Fearless Life

In the past year a number of people have told me that I am fearless. My fearlessness seems to range from quilting to thinking, according to my observers. I have not thought of myself as fearless, rather committed to being the best I can be and to knowing the truth. My goals for my life that I have stated include: making a positive difference wherever I am, and going as far spiritually as I can in this lifetime. I suppose I am fearless in the quest of these two.

I was thinking about fearlessness in relation to sacred works such as the Bible. Recently there have been a series of shows on television from some people's Biblical point of view, supposedly representative of the scripture.

I have a problem with the shows. I was yelling at the television in just the first one. They added things, such as a conversation with Pharaoh's daughter telling Moses how he entered her family. They did not endeavor to explore any modern scholarship.

There is a group of people that think the Bible is literal in every sense. They deny scholarship, language, idioms, poetic license, editing over the ages and a huge number of other issues.

God is not delicate. We don't have to worry about upsetting Infinite Intelligence. God gave us   a portion of intelligence and so obviously expects us to use it. God wants us to know the truth.

Let's think about idioms for a moment, you know manner of speaking things. I'm in a pickle. Manny died on third base. It took forever to get to work today. If you take those statements literally, you will not understand the conversation. Just explore some of the idioms in the Bible and you will understand it better than if you take idioms literally. So one of the idioms was that pillar of salt meant a person had a stroke or heart attack (they didn't know the difference in the Bronze Age). Lot's wife, being so upset that she disobeyed had a heart attack and died on the spot. To me that is more meaningful than picturing a pillar of sodium chloride.

Jesus taught in parables. Psalms were poetic songs. Some of the stories predate the Bible and are woven from other older cultures. How can it all be literal? Yet it can all be deeply meaningful being what it actually is.

Archaeology and historical work have shown us some interesting things. For example, the Exodus was somewhere in the 1,300 to 1,200 b.c.e. time range. But the account was not written down until the 700's when the people were in Babylonian captivity. The boundaries of Egypt in the Exodus days included much of the Holy Land. The people 500 years later didn't know that and assumed the Egyptian borders were always where they were in the 700's. So if they were in Egypt and went to the Holy Land which was in Egypt, where did they go?

James the brother of Jesus was the person in the 1st century that guided the Jesus Movement. He was the one everyone went to in order to get clarification and direction. Paul was suspect as a Roman insider. Peter waffled. James who knew Jesus his entire life was the person people turned to. 

There is a lot of modern scholarship that is helpful in not destroying the Bible but in understanding it in the way that is more accurate and still deeply meaningful. There are fabulous books, programs. lecturers and magazines, the internet and more that can inform us and actually lead us to deeper faith than the simple, unthinking, silly literal position.

I am fearless in wanting to know the truth. I am fearless in the pursuit of excellence. I am fearless in working to make a difference. Join me. Be fearless with me. 

Perfect Love casts out all fear. Lord, fill me with Your perfect Love, casting out all remnants of fear in me. Lead me to live, hand in hand with You, fearlessly, vibrant, alive and fully engaged in the great spiritual quest upon which I have set my foot.

Pondering Courses of Action

Days come and days go. They add up to years. For me it is quite a few years. I cannot help but be aware that there are way less days ahead of me here on earth than are behind me. I cannot help but ponder the best and highest ways to spend them.

A post of Facebook today said something like, if you're not excited about ___, it's the wrong path. I am not sure that excitement is the key, maybe passionate about would fit better for me. Say I have 20 years left on earth (of course I have no idea of actual time, but just for discussion purposes). Or maybe a week, or a month, or 30 years, whatever it is, it is finite. I will not be here forever. Time is limited here.

The question I pose to myself revolves around ideas of how to spend the finite well and in tune with the Infinite.

If I am engaging in something that is boring, about which I have no passion, is that a waste of my finite resources of time? Or am I there to be of service to others? If I am not there for my own growth and nurturance, how far do I go into service before it gets self-defeating? If I have to grit my teeth to force myself to go to it, that is the opposite of exciting or passionate.

What speaks to my soul?  

• Genuine spiritual inquiry and the spiritual journey
• Creativity - writing, sewing, cooking, painting, etc.
• Family
• Friends of like mind
• Beauty
• Travel

If I could choose, how would I spend my time? I'd be speaking with people who are sincerely seeking God and spiritual understanding. I'd be reading things that enlighten. I'd be challenging myself and others with fearlessly seeking the Truth about all things spiritual from what happened in the 1st century to how God speaks to us today. I would have friends who are not afraid to question and seek and find.

I'd have a gorgeous studio for my arts with all of the toys that support me in the joy of creativity. I'd have a fabulous computer and my books would be selling well. I'd have a chef's kitchen and be able to cook to my heart's content and have the house full of interesting people in fascinating discussions eating my delicious food.

