God

Living in Limbo

/ Lauri Ann Lumby / 7 Comments

I’ve just returned from a very short visit with the Minnesota Lumbys for our annual ThanksChristmas. As an introvert who suffers with a vestibular disorder that is triggered by movement, noise, lights, smells, barometric pressure and more, today is a rest and recovery day. I’m resting at home, in my self-created sanctuary, simply being and reflecting on the state of things.

Things are weird. My whole life I’ve had some sort of sense of purpose.  I had goals, lists of things I wanted to accomplish, studies to complete, grades (or as a grown up – money) to achieve. Now I find myself with none of these. Truth be told, I feel a little lost and at almost sixty, I sometimes wonder if I wasted my whole life by not becoming a high school English teacher – a path I never even considered but would have been really good at.

But alas, God (or whatever you call that) had other plans. Plans that included a lot of stumbling in and out of different careers, finally landing on what felt like my true soul’s calling. I still consider ministry of a certain kind to be my calling. I just never know what form it is going to take.  Certainly not one that bears any resemblance to how we typically think of ministry.

I don’t have a church. I sort of have a community. I don’t preside over liturgy. Over my dead body would I wear a collar or any of the priestly accoutrements. Like Jesus, I wear what regular people wear – in this day and age, usually jeans, a scooped neck top and boots.

Over the years my ministry has taken many forms – all centered around human development and counseling in some way. This continues to be true, but other forms have shown themselves, including serving as office manager (unofficial counselor) for a local ballet studio.

Most often my ministry, has really no form at all. It’s just showing up in a space and being myself.

And yet…..and yet……there continues to be something tickling the edges of my consciousness. Something beckoning. Something whispering. Something that is preparing to come into my life…….but its time is not yet here. And I have NO IDEA what it is.

Isn’t a deeply, long held longing that has not yet been fulfilled? It is more of God’s plan? Is it a yet undiscovered way to serve? Is it a miracle that will swoop in and ease the burden that the post 16 years has been? Will it be something that lightens the load and makes life just a little bit easier? Is it the second coming of Christ (insert hysterical laughter and a gigantic eyeball roll)?

I don’t know what it is and I am certain I am not alone in the deep seated feeling of “something coming but I know not what.” I am willing to bet that every single lightworker, healer, shadow worker, etc. is feeling something similar. For me, there is a distinct feeling of “something is finished” and “something new is soon to come in.” BUT I have NO IDEA what this new might be.

I would find myself impatient and sometimes frustrated in this unknowing, except that the VOID has been my constant companion for the last several years. So I wait. I sit. I do nothing. I accomplish nothing. I listen. I watch. I observe. I cease from interfering. I allow life/humanity to unfold its journey. I’ve stopped trying to convince anyone of anything or from trying to change their mind. I’m just letting things be. And this is difficult for two reasons – 1) I tend to be a person of action and change. 2) Many people around me are anxious about the state of our world and desperately want things to change.

I do too (want things to change), but I’m learned that my interference does nothing but cause distress. So I wait. And I remember that I, Lauri Ann Lumby, am not in charge (as much as I want to be – because darn tootin’ I could do it better). The Universe/God has a plan and there is absolutely nothing I can do until that something falls into my lap.

So in this Limbo time, I’m sitting with my heart and hands open for whatever the Universe has planned for me, knowing that I will say yes to whatever that is once I know what it is. I know better than to try to say “no” to “God.”

PS If I had said no to God about Reiki I’d still be working in the Church for a regular wage, doing what I’m told instead of wandering around on my own hoping and praying for enough clients and students to make my rent. Being obedient to our higher power, I have found, is not a path to riches. (hah!)

Love Waiting to Be Found

/ Lauri Ann Lumby / Leave a comment

*an excerpt from my book, Choosing Love.

