Wholehearted Seeking - Seeking Truth - Episode 25

What are we truly seeking beneath all our striving, searching, and longing? In this gentle and contemplative episode, we explore the sacred nature of wholehearted seeking — the quiet inner pull toward meaning, belonging, truth, and deeper connection with life itself.

Transcript

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Welcome to Light in the Garden, a soft place to land, to breathe, and to remember who you truly are. I'm Lulu, and this podcast is my offering. Here we explore the quiet places where the human and the divine meet, through stories from the road, the lake where I spend many hours, and the long path of my own becoming. Each episode is simply a companion for your heart. Thank you for joining me today. I am truly so glad that you are here. This episode is called Wholehearted Seeking. Just before heading into sleep the other night, I was scrolling. Yep. Even mystics scroll sometimes. Anyway, I ran across the actor who plays Jesus on the hit show The Chosen, Jonathan Roomy. He was quoting Jeremiah 29, 11, which says, I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord. Plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Now I've been familiar with that verse for a long time and have always liked it, but honestly, I was more interested in sleep than in Old Testament scripture. However, when I woke up the next morning, it was still blasting away in my brain, and that is always a pretty good indication that I must write about it. My first impulse was to go in another direction, to allow my list of possible podcast topics to speak to me, because this is Old Testament scripture, and I know some people immediately pull away from that language. But the word stayed with me. So come on, dear listeners, let's go. Let's see what is there for us thousands of years later from the writing. There have been many instances in my life and yours, where it sure didn't seem like the Lord, another name for God that some of us repel against, had plans to prosper us. How can the loss of a job or a marriage or a dream be a part of some beautiful plan? I wanted to say BS to that. How can we encounter this level of devotion from the spirit of the universe when we are standing in pain and grief and uncertainty and just wandering? Where is this great plan that Jeremiah says exists? Where is the prosperity when the house is going to be auctioned off because property taxes were not paid? Because the dollars simply were not there. That actually happened to me, and it was a scary time. A dear friend gave me the money and allowed me to pay her back little bit by little over time. Oh, I guess that was the no harm part. Where was the great plan when I lay in the ER having suffered from my first of many strokes? My friends, I, just like you, can fill our time together with all the ways life just shows up. But if we are still living and breathing, then perhaps we need to dig a little deeper into Jeremiah 29, 11. Or we might want to look at another scripture which feels much more relevant to seekers today, you and me. Matthew 7, 7 and 8. Ask and it will be given to you. Seek and you will find. Knock, and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds. And to the one who knocks, the doors will be opened. So maybe we're looking in the wrong place. Maybe when we read Jeremiah 29, 11, we are expecting a pain-free, nothing bad ever happens kind of life. Well, if we've been alive longer than five minutes, we already know that's not true. Nor will an outwardly perfect life ever exist. Because we are here to learn. We are here to connect with our Creator, whatever you want to call it. What if the deepest movement of the spiritual life is not certainty but seeking? We are told point blank that if we seek with all our heart, we will find. But seek for what, my friends? Seek stuff? Or are we secretly starving for something more? The stuff I have sought has given me moments of happiness. So for me, I have learned, again, for me, for me, maybe only, that seeking a relationship with spirit is all the seeking I really need to do. And that is a full-time job. The awareness of presence is what I keep seeking. That awareness cannot really be explained, only experienced. Well, that's not a hundred percent true. I experience presence when I am fully present during a sunrise or a sunset. I experience presence when I put something amazing into my mouth. I experience presence when all the ducks that need to line up actually do. And again, for me, I have found that I must throw myself fully into the knocking, the asking, and the seeking with my whole heart. Wholeheartedly. Big breath here because just writing this feels so good. My heart opens wide and I can fully breathe into the presence that is present as I write this. I have to admit that I have employed little hacks, little hacks to help me remember that presence is here at this very moment. I have ribbons and bells hanging from door frames that tickle or touch my skin as I walk past, and that becomes a reminder. I set tiny timers throughout the house to go off throughout the day to remind me. When I do push-ups against the kitchen sink and look out the window, I remind myself. These are tiny little practices, I know, but apparently I need every one of them because I forget too. I forget that the presence is always present. The way the sun slants in through the blinds, the dust moats floating in the air, the always at my disposal fresh cold water to drink, watching the squirrel trying to get to the bird feeder, catching a glimpse of a rosette spoonbill at my nearby lake. For me, my friends, these are encounters with the divine, with presence. But being in a place of seeking and opening awareness is necessary for me to be more