I'd have family running in and out and a vital part of my life. I'd get to create memories with my grandchildren that would nurture them long after I've left the planet.

Many people who are creators and seekers would fill my home frequently and we would have amazing conversations and discoveries. My home would be alive with the electricity of thought and love and truth.

I would be surrounded by beauty in all aspects of my life from my home to my arts to my clothes. Everything would reflect the glory of God.

Travel would be a regular part of my life. I would get to see and experiences the places and people I long to visit. I'd be able to check in with my friends on the other side of the planet and make new friends.

Basically, that would be the perfect last years of my life. 

God, You have brought me to face my dreams. Open the way for them to come into fruition. Lead me to be the person who has such a life. Flow into our lives the prosperity to make parts of it come true. Flow into our lives people who seek fearlessly and think clearly. I turn my final years on earth into Your capable Hands and ask for Your blessing upon my dreams.

Everyone's Family?

A friend put this on Facebook this morning. It made me wonder if that is everyone's family???

I have heard stories of my family members that I don't know personally, but I know enough personally to verify there have been some very tilted people. They may go back to the story of Adam and Eve who crazily disobeyed God and reaped the consequences. What were they thinking? So from the first story of humankind to now, it is a long line of people who disobeyed God and reaped the consequences. They say insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results :) That is the story of humankind. Perhaps we are all a bit insane.

I know my maternal grandfather had quite a few problems, even though he had achieved a great deal of success. He seems to be the only one in my line that had alcohol problems. Glad that isn't hereditary, at least in my family. He really couldn't cope with the mess he made from marrying a crazy woman and trusting a dishonest business partner. Since he talked himself into not being willing or able to start over, he ended it all when mother was 7 and Aunt Eleanor was a baby. Obviously, I never knew him personally. I did know his crazy wife who tortured me for many years. I knew his two daughters very well and had extensive first hand experienced their tiltedness (mother and my aunt).

During the course of my life, I have had way over my share of certifiable crazy people in my inner circle. I have to say at least it has not been boring, scary at times, but never boring. You might not even believe the true stories I could tell. But I'm not going to tell them here.

Interestingly, most of them had redeeming characteristics in their craziness. My grandmother for example, who I'm certain was paranoid, narcissistic and maybe a borderline personality, and did dastardly things to me (and reportedly to her daughters and others), also had some good moments. Before we moved to California when I was 7, she told me charming stories of a land where ice cream came out of outside faucets, gave me Dinah Shore paper dolls and sang old time songs to me (Dearie do you remember... ) Her relationship with me went way downhill after she came to California after us, I think when I was 8. Lately, especially in the shower, I hear again some of those old songs. Interesting. 

So while I now can see her horrors laid upon me were her craziness, I can still recall a few sweet things and see that there was goodness at the center of her soul. It was shrouded with her craziness, but it did peek through at times. I can see that the "seed of God" was still there.

And with the crazy people carrying on her paranoid, narcissistic behaviors, I strive to remember that "the seed of God" is indeed under it all and strives to be set free and grow and expand and flower. When I get discouraged, I try to remember God is everywhere and therefore there is hope for us all.

Lord, I lift up to You all the craziness in my life and in the life of others. I ask for Your Light to ignite Your seed in each soul and to fan it with Your Grace so it grows and flowers and we each become what You intend for us to be. I have hope for I know You are with us. I ask for this last portion of my life to be lifted out of the craziness, for my loved ones to be lifted, for our world to awaken. All things are possible, for You are here.

Reflect on Love

Here it is, Valentine's Day once again. This day we devote to love - hopefully unconditional love - agape - the love shown by the spiritual lights of all cultures and ages, the love that is our model and goal.

Perhaps today's question might be, how do I aim  my life more fully and accurately so that the love at the center of Christ shines in my life? What adjustments do I need to make in my aim so that my life continually hits the bulls-eye of love?

I recall archery in college, which I became pretty good at actually. I had to make sometimes minute adjustments to send the arrow to the center. Sometimes the string hit my arm, in fact so often it hit that I spent most of a semester with a bruised and technicolor left arm.

My life is rather like that. In my attempt to learn love, my heart has been hit with misfires and metaphysically anyway been bruised. The wounds of misfired love open the soul to be able to love at ever deeper places and in more profound ways.

I come to love now with the understanding that I am to be love because that is what God is and what God calls me to be. I am to love free of conditions, with no guile  simply being a conduit of God's love with no filter attached. I am to love beyond the egoic love often promoted as being romantic. I am to not withdraw my love, for any reason, just as God does not withdraw love from me, but rather mercifully extends me grace. I cannot be a part of the body of Christ unless the walls fall, conditions crumble, and without judgment His Light shines.

