are not valuable. Releasing your long-held assumptions that love leads to pain, or that work must be tedious, or that there’s nothing you can do about world hunger or child abuse or the haze of brown smog that hangs over your city. Peace Pilgrim was willing to let go of the ideas she’d previously had about what was possible and what was impossible, just as Peter was willing to abandon his idea that walking on water was impossible. When she abandoned her previous ideas of the impossible, a miracle blossomed into life in her presence. A friend of mine had worked at the same job for thirty years, a safe, secure job, with a nice predictable little paycheck every two weeks. One Friday night, working late to finish up his week’s work, he noticed an envelope on his desk. Opening it, he found this announcement on a crisp sheet of company letterhead: “We thank you for your many years of dedicated service, and regret to inform you that your department is being consolidated with another company unit. In connection with these changes, your position has been eliminated.” For a moment, he just sat there, stunned, slumped in his chair. What would he do? With all the down-sizing going on, no one would hire a fifty-five year old has-been. How would he ever be able

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to find another job? Would he have to sell his home? What would he tell his family? Feeling dejected, he looked up for a moment and saw a little brown spider scrambling across his desk. Almost without thinking, he reached out to brush it off onto the floor. As he flicked the spider over the edge of the desktop, it shot up a silvery strand of web and hooked on to the desk, and then, using this lifeline, let itself gently down to the ground. Something happened to my friend in that moment. He’d been knocked for a loop too, by a seemingly unseen hand, just as the spider had. Could he reach deep inside himself and let what he’d originally seen as a disaster be instead simply a means to get to a new place? He’d always wanted to be a writer and had even had an article or two published. He knew a lot about his field. He decided not to look for another job, but instead to write. He never wrote a best-seller, or anything whose title you’d probably recognize. But he supported his family and paid his bills, and after three or four years, he was earning twice what his salary had been before. He’d always thought it would be impossible for him to make a living as a writer. That was a dream for other people. But when he let go of his prior beliefs about what was possible and what was impossible, he found a depth of satisfaction and fulfillment he’d never before imagined possible. Buddha once said to a group of his followers: “Your thoughts are like an ox pulling a cart.” Just as wherever an ox goes, the cart goes as well, so your life, the events that you experience, follow the beliefs and ideas you have in your head. As long as Peter believed that it was impossible for him to walk on water, it was impossible for him. The reality followed his thoughts, just as a cart follows along behind an ox. When he let go of this belief, and seeing Jesus on the water, accepted a new vision of reality,

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this new reality followed. A new way of experiencing the relationship between himself and water, wind, and sky followed his belief that such a new relationship was possible. Often, we’re unaware or only dimly aware of how our beliefs in what is possible and what is impossible limit our lives. A daughter follows her father into a career because the young woman has seen her father make a living in this career and so knows it’s possible. No risks. A child raised in poverty accepts this as normal and moves into his own hovel to raise his own children in the same way. Until we believe that what we dream of is possible, whether this is a relationship where we are valued and accepted for who we are, or a career where our unique gifts and talents can be expressed as we make a comfortable living, or a fit and healthy body free of addictions, or whatever it is we long for, our hopes will not be realized until we let go of our belief that these things are impossible for us. I used to hear of destitute folks in Central or South American countries living on the borders of the city dumps, anaesthetized to the stink of humanity’s cast offs as they scrounged for a piece of tin to shield their children from the sun, or foraged for a bit of discarded food that hadn’t yet turned to rotten mush. I’d ask myself why people in such a situation didn’t simply demand something better. Why did they accept such a small, wretched existence? The answer of course is that they couldn’t see themselves living in another way. Perhaps growing up, they had watched family members starve to death, and so having a constant supply of food, no matter its source, seemed a blessing. Perhaps God looks at us sometimes in the same way, wondering why, with all the bounty, with all the richness of the world, we would choose to live tight restricted little lives, why we would pollute our resources, why we wouldn’t demand something better. The only

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difference between me and the person living on the dump is one of degree. We both live the life we are able to see ourselves living. Much of Jesus’ life and teaching was an attempt to help people give up their belief that certain things were impossible. Every miracle he participated in was another call to those around him to look at everything in a new way, to re-examine preconceived ideas about what was possible and what was not. “This man’s been blind from birth. You can’t make him see again just by touching his eyes.” “Yes I can. There is so much more to see than you have ever imagined. So much more light, so much more joy, so much more connection. Open your eyes. Look with new eyes. Ask, over and over again, what if? What if there were a new way to experience reality that is as different from the way you experience it now as seeing is from being blind? As sweet delicious wine is from river water? As being a king is from being a slave? What if you too are blind, and all you have to do is open your eyes?” “Death is permanent. You can talk about resurrection and heaven and whatever you want, but when you’re dead, you’re dead. This man’s stinking already. Death is real. Death is final.” “What if it isn’t? What if we die only because we believe we will? What if your own cells know how to regenerate themselves? To divide and expand, expressing your essence in each one? What if you too are dead, closed in the dark, tight confines of the limitations you have chosen for yourself, waiting for someone to call you forth into the light of life?” We can see things in a completely new and different way too, and need to do this if we’re going to walk on water. Remember the story of the eaglet who fell from its nest and was adopted by the chickens on a near-by farm? He grew up clucking like a chicken, walking like a chicken, believing he was a chicken. One day a visitor to the farm, seeing the great bald eagle walking around clucking like a chicken, determined that something must be done to set

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things right. He took the eagle to a small rise near the farm, lifted it as high as he could, and gently lofted it into the air. The eagle fluttered its great wings a time or two, then sank trembling to the ground, and scuttled back to the security of the safe and familiar chicken coop. Undeterred, the visitor tried again the next day. He went further from the farm this time, carrying the bird part way up a rock-strewn hill so that the eagle could have a higher starting point, and perhaps have time to remember what its wings were for before it came to rest again on the ground. Again, the visitor held the bird high and sent it on its way. This time, the eagle stayed airborne for almost a full minute, gliding with its wings spread wide, before panic set in, and flapping and agitated, it again landed on the ground. The third day, the visitor took the bird to the edge of a high cliff. In the valley far below them, the little farm lay nestled in the trees. This time, instead of trying to help the bird into the air, the visitor simply set the young eagle on the edge of the cliff. The eagle paused, and then as if hearing for the first time a faint and ancient whisper of the truth of its nature, launched into the air. Cresting, soaring, diving, riding the thermals in an infinite sky, the eagle left being a chicken behind forever. It’s impossible for chickens to soar. And so the eagle, who knew only chicken reality, knew he couldn’t fly. But once he gave up the belief that it was impossible for him to fly, and opened himself to the reality of his true nature, he looked out over the broad expanse that was rightfully his, and flew. The first step in learning to walk on water is to give up your belief in what is possible and what is impossible. When Peter looked across the water and saw Jesus standing calmly amidst the boisterous waves, what had always before seemed to him an absolute (that people sink!) lost its meaning.

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In the instant that he abandoned his belief that it was impossible for him to walk on water, Peter’s life changed forever. As yours can as well.

The One Song: A Meditation I consider the lilies of the field, how they grow. Awakening to life, they reach for light. Without want or hesitation, or thought of lack, they stretch toward life with everything they are. Their very cells know only this: to turn to light. I breathe this life-transforming breath as well, breathe it deep, this energy of growth, expansion, light. I breathe it in, make it part of me. I breathe in God. I breathe in life. I breathe in all there is. Blossoming to fullness, the lilies echo lily-song, God’s song, and mine. I consider the birds of the air, how they lift, and with a shriek, soar, sailing wild and far, wings spread wide. From small, safe nests they launch into a life of freedom, song on the wind.

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Nothing disturbs them. All they need is theirs: air and light, wide-open space, a song to sing. I breathe this energy as well, breathe it deep: this energy of freedom, flight, expansion. Limitless vistas open to my view. I breathe in God. I breathe in peace. I soar, I climb, and breathe in eagle-song. As the lilies of the field, the birds aloft, I consider myself. An instrument in the great symphony, the one song of the universe, I too am here to play my song, to sing my joy, to know and welcome every gift this bursting, generous spreading universe holds out. As lilies grow from eager shoots, and eaglets, hesitant and awed, first spread still downy wings, I transform into myself, awake to life, to power, to love. I breathe the lilies’ breath and soar, free, unrestrained, one with the wind.

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I hear God’s symphony. Joining my voice with all that is, I know myself, part of the one song.

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And Jesus said unto him, “Come.”

Chapter Two Accept the Invitation

The second step in learning to walk on water is to accept the invitation the Universe offers us to enter a new reality. While the first step might be thought of in terms of seeing things in a new way, seeing as possible those things which have always before seemed impossible, opening our eyes, the second step is hearing and responding to the invitation to enter that new reality. When it comes to accepting the universe’s invitation to awaken, to live our dreams, to experience joy, to do what seems impossible, many of us are like Peter’s fellow fishermen. We choose to stay hidden in the bottom of the boat, tangled in the useless and torn nets of our past experiences and fears rather than accepting the invitation to enter a new kind of life. When offered experiences that could change our lives forever, we refuse to face them, and may even order them to go away and leave us alone with our misery. How many of us spend years resisting and hiding, unable to accept the simple invitation God offers us? A special part of the celebration services at a church I often attend is an acceptance, together, of this invitation to experience love and

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peace and oneness with all that is. One of the most significant gifts any church can offer its members is simply to create a place where those who are ready can hear this invitation and respond to it. We begin by joining in meditation. The lights dim, and carefully, tentatively, the ephemeral and soul-expanding sounds of the musicians’ playful and sweet harmonies begin. A sense of harps, distant bells. The one leading the meditation urges those sharing this experience to become still, to relax, to let go of distraction. “Notice your breathing,” we hear. “Focus on your breath, the breath of life, life breathing you, life expressing as you. As a new infant takes its first breath, let new life enter you with this breath, spread through you. “Know this truth: that whatever you experience out there is passing energy, just passing energy. “Let your body become still…become quiet…at rest. Let the outside world fade away. “Go deep within yourself now. Go deep…deep…and find the place where you can see the beauty and strength of your being, where you know yourself as the being you really are. “See how wondrously and marvelously you are made! “See what a perfect and incredible expression of God you are! “As a mountain stream comes surging from its source, let the energy of life flow into you and awaken you. Let it fill you with its energy, its purity, its capacity. There is life in every cell of you, pulsing, vibrating life. Let yourself feel it, feel what it is that ignites your passion, that stirs you to live with gusto, and then connect with that energy, that force, with your whole heart, your whole being. Open yourself to it! “See yourself awake, aware, fully alive. Breathe into this place of power. Breathe it in.”

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The music stops, and a sense of peaceful expectancy vibrates in the silence. A sense of awakening possibilities, a sense of power. “Pause now in this silence…” our minister whispers, his voice barely more than a whisper. “Feel the energy of this moment. Know your true nature, your connection to the universe, to all of life.” “Let it in. “From this silence now, this energy begins to move in you. You hear, faintly first, but then louder and louder…the song of celebration, the one song of the universe…Alleluia!” As that word is spoken—Alleluia—one clear soprano voice begins to sing. “Ah—le—lu—ia.” And then repeats Pachelbel’s lovely and familiar melody, over and over, gradually growing louder and louder, as voice by voice, the group hears the invitation the Universe offers, and joins the song. “Hear the sound of angels singing, singing in celebration, in celebration of you!” Our minister tells us, raising his voice over the song. “Singing Alleluia because you are you, because you are alive, because you are beautiful, because you breathe! What greater cause of rejoicing could there ever be in all the heavens and all the earth than this?” “With each step you take, each breath you breathe, the chorus grows louder, fuller, stronger. The song of celebration surrounds you, supports you, transforms you! “Arise! Come forth! Let your voice join the voices of the angels. Join in the song of celebration, the song of awakening, the song of praise for life. Alleluia! “Sing your song, dance your dance, celebrate! “Your life is about living, about growing, about transformation! Sing out! Sing aloud! Oh sing it, yes, sing it! Alleluia!”

