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Saturday, December 29, 2018

Life Is Weird

Sometimes I remember things are not at all how they seem, in fact almost weirder than I can imagine.

For some examples: my body is made up of around 37 trillion cells that die and rebuild over and over for the course of my earthly life; my body is basically a carbon compound made of stardust, aka earth; my body and everything else is mostly empty space; my body began as two half cells and grew to be the amazing human body totally unlike its beginning; the subatomic world breaks all of the rules of the material world; my granola and milk this morning are being transformed into body parts that will bear no resemblance to granola or milk, etc.

Some people use such scientific knowledge to suppose there is no God, no soul and no free will. That would be way too strange they say.

BUT we live in such a weird reality that  contradicts what our senses tell us, it seems to me, especially by comparison, God makes total sense. I know God, I know others throughout history who have known God, I am frequently guided by something beyond my local self which I might call God, Spirit, or The More.

I love much of science. I am certain that it does not negate God. If I am to believe in quarks, which I do not see and cannot experience, why is it false to believe in God whom I can experience? It's silly to me that so many intellectuals have proclaimed God as dead but believe all sorts of other things that are less knowable or are unknowable.

My life experiences and my studies have led me to the conclusion that there IS a Higher Power (you can use any name you wish), we do have spiritual essences that continue after this body returns to earth and existed before we had this body, and we can have free will, but it requires we break free of cultural assumptions and childhood conditioning in order to fully exercise it.

It seems to me life goes adrift without a vital relationship with God. I just look around to see as spirituality declines, quality of life declines. I hope and pray this is the day spirituality quickens in hearts and minds all over our blessed earth. God is with you. 

Wednesday, December 26, 2018

1910

On this day in 1910 my mother was born. Blessings to you, mother. Thank you for being my teacher.

It was such a different world, so unlike today. Here in the USA women would not be able to vote until she was 10. There was no airplane to fly across the country, few cars, no radio, few psychiatrists, no antibiotics. Pandemics raged, as the one in 1918 that killed an estimated 100 million people globally. If a person's heart wore out, there were no cures, no transplants. Communication was either face to face or by letter that travelled slowly to the recipient. Science was in it's infancy. Most people believed in God and church. And there were tons of other differences.

I came along in 1940, and that world is barely recognizable from 2018 eyes 👀. And even when my children came in 1960 and 1966, it was still far removed from today.

Changes have been accelerating at dizzying speed. It is hard to imagine how it will be next year, let alone in 50 or more years.

It seems to me our wisdom has not kept up with the pace of change. Plus with so much huge change in numerous areas, no one can keep up with every area. It is possible the wheels are off the cart as we race feverishly into an unknown future.

I feel concern about some of the science, from meddling with our genetic codes, to creation of cyber human replicas, to ever more horrendous weaponry, to the chemical and chip controls of our minds, to the turning over of our freedoms to "big brother," to the turning from personal responsibility to blame and control of other points of view, and so much more.

 It seems to me we cannot stop a lot of this. What we can do is step up our wisdom, focus on expanding our consciousness, while refusing to give away our freedom.

As always, the paths I think are crucial involve spiritual growth and real spiritual questing. My list is fairly consistent - prayer, meditation, contemplation, times of quiet, study of spiritual writings, spiritual conversation with others, and journaling.

So,  not only for ourselves, but also for the future let us continue with enthusiasm upon the path. All that has gone before is today's foundation, and today is tomorrow's foundation. Let us build it with wisdom.

Monday, December 24, 2018

Christmas Eve

It's Christmas Eve here. I'm the liturgist tonight,  no longer the clergy, but still participating. All over the world for 2,000 years or so, tonight has been celebrated as the symbolic birthday of Jesus who became the Christ (no one knows when or where, maybe 4 bce, maybe Nazareth or Bethlehem).

I think of Meister Ekhart in the 14th century asking - what good did it do if Mary birthed the Christ child 1,300 years ago if we don't birth him now in our hearts and lives? That has always struck me as the heart of our Christian problem.

