Un-Becoming

This is one of those uncredited or anonymous quotes that free floats on Facebook and Pinterest. It's also one of my current favorites.

I've spent many days, weeks, months looking at what I needed to become or how I needed to be in the world. How do I improve my ability to..... [fill in the blank: be in relationship, be a friend, work better, make money, live more easily in the world, etc. etc. etc.] I'm sure these ponderings, workshops, classes, meditations were all helpful in their own ways. I returned over and over again to doing something in order to become, well, honestly, I'm not sure what, only that whatever 'it' was, I'd be better being or doing 'it.'

Then I read this quote. The world went TILT and I went with it. 'Un-becoming' was a totally new concept to me. Not changing or improving or even letting go. More of an unraveling of what I learned and what I've been. It felt like a mulligan, the chance to re-do my beingness in the world. What freedom! Yet ~ as I said ~ everything shuddered as it shifted.

In every group setting in my adult life where we've discussed how to be in the world, the comparison to child-like trust and understanding is always mentioned. Every one. Yet not one of them suggested that perhaps we needed to un-become. Not only to unlearn or let go of things that no longer serve us, but to shift our being to that more innocent, loving, trusting phase of our lives. And in that process, to recognize that we were truly meant to be (something) in the first place. Something/Someone important. The original blessing of our life on Planet Earth, right here, right now. Something I am extremely grateful to recognize in this moment.

What do you believe about your life? What would un-becoming look like for you? How does it feel to think about un-becoming?

Choices

"God must act and pour himself into you the moment he finds you ready. Don't imagine that God can be compared to an earthly carpenter, who acts or doesn't act, as he wishes; who can will to do something or leave it undone, according to his pleasure. It is not that way with God: where and when God finds you ready, he must act and overflow into you, just as when the air is clear and pure, the sun must overflow into it and cannot refrain from doing that."

~ Meister Eckhart

Before anything else, my disclaimer: I generally don't use 'he' God language. However, I am quoting Meister Eckhart and that's the language he used. Think about this in whatever terms feel most comfortable for you.

How amazing! I have free will ~ I can determine my actions or inactions. They are governed by my 'pleasure' ~ simply put, my own personal choice. If I want to stay home in bed until past noon, I can do that. If I want to sew a dress for myself, I can do that. Everything is governed by my choices.

Yet according to Eckhart, God doesn't have that same opportunity to choose. If God finds me ready ~ whatever that may mean ~ God must act. Like the river rushing to the sea ~ encountering rocks and a drop off, it becomes a waterfall or a set of rapids. The river has no choice. It can't say, "No, I don't want to do this now." It can't wait until later or change what it does or where it goes. It becomes a force that acts because it IS...... not because it chooses.

I've never thought of God in those terms ~ acting in certain ways due to His very nature. It's a thought I will continue to ponde

How do you experience God? What do you think is His nature? What do you think about His actions?