A man I know to be one of the kindest, most generous, faithful, and humble human beings, posted a horribly negative comment against our incoming government officials who are of the Muslim faith.  I joined my daughter in righteous anger over his comments.  How could someone who claims to be a devout Christian, and otherwise a good, kind, and generous man believe such horrible things of our Muslim brothers and sisters?  I was angry, but beyond the anger, I felt horribly sad.  How could this man, for whom I otherwise have the utmost respect, believe that his hatred and fear of Muslims is any way shape or form consistent with Jesus’ teachings?  I wanted to step in and ask him if he had read the story of The Good Samaritan (Luke 10: 25-37) – a story Jesus used to teach us that often the kindest and most “Godly” acts are performed by those who are not of our “tribe” or “belief system.”  I also wanted to quote the story of the Syrophoenician woman (Mark 7: 24-30) who was instrumental in converting Jesus of his own beliefs – who through her persistence and insistence convinced Jesus that he was here for the whole world – not just the tribes of Israel.  I refrained from commenting, but I still found myself troubled. So I brought this quandary to prayer.

This is when my compassion stepped in.  My friend, in his fear and hatred of Muslims is simply believing what he has been taught by the version of Christianity to which he subscribes – a version cloaked in the same fear of “the other” that he already carried in his mind.  To me, this is very sad.  And yet, this man, like every single human being walking this planet, is a vessel of Love just waiting to be found.  Quite simply, he hasn’t yet found the fullness of his Love – the Love he already is and was made to be, but which is currently hidden beneath a curtain of fear.  He freely and generously loves those who believe as he does and in his working profession, generously loves those in need of his service.  But, because he doesn’t yet know the fullness of the Love that he is and he hasn’t yet discovered the fullness of Divine love, he is not yet able to love every human being in the way that God does.  Here he is bearing out Jesus’ most profound and simplest teaching:

“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.  The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’There is no commandment greater than these.”  Mark 12: 30-31

This scripture has most often been interpreted as a commandment, but it could just as easily be taken as an observation of what is true.  We are only capable of loving our neighbor to the extent that we love ourselves.  Put another way, the degree to which we can love other human beings is proportionate to the degree to which we believe in God’s love for us, and the degree to which we are able to love ourselves as God loves us.  This is a plain and simple human truth.  My friend is unable to love his Muslim brothers and sisters because for some reason he does not yet comprehend the vast and unconditional nature of God’s love and in this, is also unable to unconditionally love himself.  He still has more love in him waiting to be found.

The same is true of all of us.  Each one of us is Love waiting to be found.  And every one of us is somewhere along the continuum of finding and then living from that love. Our actions on this human plane reflect the degree to which we know the love that we are. 

This brings me to the topic of evil.  In the human experience we witness a whole lot of what we are tempted to judge as evil.  Evil, we have been taught, is the antithesis of love and something to fear and work toward eradicating. We are taught that God judges us according to our evil and that we are then punished accordingly.  This is not what Jesus taught – but it is how fearful men have interpreted Jesus’ teachings and used this interpretation to gain an advantage.   The issue is ultimately one of translation. 

Evil does not mean the same thing as the word Jesus used that has been translated into “evil.”  The Aramaic word Jesus used was bisha (Neil Douglas Klotz, Prayers of the Cosmos).  Bisha is an agricultural word which simply means unripe.  When Jesus uses the word “evil” in scripture, he is simply observing the unripe nature of the person committing said-evil.  There is no judgment here, only a direct observation of the actions arising out of one who has not yet ripened in love. 

When we have not uncovered the fullness of our Love, then we act from limited and fearful states.  In God’s eyes, we are not “evil” in the way that we understand this word in our English language – we are unripe – our fruit is immature.  I like to think of it this way – when we walk up to an apple tree and see that the apples are not yet ripe, we don’t shake our fist in condemnation over the unripe apples.  We simply wait until apples are ripe. 

The same is true of God.  God is watching all of us, patiently waiting for us to come into our own ripeness and loving us through every stage of our own personal process.  We are all Love waiting to be found and God is waiting along with us – excitedly and with anticipation – the same way we anxiously and excitedly wait for our own children to reveal who they truly are. 

We are all love waiting to be found and the Divine is here loving us into knowing the fullness of this love.  It is up to us to say yes.  We say yes every time we are willing to receive healing for the fears and unhealed wounds that otherwise hide our love. In the end, this is my prayer for my friend – that he finds healing for the fears within him that are limiting his ability to know and live from the fullness of the Love that I already see glowing within him.