We are called to follow and participate. But for so many the call has been ignored, not only ignored but violated with violence, viciousness, hate, attack and all things opposite.

What would it be like if every Christian tonight let the Christ be born inside? What if we walked out of tonight showering our world with God's Love? What if we took seriously the things it is recorded Jesus asked of us? Imagine radiating Love and Light unconditionally to one and all.

Let it be so.


Friday, December 21, 2018

Balance

This morning thoughts of balance came to me, particularly historical balance. Our personal balance is of course connected to the general balance of society, but let's think about the overall balance for a moment.

For the vast majority of recorded human history, superstition and ignorance reigned supreme. There was no science as we know it. From bloodletting to fairies, fantasy ruled. Mixed in were spiritual insights and fabulous intuitions - many of which were punished.

Then came The Enlightenment, the birth of science and modern logic, and the world shifted. Cause and effect, truth or lie, prove it or discard it, etc. came into being. The balance drastically shifted.

Churches declined. Moral values disintegrated. Anything goes seemed to be the new norm. Horrendous weapons were created, and used. The 20th century was marred by mustard gas and nuclear weapons. It also was elevated by medical breakthroughs; studies into consciousness and near death experiences; exploration of outer space and the tiny space of quarks; more prosperity for more people, etc.

The balance is delicate for we have not grown spiritually as much as we have scientifically. Humanity for the first time can quickly and easily destroy all life on earth and possibly our planet itself.

It is time for us to bring spiritual balance here. Not ancient superstition, genuine spiritual awakening. Science can participate. The new physics is amazingly spiritual. It can confirm there is Intelligence. We can read studies on intuitions, synchronicity, before and after and between life studies, etc. Science can be our cheerleader.

But we must do the work of finding The More ourselves. We must still ourselves and spend regular time engaging in our spiritual practices in order to not only bring balance to our own lives, but also to contribute to the balance of humanity. The future needs you so that there can be a future here.

I know there is More. Today I open my deepest self to be led to the deepest truths. I come for balance for myself and for humanity. Lead me on Divine More.

Wednesday, December 19, 2018

Bigger Context

Today I am thinking about a bigger context for our lives. We do not exist in a little box 📦. Who we are is not this day, this body or even this life. We are more.

I have come to know that we are part of the eternal flow of creation. Who we are at the soul level is indestructible. I believe we exist, we existed before this life, and we exist after this life.

We have come to this earth school to learn love. The great religions instruct us to love. Jesus even said that love fulfills all of the previous commandments.

Some of our teachers challenge us more than others - can I actually love old so and so? It's not easy going, sickening sweet love we are to learn. It's not all romantic love. We are to learn to BE love. We are to be walking, talking compassion, joy, understanding love. We are to be unconditional love. No one can earn our love or lose our love, for we place no conditions upon it. We are to BE the kind of love exhibited by the great spiritual masters who have walked this earth.

That is our job description. Christmas and the end of the year are good times to check up on our progress. Let us assess ourselves as observers, not as judges. Let us decide to BE more love, unconditional love, in the coming year. Let us heal our pain and anger that stand in the way. Let us set ourselves free from all that is less than love.

Lord, Divine One, I place my life before You. Heal me of remnants of fear and anger that remain with me for whatever reason, from whatever past event. Wash all unlike Your Love away. Set me free to fulfill my true destiny of unconditional love. I rejoice. I feel the strings fall away. I soar into Your Love and share it with all that I am. Thank You, God. 

Saturday, December 15, 2018

One Minute for Christ

Today I'm reading, "Letters of a Modern Mystic" written in the 1930s. He suggests some interesting practices.

First he suggests something many of us find essential. He says to start each day with an hour of spiritual reading,  contemplation and prayer. Amen to that!