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As the group rises to its feet and moves together as one, holding hands, singing in celebration of each other and of the wonder and joy of life, remarkable things happen. Those who haven’t heard god’s invitation before hear it. Those who have heard and forgotten, remember again. The rusted iron straps holding our hearts prisoner burst open. A friend who had struggled for a long time, as many of us do, to let go of the pain of an abusive and traumatic childhood, shared with me her experience during this meditation. “I had a strong sense,” she said, “of climbing a great broad stairway, with a vast convocation of angels gathered all around me. At first, I resisted the knowledge that they were singing for me. How could they be? With all my problems, all my mistakes, how could they celebrate me and my screwed-up life? “But then, with each step, it was as if I felt another layer of resistance and fear dropping away behind me. Hearing the angels singing for me, celebrating my very existence, my being, singing louder and louder for me, I began to see my life and who I was in an entirely new way. Overwhelmed by the honor and love that surrounded me, I grew lighter and lighter until I couldn’t help myself from at least trying to see myself as this person the angels celebrated. “Then,” she told me, “it was if I stepped off the stairs and joined the angels, adding my voice to theirs in the one song of the universe. I began to watch others climbing the stairway, and each person I saw was so unbelievably beautiful, such a perfect and unique expression of love and possibility and joy that it was an honor to be in the presence of such glory and to sing of their wonder.” As a kind of experiment then, my friend told me, she stopped singing for a moment and let herself see her father, the father whose lies about who she was she’d believed for so long, climbing the

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stairway. He seemed so much smaller and frailer than she’d ever seen him before, way too small to have had the effect on her life it seemed he’d had. He looked bewildered and confused as he looked around him and put one foot ahead of the other on the wide stairs. The singing didn’t stop because he appeared, she told me. The angels were celebrating his life too, every part of it. His pain and helplessness, his mistakes, his futile efforts to make his life work, along with his dreams and hopes. What if she could celebrate him as well, she thought, honor him as the god-being he was? In the safe and supporting place of the meditation, she let herself begin to sing Alleluia for this man too. Faintly at first, under her breath almost, whispering the word just to see how it felt. Then louder and louder, and as she sang, her eyes filled with tears, and old, old pain eased away. Was that herself as an innocent and beautiful little girl climbing the stairs beside him, holding his hand? Maybe she wasn’t out on the water yet, but she had her leg over the side of the boat. She’d heard the invitation the Universe offers and responded to it. The story is told in the Buddhist tradition of a man who came to a great Zen master to be taught the mysteries of life. When the man accepted the master’s offer of a cup of tea, the master lifted the pot and began to pour. He poured until the cup was full, but then kept pouring. The tea spilled out of the cup, out of the saucer, out on the table, out onto the man’s lap. When the man jumped to his feet, aghast and upset at the master’s carelessness, the master said simply, “A mind that is already full cannot take in anything new.” Accepting the invitation to experience a new kind of life may mean emptying our minds of old experiences, old ways of looking at things, so that we have room to let new thoughts and experiences come in.

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Accepting the invitation the universe offers does not mean that your life will be perfect and peaceful from that moment on. No, quite the opposite. Accepting the invitation means you accept the challenges, the difficulties, the opportunities to grow and stretch and explore. Many of us, if we were granted a clear picture of what awaits us when the first whispered thoughts to see reality in a new way come into our minds, might not have the courage to proceed. But we don’t need to know all that lies ahead in order to respond to the invitation. At this point all that is needed is a willingness, a desire, a leg over the side of the boat. Once, during a meditation some years ago, the leader asked those participating to ask ourselves this simple question: “How do I let God love me?” An image came immediately and clearly. I saw myself encased in medieval armor, like the knights you see in museums. From head to toe, clanky metal plating protected every part of me. I could hardly move, it was so cumbersome and unwieldy. Then I saw myself opening the visor of my helmet just a crack, the barest slit, to let in just a sliver of light. Even though one part of me knew that this incredible bright light around me was God’s love, and that there was no way it could harm me, and even though I wanted to feel it, still it seemed this was all I could allow myself to experience—this tiny little crack of light. From time to time, as time went by, I would ask myself this same question again to see what came up. “How do I let God love me?” And over time, strangely, I could see the visor opening a little more, and then all the way, and then the helmet off, and my hair streaming in the wind and air. Then one day, when I hadn’t thought about it for a long time, this question came into my mind again. “How do I let God love me?”

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But this time, the image that came was completely different. Instead of the knight clothed in heavy armor, I saw instead a fragile butterfly perched on a tree branch, still damp and sticky in the newness of its escape from the confines of its protective chrysalis. Not yet able to fly, it hesitantly fluttered its new wings, struggling to open them so the warmth of the sun could touch their glistening colors. As the bright wings dried in the sun’s glow, the last vestiges of caterpillar life gently and easily evaporated into the bright spring morning. Facing new life and new possibilities, the butterfly prepared to leave caterpillar reality behind forever. Yes, there was still the great unknown out there, still a sense of vulnerability. But what a difference! God’s love, rather than a bright but inaccessible light outside a knight’s armor, had become a warm glow drying a butterfly’s wings. We all know the story of the three bears: Papa Bear, Mama Bear, and Baby Bear. For a long time, I assumed, as I suppose many of us do if we thought about it at all, that Goldilocks was the “villain” of this story. After all, she broke into the Bears’ house, ate their food, crashed poor Baby Bear’s chair to bits, and then, without a care in the world, made herself comfortable in Baby Bear’s snug little bed to take a nap! The truth is, many of us need to be more like Goldilocks. We need to leave our safe, familiar city homes behind, and go wandering in the woods of new experiences. We need to just go looking, maybe with no real end in mind, and see what we find. Yes, there may be bears there, but we need to go anyway. Maybe when we find something interesting, we need to barge right into it, not worrying so much about what other people will think, or if it seems like the “proper” thing to do. Maybe it’s time for things that seem like they fit, or that have fit in the past, to be broken up like Baby Bear’s little

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chair. Maybe old “truths” we’ve taken for granted can’t provide us any real support any more. Have often have we let ourselves sink deep into Mama Bear’s soft, soft chair and not had Goldilock’s wisdom to see that the life we’ve chosen is too soft for us? The door to the Bear’s house was wide open, inviting Goldilocks to come in. In the same way, our door to new experiences, to a new kind of life, to a life of possibility and joy and growth, to finding what is “just right” right for us stands open as well. We have only to accept the invitation and walk in. Goldilocks accepted the bounty that was offered, and found the food that was just right for her, the bed that was perfect for her. We sometimes let the perceptions of others determine what doors we’re willing to walk through. How often do we let others tell us where we belong instead of working hard, like Goldilocks, to find what “fits”? Think of Jesus barging his way out of the tomb in which others had tried to imprison him. He refused to stay where others thought he should be. He refused to accept others’ judgement of him as powerless. He didn’t belong in that tight, dark, closed in place. No, that simply didn’t fit with his knowledge of who he was. So, he pushed his way out, out into the light, into the garden, into miracles. When I think about accepting the invitation of the universe, I often return to the image of a new child entering the world. As the fetus grows and develops, it reaches a point where it simply doesn’t fit in the close confines of the womb anymore. Time to go wandering in the woods, time to crawl out of the chrysalis, time to burst into the light, to demand life and breath and a new kind of experience. Time to find what fits. We can live our lives encased in protective armor if we choose to do so, just as Peter could have chosen to stay in the fishing boat. God’s infinite, ever-expanding love doesn’t change because we aren’t yet ready to open our visors. Yes, we can close our ears to the angel celebration if we wish. Or we can open our hearts and accept the

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invitation to leave the past behind, and in accepting that invitation, be transformed.

The Naked Lady Whoa! What an Incredible Thing! To stop and smell a Rose Sauntering down the Street Naked, Without any Clothes! Shoppers racing by Stare, Slam on their Brakes. What an Amazing Sight This Naked Lady Makes! Teenagers Loud in their Cars Turn to Gape and Hoot As they Spy her Drifting Along In Her Beautiful Birthday Suit! Oh, To have the Guts To breathe Spring’s Fragrant Air (Iris and Lilacs in Bloom) Gamboling Totally Bare! (Some are appalled, it’s true, sure she’s quite insane. “Lock her up at once!” they cry, “Don’t make us share her pain!”) not me; I stand in awe at audacity so rare shameless, she stuns the world announces she doesn’t care 32

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what if I could try to be equally bold, risque? take incredible risks throw restraint away? (“Oh no!” the others plead. “Stay the you we know. Sit down, behave, don’t make a sound. Don’t throw away your clothes!”) What they don’t know is this: It’s not my clothes I’d shed. Old fears, old pain, secrets, lies— That’s what I’d drop instead. I’d be Myself, Be Loud, Alive! Allow myself to Care, Let my Perfect Self Shine Through Dancing Totally Bare!

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“I take myself back fear. You are not my shadow any longer.” —Joy Harjo

Chapter Three Let Go of the Boat

The third step in learning to walk on water is to release your hold on the boat. You’ve let go of your belief that it’s impossible for you to walk on water. You’ve heard the invitation to enter a new and different reality, and you’ve accepted that invitation. Now you’re down the stiff, water-soaked rope ladder, level with the slapping, hissing waves, and it’s time to let go of the boat. This is a threshold: a place where two different kinds of environments meet. Think of our tradition of a new husband carrying his bride across the threshold of their first home. Crossing the threshold as one is a symbolic announcement by the couple that they are leaving one kind of life behind—their life as two single, separate people—and entering a new kind of life, a new reality of a committed, shared experience. When we’re at a difficult place in our lives, faced with a family or career or health or relationship challenge, we often fail to realize that this challenge is actually providing a kind of threshold for us, an opportunity to move from one kind of experience into another, a catalyst for consciousness. Frequently, however, instead of seeing the experience we’re in as a gateway to a new and different kind of life, we want either to fix the “problem” or escape from it. 35

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As Peter stood there clinging to what was known and familiar and small, he was at a threshold, a place where two totally different kinds of environments meet: the old, limited one and the wide-open, anything-can-happen one. He could go back into the reality he’d always known and hide with his friends under the nets, or he could let go and enter an entirely new experience of what it meant to be alive. When I think of thresholds, I imagine the airlock of a spacecraft. In the near vacuum of outer space, you can’t open the door of a spacecraft without the pressurized atmosphere inside the craft exploding outward. To enter or exit the craft, the airlock is pressurized to match the atmosphere inside the spacecraft, the door between the craft and the airlock is opened, and the astronaut enters the airlock. The pressure is then gradually adjusted until it matches the atmosphere outside, at which point the door from the airlock to space can be safely opened and the astronaut can exit. The airlock or threshold, which can take on the characteristics of either atmosphere, is necessary between the two different kinds of environments. In nearly all religious traditions, holy places are seen as a kind of threshold or airlock, as places which connect heaven and earth and can take on aspects of either. When one thinks of the structure of ancient Hebrew temples, for example, with their progression through various chambers from the outer courtyard to the inner holy places and finally to the “holy of holies,” it’s not difficult to see the similarity to an airlock. The “holy of holies” is a place where heaven and earth touch, where mortals can enter from one side, gods from another and two realities or seemingly incompatible kinds of existence can touch without harm. Teachers from many spiritual traditions have created their own thresholds or airlocks, places or ways to move from one kind of existence to another. The altars used in many rituals, for example, are actually thresholds. The worshiper approaches the altar as a human, meets the priest or other officiant who acts for or as god, and leaves changed. Anciently, those seeking connection with the infinite brought

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sacrifices to the altars, symbolically destroying their hold on the reality they knew by killing a perfect animal and letting its life-blood spill on the threshold or the altar, the place where heaven and earth met. When Moses approached Yahweh on Mt. Sinai, God told him, “Remove your shoes, for the ground on which you stand is holy ground.” To enter a different kind of experience, Moses needed to let go of his connection to the reality he’d always known, let go of his connection to earth, and prepare himself to cross a threshold, to enter a new way of experiencing and seeing life. The seven sacraments of traditional Catholicism are all attempts to create threshold experiences. Catholics speak of sacraments as those places where heaven and earth touch, or as openings through which God’s grace can enter the material world. Similarly, as Caroline Myss has so beautifully taught us, the Hindu chakras and the separate parts of the Hebrew Tree of Life can also be seen to represent a different kind of threshold experience, or different ways to locate the thresholds, and having found them, to step over them or through them into a new and different place. We all seek these threshold experiences, even if this is not what we call them. On some level, we must be aware of what is on both sides of the threshold for the dividing point to have any significance. If you are always outside, for instance, and have never considered the possibility of shelter, the idea of a threshold at the entrance to a house or building is meaningless. If you’re unaware of the immense reaches of space that exist outside the small pressurized cabin of your spacecraft, you have no reason to search for an airlock. Because in our present way of thinking, we seem to be capable of being in only one place at a time, we may have a tendency to think of crossing a threshold in order to be in a different place. For example, we may want to leave earth and be in heaven. Thinking in this way, our current human existence is seen as a trial, something to

