NUMBERING ONE

I suspected it would be true: the less time I have, the more precious it is. I never dreamed that I would embrace my latter years as much as I am. Even as I am facing life without my husband and as I face diminishing physical ability the sand that is left in the top of my hourglass keeps me focused, intententional, and grateful. I am by nature a disciplined and organized person. I pay attention to how I am living. To what is fueling what I am doing. To my values. To what I am contributing. My energy is precious and vital to me. I know that it contributes to the greater good of the whole when I am aligned with my Soul priorities. I have for many years had a personal manifesto. A type of constitution for how I live and operate. I let it govern me to the best of my ability. My manifesto is a living document. I use it, access it in decision making. It is fluid and changeable when I feel as if I have outgrown one of my precepts. It is permeated with prayer. In fact, it is a prayer. In a world that has become so chaotic and disruptive my manifesto is more important than ever. It is my invariant constant in a stormy world. It is a beacon in such intense darkness. Regardless of all the insanity around me my manifesto helps keep me grounded and anchored. Stable. Centered. I will not get into the specifics of my personal document. I do believe it is evident by how I live. At least that is my goal. And it is one of the few goals that remain for me. Achievement and success are truly no longer important for me. I have climbed enough mountains and crossed enough bridges. I have done enough. That does not mean I will sit and stare for the duration. It means for me that how I do things is way more consequential than what I am doing. I am content to do way less yet with more focus and intention. My activity level is considerably less that in previous years. When I go somewhere I am very mindful of the energy I bring to the space I am in. How I treat others, both internally and interactionally. I want to leave space better than I found it. And with less years ahead the urgency for contribution is amplified. Not in an ambitious sense. The urgency isn’t drive. It is a vitality that moves me through my days and helps me select what is most worthy of engagement. I don’t have time to waste. And how I spend my time is often directly shaped by my manifesto. By my priorities. I am mindful these days that my next birthday will be my seventieth. I am still nine months off. Yet it has prompted me to do an even deeper dive into my current manifesto, and to determine where some updating may be in order. I love the process! I love deeper dives. I relish giving time and attention to the things and processes that are most precious and important to me. And I celebrate that I am at a place in life where while my manifesto is a document of personal choice it is dedicated to something much larger than me. I offer the remainder of my days to be dedicated to the collective more than to my individual goals or wants. I intend to die having fulfilled my purpose. I would love to think I leave having given more than I have taken. I want to be a man of my word. A beneficial presence upon this planet. And my manifesto guides me in that pursuit. This late life revision could well be my last. I will continue to tweak. Yet I am poised to pray and to intuit how I will live the remainder of my days, weeks, months, years. I cannot know and am frankly not all that concerned with the duration. It is the quality of contribution that matters most to me. I did some silly and unskillful things earlier in my life. I was focused on things that seem so inconsequential now. Yet it took what it took. If that chaos was necessary to bring me to where I am today, then so be it. It is a late life manifesto. I am giving myself ample time to steep and to pray it into being. I trust my intuition impeccably. I listen relentlessly to the call of my heart. I open to guidance and I let it govern me. And I know I can face anything that happens in these latter years of my life. With faith in my heart and my manifesto in my mind I have confidence that the rest of my years can be the best of years. And it is because I say it is.

