He First Loved Us

I don’t know about you, but I often forget the incredible pursuit of the love of God. I forget that He reached out to us while we hated Him, while we were sinners—our filthy rags of “righteousness” and of outright rebellion all mixed together in a mess and even still He did not turn away. He walked right into that mess and declared Himself victor as He willingly laid down His Life. 

Unfortunately, many people don’t have good examples of a father’s love. Their fathers were demanding, or passive, or absent altogether. These people don’t grow up with any understanding of a father who will pursue them to the ends of the earth so that they are convinced of his love. They get to learn about what a father is through their Heavenly Father, though, as they recognize the sacrifice and all-out determination of His Love for us.

I see such a difference in my life when I start with a revelation of Jesus’ love for me. I realize my worth based on His love and don't try to gain acceptance through people. I rest in my nearness to Him rather than trying to earn and produce to gain His presence. I see others with His patience and tenderness instead of being annoyed because they are getting in the way of my plan. (Believe me, this isn't every day but I sure enjoy the days I do!)

His Life within allows us to be so filled up with His love that it comes spilling out to others, and we don’t need them to make us anything. We get to enjoy them and see them as God sees them, not because we are trying to in our own strength but as a natural outflow of life in the Spirit. The promises of God are exactly that—promises, rather than demands on our own power to try to fulfill them. He promises that His Life will bring all of this to fulfillment and completion.

Most days, though, we think of all the things we need to do for God and forget what He has done for us and continues to do. He loved us first. We didn’t do anything to deserve that.

When my babies were born, I loved them instantly with a powerful love I didn’t know existed before them. They did nothing to create this in me—in fact, many would assume the crying, pooping, not sleeping and general crazy of newborns would drive that love right out of a mother or father. But it doesn’t. Every morning, even when the night had been very short, it was a joy to rediscover the tiny creature God had brought me.

I love the way God relates to us as His children. We have become children of God, and we have done nothing to earn that privilege. In fact, we have done everything we could to dissuade Him from giving us that status. Instead of turning away, though, He comes back to us again and again with amazing Love. Thanks be to God, who loves us with such grace and incredible fervor. I hope you can soak in His Love today, growing in the revelation of what a difference knowing Him makes in your daily life.

Circumstances of Life

A few days ago, I got caught in the funk of the “always” and “never” statements in my life. I started thinking that I would always be in this place, and circumstances will never be change. It is pretty discouraging when you start thinking this way, and often we don’t realize we are trying to play God in our own lives. I can ride the downhill spiral with the best of them—thinking that God has abandoned me, that the circumstances in my life prove that God doesn’t love me, and that I am bound for a lifetime of this exact problem. In these moments, the runaway train of emotion can take me to very dark places, places where in playing God I have essentially exchanged His character for that of a terrible ogre who means only for my harm for his own sick enjoyment.

But that’s not God.

I love the Psalms and the raw pain behind so many of David’s and the other writers’ words.  I appreciate that they get stuck in the “always” and “never” statements also. David exclaims about his frustration with God’s seeming lack of presence, his agony with being pursued to be killed by evil men, and his sorrow in the feeling of despair and discouragement. He looks around at his circumstances and asks “Are you ever going to do something, God?”

And we forget the truth so easily. We allow the circumstances surrounding us and the lies running through our heads to define God for us, and to pronounce a sentence of enduring misery for our lives.

The other thing I love about the Psalms is how the writers always come back to the truth. They definitely lay out the problems in detail, but they also choose to remember who their God is. They see His lovingkindness, His faithfulness, His enduring love, His mercy, His grace, and His compassion.

These are the truths I must come back to when I try to play God in my own life and determine the future based on the present. God works in seasons very often, and this season is not forever. I will move forward in Him, knowing His character is certain and He does not lie. He has promised to be enough for the impossible, so let’s take Him at His word, living in expectation of His power and might as it plays out in our lives.

Our circumstances have not gotten the best of God. I don’t know the future. I can choose to trust the One who does, and who cares for me and my relationship with Him through each detail of my day. I can choose not to worry about the future, avoiding playing God again because I’m a terrible god. I can choose to keep my focus on Him, not allowing the waves to overpower my mind. And in making these choices, I recognize Him to be God and love me in the way He knows best.