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endure, a place to prove ourselves, while heaven is seen as a place of peace and endless happiness, a place of no worries or stress. Everything changes when our goal becomes, instead of being in heaven, to be at the threshold, to be at the place where heaven and earth join, able to see both and experience both by knowing the contrast between them, and to experience crossing the threshold, not so much to be on the other side but because it is the crossing itself that is significant. It seems we all love jokes about meeting St. Peter at the gates of heaven. Is this because we know, intuitively, that the place where heaven and earth meet is much more interesting than heaven itself? Jesus talked about being at the threshold when he urged his followers to be “in the world but not of it.” A person may choose to go without food or to be celibate for a time as a way to loosen the connection to our current reality and consciously create a threshold experience. The attraction of the Christian story is that a God chose to come back, to experience existence as we experience it, as a way to show us how to cross the threshold into a different kind of existence, a new way of experiencing. The story is told of a bitterly cold night in the midst of winter, a night so cold that birds in a flock of barn swallows froze to death where they perched. An old farmer, grieved at seeing the birds dropping frozen to the ground, opened wide the door of his barn and lit a lantern to light the way, hoping the birds would fly inside and find protection within the sturdy walls, warmed by the heat generated by his animals. The birds circled and flew, but wary and careful as birds are, their quickness and freedom being their only protection, none entered the door to warmth and safety. The farmer called to the birds, entreating, promising to do them no harm, begging the tiny fragile creatures to fly into the warm barn. Heedless and without understanding the birds circled, as the weakest continued to die. The farmer left the barn and tried to herd the flock

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into the safe place, motioning with large movements of his arms that they should come and join him. Frightened, the birds flew further away. Finally, the farmer realized there was only one way to bring the birds to safety. Gently letting go of his reality, he pulled off his thick boots and heavy wraps, and then eased himself, melting, into the minute form of a barn swallow. He flew from the barn into the freezing night, circled a time or two, and then flew to the trees where the shivering birds huddled, braced against the icy night. “Watch,” he said, and then, swooping down, flew through the wide-open doors into the bright interior of the barn. Without pausing to alight, he left the warmth of the barn and flew immediately back into the cold darkness. The others watched as he flitted back and forth, entering and leaving without harm, back and forth, unchanged. When he flew back to the trees and circled them again, his wings dipping in invitation, the flock rose as one, circled, and followed him into the waiting safety. Transformation occurs as we reach and cross thresholds. In a spiritual sense, a threshold is not just the place or experience where two different kinds of reality touch, as a ritual may lift us out of time and connect heaven and earth, or as in meditation we may be transported beyond ourselves to feel one with all that is. A threshold is also a place or experience which changes us as we pass over or through it. Seen in this sense, our challenge is not to reach heaven, but to know how to transform any situation or place or condition in which we find ourselves into heaven. In medieval times, alchemists searched and studied to find the secret of transforming base metals into gold, believing that in knowing this secret, they would know all the secrets of the universe, including the way to cure all diseases and attain eternal life. Though they practiced their craft on pieces of iron and stone, subjecting these substances to various processes and chemicals, the alchemists’ real

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goal was to transform themselves into a different kind of being, beings who lived a different kind of existence. When we feel trapped in a confined, frustrating place in our lives, when we feel that we have no choices, or that whatever we do doesn’t seem to make much difference, it may be that we are simply at a threshold, or in an airlock, ready to enter a new kind of life. This may be the pressure to which the alchemist subjects the iron as part of the process of transforming it to gold. Peter may have felt a little trapped, too, a little pressured, clinging to the side of the boat there. What do I do now? What have I gotten myself into? What was I thinking? Often we’re reluctant to let go our hold on what’s known and safe because somehow this seems to be relinquishing control. We who believe in advancing confidently in the direction of our dreams hesitate to let go of the boat because this feels somehow as if we’re putting our destiny in someone else’s hands, as if we’re letting someone else choose our lot. But the truth is, by letting go of the boat, we’re actually increasing, not decreasing our power. A great Greek Commander once landed on a foreign shore knowing he was vastly outnumbered by an enemy army that was well rested and far better equipped and trained than his ragtag fleet. After the supplies had been unloaded and his troops were asleep in their tents for the night, the commander sent two of his most trusted soldiers back to the beach where their ships were secured, with these instructions: “Set fire to all the boats. Stay until there’s nothing left.” In the morning, as his troops prepared for battle, the commander told them what he’d done. “We win this battle or we die,” he announced. “There is no going back.” The reality where retreat was a possibility was gone forever. By forcing his troops to let go of their security, he empowered them to go forward with the best that was in them, and to win the battle.

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In the same way, your letting go of the past, your choice to let go of the boat, rather than relinquishing control, empowers you to move forward in your life and accomplish far greater things than you could even have imagined as long as you held on to what seemed to be your security. When you commit yourself to living your life now, you begin to see your life as a growing, transforming experience and to find fulfillment in that process of transformation. I’m reminded of the koi, a type of Japanese goldfish. If placed in a small fish tank, this fish will grow to about two inches long, and will live out its natural life at this size. If placed in a large aquarium, the same fish will grow to be eight or ten inches long, and again, will live out its natural life at this size. But if the same fish is placed in an open pond, where there are no limitations on its growth, on its ability to wander and explore and experience, it will grow to be two feet long. In letting go of what we perceive as the safety and security of our small, restricted lives, we’re not relinquishing our power, any more than a little two-inch koi who swims from its tiny bowl into a huge aquarium and from there into an open pond is giving up its chance to be a two-inch fish the rest of its life. Why not let go and enter a place where we can grow to our true stature? Perhaps you have a sense you’re at this point in your life. You’ve seen the spirit on the waters, you’ve heard its call and accepted that invitation, and have even gotten out of the boat and are standing even with the waves. In your prayers, you’ve said, “I’m ready, God.” But somehow you can’t quite do the next thing: you can’t let go of that rope ladder. If you’re in this place, you might ask yourself these questions: What if I express my talent? What if I live my dream? What if I follow my heart’s calling? What if I awaken to a greater truth today? What if I let this relationship I’m in or this career path I’m on or these financial struggles I’m facing be a threshold for me, a spiritual airlock for me? Not to confine me or trap me, but rather as a means to enter an entirely new kind of experience? And then let your mind go.

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Remember Chuck Yeager? For a long time, scientists and engineers firmly believed it was impossible for material objects to travel faster than the speed of sound. It was thought that if something did break this “sound barrier,.” it would disintegrate, or in scientific terms, “lose its molecular integrity.” But Chuck Yeager didn’t listen. On October 14, 1947, he strapped himself into his aircraft, the Aviation X-1, and set off down the runway, determined to do what no one had done before, and what everyone had told him could not be done. He broke the sound barrier, traveling at a speed in excess of 700 miles an hour. Then, amazingly, just three weeks later, he flew at 1612 miles an hour. Here’s what he said: “After all the anxiety, after all the anticipation, breaking the sound barrier was really a let-down. The sonic barrier, the unknown, was just a poke through jello, a perfectly paved speedway.” When you choose to let go of the boat, when you choose to stop being confined by old ways of thinking, when you choose to explore new paths, to expand your horizons, to express your gifts, to live your life to the fullest, you too enter new realms of possibility. Many familiar Bible stories involve this sense of passing through a threshold to a fuller and more expansive experience of reality. An initial sense of apprehension, of choices being eliminated, followed by newfound freedom and unlimited possibilities. Think of the story of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. Here’s a vibrant, clear-sighted, fully alive person, who appears, when you first hear the story, to be relinquishing his power and turning his will over to someone else. “I’d rather not do this,” he seems to be saying to some source of power outside himself. And then, with a kind of drooping resignation, “But if it’s your will, then I guess that’s the way it has to be.” I personally struggled with this story for a long time. It just didn’t seem to fit. Why would Jesus give up his power to choose? Why would Jesus “submit” to someone else’s will?

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But then over time, and as I thought about what this story might mean, I began to see a different picture. What if “God’s will” for Jesus, whatever that was, was not taking something away from Jesus, but was instead an incredible and wonderful gift? What if Jesus, instead of saying, “Impose your will on me” were instead saying something like this: “Right now, in my chicken-self, I can’t imagine flying like an eagle. I can’t see myself breaking the sound barrier, or turning from a caterpillar into a butterfly. But if you can, then let’s go with what you see instead of what I see.” When Peter let go of the boat, he wasn’t giving up anything except his limited perspective of what was possible. In letting go, he accepted Jesus’s vision of his true nature, his true possibility. When we say, “Not my will, but thine be done,” we’re not relinquishing any power at all, but are instead saying, “Yes! Give me the gift you have in mind for me. Give me the gift you see for me that I can’t yet see for myself.” It’s only when we see God as selfish and controlling rather than generous and loving, that we fear and resist God’s “will.” It’s only when we see the universe as a threatening and fearful place, rather than as ready to overwhelm us with more good than we could imagine, that we ask it to leave us alone. Believing that we lose something when we accept God’s will for us is like a little dot of an apple seed believing that it will lose something if it allows itself to germinate, to burst forth into new life, because then it will no longer be itself, no longer be that little black seed. But God sees the tree, the lovely green leaves, the fragrant pink blossoms, the delicious fruit, the one apple containing an entire orchard. Let go, little seed, God says, break open, be what you are meant to be! To accept the will of God is not to give up anything, but only to awaken to your true nature. When you stand on the threshold, wondering if you’re going to let go of your old habits, your old limitations, your old fears, and you say, “Thy will be done,” you’re not giving up any power. You’re only accepting the incredible, perhaps

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unimaginably wonderful good that God has in mind for you. God’s will is always about expansion, growth, freedom, expression, choice, and never about limitations or holding back or taking away. To let go of the boat is to say, “Thy will be done,” and to allow yourself to enter God’s love. There are times when all of us find ourselves clinging to the side of the boat, unable but wanting to see what God’s will for us might be, what wonderful gifts God is ready to give. And there are times as well when we’ve caught a glimpse of that good, but for some reason remain hesitant to accept it. What is it that holds us back during these times? Why is it so difficult to release our hold on the familiar, the known? Why do we hesitate to let go of the boat? Habit? Customs? The belief systems of our families? A preference for the known and the safe, perhaps, no matter how small or restricted? Or is it simply our inability to see ourselves changing and growing? What can we do when we’re in this place? You probably already know, but I’ll tell you again. For me, time spent in nature may be one of the best ways to loosen the grip of my cramped fingers on the safe and familiar fishing boat. Leaving our buildings and vehicles and concrete behind, what do we see? Life! Ever-expanding, ever growing, profligate, freedom-loving life. Spreading and stretching, a tree releases thousands of seeds so that one or two or a dozen may grow. A tree doesn’t think, “Oh well, most of these seeds will die, so why bother?” No, the tree just keeps spreading out, growing, imagining itself, as it were, with every branchful of seeds flung to the wind, a grove, an orchard, a forest. Everywhere one looks in nature, there’s a kind of harmony: a dance, a balance, a give-and-take. Experiencing a mountainside covered with wild flowers, at the same time so delicate and yet so hardy, or a stream careening heedlessly down its rocky course, it’s almost impossible not to see that God’s will is creation, God’s will is harmony, embracing, expressing, abundance, dancing. Trees with