I have been dancing with retiring in ways that feel like my retirement from dancing. I am a former musical theatre performer that left the stage in 1995. My training was in vocal performance, acting, and dance. Of those three disciplines, it was dance that most captivated my creative imagination. I did not begin formal dance training until I went to college. My parents did not want a son that danced. I was not permitted to take lessons until I went to school, which I paid for. And so let the training begin. By the time I was twenty, I had already had each knee surgically repaired. This was not directly traceable to dance, though it was debated. My mother accompanied me to an orthopedic appointment where she applied her son-dance aversion to my medical condition. She presented her evidence for my dance cessation to the orthopedic surgeon. She had every confidence he would concur. He did not. The doctor shifted his focus from her to me. “Do you love dancing?” “I do.” “Then keep at it as long as you possibly can.” And I did. Professional dancers know that our “life expectancy” on the stage is limited. Mine was shorter than most. But I loved every grand jete and every shuffle ball change. I was in my bliss when I was dancing in the studio and especially on stage. While I had frequent knee pain, I pushed right through it until I simply couldn’t. And so, I am a retired dancer. I stopped acting and singing professionally at the same time. Without dancing, I didn’t have my mojo. I did some television and film work while I was in my clinical training, a transition from performer to therapist and eventually clergy. The final traces of my entertainment career were concurrent to my seminary work. I moved out of New York with a clinical credential and was ordained shortly after. I was formally retired at age thirty-eight. And a whole new stage of professional life opened before me. Since retiring from dance, I have worked full-time in the ministry for thirty-one years. As much as I love the performing arts and dance, I know it is ministry that is the true calling of my life. I feel deeply connected to and live from what is truest and deepest within my heart. And my “tasks” are various expressions of that internal moving flow. I often marvel that I am paid for being what I authentically am and then sharing that with others. I daily put feet on my spiritual practice. I tap into my creative impulses and then channel my inspiration into words and other ways of relating. I have been the full-time leader of a spiritual community for over twelve years. While I began ministry as an independent contractor, I felt inspired to agree to a more structured role for what I thought would be a relatively short period of time. Many dramatic and even disturbing things have occurred for me personally during my tenure as a senior minister. This culminated late last year with the passing of my husband. As a result, I have been dancing with the idea of retirement. Again. I retired from dancing, and now I am dancing with retirement. Most days this contemplation is an easy waltz that does not yet lead me off the dance floor of my profession. I can still move with the music of my heart. I can keep up. I am admittedly slower when I move. Yet the passion in my heart is as vibrant as ever. I sit while I lecture. Yet my vital energy is standing strong. And I am aware that my general pace is slower and I am physically able to do less than in previous years. It feels like a very real example of “the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.” The years of forcing my dance have taken a toll. I do not regret it. Yet I ponder how much longer I can maintain the pace of full-time employment. While I am currently not feeling a definitive “stop,” the body symptoms are clearly having a say. I am clear that I feel no motivation to build a big community that I would then need to maintain. My focus is on touching and reaching one heart at a time. I feel compelled to channel decades of spiritual exploration and put it into forms and words that may benefit others. It is what I am doing as I type these words. I am pointing to something universal when I speak of my individual experience. Bodies often weaken even as our spirit strengthens and soars. Ours is a doing culture. Success is seen as active achievement. Busyness is a badge of honor. Do. Do. Do. Stay relevant. Measurable. Do even more. Then tell about it. Take pictures of it. Post it. Build even more upon it. I am personally called less by doing. My heart and my spirit are vibrating at the frequency of being. Much if not most of what is most important to me is not measurable or seen by the world as achievement. It is slow. Intangible. Etheric. I used to love leaping across a stage to a fast-paced crescendo of music. I am now sweetly content to sway to the serenade of my Soul. I then invite you to sway with me. There will always be a dancer in my imaginary self. And there will always be a minister as my highest form of expression. I embrace my slowing down. I celebrate that I have survived the past several years, and that I am spiritually stronger and more centered as a result. I dance with the notion that perhaps rather than retiring from my current position, I can retire from the demands I place upon myself in terms of how much I do. How much output I can measure. I dance with the truth that I have thirty years of experience of platform speaking. Individual and group counseling. Workshop presentation. Writing. I have earned the right to slow down a bit. I can allow my expansive being to take form as less doing than in past years. Slow dancing is still dancing. Inspiration does not take muscle. Practice, yes. Muscle, no. So, for today I am giving to you this pondering on dance and retirement. I retired from dance, and I dance with the possibility of retiring again. It will not be happening today. I have sat in my chair to compose this offering. No warm-up required and no sweat induced. Yet I pray you can feel the music of my heart and the swaying of my spirit. I hope you will dance with me and that you will glean something that will lead you in your own explorations. Life is indeed a dance. Will you let it lead?