Choosing Love is a collection of fifty-two spiritual lessons and practices for personal and global transformation. These lessons and practices invite you to shake off the cloak of cultural conditioning and discover the freedom of the LOVE hidden within. Here there is no God to appease, no outside perceived authority whose approval needs to be earned, and nothing that can keep you from being and living as your most authentic self. LOVE is who you are. Choose that LOVE.

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The Practical Reality of Monastic Living

/ Lauri Ann Lumby / Leave a comment

Living monastically in the modern world begins with an understanding of the practical realities of making this choice. Of course, others may have a different experience of this, but this is how it’s worked out for me (often times kicking and screaming).

Living Really Really Simply

Let’s start with the dollars and cents of it – and here I’m going to be really really transparent.  

In 2023, I made $26,000. $13,560 of that went to rent.  Out of that balance I have to pay my regular living expenses (heat, electric, phone, internet, water, groceries, car insurance, gas, renter’s insurance, health insurance,) along with the expenses related to running a business. That leaves me with very little extra. I have just enough for entertainment via a few streaming channels that I share with my children, a few simple meals out, purchasing a few books on Amazon, and that’s about it. I’m not complaining.  This is a choice I have made and my personal needs are quite low. That being said, many of the things that many Americans take for granted – vacations, new furniture, designer clothes, etc. are not available to me. Nearly everything I own is either thrifted or found deeply discounted. These are the choices I’ve made because I choose peace over the stress other choices would cause me. Not that I’ve really had a choice.

A Choice We Don’t Really Choose

Monastic living is not a choice we make. It is chosen for us – often kicking and screaming. No matter how hard we try to fit into a traditional (Institutional) model, we cannot. These models elude us – making it impossible for us to get a “real job” or live a “normal life.” Every attempt we make at creating a life that fits any sort of traditional western paradigm fails. Every time we try to pursue traditional western definitions of success (money, power, fame) we end up bloody from beating our head against the wall. Remember that story of Jesus being tempted in the desert by Satan and the temptations he is offered?  SAME!  We may be tempted with these but no matter how hard we try, we cannot have them. It’s almost like monasticism is forced upon us.  Yeah, we could go against “God,” but that never goes well does it? Instead we learn to SURRENDER to what is and let our Soul carry us.

Submission and Obedience

Talk about defying western logic!  Monastic living requires that we set aside our personal wants, desires, hopes, dreams, and ego-attachments. To fulfill this calling, we have to surrender our entire selves to some sort of creative intelligence that is not our own (that which some might call “God.”). We have to submit to the guidance of this inner force – even when we believe we aren’t receiving a single shred of guidance. And we have to obey it. What about “free will” you might ask?  I’m not sure as it relates to a monastic calling we have free will. Yes, we could defy the nature and movement of our Soul, but I’ve learned it’s not worth it. It’s so much easier to submit to this calling than to fight the “will of God” – or as one friend calls it, “Universal Intent.”

At the end of the day, living monastically in the modern world is not a choice anyone in their right mind would make – that is why to those who are free to live a regular life, we and our choices appear insane. But for us, the only way we can remain sane is to live the life of a monastic no matter how countercultural that might be.

The Evolution of God

/ Lauri Ann Lumby / Leave a comment

Straight Talk About God Part II

Since the beginning of time, human beings have been creating God in their own image, not the other way around. In the earliest times, when humans lived close to the earth and whose survival depended on the whims of nature, it made sense that the first gods represented the movements of nature: storm gods, fire gods, water gods, all whose approval needed to be earned in order that humankind might survive. From this the evolution from nature gods to anthropomorphic deities resembling human beings in form and behavior was a natural progression.

Initially, these anthropomorphic beings were both male and female in form. At times they were primarily female as primitive human recognized that it was from woman that all humans come into being. Eventually, through events that can only be theorized, the feminine gods were supplanted by the male-only, all-powerful, warlike patriarchal god. This god, much like the nature gods, was one whose approval needed to be earned so that human beings might survive. For each human tribe, this man-god was given different names, but the qualities remained the same. Like human beings themselves, this god was jealous, vengeful, punitive, fickle, played favorites, and sometimes loved his creations. Mostly, however, this god needed to be worshiped, honored, and required sacrifice. Through “his” priests, this god delivered laws that required obedience. Straying from these laws elicited punishment, banishment from the tribe, and sometimes death.