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their new growth always at the ends of their branches, roots forever sucking and spreading, limbs stretching skyward, an ongoing cycle of death and rebirth, the old giving way to the new easily and perfectly. Being mindful, as difficult as it sometimes is, has also been for me a powerful way to practice letting go of the boat. At any time in our life, we can stretch back behind this moment and remember all our old pain, all our mistakes, all those who have hurt us and whom we’ve hurt, all our lost opportunities. Or we can stretch ahead into the future and imagine how wonderful our lives will be once we meet the perfect person or find the perfect job or move into the perfect home, or get whatever it is we’re focusing our energy on at the moment. But all we really have is this instant. As Peter’s little fishing boat bounced unpredictably in the storm, with him anxiously grasping to its side, did it matter what had happened in his life before that? Or what would happen afterwards? I don’t think so. In that moment, he could only make the choice: to hold on or to let go. At the moment of choice, Peter wasn’t thinking about how he was going to pay his bills or how one of his friends had offended him earlier that evening. He was living and experiencing the experience he was in, living it totally and completely. The more often and the more fully we experience life in this way, the easier it is for us to let go of what we know, to let go of our limited little security, and step out into the unknown. I’ve discovered that an important key to mindfulness is to accept reality just as it is. Often, our “reality” is so colored by our past experiences that it’s not reality at all. If it seems we’ve been hurt every time we tried to let someone get close, our “reality” becomes that in order to be safe, we must erect stout walls around our hearts, and not let anyone see how vulnerable we truly are. And as long as this remains our reality, sure enough, whenever we get too close, we get hurt again. If it seems that every time we take a risk in business, we lose money or are taken advantage of, then this becomes our reality. And

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again, with this as our reality, the saga repeats itself each time we try again. Accepting realty just as it is means letting go of past experiences so that we can see ourselves and our lives and our experiences clearly as they actually are right at this moment. Thomas Merton, the Catholic monk and mystic, once said: “If we could see each other as we really are, we wouldn’t be able to stop ourselves from falling down and worshiping each other.” Many of us struggle with our emotions.. We resist them and fight against them. Perhaps we criticize ourselves, thinking that somehow we “should” have more control over our emotions and not be on such a roller coaster ride. But “control” isn’t our goal. Our goal isn’t to control our emotions, but to experience them. Trying to control our emotions is, in effect, an attempt to create an alternate reality, a reality where we don’t feel. When we let go of this need to control, when we accept reality just as it is at any given moment, we open ourselves to an entirely new kind of experience. In the “reality” Peter believed in, human beings were more dense than water, and when a human being connected with water, the human being sank. In the instant when he let go of the boat, Peter allowed himself to simply accept reality as it really was, not as he had previously believed it to be. He saw the splashing waves, felt the seaspray on his face, and heard the crack of thunder over the distant hills. As he saw Jesus standing there so calmly amidst the surging swells and knew that what he was experiencing was real, he felt more alive than he ever had before. In this moment, in this moment of knowing and accepting reality just it was, he gave up his limited perspective and accepted God’s expansive and unlimited vision of reality. In this moment of letting go, his life changed forever. As yours can as well.

The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you. Don’t go back to sleep. You must ask for what you really want. Don’t go back to sleep. People are going back and forth across the doorsill where the two worlds touch. The door is round and open. Don’t go back to sleep. Rumi otherwise known as Jelaluddin Balkhi, Sheikh of the dervish learning community in Konya

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“Life is a daring adventure, or it is nothing.” —Helen Keller

Chapter Four Take the First Step

Life in the physical realm is a flow, a wave that surges and ebbs, a cycle of giving and receiving, a pattern of life moving toward death and death leading to new life moving again toward death. Like swinging on rings across a lake, we often must let go of one phase of experience before we can grab on to the next. Most of us both love and resist this flow. When things change too fast, we beg for them to stay the same. But when stuck in stagnation and boredom, we plead for change. We forget that life is both letting go of one ring and grabbing on to the next, and that neither is “better” or “worse” than the other. In life, letting go of the boat and taking the first step out onto the water often happen so close together that we forget these are two very different and distinct steps. But there is a key and a pattern in seeing these two steps separately while at the same time accepting how close they are together. In every aspect of our lives, there is a balance or a combination of surrender and choice, of letting go on the one hand, and of explicitly and deliberately choosing to manifest exactly what we want in our lives on the other. This is a challenging balance for many people. A person has a flat tire as they set out on a trip, and says, “Oh, I guess it wasn’t meant 49

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for me to go,” believing that they are thus surrendering to God’s will. Another prays about a job change, and feeling positive and powerful about the new career, insists that God wants her to take this particular position. The truth is, of course, that God doesn’t care, any more than gravity “cares” if we fall off a roof when we get too close to the edge. A young couple looking ahead to their future together and considering their dreams, their hopes for what that future would hold, prayed: “God, we’re willing to go wherever you need us to serve, but if it doesn’t matter to you, we’d like to go to San Antonio.” In the same moment that they let go of their hold on the past, on what was familiar and known, and opened themselves to any new possibility, they also boldly took a step out onto the water (or in the direction of Texas, actually). A few months after this prayer, a completely unexpected transfer came to…you guessed it: San Antonio. A three-year-old child came to her mother one day and asked, “Can I wear my red socks today?” The mother’s response? “Why sure, honey. What a big girl you are!” Often when we ask God’s input on our choices, we’re like this child. God is glad we’re making choices, and whether we wear red socks or marry this person or this other person, or live here or there, or do this job or that job, God knows there will be expansion and growth in what we’ve chosen, just as the mother knows her child will have a busy and fun-filled day regardless of the color of the socks. The important thing is the making of the choice, not what the particular choice is. The Universe wants us to use our powers, to grow, to express, to stretch, to choose. Any choice we make is a learning, growing experience, and thus is good. However, if we don’t make a choice, nothing happens. The Biblical story of the creation is a story about the choice part of the surrender/choice/surrender cycle. To imagine delicate roses

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and vibrant lilacs and towering pine trees, and then to bring them into reality! To picture an elephant, a leopard, amazing fish with flourescent stripes, eagles, sparrows, beetles—and then see them become real, become manifest. The point of the story is that anything that could be imagined could become real. All that had to be done was to make the choice. Without a choice, without choosing one specific thing to create, all the incredible variety of life forms remained illusive and insubstantial. Surrender and choice always go together, balancing each other as offense and defense do in a basketball game. Neither offense or defense is “better” than the other. But there are times for each. When the other team has the ball, the players aren’t planning their next pick and roll; they’re concentrating on blocking the shots and getting the ball back Defense follows offense and offense follows defense. In the same way, surrender and choice balance and follow each other. The seed “surrenders” when it gives up being a seed and allows its hard casing to soften and break open. It then “chooses” to send up a little green shoot, and grow leaves, and stretch toward the sky. Then, at some point, it has to give up being a seedling and choose to become a tree. There is a choice to blossom, and then a surrendering as those blossoms fade, wither, and drop to the ground. The process of walking on water is a process of balance between surrendering and choosing. In Step One, we surrender our old views of what is possible and impossible and let go of our caterpillar reality. Peter sees Jesus on the water and releases his belief that he is separate from the rest of creation. Then we take the active step of accepting the universe’s offer of wholeness and goodness. Goldilocks goes boldly out into the woods to explore and steps through the open door to find what fits. The koi swims from the tiny bowl into the big aquarium into the open pond, the butterfly creeps from its confining chrysalis.

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Then it’s time to surrender again, to let go of the boat, to let go of the past, to let go of the seeming security of our small, cramped lives, to let go of the illnesses that seem to protect us, the known pain of a relationship that’s not working, the safe lack of responsibility of poverty. Alone in the garden, Jesus lets go of what his human self sees so he can accept what his god-self knows—that he is eternal, that death isn’t real. Then, as the surrender/choice/surrender cycle continues, it’s time to take that step out on the water, to risk, to try, to experience. To let reality explode into a thousand shimmering possibilities, to explore our powers to bring whatever it is we desire into our lives. The mountain climber straps on her boots and takes that first step up the trail. A couple vow to share their lives. You choose a meaningful and challenging career where you can truly make a difference in the world. Why not? Why not take the step and let it be? Your own beautiful and perfect child asleep in your arms even though the doctors, speaking from their perspective, have told you this was impossible? A new car? Sailing the Greek islands? A fit and healthy body? A life partner you can laugh with and cry with and sing with? Taking a step out onto the water means making a choice, and then actively moving toward that choice with courage and determination. And yet, so often it seems we’re so terrified of our power of choice that we’ll do almost anything to avoid choosing. Although Jesus told us over and over again, “Ask and ye shall be given; Seek and ye shall find; Knock and it will be opened unto you” (and I often wonder if perhaps this is a commandment rather than a promise), still we hesitate. What if we choose the “wrong” thing? What if by choosing one thing, we miss the chance to choose something that would be better for us or that we’d like more? Perhaps it’s better not to choose at all than to make the wrong choice? An old tale tells of a ancient woodsman, who cutting wood in the forest late one twilit afternoon, came across a strange little man who

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had stayed so long in one place that the entwining branches of a massive oak tree had grown around him and held him fast. “Cut me free,” the odd little fellow begged, “and I’ll grant you three wishes. Whatever you ask shall be yours in exchange for my freedom.” So the woodsman set to with his ax with care, first cutting the prisoner’s long beard free, for as the branches had grown, the beard’s gray tangled strands too had lengthened and twisted around the knotty limbs, until the two had become almost indistinguishable. As the last bit of wood fell clear, the captive sprang free with a laugh, surprisingly agile for one who had been held still for so long, though his arms and legs seemed almost as bent and awkward as those limbs that so late had held him tight in their embrace. “Aha!” he cried, and putting a hand to his recently shorn beard and glancing quickly around him, made as if to disappear into the shadows. “My wishes!” the woodsman reminded him. “You promised me three wishes!” “Whatever your pleasure might be,” the strange creature said with a wink and a nod, “the next three desires you and yours speak aloud shall be yours.” The woodsman rushed homeward, his head full of dreams. Gold, jewels, two fine white horses and a grand carriage decorated with red tassels for them to pull, perhaps even a castle looking out over a great valley with servants to tend to his every need. Ah! What a lucky day this had been out in the woods! Full of his news, he rushed into the small cottage he shared with his wife of many years. “News! Such news!” He exclaimed, and she thought as he did how long it had been since she’d seen his eyes so bright, his step so light. He told her all: his first surprise, the promised wishes, the careful cutting away of the twisted branches.

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Then their hunger brought them back to the present. They sat facing each other at the wooden table he’d built with his own hands as she scooped boiled cabbage onto their dishes and broke dense brown bread and set it before him. They sat in silence, deep in thought.. At last, uncomfortable in the silence, they began to speak of the small things that made up their lives, forgetting for a moment the weight of the wishes. The donkey’s injured foot was on the mend, and the hen had laid three eggs that morning, two white and one speckled with brown. But even in the talk of these normal and everyday things, there was a lightness, an easiness that hadn’t been there before. The cabbage, filling but tasteless, cooled on their plates. “Ah,” the old woman sighed, and without thinking what she said, spoke aloud a thought she had expressed many times before, “How I wish we had a bit of spicy sausage to eat with our cabbage tonight.” And with a shimmer in the air and a pop and a tremble, there on the plate before them was a plump juicy sausage, sizzling as if it has just been lifted from the fire, its ends tied up with a length of twine neat as you please. The rich savory smell filled the small room. They stared at the thing in shocked silence. One would have thought they’d never seen a sausage before. Wide-eyed, the old woman poked at it gingerly with her fork. Was the thing real? It certainly felt and smelled real enough. Her mouth began to sting in anticipation of the tasty treat. “You fool! You idiot!” The man roared, leaping to his feet and sending his chair skittering across the floor in his wrath at his wife’s stupidity. “Look what you’ve done! Wasted one of our wishes on a worthless piece of sausage! What were you thinking!” He was beside himself, so angry at the woman’s idiocy he could hardly contain himself. Clenching his huge work-hardened hand into a fist, he slammed it

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against the wooden door-frame. Oh, the folly of it! The devastation! What must be given up for this now? The tasseled carriage with its golden pillows? The man-servant bringing in the luxurious velvet gown? In one mindless instant, she had dashed his dreams forever. “For a sausage! A ridiculous sausage! Your cabbage wasn’t good enough for you then?” He shook with rage at her lack of wit. “Oh!” He shook his bruised fist in her face as if he might hit her too. “Of all the dim-witted tricks you’ve ever played, of all the…” But what threats, what laments could give expression to his frustration, his anger at the loss of his fantasies? “Oh…oh!” And then not knowing what he said, his voice full of scorn, he blurted out: “Would that your stupid sausage were stuck to your nose!” The tremble in the air again, the pop, the shimmer, and there it was: the juicy sausage, already starting to cool in its juices, permanently and immutably affixed to the front of the old woman’s face. A sweet drop of grease glistened on its end and then dropped silently into her lap. Of course you know the end of the story. There was nothing to be done but to use the third wish to remove the sausage and restore the old woman’s face to its former plainness, and there they were: right back where they’d started. Somehow it seems a part of this story is inside many of us. If we ask, if we say those magic words, “I wish…” somehow we’re afraid something terrible will happen or that we’ll ask for something stupid, or that we won’t be able to handle what we get, so we tell ourselves it’s better not to want. It’s better to just deal with whatever comes along. Not knowing what we want, or afraid to want, we choose nothing at all. What if I ask for security and a good income and then get stuck in a job I hate that pays me too much to leave? What if I ask for a loving supportive relationship with a woman and she ends up making demands on me or wanting me to change? What

