I have written in other spaces about my concern that the incoming Trump administration represents the rise of fascism in the US. This raises interesting spiritual questions about how we respond to destructive things happening around us, where is God in dark times and what does this mean about evil?
Has God abandoned us, or is punishing us by allowing this to happen?
If one holds to the view that God created us with free will then that means that those who are not listening to God are always free to stray from what God might intend for us and to do great destruction or evil. That evil affects other people. The price of freedom is a God who is omni-present, but not all powerful.
Where is God in this situation?
God is always present as a source of guidance, comfort, and strength. It is even more important in crisis to turn to God. God cannot however stop the suffering caused by others' application of their free will. Buddhism does have much to say about how we manage suffering.
What does God require of us?
The Bible answers this question of what God requires of us saying:
"To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God." Micah 6:8
I think those spiritual theologies that say we are co-creators of the world we live in and the lives we walk in, also suggest that we are to embrace the highest truth we know and live it. I think in a time where hatred rises up and causes the scapegoating and targeting of some people that means saying no to that. I think in a time where violence rises up it means acting with non-violence. I think in a time where the earth is pillaged, polluted and destroyed it means aligning our life style with an honoring and protecting of the earth (as currently modeled by Native people at Standing Rock). In a time where there is an increasing assault on free speech, on free press, and on civil liberties it means standing up for those and protecting supporting those others who also speak out. In a time where vote suppression and gerrymandering threaten our very democracy it means standing up to fight for democracy. And all of these things mean turning to God for the courage to act for justice. In short, in a universe where people can do destructive or evil things, we are called upon to speak truth, take action and to hold up the Light of Love. To remain silent or passive is to passively allow the evil.
Is there no Light in this Darkness?
Neale Donald Walsh has written quite a bit about how it is only the dark that allows us to know the Light. That the Light longs to be known by us. Perhaps another way of saying this is that we sometime must struggle in order to learn; contrast is one of the ways by which we learn. If one believe in reincarnation then we have come to earth in incarnations intended to maximize our learning, and the encounter with darkness or evil is not a detour or a mistake, it is an opportunity for learning, and opportunity to bring forth light. We are not called to do this alone, it is what community, especially spiritual community is for.
Why is this happening when I don't want it to?
While we may co-create our own personal reality, it is also the case that as a collective humanity, or a society we also create certain shared realities through our shared consciousness. There are lessons we are trying to learn as a collective. It is worth asking: How could it serve the learning of the American people to grapple with the person of Donald Trump and the type of leadership he is bringing? It is easy to point fingers of blame at figures in history like Hitler or Trump who are the apparent center of so much darkness, but that really gets all the rest of us off the hook. We must look at the fear that is always the fertile ground for fascism. We must examine where we have stood in relationship to fear? We must do the spiritual work of looking at the anger, the pull for easy answers, for power, the arrogance, etc that live within us and are mirrored by Trump, rather than simply demonize him.
How do we respond to this spirituality?
Responding to an already negative situation with more anger, violence or fear only magnifies the negative energy. Going numb or in denial also does not serve the Light. Joanna Macy tells the story of the Tibetan Shambala prophecy. The Tibetan's believe that there comes a time of great darkness and chaos when the world as we know it is completely threatened. At that time many souls come to earth for one purpose: to fight for our world as Shambala warriors. They are not intended to fight with normal weapons of violence, but rather with spiritual weapons of wisdom and compassion. Wisdom brings great clarity and vision, but clarity alone does not bring the passion for action. Compassion brings great love which can move people to action, but action alone is not productive without clarity or focus. So they must use wisdom and compassion together to fight for our world. I believe that this is a time when we all must become Shambala warriors.
Is their an opportunity is this experience?
When lived spiritually all experience contain an opportunity. Chaos, danger, conflict, destruction.... all of these things carry in them the seeds of change and the possibilities for transformation. If Hillary Clinton had been elected, most good liberals would have continued to focus little on the situation, even as our planet is threatened by the crisis of climate change, even as racism was literally killing Black people in the streets daily. When evil becomes as blatant and undeniable as it now is, there is a moral imperative put before us all. The addition of the Trump administration to the Climate crisis demands we quite literally transform the current power structure or we will die. So it is time for each of us to reach down to the foundations of our spiritual traditions and see what God calls us to do.