The Pressure of Doing Every Day Life

Do you ever feel the pressure of living out your calling, and wonder how you are going to be what everyone needs or wants you to be? How are you going to raise these kids? How are you going to preach on Sunday? How are you going to show up to a marriage which requires so much? How are you going to do one more day in a menial, thankless job that barely pays the bills? How are you going to love a person in your life who keeps responding in bitterness? How are you going to listen to the question of an aging parent and answer with patience for the hundredth time today? I sometimes get incredibly overwhelmed with all the things. Each of them are (I believe) callings from God, but I don’t feel I have enough for them on any given day.

A couple of days ago as I read through John, I came back to the very beginning where it says: 

For he came to be a witness to point the way to the Light of Life, and to help everyone believe. John was not that Light but he came to show who is. For he was merely a messenger to speak the truth about the Light. For the Light of the Truth was about to come into the world and shine upon everyone. John 1:7-9

What a relief! Just like John, I am not the Light and I don’t have to be all that this entails. Instead, I get to be a messenger to point others to the Light, and to allow His Life to shine through me to them. The pressure is off! I don’t have to save anyone, love anyone, have patience with anyone or pursue anyone. That is God’s job. The Light is the One who saves, loves, has patience, pursues and generates all the other fruit of the Spirit in the branch on the Vine. I realize that usually when I get overwhelmed it’s because I’m trying to generate the Life of Christ in my own strength with my own willpower.

I walk past a grape vine outside a neighbor’s house many times a week. It produces the most delightfully sweet concord grapes that explode in your mouth. They often leave bags out by the grapes to let the neighbors collect some because there are more than they can use. And yet in all the times I have walked past this vine, I have never heard it straining and working to produce the fruit. The lifeblood of the vine flows through each branch, and the fruit is a natural outflow of that life.

We are the same, as Jesus calls us branches on the Vine. We don’t need to be the Savior. In fact, we make really terrible gods. Instead, we rest as branches on a Vine, allowing the lifeblood of the Vine to flow through us and naturally produce the fruit of the Spirit.  This beautiful simplicity is not easy because we fight to be our own source often. But when we can relax and recognize that we aren’t the Light but are to bear witness to the Light, the pressure is off!

What a beautiful way of doing Life! Rest, abide, be still. Let Him be the Light and quit trying to shine by yourself.

Our Present Hope

So often we live with hope for the future or the events we hope will be in the future. We look forward to the time when the problem is solved, the pain is healed, the crisis is averted. I’m not going to argue that, but I wonder if sometimes we miss the fact that hope is current, not just future. It’s not possible only when something else happens, but can be found in the very person of Jesus present right now with you.

Many speak of resurrection in the future for us, and I am excited about it too. But we might miss the resurrection that is available in our lives right now because we are so focused on the future one. Some people call this a “suicidal rapturist” approach—so focused on getting to heaven that they are just waiting until their days here on earth are finished in order to get to the place they want to be. Yet, we miss that God is WITH us now. It’s a present reality!

I was reading John 11 when Jesus heals Lazarus, and I found it interesting that when Jesus was talking to Martha, he reminded her that He was the resurrection and the Life. She was talking about a future resurrection, but He was talking about a present one. When we recognize the Life we already have, we can approach anything with hope because we don’t need to wait for something to happen to bring it. We already have hope in the Life of Christ within.

Abiding, then, becomes about recognizing the truth of what already is. You already have Christ’s Life as a branch on the Vine, and therefore you have unlimited resources of whatever you need in the moment through His Life. Faith? Hope? Strength? Patience? Wisdom? Whatever you need, you have access to His supernatural deep well of everything, and He is willing to provide it. So, hope is NOW, not just later. 

How do you get these things? Just turn your heart to Jesus and ask! He has already said He is the resurrection and the Life, so if you need resurrection from the mess you are in today, ask for it! He is already at work to bring it about. If you need hope to make it through today, ask for it, as He is willing and able to provide that hope through Himself. 

This isn’t a reality that is earned, by the way. It’s a gift. Jesus gave His Life not just on the cross, but in order to allow you to be connected to Him all the time. He is present and indwelling right now. I don’t care how much you’ve messed up or how people have made your life a mess. Nothing you can do or not do will get you more or less of Jesus. He has already bestowed His reality on you, and you just get to live in it! 

What if you had a pile of money sitting on your desk waiting to be used, and you kept digging through the couch cushions hoping to find a few coins to make it through the day? It seems silly put like that, but that’s really what we are doing when we turn from the present hope and resurrection in order to keep pushing for the day when we will have it. God is Emmanuel—God with us—now and forever. He has sacrificed to make that possible, and all you need do is recognize it!