Then he suggests we form a new habit. He says a new habit is as easy to form as learning to type. The habit is to spend one second or more of every minute of every waking hour thinking of God or Christ. It gets easier with practice I assure you.

You can do this by carrying on a silent conversation with Christ, by silently singing a favorite hymn, by placing a picture that represents Christ where you often look, or whatever technique assists you in thinking regularly about Christ or God.

This can even be done while we are out and about. I've often taught people to go to the mall (or while in an airport), sit on a bench and silently bless each passerby. I often silently say, "I salute the Christ in you." Or " May God's highest good for you be set free to shower you with blessings." Maybe you have a special way of saying it, but the main thing is to silently say it with words and heart.

You will feel so close to God and so loving towards others after just an hour of this (you can start with a smaller amount of time and ease into a fuller practice if you want). And the other person walks on with a sprinkle of blessing now sparkling in their life and about to bring them some spiritual surprises.

As we develop the habit of walking more closely with God, we open to absolutely different ways of being human. Some have called it a second birth.

Christmas is a perfect time for rebirth. May the Light of Christ be born anew in you this very Christmas. I salute the Christ in you. Go into this world as a walking blessing. Miracles are stirring. I feel them.

Friday, December 14, 2018

Catherine of Sienna

She speaks to us from the 14th century. Some of her ideas are fascinating to me. Her standard for Christian perfection is charity. She put emphasis on faith, hope and prayer, but she said all virtues are built on charity. Charity in the Bible is also translated as love. I think love and charity are united as a generous spirit and attitude toward life, a caring and compassion that require action.

She also made a lot of statements that I've been mulling over. One is that wickedness is essentially a form of stupidity and ignorance. Therefore it is imperative that we learn to know ourselves, to know God and how we are united. She refers to God as Truth and us as reasoning beings.

There is much wickedness at every historical juncture on this earth. It seems to be quite active nowadays, but that might just be the result of our instant communication, as we know about so much via internet, television, etc. Anyway, the idea of wickedness being stupidity seems apt.

Wickedness could be defined many ways, but at its bedrock, I think it means purposely engaging in hurtful, unloving, shallow and self-destructive ways. One of the reasons this is stupid is karma, sowing and reaping.

Let's say promiscuity is stupid/wicked. Why? Emotionally it leads to inability to have intimacy, to deeply share and care. Physically it can lead to horrible diseases,  incurable for most of history and some still incurable today. This has been true for all time. So it is a stupid thing to do.

We can take any "sin" and see its stupidity. Gluttony leads to extreme obesity and disastrous health, and it takes away the joy of good food. The person just stuffs food into their mouth without savoring. So it is stupid at a number of levels.

Without going over an extensive list, I am hoping you get the point. Behind all of this wicked/stupid behavior, I think, is a hunger. But it is not a hunger for sex or food or greed. It is a spiritual hunger that can only be satisfied by knowing God, knowing The More. Nothing else can satisfy.

Pursuit of a God filled life calls us, and even the beginning morsels are more satisfying than mountains of anything else. Let us turn and refocus our lives on the God we seek, the God that is seeking us.

Our feet are upon The Way. The grandest adventure opens before us. And so we set off.

Wednesday, December 12, 2018

Black Holes

This morning I was reading some of Teilhard de Chardin's thoughts. One minor point was the distortion a black hole creates. My mind took off with that thought. I was shown another way to look at it.

In our spiritual lives we come upon virtual black holes. Our best intentions get sucked down into a minefield of black holes. Some of their names are: ego, self rightessness, emotionality, close mindedness, anger, hatred, judgementalness, ignorance, addictions, fear and so on.

Our task is not only to dance around the black holes in order to try to not step into their pull, but to be so grounded in the Ground of Being that they have no attraction to us. The ways I know to do this include daily/constant spiritual practices, the study of enlightened ones, sincerity, congruence, integrity, love, honest self assessment and course correction, interaction with others on The Path for example.