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if I find a man I love deeply and truly like I’ve never loved anyone before and then he dies or leaves me or betrays me? What if? What if? A wise friend once told me she liked to think of us sending our prayers up to God in helium balloons on long strings. God waits, and as soon a balloon touches God’s hand, the wish is granted. But somehow we can never quite let our balloons go all the way up. Prosperity! That’s what I want! So we let the Prosperity balloon up a little, and a little more, but then, when it’s almost there, with God reaching out to touch it, we yank it back, our hearts pounding. Wait! If I were rich, people might expect more of me. People might make demands on me! Crooks kidnap rich people’s children. What if I got a lot of money and then I lost it? Wouldn’t it have been better never to have had it? Beneath our fear of asking may be an unwillingness to give up our problems and challenges, whatever they are at the moment. The woman who stays overweight and lonely can always comfort herself with the reassurance that all she has to do is lose weight and the relationship she wants will magically appear. But what if she loses the weight and is still lonely? What will she comfort herself with then? What will I blame my unhappiness on if I can’t blame it on being poor? But what if the sausage was actually a perfect wish? What if this is not a story about the risks in wish-making, not a story warning us not to want, but instead a story about accepting good into our lives? What if what was wrong in this story, rather than the woman’s lack of wit, was the husband’s inability to accept the gift? What if the problem was his sense of lack, his belief that if he accepted this gift, it would mean he was deprived of something else? It seems the couple’s prosperity was not destroyed by the woman’s choice so much as by the man’s overwhelming belief in poverty and lack.

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Living in the present, savoring the good in life right now, using our powers: that’s what asking offers us. Perhaps it’s when we finally trust ourselves and accept our needs and desires as good that we open ourselves to God’s good. Taking a step out onto the water means making a choice, and then actively moving toward that choice with courage and determination. Setting goals, making plans. It’s surprising how few people can make a list of a hundred things they’d like to do or have or experience. Could you make such a list? How can you take a step out onto the water if you have no idea where you’re going? How can God give you what you want if you yourself don’t know? Imagine yourself calling the Sears catalog desk and asking the woman who answers to send you a dress. “What dress?” she asks. “What page are you looking at? What color, what style, what size?” “Oh, just whatever you think would be good, whatever you think I need,” you answer. “I trust you.” What are the chances of your getting what you want? Of getting something that fits, that’s appropriate? Yet, many of us are like this when we pray. And often, I think, the Universe does the best it can at sorting out our conflicting wishes: “Ah, she seems to be asking for just a little love, a little success, a little joy, as she’s so frightened of more, and it seems that mostly she’s asking for safety, for things to stay the same, so that’s what I’ll send.” If it’s difficult for you to think what you want, or if you’re in the habit of just accepting whatever comes along and telling yourself it’s fine, that you’re grateful for the crumbs that drop from the banquet table and don’t mind that you weren’t invited to the feast, try this exercise. Imagine someone who loves you very much. It could be a parent or a partner, a beloved grandmother, a true friend who knows and accepts you fully. If you don’t have someone like this in your life,

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imagine what it would be like if you did. Someone who knows your heart and wants only the best for you. A guardian angel, a fairy godmother, a trusted therapist, an unborn child. Jesus, perhaps, if this works for you. Then imagine this person making a wish for you, for your life. What if this other person could wish absolutely anything for you? You might even write down this wish, write it down as if this other person is speaking to the universe, to God, about you. You may be surprised by what you find. Somehow, it seems it’s easier to imagine someone else asking for things for us that we can’t quite imagine ourselves asking. Another person making a wish for us, or saying a prayer for us, doesn’t think that what they’re asking is impossible, or that we don’t deserve it, or that something else would be better for us, or that we’re selfish. They don’t worry about whether we’d be able to “handle” love and respect and prosperity. Loving us fully and deeply, this other person has no reservations about seeing the best for us. If you feel comfortable doing it, you might even ask a friend or loved one to read you this prayer from time to time. Another helpful exercise in focusing your thoughts on the direction you want to take as you take that first wonderful step out into the world of unlimited possibilities is to write yourself a letter from your 100-year-old self. If the you you’re becoming could look back and speak to you, what would she say? What would he urge you to do? What experiences would he comment on? What risks would he encourage you to take? What regrets would be shared? My 100-year-old self speaks to me about finding a flow in life and about how that flow looks. She talks about expressing my gifts, about meaningful relationships, adventures, even this book. Pretending she’s talking to me, I see what it is I really want, but for some reason am hesitant to speak aloud.

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Another thing to remember is that when something happens that you dislike or that you wish hadn’t happened, don’t blame the act of choosing for the result. If you decide to take a trip to Hawaii and then get an awful sunburn while snorkeling, don’t say to yourself that it was a “wrong” choice to go to Hawaii or that God or the Universe must not have wanted you to go. If you marry, and then find that the marriage has seemed to bring a great deal of pain into your life, don’t tell yourself that you’re no good at making choices, and that in the future you’d be better off just dealing with whatever comes along rather than taking action to create the life you want. If you trust someone and that person then abuses your trust, don’t listen to the voice that says you deserved the betrayal because you chose to open your heart. This is an easy trap and many of us get caught in it. God wants us to choose. One of the things that makes this a perfect world is that we can choose and can then experience fully the consequences of our choices. This being able to choose, to create, to imagine and then to bring what we imagine into existence is absolutely one of the greatest gifts we’ve been given. Many books have been written about the power of setting goals, of making choices. All of these books are about this step of taking that first step out onto the water. If you’ve taken classes in setting goals or tried this before and been frustrated by your lack of results, it may be because you tried to do this while your heart was still hiding under the nets or your grip was still tightly on the boat. There’s a time for letting go and a time for choosing, and the key to creating the life you want is knowing the right time for each. Raymond Niehbuhr’s well known “Alcoholic’s Prayer” summarizes this idea perfectly. God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change (let go)

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The courage to change the things I can (choose) And the wisdom to know the difference. I love the story of the man who died and was welcomed into heaven. St. Peter led him to his place and showed him in. The man was somewhat disturbed to discover that his place in heaven looked just like where he’d lived on earth. The same dingy apartment, the same ugly, worn-out furniture, even the same grease spot on the wall by the frayed easy chair where he sat to watch boring shows on TV! Going outside, he was dismayed to discover his same old beat-up car, just as hard to start as it had always been, with the cracked dashboard, no radio and the window that didn’t work. And then he got to work, and it was his same job that he hated! The same people that didn’t respect him! His same cramped cluttered cubby-hole! He was the type of person who put up with things, so for some time, he accepted this state of affairs as his lot. But finally he could stand it no longer. This was heaven, after all! So he sought out St. Peter and began to complain: the awful apartment, the horrible car, the job he despised. “This is supposed to be heaven!” he exclaimed. “What’s going on?” St. Peter shook his head, dumbfounded, obviously astounded by the man’s response to the welcome that had been prepared for him. And then, as understanding dawned, St. Peter explained: “Ah! You see, that’s how you’d arranged things on earth, so we assumed that was how you wanted it.” As if God couldn’t imagine that the bounty would be offered, would be freely available, and we would fail to choose. Imagine that you’re given a book that has the instructions for absolutely whatever you want to create in your life. Prosperity, love, meaningful and satisfying relationships, a fulfilling career, a vibrant and healthy body, a sure knowledge of God’s love, opportunities to use your gifts. Anything! And with the book comes an order form. All you have to do is fill out the order form and mail it in and

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whatever materials you need to create what you want will be promptly sent to you by overnight mail. There’s only one catch: you have to decide what it is you want to create. It’s a very big book. Tough? Sure. But also exhilarating, empowering, life-changing. How fun would Disneyland be if you spent the entire day wandering around trying to decide what ride to go on? What if I miss the Pirates of the Caribbean because I’m going on Star Tours? It’s easy enough at an amusement park to see that all the rides are fun, but that we have to make a choice in order to experience that fun. And yet in life, so many of us wander all day long through the exciting experiences that surround us, unable or unwilling to make a choice, and then wonder why we’re so sad or unfulfilled. God said, “Let there be light and there was light.” Once the choice was declared, the request was granted. God offers it all for the asking. But if we don’t ask, if we don’t choose, if we don’t take a step out onto the water, nothing happens. Peter took that step, that wonderful, challenging, overwhelming step, and as he did, his life changed forever. As yours can as well.

MY WISH Hey, you! GOD, Universe, Higher Self, Great Spirit, Genie, Magic Fish! Whatever your name is: I’ve decided what I want for my wish. You ready? Peace, joy, prosperity, and love. Yes, that’s it, that’s good. You need me to be more specific? Okay… Let’s start with peace. A peaceful life. That’s what I want. But, well…you know, not too peaceful, like not so peaceful it’s totally boring or anything, because I want excitement too— fun, new experiences, some thrills. But, you know, not too exciting, I mean, I don’t want to be running around like a crazy person all the time. And I’d like some challenges too— some opportunities to grow, experiences that stretch me. But just don’t make them too challenging so I get depressed or feel like giving up. (But maybe it’d be all right if they seem a little too challenging at first, 62

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but not for too long, if in the end my life is better because I felt overwhelmed for a while?) Still too vague? Let’s try something else then I’d like my children to be sweet and obedient. Well, but not too sweet and obedient. I mean, I don’t want them to believe something just because someone else says it’s so, and of course I want them to stand up for themselves, and I guess that means that sometimes they’d stand up to me as well, and I guess that would be okay. All right. Love! I want a few special people in my life to love and to love me. But don’t make them too needy or demanding or with too many unrealistic expectations. And I don’t want them to be too over-protective or co-dependant or always thinking they know what’s best for me better than I do, or anything like that. But I don’t want them too detached either. I mean, I’d like to be needed a little, just not too much. I’d like them to be honest, but not always, and not too critical, not so perfect they make me feel inferior but not too imperfect either.

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(My gosh, this is so much harder than I thought it’d be!) I’d like some times of solitude, of course, times to walk in the mountains and watch the trees growing. But I want times of having lots of people around me too, singing and holding hands, maybe, or sharing a symphony, or a mass or a Jazz game. And sometimes it’s nice to cry, because it’d be awfully said if you couldn’t cry at all, or couldn’t feel. It’s nice to feel things, even hard things. Sometimes it just hurts so much that I think I wish I couldn’t feel. But I don’t really feel that. It’s wonderful to laugh with someone you love, but you don’t want to be laughing all the time either. Okay. How about work? I’d like interesting, challenging, meaningful work. Not so hard that I feel like I want to give up, but not too easy either, because then I’d be bored. And I don’t want to be consumed by my work or anything, like so I can’t think about anything else. I don’t want to need my work to feel good about myself, but I’d like it if sometimes it did help me do that. I’d like to make a difference. Health? I’d like to ask for a blessing of health, but that doesn’t seem quite right when I’m not doing any of the things I know would make me healthier.

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In fact, it’s almost like I insist on doing whatever it takes to make sure I stay sick. Maybe instead of asking for health I want to ask for a desire for health? A belief I can be healthy? An assurance that I could handle being healthy? What? You’ve already given me all these things already? Yes, you’re right, I think. Thank you, God.