The Fallen A Memorial Day Poem

Written by Randall W West

Fragile is a single life the brave so freely give.
Bound for immortality, their souls will surely live.
Death, don't be proud for what you took, they freely gave away.
Their quest for freedom far outweighed the fear that you convey.

They joined the ranks of warriors, staying vigil day and night.
They often skipped a meal or two, but they never missed a fight.
God bless the men and women whose fighting days are done.
Say a special prayer at night for each and every one.

Rest assured that you will find throughout the coming years
These fallen warriors will return in the hearts of all their peers!
If we forget their sacrifice, their deaths will be in vain.
Let's stand beside their loved ones as we sing their last refrain:

You've come upon our heaven's gate
You surely won't have long to wait.
The saints will take good care of you,
But there is still a lot to do.

You've joined the ranks of everyone
Who fought so freedom could be won.
Although your job on earth is done,
Your work in heaven's just begun.

A New Creation The Disney Way

As a little girl, I dreamed of a princess transformation like the one Cinderella experienced at the hands of her fairy godmother. I think even as adults, women (secretly) would love to have a magic wand waved over them to change their hair, their dress, their shoes and then whisk them off in a carriage to a ball with a handsome prince. And little boys (and sometimes girls too) dream of being the best baseball player and winning the championship, or being the strong knight in shining armor who heroically rescues the damsel in distress. We can often wait our entire lives with expectation for the one thing that will be like the fairy godmother’s wand—the thing that will change our lives for the better and cancel out all our problems, leaving only the beautiful, strong and heroic people basking in the glory of it all.

So, we wait. And wait. And get frustrated. We fill the space with all sorts of things — maybe a marriage, or kids, or a career change, or weight loss. Maybe one of those things that we hope will finally sort it all out for us and make us feel like the princess or knight we’ve been waiting to be. But none of these things do the trick.

The offer of Jesus seems crazy. He says, “Gather up all your messy, yucky life stuff and give it to me and in exchange, I’ll give you my perfect life and identity.” It’s no longer I who lives, but Christ who lives in me. (Gal 2:20) We don’t often realize it, but He is offering the very thing we’ve been wanting our whole lives and have been trying to squeeze out of all sorts of different dreams and goals. He is offering a life of value, worth, love, peace and joy. Who we are changes when we accept his exchange offer. This gift of Life. We are transformed into a new creation. We still drag behind us the baggage from the past life that we’ve exchanged for His perfect Life, so we still act according to that sometimes. It’s like a princess going back to digging through the garbage heap to find food because she’s forgotten she’s a princess. Or a famous baseball player walking away from a game because he doesn’t believe he can perform well at baseball.

If you have admitted you need a new Life and have accepted the gift of Jesus’ offer of His, you move forward with the confidence that you have it. And you get to live like it! Going back to the mess and the normal old way of doing things doesn’t make sense anymore.

On an everyday basis, I get to ask God to be everything I need for the day, for He promises He will be. He has given us His very Life, which contains all the patience, love, kindness, compassion and peace I need for today no matter what comes. Each moment, I recognize the remnants of my past life aren’t going to help me, and in fact are going to get me into a bigger mess. So, I need Jesus for this moment and the next and the next.

The beautiful result of this constant need moment by moment is that I am in relationship with Him in a way I have never been before. I am not trying to please Him—He is already pleased. I am not trying to get it all right—in Him, I am all right. I am not trying to prove I’m something—I am of great value. My worth is defined by His Life in me, which means I am a pearl of great price to Him.

You are His kid when you move into the kingdom of Light. Don’t leave the treasure chest of the royal household untouched while you try to figure out how to do life with your old baggage!

Flowers

I have always loved flowers. They are evidence of the invisible hands of God, reminding us that He is still creating and perpetuating life, even when we are not aware.

When looking at a tiny seed, it is impossible to see what will bloom from this minute speck of nothing — the color it will produce, the bloom or fruit, or how large the plant will be. There is vast potential locked within, that under the right circumstances — planted in good soil, watered and covered in sunshine — a miracle will happen. The seed transforms into something more than itself. It gives birth to a plant that blooms and brings beauty, life, color.

And so, during the waiting times, the slow times, God calls us to sow — to sow broadly, generously, diligently. Sometimes the seeds that He requires us to sow do not obviously promise anything. Yet, we are asked to believe in the potential, the latent miracles inside of these small life-seeds.