I come with experience to verify that to learn by being sucked into a black hole is doing spiritual growth the hard way. I've climbed out of several of them with grit and perseverance. I've come out a  bit bruised and battered. I strive now to live in awareness of the More as constantly as I can. My life is my spiritual test tube, my divine experiment.

Divine More, Precious Presence lift me to You so that I may live more and more fully grounded in You. Help me as I try to stay Awake and live my life as a beneficial person to all who come my way. I thank You, for I know You hear me and are in fact with me.

Saturday, December 8, 2018

Christmas

We're watching one of my all time favorite Christmas movies, the original "Miracle On 34th Street." They are deciding if Kris Kringle is crazy saying, Maybe he's just a little crazy like artists or composers or those guys in Washington. 😇  Some things seem to stay the same.

We've also watched some sweet Hallmark movies. They totally redefine Christmas, making it about lighting the town tree and falling in love. 💞

I enjoy these, but actual spiritual meaning is ignored or maybe even lost. For me the deep, mystical and personal meaning is what stirs my heart.

I consider Meister Eckhart one of my teachers, traveling through the ages to us via his writings (from the 13 and 14th centuries). He said that it didn't much matter if Christ was born to Mary 1300 years ago if he is not born today in my heart. He talked also about the seed of God being in us. Thomas Kelly (in the 20th century) talked about the seed of Christ in us. Thomas a Kempis (in the 14 and 15th century) talked about us imitating Christ.

So my thought turns to our personal Christmas experience, or lack of it.

I like the thought of the Christ child being born in the cradle of our hearts. The child leads us to the Presence of God, to a life of service and compassion, to fulfilling our purpose and being the difference we are called to be.

Let us turn out attention inward to that birth so that our Christ-light can truly shine out into this world 🌎.


Thursday, December 6, 2018

The Funeral

Watching the funeral of President Bush, I am struck  by the uniqueness of this family. Their lives seem to be diametrically opposite of the life I've led.

Moments brought tears of grief from the contrast. I didn't get to cuddle with my grandmother. She told me horrendous stories that showed how I should be torn to pieces, how I was killing her, condemning me to hell. My mother slapped,  beat, and told me how she almost died when she had me and how daddy was sorry he made her pregnant.

It went on an on like that. Only my relationship with God kept me together. Year after year slings and arrows of attack stalked me. New people joined the chorus of proving to me how flawed and undeserving I was. Sometimes I was my own worst enemy as I tried to get a grip on this life.

Yet, here I am. Survivor. God walked this tumultuous journey with me.

I now see that this life has been tailored to crack the shell so that I could be more useful to spiritual seekers, for I speak from a deep knowing. God seeks us, is with us, and, if we listen, guides us through whatever life experiences come our way.

I see with Vikor Frankl  that there is meaning strewn everywhere. Our suffering can make us stronger, in closer relationship with God, cracking  away ego, setting us free.

Everyone is my teacher. Every moment, every stone and every embrace have molded me. This life began without a golden spoon and has unfolded over 78 years with  countless ups and downs, twists and turns. It has made me courageous and yet tender and soft skinned, confident and yet reticent,  but most of all certain of God.

Lord, my Companion, my Guide, my Savoir, I give thanks for this messy life and most of all for Your constant Presence. Lead me to lead the rest of this life to Your Glory.



Tuesday, December 4, 2018

Faith and/or Works

A long standing debate has been whether faith or works is our Christian requirement. The brother of Jesus, James, stressed works, works that grew out of our faith. Paul stressed faith in the resurrection as the necessary way to go.

Metaphysics focuses on Presence and Principle. Presence is our personal relationship with the Divine. We feel, know God. Principle is the impersonal, the Laws that work the same for all, and therefore we need to learn them and get in harmony with them, whether gravity or karma.

I was thinking of a pair that also works for me - Presence and Practice.  