These human-made gods have not evolved much in the last ten thousand years – at least not in the way these gods are articulated in the context of institutional religion. “The Old Man in the Sky” god still holds sway. AND YET – while this is the god created by man, this is NOT the god experienced by the mystics, and certainly not the God that Jesus came to know and tried to describe to his companions. The god of the institution is one born out of the mind. The God experienced by mystics is one born of the heart. This is the God that Jesus said “dwelled within us” and the one we can come to know by “going into our inner room.” And yet, this God was not of Jesus’ experience alone. Mystics, contemplative, and holy people since the beginning of time have described the experience of knowing versus knowing the Divine, the emphasis placed on the former.

Through the mystics, humanity has been introduced to a God beyond the anthropomorphic god of humankind’s creation. The God that the mystics experienced was one that transcended material form and human behavior. There are no real words to describe this experience of God, though attempts have been made through such words as: Presence, Being, Essence, Transcendence, Enlightenment, Nirvana, Bliss, Ecstasy, Spirit, The Void, The No-Thing.  The author of the epistles accredited to John, called this God Love.

In the Catholic church in which I was raised, the old man in the sky God was (and continues to be) the favored image of God, specifically, God the Father.  God the Father is the source of all creation, the architect of the universe, omnipotent, omniscient, loving like a father, but also one whose judgment we were taught to fear. For the majority of Catholics this father-god (specifically male) is their sole image of God, and one they will defend in spite of the fullness of Church teaching.

But the Church itself teaches that God is not exclusively male. In fact, the official teaching of the Catholic church is that God has no gender and in no way resembles humankind:

 “In no way is God in man’s image. He is neither man nor woman. God is pure spirit in which there is no place for the difference between sexes. (Paragraph 370 Catechism of the Catholic Church).”

I’m just going to leave that here for those raised Catholic to read again, and again, and again, as they/we attempt to reconcile this official teaching from what we were taught by our pastors, nuns, teachers, and parents.

God is pure spirit and in no way resembles humankind. BOOM!

God: I Have Questions! (Part 1)

/ Lauri Ann Lumby / Leave a comment

Straight Talk About God Part 1

In this series, I’m going to explore the topic of “God.” As a spiritual woman rooted in science and reason, I can’t help but question that thing that some call “God,” or rather, human beings’ creation of the “God” to whom they assign all kinds of images and meanings – based more on human behavior than on God Itself. This series will address these questions, not for the sake of providing proof of God or even an answer into the nature of God, but instead, to provide support for those like me whose lives have caused them to question what they were once told they must believe.

In the Catholic religion in which I was raised, God was a mystery and yet the Church, through doctrine and dogma, provided its own beliefs about God. As a post-Vatican II Catholic, my first lessons about the nature of God were all about love.  God was Love. God loved us without condition. God was all-loving and loved every single human being wholly and equally. This unconditional love, however, was also tempered with the caveat that God did love Catholics more than those of other faiths. Additionally, while being all-loving, God was punitive, jealous and wrathful. More than God’s love, we were taught to attend to God’s judgment. Breaking one of the ten commandments or sinning against the Church would earn you an eternity in hell, or if you were lucky, an extended stay in purgatory. If you were extra lucky, you had loved ones praying for your soul’s release from purgatory so that you could enjoy an eternity in heaven (that special heaven reserved only for Catholics) that much quicker.

As you can imagine, these conflicting images of God created a fair bit of cognitive dissonance in me, and I would guess, in most Catholics. Is God loving or is God punitive? Exploring scripture didn’t help the matter. The Old Testament God was wrathful, played favorites and destroyed those who were not His chosen ones. The New Testament God was equally confusing. Was God Love, as John’s letters suggested, unconditionally forgiving like the father in the story of the Prodigal Son, or did he separate sheep from goats and cast hulls into the fiery pits of hell? The Church only compounded this confusion by heaping conditions upon God’s love. Only IF we were a Catholic in “good standing,” and free from sin could we enjoy God’s heavenly reward. Further, freedom from sin was dependent upon full participation in the sacraments. Everything, it seemed, was conditional, including your own membership and participation in the Church. Sinners weren’t welcome. The divorced were shunned. Those “living in sin” were condemned. And single persons (who didn’t choose vowed religious life) were held in contempt.