I am feeling very much like barren land these days. Desert. I have spent my entire professional life working in creative fields. Even as a youth, I was involved in music and the arts. I began professional gospel music when I was eleven years of age. Though my current title is Reverend, I consider myself an artist. And I am in a barren period artistically. My creativity feels stifled, at best. Flat. Not vital. Which is interesting, because I do not feel the same about my spiritual alignment. I am attuned as much as ever. I am not used to feeling spiritually and artistically dystonic. I really don’t feel as if my spiritual and creative living are different. They are, however, varied expressions of the one life force. Spirit within me is the creative impulse. It is in all of us. We are all creative by creation. And those expressions are unique, and they ebb and flow in and from all of us. There are times when I feel more inspired and creative than at other times. Barren, though, is rare. As most of you readers know, my husband passed away in November of 2025. His passing was the culmination of nine years of illness for him and caregiving for me. It was progressive, and the last five or so years were very difficult. I am bereft at the loss. I took almost two months’ bereavement leave from my position as a senior minister. I simply could not function. As most of what I do is creative by nature, the hollowness in me stopped me in my tracks. I could not imagine tuning in and tracking with the inspiring movement inside of me. Not in front of a congregation. When I returned to officiating Sunday services, I did so with no small amount of trepidation. With over thirty years in ministry, I do impeccably trust my intuitive impulses. In most circumstances. After losing a spouse was a different context to work from. The lamp from which I usually shine felt shattered. The grief and the mourning have been intense. The sorrow, deep and immense. While it seems difficult for those around me, I have allowed fully for it. I lean right in. I sob when I need to sob, which is a lot. I have physical and psychological symptoms. I tire easily. I have cognitive space-outs. I irritate more easily than usual. I frequently and consistently feel barren. Flat. Dry. Arid. I continue to do my best at presenting effective and even entertaining Sunday sermons. I am writing infrequently. I amp myself up to occasionally record a social media video. And I pray and maintain my connection, regardless of what I may be feeling. I am a lifelong creative and not feeling very creative. Yet here I am. While I am not sure this will ever be distributed, I am engaging in the art of creativity for the sake of engaging in creativity. I am writing because of my love of writing. I am demonstrating that, regardless of pain and sorrow, grief and mourning, art can be born from them. Not despite them. From them. This is my desert rose. Someone gave Donald and me a desert rose plant when we married sixteen years ago. Donald is now gone, yet the desert rose is in full bloom. Donald is now gone, yet our love is still in full bloom. I must believe that beauty can still be born from barren land. If the desert can yield blossoms, then so can I. There are periods when our desert rose has nary a blossom. I have never once heard a critical voice coming from it. It simply knows that it will bloom again when it is time. The same wisdom is in me. I have not been blooming very much recently. Yet I trust that I will blossom again prolifically when it is time. Maybe I just need some time to be barren now. To not produce too much, to embrace my desert nature. Perhaps the volume of tears is flooding my garden. And perhaps, after this venture, I will drop the term “barren” and know that I will soon be fertile once again. My consistent attuning to the Great Creator can only result in my own great creations I began this creative experiment with the words, “I am feeling very much like barren land these days.” And now, not so much. Barrenness has borne creativity. It’s a small step. A gift of love. And just like that, I am creating again.

I have never felt so bereft. And I have never felt more purposeful. I do not recall the last time I sat down to compose a blog post. It would be easy enough to check. I just do not feel compelled to do so.