than momentarily interested because I can get distracted pretty easily. Those same dust moats could remind me that cleaning may be next on the agenda. Perhaps I need to tighten those baffles so the squirrels can't reach the seed. I can completely miss the feel of cold water in my mouth and simply take a drink. So I need to bring myself deeper. Again, for me, this is more than a morning prayer practice, though sometimes that's as far as I get. That word wholehearted is key. I know I am deeply, unconditionally, and wholeheartedly loved by my Creator, just like you are. But wow, is that easy to forget? And if I am wholeheartedly loved by presence, by the Spirit of the Universe, then doesn't it make sense that I might choose to reciprocate? Seriously, how does a human reciprocate love with the creator of the universe? Well, for me, gratitude is my number one go-to. Praise too, which I know is another word some of us cringe against, but truly when I glance at the moon at night or feel a misty rain on my skin, or lick look deeply into the intricate inner workings of an amaryllis bloom, or breathe in the aroma of a newborn baby, praise simply rises in me. Wholehearted seeking becomes me and you. Let's go. I'd like to offer a longer breathing space now, an invitation to let this teaching land in your body, not just your mind. I call it looking deeper. Find a comfortable position. Maybe you have a special place where you go to meditate. Maybe you could loosen your clothes, kick off your shoes, and wrap yourself up in a cozy blanket. You do not need to arrive anywhere special for this meditation. You do not need to become wiser, calmer, or more spiritual. Simply come as you are. So take a slow deep breath in and gently release it. Again, let's breathe in together and slowly release it. Notice the simple rhythm of your breathing. Nothing forced, nothing complicated, just life moving through you. There is something sacred about seeking. Not frantic searching, not grasping or chasing, but wholehearted seeking. The kind that rises quietly from the soul, the kind that whispers, there is more. There is deeper love, deeper peace, deeper truth, and I want to live close to it. Perhaps you've spent portions of your life searching outside yourself for what could only be discovered within. We often search for someone or something to finally quiet the ache within us, and yet the deepest wisdom traditions have always pointed toward stillness, toward presence, toward the sacred life already breathing quietly beneath all our noise and striving. So for just this moment, stop searching. Simply breathe. Simply breathe. Imagine yourself standing at the edge of a quiet lake just before sunrise. The world is soft. The mist rises from the water. The air is cool against your skin. Nothing is demanding your attention. No one needs anything from you here. You are simply present. And in this stillness, begin noticing what your soul has been longing for. Not your ego, not your fearful mind, but your deeper self. What has your heart been seeking all along? Peace, rest, freedom, connection, healing, love. You don't need to analyze the answer. Just let it gently rise within you. Now imagine the surface of the lake becoming perfectly still like glass. And as you gaze into the water, you realize something beautiful. What you have been seeking has also been seeking you. Love has been seeking you. Peace has been seeking you. Wholeness has been seeking you. Even in your confusion, even in your wandering, even in your exhaustion, you have never been abandoned by the sacred. So take a breath and let that truth settle into your body. You do not need to force awakening. You do not need to strive your way into worthiness. The sun does not struggle to rise. Flowers do not force themselves to bloom. The soul unfolds in much the same way. Quietly, naturally, patiently. Whole-hearted seeking is not about becoming someone else. It's about becoming fully alive to who you already are. And perhaps today your only invitation is this: to listen more deeply, to soften more fully, to trust more gently. Feel your body relaxing. Feel your breathing slowing. Imagine light beginning to spread across the surface of the lake as dawn arrives. Warm golden light, soft and welcoming. Allow that light to move toward you now, into your chest, into your shoulders, into every tired or hidden place within you. You did not need to earn this light, you only need to receive it. So rest here for a few moments, breathing in peace, breathing out striving, breathing in belonging, breathing out fear. Perhaps as you move through the remainder of this day, you can carry quietly this knowing within you. The sacred is not far away, not hidden in some distant mountaintop, not reserved for the perfect or the enlightened. It is here in your breath, in your tenderness, in your longing, in your willingness to keep opening your heart to life. So take one final deep breath in and breathe it out. And when you are ready, gently return your awareness to the room. Return softly, returning slowly, and carrying with you the quiet courage of wholehearted seeking. Remember, my dear friends, even in the ordinary moments of your day, there is always light waiting in the garden. So until next time, take good care of yourselves and of each other. And I thank you from the depths of my heart for visiting me today. And if you enjoyed this podcast, please share it with your friends. And I offer a deep bow to each of you. And finally, if you have found value here and would like to spend some one-on-one time with me, I offer spiritual companionship as a spiritual coach. Sometimes it really helps to have a steady presence beside you as you listen for your own inner wisdom and find your way forward. Amen. And so it is.