Tuesday, December 27, 2016
Monday, November 7, 2016
Love Speech
This is the eve of our US election. It has been a painful election season with constant attacks by both candidates upon the other. The vitriol has been so bad most people are tuning out and have stopped watching (eg. sharp drop off in ratings by the third debate.) Voters report being weary of this election. I have noticed recently how we have without every signing up for it been bathed in "hate speech". This is disturbing in that studies of the rise of fascism say people are more willing to accept absolute power and charisma if they are first afraid. When afraid we are more willing to blame others, to scapegoat and to yes: hate.
Recently, I heard someone say that just as we need Love, that Love needs us - that it is the only way through us that Love can manifest in the world. This idea got me to start thinking of the idea of "Love Speech". “What does Love Speech sound like?” There were two kinds I thought of. One is the kind of thing Quakers talk about when they talk about "speaking to that of God in another person" which means to call out the Highest in them. But the other way I think of that is sort of what Martin Luther King, Jr use to do which was to talk about Love, to remind us of it in the midst of our struggles. Another age old religious concept is that of prophetic speech.
I invite you each to think about how you might be a vessel of Love Speech? Especially in the next few days when anger, disappointment, fear and alienation might be in high gear in this country.
Recently, I heard someone say that just as we need Love, that Love needs us - that it is the only way through us that Love can manifest in the world. This idea got me to start thinking of the idea of "Love Speech". “What does Love Speech sound like?” There were two kinds I thought of. One is the kind of thing Quakers talk about when they talk about "speaking to that of God in another person" which means to call out the Highest in them. But the other way I think of that is sort of what Martin Luther King, Jr use to do which was to talk about Love, to remind us of it in the midst of our struggles. Another age old religious concept is that of prophetic speech.
I invite you each to think about how you might be a vessel of Love Speech? Especially in the next few days when anger, disappointment, fear and alienation might be in high gear in this country.
Sunday, September 11, 2016
The Spirit of Love that Connects us all
About 8 years ago a friend of mine very suddenly died. She had had a cough for weeks, she thought the remnants of a cold she could not shake. Finally one night in frustration she went to the emergency room to get an antibiotic. Instead she left with a referral to hospice. They had x-rayed her lungs and seen a mass too huge to be operable. It took her a week to tell everyone. It took me two weeks to recover from the shock. We made a date for me to come see her a week later. But on that date her husband called to say that she was in so much pain she had been given a heavy dose of moraine and was out of it. We rescheduled, but the same thing happened on the next date. Then they stopped taking calls. She died 6 weeks after she went to the hospital for the x-ray and I never got to say goodbye.
I was sad and shaken that she was gone so fast. I also learned. I learned that it is a myth this idea that there is some permanence to the people we know. Anyone of us could die in a car crash or have a heart attack today and be gone. The idea that we will know someone is dying, and that we will be able to rush to their side, is not true. I could have just taken that as a bitter fact, but instead I chose to make sacred that fact. I started a new Birthday tradition. I consider as I write my birthday cards to people what I would want that person to know if they, or I, did not make it to their next birthday. I consider whether there are any unfinished messages, but most especially what the appreciations and unexpressed love and gratitude are. Wayne Dyer is famous for saying "Don't die with your music in you." I would change that to be: "Let not death separate us, without our Love being fully expressed." People tell me these birthday cards are unlike any others they get - very special and precious. I knew a woman who held a living memorial for herself a year before her death (she was very slowly dying) because she said she did not know what good it would do for all the nice things to be said about her after she died! This is funny, but how true. Why do we wait until after people are dead to say those precious things?
Today is 9/11. A date I generally try to ignore because I do not like the focus on terrorism and the justification of the US's numerous wars abroad. But what touched me then and ever since is the kindness that people showed total strangers and loved ones a like on that day. Today on NPR there was an interview with the CEO of one of the companies that occupied the upper floors of tower 1 of the twin towers. This man lost 642 employees on that day and only lived himself because he was taking his son to his first day of Kindergarten. In the interview the reporter is asking him about the loss of all of his employees, and he tells her that he also lost his younger brother who was only 36, He says that his brother called his sister and she said "OH thank God, you are not there. You are safe" and he said "No, I am here. I am going to die. I have called to say goodbye to you and that I love you."