The one thing I never wanted was the life I already had. The one person I never wanted to be was me. As a child, I had a vivid and dynamic fantasy life. I spent much of my time pretending. Pretending that what was happening at home wasn’t. Pretending that I was someone other than who I suspected I was. Pretending that I lived in a whole different reality than I actually did. Many children have imaginary friends. I had an entirely imaginary reality. At the center of that reality was an imaginary me that I thought would be accepted, cared for, and loved. If I could just get the lines and the staging right. If I could just present in a way that I thought would be acceptable. If I could just keep the unwanted parts of me from being exposed. Then I would have a life I really wanted. A self that I wanted to be. This is where I want to tell you, readers, that as I emerged from childhood, this fantasy world fell away, and I began to live in a self and in a reality that was real and true and actual. Wanting to tell you that would be reengaging a reality that, in fact, took decades longer to transcend. Part of this dynamic I believe to be cultural. In this country, we seem to be prone to always longing for something we do not perceive we have. We always want a different body, personality, family, persona, financial status, etc. We seem to always want more. Never enoughism plagues us. Not enough propels our perspectives and behaviors. Not good enough. Not rich enough. Not successful enough. I wince when I reflect upon how much of the life I had I missed by always wanting something different. By always wanting to be someone smarter, more attractive, more spiritual. I didn’t enjoy relationships because I wanted those around me to treat me better. With more respect. More love. I wanted people to treat me as if I were special because I deeply feared I was ordinary. I deeply feared I was ordinary. I was right. A quantum shift occurred for me when I discovered that I was indeed ordinary. I am an ordinary man living an ordinary life doing ordinary things in my ordinary reality. And that was an extraordinary realization. It was extremely stressful, always wanting my life and myself to be different. While I still aspire to being more spiritually awake and actualized, I do so from a place that is mostly content with where I am today. With what I am being, doing, and expressing. Where I am living. In this body and this house. This neighborhood. This vocation. This marriage. These friends and acquaintances. I have grown to want the life I have rather than always wanting a life I want. I even want the aspects of my incarnation that are difficult and challenging. While I would prefer to live in a body that is not arthritic and painful, I use the experience to bless and compassion the struggle that I am having. While I would prefer my husband not to be ill and unable to live at home, I deepen into the feelings that this brings with it. I feel solidarity with the countless people in similar situations. Wanting to be who I am and wanting to have the life I currently have has become a cherished practice for me. I cultivate it. I look around me and thank the elements of my life circumstances. I notice when I am in resistance to what currently is. When I want things to be different from what they are. When I am applying pretense to elicit a positive response. I can honestly say that the days of fantasy and pretending are long gone for me. I have preferences, yet they rarely become demands. I admittedly have an imperfect life experience. Yet somehow it is perfect for me. The one thing I want is the life I already have. The one person I want to be is the person I already am. And grateful I am. I was and am willing to want the life I have, and I do. I truly do. A grateful me living a life I am grateful for.

“It’s all in Divine Order.” Is it? Just the other day, I heard someone say to someone else, “It’s all in Divine Order.”