Oh Divine Master, show me refinements I need to make in order to fully shine Your Love through the avenue of my life. Teach me to Love as You have Loved me. Let fall from me all that blocks the full Light of Your Love shining here on earth. Open me to simply, quietly, completely walk here softly as Love.

I Am Home

A friend just sent me this cute cartoon. My first thought was - how cute. But then I thought, how profound. Wherever I am, God is. Wherever I am, I am home. I am home because I am a child of God. I am living in the awareness of God's Presence; in communion with God daily, hourly, in the moment; frequently in prayer (usually silently); living in a body filled with the soul that God created. I am home. When it is time to leave the body fashioned of earth, my eternal soul will be with God in a new form, but will still be home.

Just contemplate that and see what happens inside.

Lord, how glorious it is to finally come to realize that restlessness can depart for I am home. Wherever I am, You are. There is no spot where God is not, takes on a deeper level of understanding today. I rejoice!

Figuring It Out

Life is just fascinating. It is a changing light show. It is the play of shadows. It is ignorance sprinkled with illumination. It is hope then hope dashed. It is faith then the creep of fear. Is is creativity then come shades of doubt. It is just about anything I can think of.

I am working on my newest book "What On Earth Is Going On?" I think it has the potential of making a difference. It might even be a good seller. I write it in fits and starts because it is filled with new ideas and they come in gushes of inspiration. I'm not conjuring it up. It comes to me.

Where I am at now is in the book of James. Recent scholarship identifies the brother of Jesus as the real leader of the Jesus Movement of the 1st century rather than Paul or Peter. When you think about it, if you were alive back in that day, who would you tend to believe the most? James, Jesus' brother who knew him his entire life and understood him like only a brother can; or Paul who never knew Jesus and was a Roman insider; or Peter who seemed like something of an oaf and didn't seem to understand what was going on, even denied Jesus?

I have read the book of James many times, but not recently until yesterday. When I read those 5 short chapters yesterday it was as if I'd never read them before. I am thrilled that I was led to do so. I am discussing his main thoughts in my new book especially in light of how to get out of the fog that most live in.

I am hoping tons of people will re-read the book of James in the New Testament in the near future. I think it is astounding.

I open myself to divine inspiration, new ideas flowing, James whispering in my ear and answers to some of the dilemmas of human life on earth. Help me to understand and then to help others understand. What on earth IS going on here, Lord?

Relationship Thoughts

Some have likened aspects of relationship dynamics to a bank account. With every kind word or deed a person makes a deposit in the heart and mind of the other. With every unkindness, intended or perceived, a withdrawal is made. So, the trick, so to speak, is to keep a strong positive balance on accounts with others.

I like this metaphor, and at the same time there are some problems with it. It seems that there are times a minor thing can precipitate a huge withdrawal with some people. Say a person is having a bad week and snaps a bit at someone with whom it is perceived they have a positive balance. Most people will respond with concern for the person having the bad week, offering compassion and allowing a tiny or no withdrawal of positivity. Some however will be some degree of upset from mild to allowing all past deposits to be withdrawn.

There are those who will not tolerate divergent points of view and stomp off and away from those who are not like minded. They take their deposits and leave. I find them fascinating and am not quite certain yet what sets such a mindset.

The question I've been pondering is why the huge difference in withdrawals? What makes some people more compassionate and some more hair trigger types? 

The old saying - all things being equal - comes to mind in that all things are not equal. Some of the variables I am considering are the lifetime (perhaps pre-this lifetime) balance sheets of people. There are some people who have had such a tiny amount of positive deposits that they come to every moment depleted and leery of others. Some seem to deflect positivity, letting it roll off and away. To such a person, even massive kindness may take a long time of repetition to get the balance sheet to move into the positive column. 

Part of the situation is that when we find a depleted person in our lives, we need to guard against allowing the positivity in us to be drained away. When a person is needy, super-sensitive, hair trigger, it is well for our own good to not allow withdrawals from our positivity.

As long as I am able to stay in the awareness that other's reactions are not personal, I can be an observer. From the observer position, it is all very fascinating. From observer I can see patterns, which all people have.

If I fall into resentment, reactivity, judgementalness, etc. then deposits are needlessly withdrawn from me, and I must work to return to my natural state of balance. I realize that it is incumbent upon me to be gatekeeper of my own consciousness.

Ultimately I am responsible for the development of my soul and consciousness while here and will be asked about it when I leave this plane. As my old Zen sensei used to say, WAKE UP! Yes, I must.

Oh Divine One, lead me to indeed wake up in all ways You would have me awaken. Guide me to observe and to refrain from taking the lessons of others personally. Help me to learn the lessons of my own soul and focus upon the consciousness development You have in Mind for me.