At the end of the day, God was a cause for confusion and depending on who you asked, their answers about God differed. From priest to priest, nun to nun, parent to parent, friend to friend, everyone had their own beliefs about God. What life has shown me, is that not a single one of them were correct. Here is where my reason steps in. How can any single human being comprehend the great mystery that is our origin in creation? How can anyone fathom the Source from which we came, assuming there is even a source. The scientific truth is that our planet, everything upon this earth, including humankind, could simply be a random mistake of nature. At some time in the distant past, the perfect grouping of particles came together and poof – we were made. Did some Divine hand orchestrate this creation or is it simply the workings of chance? These are the questions that come to my mind when pondering about God.

The Long Dark Night

/ Lauri Ann Lumby / 2 Comments

The Long Dark Night

Deafening silence echoing into the void.

Where is the voice of my God?

The voice I used to hear on the wind,

see in my dreams,

taste in my prayers?

Feeling “His” loving embrace like the comfort of a warm blanket –

a shield of protection.

In “His” arms I felt safe.

A compass offering guidance.

A weathervane pointing out coming storms.

A sextant tracking the movement of the stars.

A barometer alerting changing pressure.

Where there was once surety, this is only confusion.

The only voice now is my own.

The Long Dark Night is made of this.

As we come to embrace this, we realize

that to hear the voice of God, we need only listen to ourselves.

copyright Lauri Ann Lumby

Surviving the Long Dark Night

LIVE (via ZOOM) online course

Wednesdays 6:30 – 8:30 pm central time

April 10, 17, 24, 2024

Created and facilitated by Lauri Ann Lumby

Learn more and enroll here.

Casting Stars

/ Lauri Ann Lumby / 4 Comments

Casting Stars

“Speak Lord, your servant is listening.”

The words of my morning prayer.

But to what god am I praying?

To what does one pray in a post-theistic state?

“Speak Self, your servant is listening.”

What is it my Self has to say?

What do I want from and for myself?

Self wants what the Self wants –

To be known.

What do I know of my Self?

Moving past defense mechanisms

And the armor designed to protect from the horrors of the world,

there is kindness

and deep sensitivity.

A heart too tender for the violences of this world

and the cruelty of man –

yet strong in its ability to endure the constant breaking –

held together by a love that sees promise

and the hidden good in it all.

Wise enough to have discarded hope (that fool’s game)

allowing Faith to take its place.

No longer wishing, but knowing,

in a deep, abiding way, that “it is good”

no matter how horrible that “good” might initially appear.

This is the Self I know.

The one who sees and knows.

Who seeks understanding in confusion.

Who looks for the higher way, the higher truth.

Who longs to know the Love in the center of it all

And who has no choice but to point it all out.

The messenger poet casting stars into the sky

helping humanity find its way.

Is Your God Too Small?

/ Lauri Ann Lumby / Leave a comment

Growing up, I was taught that “God” is infinite (without limit), omnipresent (present everywhere, at all times), omniscient (all-knowing), omnipotent (all-powerful), and unconditionally loving. One teaching went to far as to define “God” simply and profoundly as love (1 Jn 4:16).

And yet, everywhere I look, even (especially) within the Church that taught me about God, I find human beings limiting “God.” 

  • “Sure God is unconditionally loving…..unless or except when…”
  • “God loves you without condition, but if you disobey God, you will be condemned to eternal damnation.”
  • “God is infinite, except when it comes to those things “not explicitly handed down by the magisterium.”
  • “God is everywhere at all times, except in those who don’t believe in Christ.”
  • “God is all-powerful, except when it comes to “Satan” or “Lucifer.”

I am continually amazed at all the ways in which human beings limit their “God.” It seems instead of coming to know the Divine, they are creating “God” in their own image:  jealous, fickle, wrathful, vengeful, judgmental, hateful, prejudice, racist, etc.

How can one preach a God of love while simultaneously preaching a God of vengeance? How can one preach a God of welcome while preaching of a God who excludes? If I wasn’t a woman of reason, I might find myself confused. Instead, I find the answer to this quandary quite simple…an answer that has been given to us by the very guy who called God LOVE:

He who does not love does not know God; for God is love. (1 Jn 4:8)

As John points out, those who find themselves limiting God don’t really know God, and I find that very sad.