Is any intelligence truly artificial? I will not pretend to personally understand this whole new world of artificial intelligence. The few examples of AI that I knew were AI seemed intelligent to me, even if they were deemed artificial. I think you must be smart to engineer all of that. It is baffling to me. I guess that is a demonstration of my level of intelligence. A few moments ago, when I clicked to bring up Word to author a blog post, the program offered me the opportunity to have AI write something for me. What? It gave me a few examples of things it could write about. A fishing expedition. A child's party. A plumbing how-to. By the time I sorted my way through the AI suggestions and my overall surprise at the new programming, I forgot what I had intended to write about. So here goes. A Writer's AI. I guess there would be applications for which the ease and convenience of AI would be appealing. If someone were stressed by an overload of work projects, having something that could produce something for you might well be beneficial. I am not sure how that would apply to a fishing exhibition or a child's party. But it is not difficult to comprehend how a program that can write reports or documents for you might be appealing. I am intelligent to know that I am not the best writer in the world, nor is it my goal to become that. I am not an expert at grammar, and without spell check, I am in deep trouble. I write because I love to write. I love to write about what I love most. And what I love most is Love Itself. And there is nothing artificial about love. Even from this novice's perspective, I do not believe that AI can capture into words the depth of love I feel when I tap into the Infinite Intelligence within my heart. Nothing Infinite is artificial. Infinity is the ultimate intelligence. And this infinite intelligence is also infinitely loving. It is loving because it is Love. It does not so much love. It IS love. It is this Love that prompts me to want to create. To write. To lecture. To draw. To sing. Infinite intelligent love moves within my heart and seeks to be known via my personal creative expression. It isn't artificial. It is organic. It is authentic. It is intrinsic. I do not seek or want shortcuts through my creative expression. And so, I do not love fishing, so I do not engage in a program to blog about fishing. I do not have children. I could care less about plumbing. I use whatever limited yet authentic intelligence I have been granted to write about what I actually love. Love. I suspect there will be other writers who will agree with me. I do not want a shortcut through a process that brings me joy and fulfillment to be engaged in. There is nothing artificial about my creative expression. I do not put it out there for accolades or approval. I put it out there only for the sake of sharing my love. If it touches one heart, then I am grateful. I will leave AI writing to someone else. Someone who wants to rapidly and easily produce a product. That is not my goal. I will continue to find AI pretty darn intelligent. I may find other applications for it that I find advantageous. This will not be one of them. I freely admit that AI might produce a more polished product that I am capable of. I also know that it will not be a reflection of my love or my need to share that love. And I know in my heart of hearts that my love is indeed my greatest intelligence. This is this writer's AI. And I assure you, I wrote it myself.

Influencer. I guess I am one. And so are you.

“Just don’t do something. Stand there.” And so goes a Buddhist axiom I have always appreciated. In a world of so much doing, busyness, and activity, perhaps it is more important than ever to apply that directive. “Don’t just do something. Stand there.” The fifth Unity principle that I am sure many of you are familiar with is “Inspired Activity.” It is the fifth of five, and very often the one that garners the most attention. There are, however, four preceding principles that have little to do with action. At least not in terms of physical action. I have touched upon these principles in previous blogs. I will reiterate them in my abbreviated form thusly: God Is. I Am. There is a Law. I pray the Law. And then I take inspired action. Without a deep realization and activation of the preceding four principles the action is rarely inspired. It falls into the category of doing, busyness, and action for the sake of action. When activity is FROM an internal knowing of our innate “Godness” then the action is permeated with inspiration, organic creativity, and transformative power. When I tap into my intuition before opening my mouth, deciding, or taking an action, I know that I am coming from my highest and most vital Self. I trust that what I put out will result in a non-dual Good. My life experience has been a laboratory for proving this is true. I have countless personal examples when I have mindlessly said or done something when I did not access my higher intelligence before making a choice. I acted for the sake of taking action. I did something without standing there first. It was reactive and uninspired. I got caught in the mind spin and then acted from the chaos. It almost never ended well. We have by virtue of our creation an Infinite Intelligence within us. It is Sourced by Source. It is All Knowing Allness. It is ever present and infallible. It always, however, must be accessed and consulted. When we are spinning out of control without an internal prayer for guidance, we end up acting out of programming and often unconsciousness. “Without prayer, action is futile.” “And without action, prayer is futile too.” I personally believe that prayer IS action. It is an activity in consciousness. It creates waves in the Unified Field. When sustained, those waves become form. Intention, attention, focus by Law become manifest. Many of the things we rush around trying to make happen are pointless for the most part. If we fuel our activities with prayer, those activities are inspired and innovative. We create waves and then surf those waves. We pay at least equal attention to the realm of the unmanifest as we do to what is already in form. I invite you to live this day Higher Powered. Understand in a deep and personal way that there is within you a Genius. An Intelligence that knows the best way for you to live, express, act. It is a pause, a breath, a prayer away. “Don’t just do something. Stand there.”  I double-dog dare you to do less and be more. The way of ease is the way of genius. We take inspired action because we ARE an inspired activity within the One. Align with that by standing there. Then take the actions you are led to take.