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“Forgive yourself your madness, and forget all senseless journeys. You cannot escape from what you are.” —A Course in Miracles

Chapter Five Walk on Water

Throughout the ages, people of all religions and modes of thought have struggled to describe the experience of walking on water. Christian mystics, Hindu holy men, Native American shaman, Old Testament prophets, fundamentalist preachers, Mormon missionaries, whirling dervishes, Buddhist monks: all have tried to put this experience into language and convey it in such a way that those who have not yet experienced it will feel the power, the life-changing wonder of this incredible event, and feeling that power and wonder, will seek this experience for themselves. But how does one describe such an experience? Can one describe “blue” to a person blind from birth without resorting to metaphor or analogy? Or the taste of honey-sweet bouvlaka to one who’s never bitten into that delicacy? Some have described this experience as a sense of being one with all that is. Others as being one with God, or seeing the face of God, or being born again or being baptized by fire. Some have spoken of being carried away, or of a sense of being out of their body. For some, it may even involve shutting down this body’s workings to the point that others cannot detect a heartbeat or a breath. Some describe a

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feeling of expanding, of growing larger and larger, or of looking down from a great height. For others, the experience of walking on water may come simply as a rush of emotion which brings with it an almost unbearable love for all creation, a loosening of those oh-so-confining walls we build to protect ourselves, a glimpse of heaven. Often it seems, the experience is accompanied by tears, as if our physical body has no other way to respond to an experience that lifts it and pushes it beyond anything it’s known before. Strangely, and I wish not to offend anyone with this comparison, many people’s closest approach to this sense of being one with all that is may be during true sexual intimacy. Letting all our barriers down, allowing ourselves to be one with another human being in the most life-affirming of all life-affirming acts, we also open ourselves to the experience of the infinite. I often wonder, in fact, if our culture’s current obsession with sex is not, if one were to see it from a different perspective, primarily a sign of a deep longing for this experience I’ve chosen to call “walking on water.” The holy books of many religions and the writings of saints and seers are full of this powerful sexual imagery. From the Christian church seeing itself as the pure and beautiful bride of Christ who submits to him in order to be empowered by him, to the separateness within the wholeness of Eastern religions’ yin and yang, to the dual male/female nature of Hindu deities, there is a long-standing connection in every religious tradition between the orgasmic experience of letting go of one’s individual identity in joining with another human and the parallel experience of joining with God, of knowing our absolute connection and oneness with all that is. In some cases, our body’s actual physical responses to the two experiences may even be the same or very similar. For some, this may make true sexual intimacy a kind of religious experience; for others, it gives a kind of sensual or sexual glow to religious practice.

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When we turn to holy books to read descriptions of another’s experience of connecting with the infinite, it seems we often forget that the primary reason we do this is to lead us to that experience for ourselves. What happened to Elijah or Padma Sambhava or Jesus has no intrinsic significance; what matters is our experience of our interconnectedness, of God’s love for us, of our true nature. As we take a moment here to talk about the actual experience of “walking on water,” let’s remember that, although I’ve described these steps as occurring in sequence, this is not actually how it happens. It’s helpful to think of seeing what’s possible, accepting an invitation, letting go, stepping out on the water, sinking, and then taking God’s hand as separate and distinct steps, but in our lives, all of these “stages” in the process may happen almost simultaneously, just as letting go of the boat and stepping out on the water probably seemed to Peter to be one event, though one with both a definite “surrender” aspect and a “choice” one. At the same time, there may be times in our lives when, for seemingly long stretches, we feel stuck in either surrender or choice. A choir and orchestra performing a great opus provide a compelling example of the surrender/choice/surrender cycle and of how surrender and choice can be present in the same instant. Such an example also shows the amazing power present when this occurs. Imagine this. A group of people come together in the church basement. They’re a varied group—both in appearance and in skill level. Here’s a man with a deep resonant voice who has inspired countless people with his powerful solos. Next to him his wife, with her thin and wavering soprano voice, is trying to remember the difference between a quarter and an eighth note. Some are quite confident in their abilities, while others know only that they love to sing and are half afraid the director may discover they have no talent and send them packing.

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The director passes out new music. “Here’s what we’re singing for our Christmas program,” she announces. “Let’s start on page four.” Over the next few weeks, the group rehearses, struggling through the difficult passages at first. The notes, the timing, the harmony, the dynamics: gradually the piece comes together. Finally, Christmas Eve arrives. The orchestra tunes their instruments; the choir, resplendent in their red and gold robes, file into place. The conductor raises her baton, violin bows touch strings, and the powerful message of love and joy and celebration begins. At their cue, the sopranos sing out. The basses join in, the tenors, the altos. Point and counterpoint. Melody and harmony. The music swells, rings, triumphs, until the final chord. The conductor’s hands drop to her sides. A moment of awed silence, and then applause. How did this occur? At the first meeting, the disparate group of people came together with nothing but a belief in their ability to learn the challenging music. At a first glance at the pages of complicated notations, it’s easy enough to say, “I can’t learn this. I’m not good enough.” The same experience might occur thumbing through a thick calculus book for the first time or strapping on a pair of skis or standing in front of a group of strangers for an important presentation. “I can’t do this,” we say to ourselves. Step one of walking on water is letting go of “I can’t do this.” It’s a willingness to try. It’s opening the Requiem to page eight and singing your part along with the piano for the first time. At step one, you don’t even have to believe you can do whatever it is. You only have to want to and be willing to allow yourself to try. Step one is showing up, saying, “Here I am. I’ll give it a go.” In the example of the choir, step two, the first “choice” step, is saying, “I’m in.” I’ll be here for the practices. I’ll show up for the performance. You still may totally lack confidence in your ability to do it. It may very well be something you’ve never done before. You

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may be scared, insecure. But you choose to do it. You step onto the ski lift. You accept the new job. You commit yourself. Then come steps three and four, the surrender and choice steps that are so closely linked together. Peter lets go of the boat and steps out onto the water. In the choir, you surrender your will to the will of the conductor. You agree to start singing and to stop when she says to. You sing softly or loudly at her direction. You listen to the voices around you; you harmonize and blend. You completely let go of your desire to do what you want to do, of your desire to stand out, to draw attention to yourself. The cymbal player, no matter how he loves the sound of that wondrous crash! waits patiently, counting, watching until exactly the right instant for the explosive reverberation. And yet, even as each member of the group surrenders his or her “will” to that of the conductor, each must also fully express his or her own unique talent. Each voice is slightly different; it is in each giving his or her all that the magnificent performance occurs. Choice and surrender blend. As I surrender my will to the conductor, I also freely choose to give fully of my own unique gifts. No soloist, now matter how exquisite or powerful his voice, can be a choir. The trumpet player cannot perform a symphony. The Olympic swimmer surrenders to the constraints of the sport. When to start, where to swim, what stroke to use. Yes, there is a certain joy in swimming for the pure joy of swimming, but the swimmer willingly gives this up for the experience of winning an Olympic medal. His letting go of the need to say when he’ll start or what stroke he’ll use is like Peter letting go of the boat. Giving up the need to be in total control opens up the possibility of accomplishing what once seemed impossible. It’s only within the context of surrendering that the swimmer can excel. We accept these “constraints” or “limitations” to our freedom easily enough when it comes to following the conductor or waiting

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for the signal to start the race. But then, somehow, in the rest of our lives, we see “surrender” as relinquishing our power and resist it. “Surrender” and “choice” are of course artificial constructs—just ways to look at and think about things. The choir and swimming examples help us see how one surrenders and chooses simultaneously. So with walking on water. The idea of dividing the process into seven steps is simply to allow us to think about what we’re doing and what we want in a new way. Rather than actual steps or stages, the surrender/choice/surrender cycle is actually more of a flow, a balance, a harmony. The skier lets go of the lift and surrenders to the hill, but must at the same time control her skis, her body, her direction, her speed. It is the blending or juxtaposition of the two—of choice and surrender—that creates the experience of being fully alive. Sometimes other languages have words that express these concepts more effectively than English. Arabic has two words that may provide a useful way to look at the choice/surrender/choice cycle. Fana expresses the idea of the individual becoming one with the infinite. It is the giving up of our personal selves. You may experience this in meditation or while making love. Perhaps it’s something we’ll experience at death, one of the ultimate surrenders. We may refer to this experience as becoming God, or becoming one with God or becoming one with all that is. The finite becomes infinite. It’s been called Nirvana, Heaven, Enlightenment. Baqa expresses the idea of the infinite becoming finite. The God of all creation pours itself into the form of one human man. Out of all possibility, I choose this one particular form. Infinity becomes light. The solid ground divides from the waters. One can imagine a sort of pulsing, waves surging and retreating. We, finite, specific, individual, particle, let go of separateness and merge into God. No longer separate voices, we become part of the great swelling chorus. We are infinite; we are all.

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But the infinite must express. Out of all possibility, out of infinite possibility, comes this thought, this particular flower, this melody, this unique wide-eyed child. The word “resurrection” comes from a root word meaning “resurge.” I picture a wave, separating from the ocean, breaking away from the infinite expanse to become one unique curling foamcapped swell, and then blending back into the infinite, then back into form again, surging and re-surging. This fifth aspect or stage of walking on water, this peak experience, this sense of being one with all that is, of knowing absolutely and without question who you are, might be seen as being at the threshold, at the place where fana and baqa intersect. You know yourself as the individual, separated form, while at the same instant experience yourself as part of the whole. Fana and baqa each contain both surrender and choice. I give up my uniqueness and choose to be one with all that is. Infinity gives up being infinite and chooses to express as one specific material form. A painter faces a blank canvas. As the first faint line of color divides the expanse, the artist gives up a million million different possibilities—landscapes, faces, scenes—by choosing one. No creative choice is possible without giving up an infinite number of possibilities as well. Baja and fana are yin and yang, light and dark, female and male. Neither surrender or choice, as I’ve chosen to call these dual aspects of the cycle, are better or stronger, or preferable to the other. They’re simply two energies, the front and back of a coin. Infinite becomes finite. Finite blends with infinite. To be human is to be where the two meet. As human beings, it seems we often get stuck in distorted versions of choice or surrender. Some of us give up (“surrender”) into a state of resignation, believing nothing we do makes a difference anyway, putting up with, tolerating, distracting ourselves from the pain of

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our seeming powerlessness with drugs or food or noise. Others stay trapped in “choice,” always trying to change things—erecting buildings and then tearing them down, moving from one house to another, or on a larger scale, marshaling tanks and fighter planes and destroyers to go to war. We will change things, we insist. We will not sit idly by. Try to avoid the trap of believing you must either surrender or choose. If you need to do anything, it’s only to acknowledge the flow, the balance, the harmony of surrendering and choosing simultaneously. If one stood forever on the threshold, or set up housekeeping in the airlock, the concept would soon lose all meaning. It’s the moving back and forth, the crossing of the threshold that matters. We will let go. We’ll step out on the water. We’ll have our times when we are totally aware that we’re one with all that is, a god-being, an expression of the infinite. And then we’ll sink, totally aware of our separateness again, but somehow in that instant of knowing our separateness, also more aware of the sense of being connected to God. “Warm” is a much more powerful and meaningful concept for someone who leaves a dark and freezing night to enter a bright room lit by a blazing fire than for the person who never leaves a carefully climate-controlled room which is always at the “perfect” temperature. The experience of going from hunger to satisfaction is infinitely more satisfying that the mere experience of not being hungry. So, it is during those times and in those places where choice and surrender meet, where fana and baqa intersect, that you walk on water.

OCEAN Gently, I wash the bare and sandy sweetness of a sun-blest child’s perfect feet and rage at once, fierce, inexhaustible against great rocky cliffs which stand immutable, quite unshaken by my touch.

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“And when he saw the wind boisterous, he was afraid; and beginning to sink, he cried, saying, Lord save me.” —Matthew 14: 30

Chapter Six Start to Sink!