Videos for This Week

/ Lauri Ann Lumby / Leave a comment

Strange Symptoms, Empathy and the Call of the Mystic

The call of the mystic is often accompanied by the gift of empathy – the ability to feel what other people are feeling, and to feel things that are happening in the world. This gift of empathy is often identified by strange, otherwise unexplainable physical and emotional symptoms: physical pain, vertigo, ringing in the ears, dizziness, nausea, migraines, visual disturbances, unexplained sorrow, anxiety, grief, fear, etc. While it’s important to consult a medical doctor in the event these symptoms have a medical and treatable cause. If not, it might just be that you’re an empath.

Soul Lessons – Tonglen

In this video, you will learn about and be guided in a Tonglen practice. Tonglen is a powerful and effective practice for transforming our inner wounds, compulsions, past trauma, and societal conditioning. It’s a great remedy for guilt, shame, loneliness, anxiety, and so much more.

The Way of Love – The “G” Word

This week’s Way of Love Video Podcast explores the “G-word.” Humanity’s evolution as it relates to our concepts of that from whence we came. Is it the old man in the sky? A many-armed God? Or will our human conceptualizations of the Source always fall short of what “G” really is?

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Is the Bible Still Relevant?

/ Lauri Ann Lumby / 1 Comment

YES, but not in the way many religious institutions would have us believe.  While some (many) have used the Bible to manipulate the masses and to put forth their own hidden (or sometimes not so hidden) agendas, this is not how scripture proves relevant to us today.  I should probably qualify that statement….if our desire is for separation, then using the Bible to put forth dogma, justify separative actions, or to sell the story of a God who wants you to be wealthy, then that is how one will use the Bible.  If, however, our desire is for unity and for humanity to come together in harmony with one another, then we are required to approach scripture in a different way. 

While the Bible is the inspired word of God (Truth, Love, The Divine, by whatever name you call the Source and Revelation of all that is), so too is every example of the written word.

  As we become increasingly aware of the wisdom traditions and sacred writings of other cultures, we discover an abundantly flowing wellspring of wisdom.  As the Western world grows increasingly disenchanted with institutional Christianity and discovers the compassionate teachings of our friends in the East or from the Native people who were here before the European invasion, the temptation is to exchange the traditions in which we were raised for these “new age ideas.”  The problem is that there is nothing “new” about New Age, neither is there something unique in Buddhism, Hinduism, Zen, Paganism, or Native traditions that we cannot find in our own traditions.

This is where the rich tradition of Christian contemplative practices proves helpful.  (Note:  there is also nothing unique to the tradition of Christian contemplative practices. Expressions of all the practices we call “Christian” can be found in the Jewish faith out of which Christianity emerged, and also within the spiritual practices of the cultures in which Judaism was immersed.)

With these practices, we can approach scripture through the lens of inquiry and as a tool through which we can discover and discern our own truth.  In this way, scripture acts like a mirror, reflecting the guidance, insights, learning, comfort and healing we need in the present moment. 

Whether we think of God as the Divine Source of all that is, or as a reflection of our highest self, when applying contemplative practices to scripture, “God” is providing us with what we need.  It is through these contemplative practices that we come to know the God of our own understanding while at the same time coming to know ourselves.  In this way, scripture can be our teacher, our source of guidance and direction, our healer, our counselor, and our comforter.  St. Paul says it well in this epistle:

Beloved:
Remain faithful to what you have learned and believed,
because you know from whom you learned it,
and that from infancy you have known the sacred Scriptures, which are capable of giving you wisdom for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.
All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for refutation, for correction, and for training in righteousness, so that one who belongs to God may be competent, equipped for every good work.

2 Tim 3:14-16

The above is an excerpt from my latest book, Choosing Love – Lessons and Practices for Personal and Global Transformation.

Choosing Love is a collection of fifty-two spiritual lessons and practices for personal and global transformation. These lessons and practices invite you to shake off the cloak of cultural conditioning and discover the freedom of the LOVE hidden within. Here there is no God to appease, no outside perceived authority whose approval needs to be earned, and nothing that can keep you from being and living as your most authentic self. LOVE is who you are. Choose that LOVE.

Buy it HERE