I started to cry at that point in the story, as I have for 15 years whenever I hear the numerous stories of people calling from the burning towers or from the plane that they know is about to be crashed into a building. They call their loved ones to say goodbye, as do children from schools where students with automatic weapons roam the halls killing people. I have been told that soldiers as they lay dying in battlefields call out to their mothers and wives. It is fundamental to human nature that as we face death we turn to the connect of love we have to other humans. It is as the former Prime Minster of Canada said on this death bed: "Love is the only thing which matters." For me this truth is a profoundly spiritual one as well that Love is at the core of Life.
I was sad and shaken that she was gone so fast. I also learned. I learned that it is a myth this idea that there is some permanence to the people we know. Anyone of us could die in a car crash or have a heart attack today and be gone. The idea that we will know someone is dying, and that we will be able to rush to their side, is not true. I could have just taken that as a bitter fact, but instead I chose to make sacred that fact. I started a new Birthday tradition. I consider as I write my birthday cards to people what I would want that person to know if they, or I, did not make it to their next birthday. I consider whether there are any unfinished messages, but most especially what the appreciations and unexpressed love and gratitude are. Wayne Dyer is famous for saying "Don't die with your music in you." I would change that to be: "Let not death separate us, without our Love being fully expressed." People tell me these birthday cards are unlike any others they get - very special and precious. I knew a woman who held a living memorial for herself a year before her death (she was very slowly dying) because she said she did not know what good it would do for all the nice things to be said about her after she died! This is funny, but how true. Why do we wait until after people are dead to say those precious things?
Today is 9/11. A date I generally try to ignore because I do not like the focus on terrorism and the justification of the US's numerous wars abroad. But what touched me then and ever since is the kindness that people showed total strangers and loved ones a like on that day. Today on NPR there was an interview with the CEO of one of the companies that occupied the upper floors of tower 1 of the twin towers. This man lost 642 employees on that day and only lived himself because he was taking his son to his first day of Kindergarten. In the interview the reporter is asking him about the loss of all of his employees, and he tells her that he also lost his younger brother who was only 36, He says that his brother called his sister and she said "OH thank God, you are not there. You are safe" and he said "No, I am here. I am going to die. I have called to say goodbye to you and that I love you."
I started to cry at that point in the story, as I have for 15 years whenever I hear the numerous stories of people calling from the burning towers or from the plane that they know is about to be crashed into a building. They call their loved ones to say goodbye, as do children from schools where students with automatic weapons roam the halls killing people. I have been told that soldiers as they lay dying in battlefields call out to their mothers and wives. It is fundamental to human nature that as we face death we turn to the connect of love we have to other humans. It is as the former Prime Minster of Canada said on this death bed: "Love is the only thing which matters." For me this truth is a profoundly spiritual one as well that Love is at the core of Life.
Sunday, August 28, 2016
Facing Pain: The Spiritual journey
I have previously reviewed the Untethered Soul by MichaelSinger. Singer throughout the book
invites us to notice the ways we avoid our own pain. In one chapter he talks about what if you had
a thorn in your body that you orchestrated all of your efforts to not have
touch anything so you would not feel the pain.
In another chapter he talks about the way dogs can be put on a collar
that when they reach an invisible boundary will shock them (mildly) so that
they don’t try to go there any more. He
says that this is how we live…not going towards activities that cause us
discomfort. He continues, that all of
our efforts to control the events in our lives is again an attempt to avoid
certain feelings.
As a therapist I know that when people have PTSD that they
will avoid activities, places, and emotions that remind them of their
trauma. But the thing is, as Singer
points out, we are all this way. We
don’t want to do things that embarrass us or might make us look bad, or just
simply bring up emotions that we find uncomfortable. I think with pride of my daughter who has
never developed much a bicycle habit and deliberately is choosing to take the
challenge of trying to do much more riding with her boyfriend who is a very
active cyclist. Most people finding themselves
not skilled at something, in the company of someone more experienced than they
will shrink back. She also must face
painful memories of how her father acted as she learned to ride, and other
traumas. But she is determined. As has frequently been the case in her life
she is an inspiration to me because I know I have avoided physical activities
that I did not feel that I was good at.
Singer says: “Spirituality begins when you decide that
you’ll never stop trying. Spirituality
is the commitment to go beyond, no matter what it takes.” He describes being mindfully aware when you
encounter your discomfort, recognizing it as your “edge”…your self imposed
limit to your own cage. And then he says
you deliberately go beyond so you are not controlled by fear or your own
suffering. I have previously written
about Tara Brach’s teaching around facing our fears. What a crazy notion right? Going right
towards our fears, not being controlled by our fears.
