I began my day meditating on an excerpt from the Dalai Lama’s book, “Advice on Dying and Living a Better Life”.  Initially, my meditations took me to the past; to a time in my life where consciously thinking about death inspired me to pursue my dreams, and live life to the fullest.

Later, as I continued meditating, while doing cardio at the gym, I had further inspiration in the form of the above song, by Adele: “Don’t You Remember”.  In listening to the song, I was suddenly urged to listen to the song not from my own perspective of loves lost … but from the perspective of God; singing the song to me, asking me the deep and soulful questions Adele asks in the song.

So how do these two very different sources connect and coincide?

Well, the quote that I meditated upon addressed the issue of living life to its fullest … that there isn’t time to waste.  We all will die … period.  There is no doubt about this.  We truly do not know when or how this will take place.  Death is a scary topic, for many people.  However, it is in facing our fears that we become empowered.  When we allow our fears to constantly make us react to them, then our eyes are taken off of the most important thing in the world … God.

In listening to Adele’s song I was certainly struck by the incredible emotion she is able to convey … but in terms of this post I was struck by the lyrics, and thinking of God singing those words to me; more specifically the lyrics at the end of the song:

“I gave you the space so you could breathe, I kept my distance so you would be free. In hope that you’d find the missing piece to bring you back to me?  Why don’t you remember? Don’t you remember … the reason you left me before?  When will I see you again?”

I flashed back to all the years where I was shut down … shut down to God.  Every time she sang, “Don’t you remember” I thought of every single reason I had, at the time, for leaving God: my mother died at a young age, my father married an abusive woman, and I was sexually abused … all within the span of two years.  This led me into my teenage years, where I became borderline suicidal.  That was when I left God, when I stopped trusting God.

Still, for whatever reason, as a teenager/young adult I believed that I would die at the age of 35.  I don’t know why, but I believed it completely.  This belief was one of the things that ultimately drove me to live the life that I thought I wanted to live.  Despite my family’s protests I pursued a career in performance.  I traveled the world, and performed at some of the most well known venues in the whole world.  Partially this was because I believed, and accepted, that I was going to die … in a sense I was empowered by it, rather than fearing it.

Decades went by though, and through all of them I was closed off to God.  35 came and went, and I was still alive. 🙂

I still believed in God.  I still loved God … I still prayed to God.  But I wouldn’t let God in … I wouldn’t trust God; I couldn’t trust anyone who would allow such awful things to happen to me.  I built up gigantic fortresses of reactions, or preemptive actions, within me to try to protect that little child who had been hurt … and in the end, I only made things worse.  The results of that decision traversed the realms of broken hearts, addiction, anxiety attacks, and all sorts of things that I would later regret.

THIS is how these two sources (Adele’s song and the Dalai Lama’s book) connect: there is NO time to waste living life disconnected from God.  God loves each and every one of us with the intensity of the most intimate lover, with the compassion of a mother gazing at her newborn, and with the depth of a martyr who would sacrifice their life for the one they love … God loves us that way ALL the time.  There is no time to waste on the meaningless trinkets and baubles of life … we are all going to die.  The knowledge of that doesn’t need to scare us … we can use it to set us free.

So how do we get to that place?  Well … as Adele so ardently sings, “Why don’t you remember?  Baby, please remember once more.” … that’s a good place to start.

Whatever place each of us is currently in … whether connected to God intimately, or not at all, or in some sort of midway place … I am sure we each can remember that time … anyone who wants to share is welcome.

Peace and Love.

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Religion4All is an idea: that every human being (no matter their race, religion, sexuality, social status, lifestyle, or any other possible factor) is LOVED by God; just … as … they are.

We all are loved by God, and NO religion or person has a monopoly on it. Every single person on this planet is loved equally by God … SO many are cut off from God because they are told they don’t belong. God loves everyone … we ALL are beautiful creations … we don’t need to cringe when we hear the words “God”, or “religion”, or their judgments … God LOVES us all!

There is no requirement to change in order to be LOVED by God, or to LOVE God. God is LOVE, and LOVE is God … period. There is no one who God loves more than anyone else … there are only those who choose to LOVE more … to love God more, and consequently then to love each other more. In doing so, we grow closer to God … and know God.

By opening our hearts, and minds to God (free of boundaries like religion, or social trends); by LOVING God … we are exactly where we are meant to be. If we maintain that openness, never allowing any person or event to make us close our hearts, we will be guided by God to be who we are meant to be.

In that space of openness we can then live a life of LOVE, and be guided to where we are meant to be … forever in LOVE.

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