The experience of The Presence is vitally important to me. It is precious. It is real treasure. It is almost urgent I think for people to spend study and quiet time to develop the mind and heart that are receptive to The Presence of God. Weary people scurry this and that way trying to fill an aching and hungry heart with things that can never satisfy. Things of this world are fun and great to have, decorations for our lives. But our hunger is for that which cannot be bought and sold. "Seek  ye first the kingdom of God, and all these things shall be added unto you."

For me, the spiritual path is not  only  about cultivating the heartset and mindset that lead us to be receptive to The Presence. It is about implementing Jesus' To Do List. The more we are awake in The Presence, the more effective we will be in our Practice. But we can start wherever we are. We don't need to wait until we are totally enlightened.

Reading the earliest Gospel, Mark, thoroughly and then the second, Matthew and the third, Luke (that is the chronological order of their writing), look for our To Do List.

You may find such things as: love God, love your neighbor, forgive, be generous, break bread with all kinds of people, etc.

If we just implemented this short list, the entire world would change for the better (just imagine if we took all of The To Do List as ours). And all of us would grow spiritually too and be able to be more and more aware of The Presence. I see it as reciprocal. The Presence and The Practice are in relationship and strengthen one another.

Sometimes I get discouraged by the state of people on our planet, but then I see the possibility of what it could be if enough people took on Jesus ' To Do List. We can do our best. Let's go for it together.

I come to this day ready to know You God. Open my very being to You. Lead me to awaken to Your Presence. And grant me the vision and the courage to implement Jesus' To Do List. Starting this very day, I set my life more fully than ever  before on Your Path. 

Monday, December 3, 2018

Re-reading the Most Meaningful Books in My Life

As you may recall, one of my practices is to re-read books that have been meaningful and profound in my life. A couple of days ago, I searched Amazon for Thomas Kelly's "A Testament of Devotion." His words opened the mystical Christian world for me and explained some of my own experiences many decades ago. I discovered that his son had gathered together more of his father's writings and sermons, published 25 years after his death. So, I downloaded it to my Kindle. It is called, "The Eternal Promise," and his thoughts brought once again a special kind of spiritual fire into my life. I'm going to share a few of his words and ask you to just contemplate them, maybe jot down a few thoughts and then take the words into your heart of hearts.
Each one of us has the seed of Christ within him. In each one of us the amazing and dangerous seed of Christ is present. It is only a seed. It is very small, like the grain of mustard seed. The Christ that is formed in us is small indeed, but He is great with eternity. But, if we dare to take this awakened seed of Christ into the midst of the world's suffering, it will grow
American Christianity is in need of its deeper strain of expression of direct contact with God, as the source, not of world-flight, but of the most intensely practical Christianity that has yet been known.
 ...there is a core of sincerity in all men, a yearning for the Real, a deep-set hunger for the Homeland of the soul.
We stand at Your door and knock. Fill us with Your Light, Your Wisdom, Your Love. Water the Seed of Christ in us with Your tender care and lead us to the Homeland of the soul.

Saturday, December 1, 2018

Soul Sight

As Walt Whitman expressed, we have a soul sight that is aware of the Divine Clue where we know the connectedness, the unity, the oneness of everything from the seeming!y insignificant to the most grand.

I've been mulling over the glorious idea of a Divine Clue, life as a mystery to discipher. I also thought about an acquaintance of mine, Michael Talbot who wrote a book that fascinated me, "The Holographic Universe." As a kind of hologram, each speck contains the whole.

So I might say that the experience of the Divine that we seek has left us clues strung all over. To decode the clues, we must use soul sight. We must step outside of the limitations of our senses into a place Jesus described as having eyes to see and ears to hear.

I recall some of my early meditation experiences where we were led to just be with some God -created object such as a flower or sea shell. Opening to soul sight through the portal of stillness, the object became teacher, even preacher. As part of the All, each speck has a clue to offer.

There is a spiritual hunger wide spread across this planet. Let us be alert to the Clues that lead us to be spiritually fed.