I see now that I have been avoiding something…perhaps for
years, maybe for a life time. In the
past month I have paid a price both monetarily and in hassle because I did not
want to face this something. But
eventually my own grasping efforts to avoid it ran out and there I was. And you know what is funny? It was not bad, in fact it brought me into
deep connection with my own soul. I
also look back at the memories and feelings I thought it would bring flooding
up, and they are there but I realize “hmm they are sort of photos of a not very
good day.” They simply don’t have the
power they did when I was experiencing them originally.
What are you afraid of?
What might you have to feel if you went towards that which you are
afraid of? And what might happen on the
other side of that fear?
Sunday, July 31, 2016
Discernment...or how not to kill yourself working for social justice.
Many religions have a tradition around discernment - some do discernment of gifts, for others it is discernment of leadings (of the spirit) or callings. This is a discernment of what God wants us to do in a given situation or with our life. Generally, the distinction is made between an intellectual decision making process or a "worldy" one. Both are seen as coming out of individual will or secular values.
When people come out of traditions that do not put forth a discernment process it can be confusing to know how to do spiritual discernment. Some traditions suggest that people turn to clergy or gurus for this sort of discernment. All traditions that I am aware of suggest that people test their leadings with their faith community to make sure that they are not simply engaging in delusion, fantasy or personal ego.
I write here about the discernment process of Quakers (or Friends) as it a process easily duplicated by anyone. Quakers form a "clearness committee" of those considered wise or experienced in the spirit when trying to make important decisions like whether to marry, to join the church, to make a significant career decision, or if lead to some sort of "witness" or leading on behalf of social justice. The group enters into prayerful silence out of which the person with a leading or calling speaks about the leading as they understand it. The group considers this prayerfully and asks questions. The questions are not leading questions or oratorical questions, but are simply intended to help the person look more deeply. They also share reflections or "light" as it is available to them. It is NOT an advice giving forum. The group acts to confirm or deny (I am aware of at least two incidents where the clearness committee did not find the person "clear".) that what the person is feeling seems true and rightly lead to the clearness committee as well.
Thomas Kelly, a famous Quaker theologians writing in the 40's, wrote a whole chapter on discernment in his book A Testament of Devotion. Parker Palmer a modern day Quaker theolgian wrote a short book entitled: Let your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation. More recently Quaker Nancy Bieber wrote a whole book on discernment: Decision Making and Spiritual Discernment: the Sacred Art of Finding your Way.
Here are Kelly's much quoted words about how God particularizes a concern is us:
"I dare note urge you to your Cross. But God, more powerfully, speaks within you and me, to our truest selves, in our truest moments, and disquiets us with the world's needs. By inner persuasions God draws us to a few very definite tasks, our tasks, God's burdened heart particularizes His burdens in us....
In my deepest heart I know that some of us have to face our comfortable, self-oriented lives all over again. The times are too tragic, God's sorrow is too great, man's night is too dark, the Cross is too glorious for us to live as we have lived, in anything short of holy obedience. It maybe or it may not mean change in geography, in profession, in wealth, in earthly security." (Amazingly he was writing this during WWII because it is a timely now as it was then.) He goes on to say:
" Little groups of such utterly dedicated souls, knowing one another in Divine Fellowship, must take an irrevocable vow to live in this world yet not of this world, kindle again the embers of faith in the midst of a secular world. Our churches were meant to be such groups, but now too many of them are dulled and cooled and flooded by the secular."
I first read these words when I was in my early 20's and I think reading it saved me. Like many people of faith that have strong social justice traditions I absolutely could have died on too many crosses! If I had tried to act on every issue or cause that I could see was unjust or important I would have run around in a frenzy or burned myself out in short order. Or I would have simply given up like so many people do, deciding that I am only one person to small and insignificant to change the world and thus decided to sit at home or take up tennis and leave the worlds problems to "leaders"...(whoever those people are! ;-) Instead I experienced the incredible relief of realizing I had only to listen for what God had tenderized my heart to and given me the gifts to respond to. I took great comfort in the phrase: "God draws us to a few very definite tasks, our tasks." I understood this to mean I could pay attention to just one issue (or the closely related/ intersectional ones.) And as the world has become more complicated and more at risk it has been even more of a blessing to focus on just what is given to me.