“Whoa! What’s this? Sinking is part of walking on water? I don’t think so!” Yes, I can hear you now. You’re saying you’ve got the falling part down pat? You don’t need any help with that! How many times have I tried and fallen flat on my face? Tried to find love, tried to make money, tried to fix my relationship with my spouse, tried to be happy. We have a number of words in our language that can be both noun and verb. “Dance,” for example, is the act of moving to music, feeling the rhythm, and is at the same time the beautiful thing created by that motion and flow. “Love,” similarly, is the act of caring, of connecting, of touching another’s life, as well as the feeling or emotion or power created by that caring and connecting. We have other words that have a sense both of the process and the result. “Expression” means the process of bringing something from idea into reality, from thought to manifestation, and is also the word we give to describe the result of that process. Perhaps because we have these words that refer to both the process and the result, we sometimes become confused and think the process and the result are the same. Or we think the result is the goal and

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forget that the process and the result cannot be separated. “Creation” is both the process of creating and that which is created. If it helps, in the walking on water context, we might think of “GOD” as acceptance or surrender, in the sense that GOD or the universe is totally and absolutely accepting. We send the balloons up and the prayer is answered. We make our wish and it is granted. In all the old tales about wishes, no one ever doubts that the wish will be granted. No, the first and only thought is what to wish for. God didn’t say, “Ask for this particular kind of thing and it shall be given,” or “If you’re looking for this specific thing, I’ll help you find it.” No, God just says, “Ask and ye shall be given. Seek and ye shall find.” Jesus, by contrast, might be seen as the action, the choice. The thought, the idea becomes the word. The idea of light becomes light once the word is spoken. Out of infinite possibility comes one immediate choice, one physical manifestation. And, finally, the Spirit may be seen as the connection or relationship or balance between acceptance and choice. The ancient Gnostics called the Spirit “Sophia” or wisdom. So perhaps in one sense, the Spirit might be thought of as the “wisdom to know the difference.” In a dance, the stillness is part of the dance. The pause at the end of the twirl is what gives the motion its meaning and makes it beautiful. When you clap in rhythm, the beat is felt when your hands are farthest apart, not when they meet. What if, instead of thinking of heaven as a place to reach, a final peaceful resting place, we see our goal as being able, wherever we find ourselves, to transform that place into heaven? What if we could understand the meaning of heaven in a “verb” sense? Remember Rubik’s Cube, the popular puzzle from the 70’s? Each side of the cube was a different color and was divided into nine smaller squares, for a total of 27 small cubes on the cube, some with three colors, some with two, and the six center squares with just one

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color. Each layer of the cube could be twisted in any direction, making for thousands of possibilities. Once mixed up, there was only one correct solution: each of the six faces one color again. What I found interesting about Rubik’s cube was that having once solved it, we would purposely mix it up again in order to have the challenge of solving it again. A solid cube with a different color on each side would have no particular interest for us, although the apparent goal in solving the cube was to get it to that condition. In fact, if the real goal was a “solved” cube, wouldn’t the best approach just be never to disturb it in the first place? No, what we want as we twist the layers is not a solved cube, but rather the knowledge that we can solve the cube. So, as soon as we’ve solved it, we mix it up again to make sure we can solve it again. It’s only when we know absolutely that we can always bring the cube back to order, no matter how twisted it is, that we lose interest and set it aside. So with life, though life has an infinite number of interrelating patterns and problems rather than a mere 26 little cubes. What if life did have perfect order and symmetry—a solved Rubik’s cube: red, yellow, blue, orange, green, and white, each in its place? No problems, no pain, no mistakes? Such a life would be as meaningless and boring as a colored cube with squares that didn’t turn. The richness and wonder of life lies in the fact that it is a continual challenge made up of constant changes and turns as we learn and grow and attempt one approach and then another. It is the process of learning, trying, failing, now choosing, now accepting, that gives life its meaning. If we see life as a Rubik’s cube, there are of course times when everything does come together. Moments of clarity when we know exactly who we are and can look out at a world of unbelievable beauty, our vision unclouded. These exquisite experiences are the

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times we’re walking on the water and they’re undeniably wonderful. But they’re not meant to last. The process of solving the cube is what matters. We surrender as we mix up the cube, letting it take whatever pattern it may. Then we choose, purposely turning the layers this way and that to bring the cube back into order again. We allow it to be mixed up again so we can solve it again. The goal is not to be in heaven; it’s to know how to move from wherever we find ourselves into heaven, to create heaven. There’s always a danger in thinking or saying that we “choose” our challenges, especially if this leads us to judge others. Although it may be helpful for our own lives to look at what’s happening and ask ourselves why God or the universe might provide this particular experience at this time, what it might be that we are ready to learn, it’s never helpful to ask this about others. I sometimes like to imagine God as writing a beautiful and perfect symphony that is a complete expression of the essence of who I am. And sometimes I like to imagine that perhaps my reason for being is to learn this music and play it. A perfect symphony is a balance, a flow of intertwining themes, loud parts, soft and tender parts, fast parts, slow parts. There are times for trumpet solos and times for the delicate violins. We don’t want all drums and cymbals, but what if there were none at all? Listening to a powerful and moving symphony that brings tears to our eyes, we don’t accuse the violins of “failing” when the flute plays its high sweet melody. We accept that in a whole and perfect composition, there are times for the violins to be silent, times for them to sing. Yet somehow in our lives, if an illness or personal challenge of some kind comes clanging and banging into our lives drowning out sweet melodies we’ve grown accustomed to, we’re hurt or confused or frightened or angry. We may even curse God, and ask that age-old question: Why me?

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Why is my exquisite and irreplaceable son lying in a rehab center in a coma, his eyes wide open but seemingly unable to respond to me, his hands twisted into unnatural positions? What music could there possibly be in this? How could my husband, the man I love and to whom I committed myself, touch our bright and precious little girls in such inappropriate and awful ways, leaving them with who knows what kinds of life-long challenges? Will they ever be able to trust or to know their true worth? What place could these harsh, discordant strains have in any symphony? Perhaps these are the “sinking” times of our experience of walking on water, as necessary to life’s beauty and richness as the pause at the end of the musical phrase, the silence between hand claps. It may be at times that I’m just plunking out the themes of my life with one finger on an old and out of tune piano. Still unmistakably me, no question about that, but so far from the music God hears when the universe speaks my name. The Sufi mystic Jelaluddin Balkhi, sheikh of Konya, known to us as the poet Rumi, tells the story of a desert-dwelling man who, ignorant of the existence of rivers, brought a jug of fresh water as a gift to a Caliph who lived near the banks of the wide Tigris. The Caliph graciously accepted the offered gift, thanked his visitor, and gave the pilgrim in return a jar filled with gold coins. The ruler then instructed his servants to take the guest to the river, where he could board one of the open barges that plied those waters and see for himself the boundless waters that bordered the Caliph’s grounds. The desert man’s eyes opened wide as he saw the expanse of fresh water. But greater than his astonishment at all this water, free for the taking by anyone with an empty gourd or jar, was his amazement at the kindness of the Caliph in accepting his gift. We walk on water when we experience our connection to the infinite, when we know that, though surrounded by god-ness, just as

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the Caliph was surrounded by water, the small jug of that god-ness that we are is more valuable than gold. When we feel ourselves one with God, when we know, if even for an instant, our true nature, we walk on water. Losing sight of this, as we so frequently do, forgetting our true nature, we begin to sink. There is a tremendous value in our experiencing the difference between this clarity and this confusion, between blindness and sight, between sinking and walking on water. Many of us insist on holding firmly to the idea that “sinking” is wrong, or bad, and that our goal in life should be to avoid making mistakes or “failing.” We grow depressed because a relationship has grown stagnant or ended or because we’ve lost a job or because our teenage child is experimenting with drugs, thinking we’ve failed, and perhaps even thinking life is hopeless and there’s no point in trying to create what one wants, or even in wanting anything for that matter. But what if, instead of seeing “sinking” as failure, or wrong, or something to be avoided at all costs, we could see it simply as one of the steps of the entire process of walking on water, as essential to the experience of living life fully and knowing your true nature as accepting the invitation or stepping out onto the water? Recently, after being divorced for more than 20 years and spending much of that time (as so many of us do in those kinds of situations) justifying and blaming, defending myself and arguing with myself about what I had and hadn’t done and how he’d been and hadn’t been, I came to an amazing and startling realization: I had been 100% responsible for the break-up of the marriage! I thought and pretended that I had a good relationship with my ex-husband. After all, weren’t we cordial and polite with each other, and hadn’t I even invited him to holiday dinners at the kids’ request? But all that politeness was covering up the fact that underneath, I was still quite, quite convinced that the divorce was all his fault. I didn’t say this to others, of course, as that wouldn’t have looked mature and transformed. To others, I said, “Oh, we were equally at

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fault—just two screwed up kids who didn’t have a clue.” But within myself, I held onto the conviction that it was really all his fault. If he’d only been different. If he’d done this or hadn’t done that, then things would have been different. But then an interesting thing happened. In a class I was taking, I ended up in a group with a man who reminded me in every way of the man I’d been married to for ten years. I found myself not only intensely disliking this man, but also discounting everything he said. “Yeah, right,” I found myself thinking, after every comment or suggestion he made. “What could you possibly know about that?” My reaction puzzled me. After all, wasn’t I “complete” with my exhusband? Wasn’t everything fine with our relationship? Why then would I have this reaction to someone who looked and acted so much like him? So I began to look more deeply. And as I looked, I saw a lot of things about myself that weren’t very pretty to look at. It was quite awful, actually, to look honestly at myself and realize what a selfish and irresponsible jerk I was. Although pleasant and courteous to Gary in public, behind his back I gossiped about him, criticized him, and took every opportunity that presented itself to make fun of him. I also realized that I’d carefully sorted my memories, so the negative and painful ones, the ones where it was easy to blame him, were close at hand and easily accessible, while the positive ones were dumped carelessly in a confused jumble at the back of the mind, almost impossible to find even if I’d wanted to get them out and look at them again. In seeing that I’d been holding on to all kinds of negative feelings and thoughts about him, even while I tried to keep them hidden from myself, it seemed an opening appeared. An opening to see things in a completely different way than I’d ever seen them before. Like discovering what “balance” is when riding a bicycle or seeing

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the other picture in the optical illusion—this was not a gradual process; one instant it wasn’t there and the next instant it was. What was there was realizing that I was completely responsible for my life, and that this included my marriage ending so many years before. There was no sense of blame in this, and it had nothing at all to do with whose “fault” the divorce had been. In fact, in this new place, the old concepts of blame and fault were meaningless. I could see my mistakes, my poor choices, how I’d hurt him. I could see how my inability to accept his love or to give and receive affection had made it impossible for him to express his love for me or meet my needs. Memories of things he’d done that had upset me at the time twisted around; in this new place the same acts seemed unbelievably sweet and generous. An incredible sense of freedom filled me. I realized that whenever some good memory or positive thought about him had appeared, I’d had to immediately discount it, so I could hold on to my position that the divorce was all his fault. I’d even convinced myself that I’d never loved him at all. Once I accepted full responsibility for everything that had happened, I could let myself remember that I had, remember all the sweet, silly times shared by two inexperienced, naive kids struggling to enter adulthood together. Sinking, whether it seems to be a failure at something you’re tried to do, or as a difficult and challenging time in your life, or as a letting go of your carefully maintained facade (which often, as in my case, hides our true feelings even from ourselves) opens the way to brand new experiences. Like a baptism, the old is washed away. I called my ex-husband and shared with him what I’d seen. I apologized for blaming him for so many years and for my criticisms of him behind his back. I accepted responsibility for who I’d been and what I’d done and hadn’t done during our marriage. I acknowledged him for his commitment to and love for our children. I asked for his forgiveness.

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And then we cried and laughed together. We remembered our wedding night. (I, by the way, was already upset with him then. Why? Because he wanted, on our first night together as husband and wife, to kneel together in prayer before jumping into the double bed in our rented furnished apartment to lose our virginity together. I mean, really! How could anyone stay married to a man with no more concern for his wife’s needs than that?) We remembered our children’s births, our moves, the homes we’d bought together, our kids playing “musical homes” after the divorce. We shared the love we both feel for our grown children and our concerns about them now that they’ve become adults. Obviously we don’t “choose” difficult or challenging experiences simply for an opportunity to do the sinking step. However, when these experiences occur, as they certainly will, seeing and accepting them as part of the process of creating a rich and fulfilling life, part of the process of living one’s bliss will completely transform our lives. I can’t say I would have chosen an unhappy marriage, followed by a divorce and twenty some years of blaming my ex-husband. But these things, having occurred, opened the way for the amazing and lifeenhancing experiences that followed. Peter had one kind of experience when he stepped out of the boat and stood fearlessly atop the waves. He had another kind of experience when, after sinking, sputtering, gasping for air, he reached for his friend’s hand. Neither experience was “better” or “worse” than the other. They were both part of the joy and fulfillment and richness of being fully alive.

Can you find another market like this? Where, with your one rose you can buy hundreds of rose gardens? Where, for one seed you get a whole wilderness? For one weak breath, the divine wind? You’ve been fearful of being absorbed in the ground, or drawn up by the air. Now, your waterbead lets go and drops into the ocean where it came from. It no longer has the form it had, but it’s still water. The essence is the same. This giving up is not a repenting. It’s a deep honoring of yourself. When the ocean comes to you as a lover, marry, at once, quickly, for God’s sake!