We are to sow with a view to righteousness, not seeing or knowing totally the vast potential of what is in our hands. But ours is to be faithful to sow, by faith, the seeds of promise given to us, to cast the seed of promise into the soil of life, generously, diligently, faithfully.

And His is to do the miracle. To take all of the planting of faith seeds, and love seeds, and integrity seeds, and faithfulness seeds, into the moments of our lives when no one else is looking; faithfulness to the gospel and spreading the good news; serving our children, and loving and helping our spouses; praying and believing when no sprout of answer is in sight.

In time, in His hands, there will be such a bounty of beauty, a harvest from the seeds planted in life. We will finally see that He was creating the miracle right beside us.

So, dear God, let us look at the flowers you have planted and see the potential beautiful harvest of our lives, if we will only believe in the seed potential in our lives right now, which by faith will become a harvest of righteousness beyond measure.

When People Are Mean

The first time I saw a T-shirt that said “mean people suck,” I thought, Now, there is a heartfelt sentiment, succinctly expressed. I only wished I’d been the author. I mention this because recently I’ve encountered several mean people, and I’ve had to remind myself that the concept of authorship is key to surviving these experiences.

I don’t know about you, but my favorite ways of reacting to mean people are (1) getting mean right back or (2) lying down quietly to display the word welcome! written where my spine used to be. Annoyingly, my job constantly reminds me that there’s a more responsible and effective way to live. That’s how it is for us writers. I say “us” because you’re a writer, too. Every living person has the power of authorship when it comes to composing our lives. Meanness emerges when we believe that we have no such power, that we’re passive receptors of life’s vagaries. Inner peace follows when we begin responding to cruelty—our own and other people’s—with the authority we’ve possessed all along.

Why are people mean?

Here’s the short answer: They’re hurt. Here’s the long answer: They’re really hurt. At some point, somebody—their parents, their lovers, Lady Luck—did them dirty. They were crushed. And they’re still afraid the pain will never stop, or that it will happen again.

There. I’ve just described every single person living on planet Earth.

The fact is that we’ve all been hurt, and we’re all wounded, but not all of us are mean. Why not? Because some people realize that their history of suffering can be a hero’s saga rather than a victim’s whine, depending on how they “write” it. The moment we begin tolerating meanness, in ourselves or others, we are using our authorial power in the service of wrongdoing. We have both the capacity and the obligation to do better.

We perceive our life events as story lines. We continually (though often unconsciously) tell ourselves tales about life, and since no story can include every tiny event, we edit and spin the facts into the stories we prefer. Many of our stories are pure fabrication, and all of them are biased, dominated by our flair for the dramatic, our theories about life, and our fears. A typical mean person’s story line goes like this: “I am a victim; people want to hurt me; I must hurt them first to be safe.” This is why mean people may turn ugly when you say something like “Please pass the salt” or “Hey, it’s raining.” They immediately rewrite whatever they hear to support their story line (“She’s saying I’m a bad cook” or “He’s bringing up the weather to avoid talking about us”). The story, not other people’s behavior, both motivates and excuses their hostility.

If we react to this type of meanness with cruelty of our own, we climb onto the wheel of suffering that drives all conflict, from lovers’ spats to wars: You’re mean to me so I’m mean to you so you’re meaner to me so I’m meaner to you….

We’ll stay on this sickening merry-go-round until we decide to get off—and please note that I did not say “when others stop being mean to us.” We can ride the wheel of suffering when no one else is even present (telling ourselves the same old sad story again and again), and we can leave it even in the midst of violent persecution. The way out is not found in changing our circumstances but in the power of authorship.

Here are some ways to use that power…

Like any work of fiction, your life story begins with description. Try sitting down and writing a one-page account of your life (no stressing over style; this is for your eyes only).

Now go get a hat. That’s right, a hat. When you wear this hat, you become the Reader, a different person from the Author. Put on your hat and read what you’ve written, pretending you’ve never seen it. Ask yourself, Is this the story of a hero or a victim? Is it a tale of the terrible things that have happened to the central character (you), or does it speak in terms of the choices you’ve made to create those circumstances? Do you dwell on vengeance or gratitude? Do difficult people and situations appear as forces who control you or as problems you are busily solving?

Now take off your hat and get a second piece of paper. Write another description of your life, one that is more heroic than the last (if your first story was valiant, make this one even more so). Mention times you chose wisely, instances when people were kind to you, moments you knew that no matter how bad things looked, you were going to succeed.