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Don’t postpone it! Existence has no better gift. No amount of searching will find this. A perfect falcon, for no reason, has landed on your shoulder, and become yours. —Rumi

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“You knock at the door of reality, shake your thought wings, loosen your shoulders, and open.” —Rumi

Chapter Seven Take God’s Hand

The last step in walking on water is taking God’s hand. Again, reaching out to a power greater than oneself is not the last step in any chronological sense in the process of accomplishing those things which may have seemed to you impossible. I’ve chosen to call this the last step not because it follow the other stages of the process in a linear way, but because it is the step that includes and encompasses all the other stages in the process, and brings us full circle. The familiar and comforting Lord’s Prayer from the Christian New Testament provides a powerful and perfect guide to the cycles of surrender and choice that are at the heart of learning to walk on water. Let’s look at it together. Our Father which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Hey! Maybe there’s a reality that’s totally and completely beyond what I’ve ever seen or even imagined before. Maybe there’s a way of seeing and understanding and experiencing life that is as totally and completely different from the reality I know as a God is from a man, as heaven is from earth. Can I imagine for a moment that such a reality exists? Can I set aside my doubts and fears for just a moment, for this moment, and accept the possibility of such a reality? In acknowledging that a higher 89

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power exists and that I can communicate with this power, this source, I let go of my attachment to my present state; I open my mind. I give myself permission to imagine something totally and completely different than anything I’ve ever know before. This is step one of walking on water. For those for whom prayer involves a sense of connecting to a power greater than yourself, the simple act of calling upon that power, is, in its own way, a willingness to accept a reality different from that which we experience through our limited physical senses. Each time you say, “Our Father,” or “Father-Mother God” or “Dear Jesus” or “Hail Mary,” you are expressing a willingness, an openness to give up your belief that what you seek is impossible. You are agreeing at least to imagine heaven. You are acknowledging the possibility of transformation. Sometimes this step has been called “faith.” Faith means not having to believe or do any particular thing, but only being willing to admit that things might be different than they seem, that things you’ve always thought you knew for sure may not actually be so, that there might be new perspectives from which to view your experience, perspectives from which that which you’ve always thought of as “reality” might look quite different. Thy kingdom come. I hear you God. Having allowed myself to see the possibility of a new kind of existence, of infinite possibilities, I accept your invitation to enter that “kingdom,” that place where heaven and earth meet, where the infinite becomes finite, where idea becomes material. This is step two of walking on water, the first “choice” step. You hear the invitation the universe offers and choose to accept it. Not knowing what lies ahead, you accept anyway. You say “I’m in.” You buy your ticket and start up the gangplank. You open the oratorio to the first page. You strap on your parachute. You look into your lover’s

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eyes and say “I do.” You say to God, to the Universe, “I’m ready for the wonderful gifts you envision for me. I have no idea what they may look like, and I realize they may bring with them pain and loss as well as joy, and knowing and not knowing I accept them all. I’m ready to enter your kingdom. Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Oh my! I’m letting go of the boat! I’m going with what you can see for me rather than with what I can see. Right now I can’t really see myself as the being you see me as. A lot of the time I can’t see myself as a perfect expression of God, and in fact, see myself as fairly flawed. But I’m going to go with what you see. I’m going to let my little koi self swim into the big scary aquarium because you see me growing and stretching into something that I can’t even imagine now. I’m going to leave my peanut butter sandwich behind and enter the banquet room. I’m entering the airlock, crossing the threshold. I surrender myself to you. Sometimes this step, the step I’ve called step three of the process of walking on water, is called “repentance.” Being willing to leave our old fears and all the lies we’ve believed about ourselves behind us. Being willing to let go of the safety of the known and familiar. Turning our eyes from the past to look instead into the future. Give us this day our daily bread. And our sausages! Why do I make it so complicated when it’s so easy? Whatever I ask will be given! Like a parent who would of course give her child sustaining, life-giving bread when that child asks, so you have promised that whatever I ask will be given, that seeking, I will find. But I have to take the step of asking, of stating my intention. So I ask, and by asking, by making a definite and clear choice about what I want, I step out onto the water. Out of all the infinite and shimmering possibilities, out of all the directions I might

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go, I choose one and ask, and the bread I need to sustain me today is here to fulfill my needs. And here we are at step four, the second of the “choice” steps. Too often, we let our fear of making the “wrong” choice or our mistaken belief that by choosing we’ll somehow limit our options keep us from choosing at all. So, we hold onto our wishes and live in the safety of poverty and loneliness. Oh, how proficient we become at making do, putting up with, surviving! Living next to the broad Tigris, we hoard the god-water in our jar, afraid to pour it out on our tender young dream-shoots because we’ve afraid we’ll have nothing with which to nourish the next dream that comes along. In actuality, of course, the point of step four is that we’ve each been given an infinity of wishes. There are no limitations. But to tap into that wealth, we must say the words: “I wish.” Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. I’ve made mistakes, haven’t I? I’ve broken promises. There have been times when I’ve made commitments and haven’t followed through on them. Times when because of my own fears I’ve seen those around me as trying to hurt me or take advantage of me, when in reality they’re a part of me, inextricably connected to me, all of us expressions of God, made of the same “god-ness.” I’ve been blind so many times! Blind to the love and abundance with which I’m surrounded! And when I’ve been so blinded by my fears, so caught in my limited perspective, I’ve lost sight of what’s real, and have been sucked back into the swirling water of confusion and fear. Sinking, sinking. We might, of course, call this part of the process “baptism.” This step is a reminder that our “debts”—our past mistakes, our failure or inability to see things clearly, the restrictions and limitations we’ve placed on ourselves—are not and don’t need to be permanent. That they can be gone as easily as we release

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another from an obligation to pay us money that’s owed. A word, a contract torn in half, and the obligation, the past, is gone. A new future breaks into view, with the control the past has had over us before washed away forever. Seeing “sinking,” not as a failure, but instead as a baptism into a new life, into an entirely new kind of experience, free of the fears and limitations of the past, allows us to welcome and accept the challenges life brings rather than to resist them. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Though so often I start to sink back into my limited reality, into my fears, you don’t leave me there. You reach out your hand and bring me back to a place where I can see clearly again. When I can’t even see you, when I’m stuck in my problems, choking and gasping and hardly able to breathe, crying and afraid, you’re there. You touch my hand and pull me out of it. This particular phrase of the Lord’s Prayer has sometimes been translated as “Leave us not in temptation, but deliver us from error.” I like this version. Yes, trying and failing, sinking and soaring, times of seeing clearly and times of being completely blind are all part of the glorious experience of being alive. And God, in whatever form we imagine him or her or it, is the power to bring us back to clarity, to restore us to sight, to freedom. And although we don’t need to choose pain in order to feel joy, or blindness in order to experience the wonder of color and light, still, there’s a certain exhilaration that can only come as a result of knowing and living the contrast between choice and surrender. For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Yes, I can walk on water. I’m one with all that is. The ongoing and ever-repeating process—being willing to see a new possibility for myself, accepting the invitation to enter a new reality, letting go of my fears, consciously choosing my direction, making mistakes, taking god’s hand—

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leads to this: Walking on Water. In these times, however they’re experienced for me, I know my oneness with all that is. I know myself as a being of glory and power.

The Source of Joy No one knows what makes the soul wake up so happy! Maybe a dawn breeze has blown the veil from the face of God. A thousand new moons appear. Roses open laughing. Hearts become perfect rubies like those from Badakshan. The body turns entirely spirit. Leaves become branches in this wind. Why is it now so easy to surrender, even for those already surrendered? There’s no answer to any of this. No one knows the source of joy. —Rumi

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“There’s no answer to any of this.” —Rumi

THE END A Final Word

So, there you have it. The seven steps to walking on water. All that’s needed now is to start. Find a quiet place and take a generous and careful look at your life. Where are you? Are you hiding under the nets, afraid of the unknown, determined, no matter what the cost, to make sure your life stays the way it is? Or are you ready and willing to let go of your limitations and fears, but not quite sure how? Has the genie given you your three wishes and you’re holding back, afraid of getting a sausage stuck to your nose? Perhaps you’ve taken significant steps toward reaching your goals, but have become discouraged and find yourself sinking in depression and a sense of being overwhelmed. It’s likely, wherever you are now, that you’ve at some time had the experience of knowing God’s love for you, although you may have called this by some other name—bliss or peace or a solved Rubik’s cube. Perhaps you’re wondering how you lost that sense of joy and wonder, and how to get it back or to feel it more often. Or perhaps, you’ve never known, even for a brief instant, that sense that you are whole and perfect just as you are, but are ready now to begin where you are to create something new.

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Wherever you are, accept that all is right and well. Remember this: life is a cycle of surrender and choice, of releasing and taking hold. The seed dies to become the seedling; the seedling gives up being a seedling to be a tree; the blossom dies so the fruit may form. One flower dies so that a field of flowers can come into being. So too do you choose and surrender. You accept, you release. You trust yourself and you trust the Universe. Sometimes your hand is clenched onto that rope and your heart is beating itself out of your chest as you wonder if you’ve got the courage to try something new; other times you’re sinking and ready to give up completely. It’s all part of the whole, part of the experience, part of the process, and no part of it is better or worse than any other part. The first stroke on the canvas eliminates an infinite number of possible paintings and the final flourish opens the way for an infinite number more. Rumi tells the story of a king who kept a blind falcon. Though sightless, it was a mighty bird, powerful, noble, glorious in flight, and when it heard the sound of its master’s drum, it would fly unerringly to the king’s forearm. One day, in the way which is common to us all, the great bird wandered away and found its way into the tent of an old woman. “Oh, who’s been taking care of you?” she scolded, as she quickly clipped its wings, trimmed its fierce talons, and gave it straw to eat. The king spent all day searching for his falcon. When he came at last to the tent and saw his great bird cowering helplessly in the smoky steam of the old woman’s cookfire, he exclaimed in amazement, “You left me for this?” Too often I’m this falcon, leaving my birthright and forgetting who I am, abandoning the freedom and power the universe so freely offers as I complain about being stuck in a dark stagnant corner eating straw. When Peter saw the spirit on the water and accepted the invitation to enter a new reality, when he released his hold on the

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known and familiar and accepted the unbelievable gifts God was waiting to freely bestow, he showed us how to walk on water. The way is open before you.

For Further Exploration

Abbey, Edward, Desert Solitaire: A Season in the Wilderness (New York: Ballantine Books, 1968). Barks, Coleman, The Soul of Rumi: A New Collection of Ecstatic Poems (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 2001). Bass, Ellen and Davis, Laura, The Courage to Heal: A Guide for Women Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse (New York: Harper & Row, 1988). Broderick, Dr. Carlfred, Couples: How to Confront Problems and Maintain Loving Relationships (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1979). Chesterton, G.K., Saint Francis of Assisi, (New York: Doubleday, 1957, 1990). Chopra, Deepak, How to Know God: The Souls Journey Into the Mystery of Mysteries (New York: Harmony Books, 2000). Dyer, Dr. Wayne W., You’ll See It When You Believe It: The Way to Your Personal Transformation (New York: Avon Books, 1989). Fillmore, Charles, The Twelve Powers of Man (Unity Village Missouri: Unity Books, 1930, 1995). 101

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Foundation for Inner Peace, A Course in Miracles (Tiburon California: Foundation for Inner Peace, 1975, 1985). Fulghum, Robert, From Beginning to End: The Rituals of Our Lives (New York: Ivy Books, 1995). Gass, Robert, Chanting: Discovering Spirit in Sound (New York: Broadway Books, 1999). Lessing, Doris, The Marriages Between Zones Three, Four, and Five (As Narrated by the Chroniclers of Zone Three) (New York: Vintage Books, 1980, 1981). Merton, Thomas, New Seeds of Contemplation (New York: New Directions Books, 1972). Rosemergy, Jim, The Sacred Human (Summit Missouri: Inner Journey, 1996). Salzberg, Sharon, Faith: Trusting Your Own Deepest Experience (New York: Penguin Putnam Inc., 2002. Storr, Anthony, The Essential Jung (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1983). Williamson, Marianne, A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of A Course in Miracles (New York: HarperCollins Books, 1993).