Don your hat, read your new history, and see how it compares to the first draft. I suspect that you’ll find it much more interesting and enjoyable. You’ve just exercised the storytelling talent that will take you off the wheel of suffering: the power to write your character as a hero rather than a victim.

This skill not only keeps you from being mean to others—if you’re consciously composing your life as a hero’s saga, you won’t excuse your own cruelty or anyone else’s—but also guides you to healthy options when others are mean to you. You’ll respond bravely but compassionately to the villains you encounter. You may need practice, but you can compose your hero’s saga with your actions, not just the written word. Feel hemmed in by obligations to children, siblings, parents? You are free to say no, even if it rocks the family boat. Trapped in an unenlightened culture?

You are free to act on your own principles, whatever the response. Take your liberty. Use your power. Rewrite every memory of your own victimization as a hero’s adventure.

“Mean” can also be defined as “small.”

Mean people live small, think small, and feel small—the smaller, the meaner. The belief that we are smaller and less powerful than others underlies most meanness, even when that belief is delusional. But we can also use our author’s imagination to size things in our favor. Think of a person who’s been nasty to you. Imagine that person shrinking to one inch tall. Picture your enemy stomping around in the palm of your hand, yelling or sneering all the customary cruelties. You’ll find that if your critic is making a valid point, it will still sound accurate, but mere verbal abuse is hilarious when squeaked in the voice of an inch-tall Mini-Mean.

Whatever your reaction to this tiny villain, that’s probably the best way to react to your life-size challenger. If the insults are laughable, just laugh. If the mean person has a point, tell her that you get it, but she could stand to work on her people skills. Practice what you would say if you felt big and invulnerable, then say it, even if you’re scared. Be “big” by responding to cruelty with honest calm rather than aggression or submissiveness.

Ernest Hemingway claimed the most essential talent for a good writer was simply a “built-in, shockproof shit detector.” Great authorship is all about truth. To write the stories of our lives as honestly as possible, we must thoroughly reject crap. This is especially useful when cruelty masquerades as kindness. Some of the most merciless behavior ever perpetrated looks very nice. The sweeter a lie sounds, the meaner it really is.

“Honey, people are whispering about your weight.” “Stop talking back, or you’ll lose that husband of yours.” “Oh, sweetheart, that’s way too big a dream for you.” Statements like these may be well-intentioned feedback—or spite. The difference is that honesty, even the tough stuff, makes you feel clearer and stronger, while meanness leaves you mired in shame, despair, and frailty.

If you opt to write your life consciously, you’ll find that a tale acknowledging your hero’s strength feels truer than one depicting you as a victim. You’ll see that whatever your physical size, you really are a bigger person than any bully. You’ll learn that the truth, no matter how hard, always strengthens you more than a lie, no matter how nice. On the other hand, if you don’t take up your authority, you give mean people the power to write your life for you. In the end, they will make you one of them. That should give you the motivation you need to take up your authority, because let’s face it: Mean people suck.

The Tale Of The Jumping Mouse And The Lesson It Taught Me

One of my favorite stories comes from Native American traditions, and is estimated to be at least 10,000 years old. I read it when I was 17, in the book Seven Arrows, by Hyemeyohsts Storm. I didn’t know why I began to sob as I read this apparently simple tale of a mouse who wants to find his way to the sacred lake that is the source of all things. I didn’t know until decades later that the story is a guide to awakening, that it metaphorically traces every step on the way to enlightenment.

The story is called “Jumping Mouse.” It’s about an ordinary mouse who can’t stop hearing the call of the rushing river (which symbolizes spirit or source). Little Mouse heads off on a journey to awakening. As it begins, a frog appears and insists that to follow his yearning, Mouse must jump. He must jump very, very high. After a few hesitant tries, Mouse puts all his tiny strength into one huge jump. He falls down into the sacred river, which terrifies him, but the magic has happened—at the highest point of his highest jump, he has seen the mountains of his soul’s home, where the still lake of spirit waits to show him his true self.

After that, Mouse gets a new name: Jumping Mouse. He no longer moves by creeping and crawling. He bounds along, leap after leap. 

The point—everything that happens to Jumping Mouse has a point—is that once we’ve set out in search of Home, we can’t move by creeping and crawling any more. We can’t tiptoe, keep our profiles low, avoid exposure. Life becomes one leap of faith after another.

This is not an easy way to live. Jumping Mouse doesn’t have an ordinary mouse life. He has adventures that terrify and injure him. But along the way, he encounters and integrates great realizations, unusual friendships, deep wisdom, and finally his true self. Have you been to the river? Have you begun to live by leaping? If not, start now. Leap at the next chance that speaks to your heart. One leap of faith at a time, we’ll all get Home at last.

Turn To The Stars

I was steeped in self-pity, boosting my self-esteem by rescuing bears in Candy Crush, when my grandson phoned with the news. You’ve probably heard by now, but I just have to write it down myself: Scientists have discovered that when dung beetles roll their balls of animal feces at night, they navigate by looking at the Milky Way!

I know what you’re thinking: Thank God some intrepid scientists asked themselves, as we all do, “How the hell do dung beetles navigate at night?” And thank God these scientists did not remain on the couch playing Candy Crush! No, they took a bunch of dung beetles to a planetarium, where they let them see different simulated night skies: some dark, some with stars visible, some showing only the Milky Way. And here’s what they found out:

Is this not cool, I ask you? Dung beetles who can see the stars (specifically the Milky Way) roll their poo-balls in fairly straight lines. Those that can’t just wander around haphazardly, probably trying to think of something interesting to write.

I take great comfort from this information, because I basically spend all my time rolling around a big ball of poo called My Life. I arise, make the bed, brush my teeth, and show up at my computer to work. But most of the time, like today, I don’t feel I’m making any significant progress toward anything. I’m just pushing my poo-ball around, hoping no one notices that I have no idea where I’m going.

Today I have a gimpy back and not much pep. My husband had a bad night, last night, with his disorder and it was one seizure after another. Today the ball of poo feels huge, and my progress infinitesimal. It’s enough to make you just stop rolling.

I had to lie down to process all this, which of course means I’m accomplishing even less than before. But then I had a thought. I am not only a dung beetle pushing a sphere of crap; I am also a human, who can take the beetle to a planetarium and show it the stars.

I know how to do this, I’d just forgotten. I forget all the time, even though it’s a ridiculously basic instruction. When I’m moving in random patterns, not getting anywhere or accomplishing anything, I have to stop pushing my ball of poo. I can leave my life alone for a minute—I’m not making any progress anyway.

Once I’ve stopped pushing, I have to go to the planetarium, and the door to the planetarium is stillness. In stillness, we humans can do all kinds of magic our dung beetle selves can’t even comprehend. Once I get still, I can feel for the action that—right here, right now, for me—will turn on the stars. I can recognize it by my feelings. Anything I can think of that lifts me, that makes me feel relief, or relaxation, or just a little bit of joy, is the starry blur of the Milky Way. It may not be very clear or very bright, but I can navigate by it.

Today, the Milky Way appeared when I confessed my fear of accomplishing nothing to a friend. I got a wonderful hug, and a comment: “Honey, you’re thinking work is important. But that’s not what you’re feeling. What are you feeling?” And just like that, I knew that watching a movie with my family and cuddling under a blanket were important. And here’s the funny, counterintuitive thing that always happens when I turn on the stars: as soon as I committed to doing what brightened my inner world, my spirit lifted.

I am steering this poo ball like a mofo.

I know I’ll lose the stars again. I know I’ll wander aimlessly, feeling exhausted by all my shit. But I swear next time I’m going to do better. I’ll get still sooner, feel for my own joy more carefully, and do whatever lights up the Milky Way in the little messed-up planetarium that is my mind

The Circle Around You

I want to tell you a little story that I hope will give you hope and comfort.

At a time when everything in my life was falling apart—my body, my finances, my family—I got onto a plane and sat down in a window seat. The shades were down to keep the heat out of the plane.

Sitting there with nothing to do, overwhelmed by panic and sorrow, I rummaged in my travel backpack for gum and found a little meditation book someone had given me on a previous trip.

I opened the book to a random page and found instructions for a visualization to use in hard times. The first step was to close my eyes and imagine a circle of light around me. Sounded pretty generic, but it couldn’t hurt. I did it.

The next step was to imagine that the light around me was my favorite color. “But I love ALL the colors,” I thought. So I imagined a rainbow around me.

Then the plane took off. As we rose through a layer of clouds, I felt a sudden urge to open the window shade. What I saw through the window is pictured below. It’s a rare weather phenomenon known as a “glory,” where the shadow of a plane is surrounded by—well, see for yourself.

People, it’s not just me. The poet Hafiz wrote: “A long time ago, God drew a circle around the place where you’re standing now.” There’s a circle around each of us. There’s a circle around you.

Wherever you are, however you’re feeling, you are circled by glory. Here, now. Everywhere, always.