It was such a relief to have this "permission" to not do everything! It has meant over the years that I could simply be grateful for the work of my comrades (some known some not) who work on other issues that I care about but am not called to. I celebrate their victories fought for all of us, and I know that they rely on me as well to do my part on the issues I work on and they do not. Singer song writer Libby Roderick expressed this very beautifully in the song Cradle of Dawn. "Sunset in my country, Sunrise in mine...forces facing us are terrible in deed...in the morning I will plant another seed and while you sleep it will take light. ... I feel you there in the dark...I will hold the light up while you
sleep."
Nancy Bieber in her book first identifies ways the world asks us to think about decisions and then offers faith based ways to test discernment.
The worlds way:
Is this safe? Will this build security for me and mine?
It is it likely to be sucessful? How are we defining success?
Does it lead to independence?
Will I gain in status or prestige?
Will it bring happiness?
Alternatively she says faith based discernment questions would be:
Is this decision sacred? Is it holy?
Is this "mine" to do?
Will this decision do the least harm?
Is this decision congruent with others we have made wisely?
Is this Love's way?
For many the path to discernment will not be as "upbeat" or clear as this sounds. In Parker Palmer's book he repeats an often repeated Quaker wisdom that some times we find direction from the doors that close behind us. He also talks about the role of depression in discernment...as well as patient waiting and the importance of knowing ourselves deeply.
Kelly identifies 4 steps to being faithful to leading:
1) The first step of obedience is the flaming vision of the wonder of such a life, a vision which comes occasionally to us all...this vision of an absolutely holy life is, I am convinced, the invading, urging, inviting, persuading work of the Eternal One.
2) Once having the vision, the second step to holy obedience is this: Begin where you are. Obey now....Walk on the streets and chat with your friends. but every moment behind the scenes be in prayer, offering yourselves in continuous obedience.
3.) If you slip and stumble and forget God for a hour, and assert your old proud self, and rely upon your own clever wisdom, don't spend too much time in anguished regrets and self-accusations but begin again, just where you are.
4) The fourth consideration: "Don't grit your teeth and clench your fists and say, "I will! I will!" Relax. Take hands off. Submit yourself to God. Learn to live in the passive voice- a hard saying for Americans - and let life be willed through you. For "I will" spells not obedience.
Many decades ago I sat with a Catholic priest who was helping me with discernment. He listened carefully to the outpouring of details about what I had been doing and what I was confused by and he asked me two simple questions:
1: Does it give you joy?
2. Is it life giving?
These two questions have steered me right over and over again for many, many years I would add one more question:
3) As best you know if the prompting from God or from some other source?
One last piece of advice from Richard Bach in his "handbook for Messiahs"
"And try not to take yourself too seriously."
When people come out of traditions that do not put forth a discernment process it can be confusing to know how to do spiritual discernment. Some traditions suggest that people turn to clergy or gurus for this sort of discernment. All traditions that I am aware of suggest that people test their leadings with their faith community to make sure that they are not simply engaging in delusion, fantasy or personal ego.
I write here about the discernment process of Quakers (or Friends) as it a process easily duplicated by anyone. Quakers form a "clearness committee" of those considered wise or experienced in the spirit when trying to make important decisions like whether to marry, to join the church, to make a significant career decision, or if lead to some sort of "witness" or leading on behalf of social justice. The group enters into prayerful silence out of which the person with a leading or calling speaks about the leading as they understand it. The group considers this prayerfully and asks questions. The questions are not leading questions or oratorical questions, but are simply intended to help the person look more deeply. They also share reflections or "light" as it is available to them. It is NOT an advice giving forum. The group acts to confirm or deny (I am aware of at least two incidents where the clearness committee did not find the person "clear".) that what the person is feeling seems true and rightly lead to the clearness committee as well.
Thomas Kelly, a famous Quaker theologians writing in the 40's, wrote a whole chapter on discernment in his book A Testament of Devotion. Parker Palmer a modern day Quaker theolgian wrote a short book entitled: Let your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation. More recently Quaker Nancy Bieber wrote a whole book on discernment: Decision Making and Spiritual Discernment: the Sacred Art of Finding your Way.
Here are Kelly's much quoted words about how God particularizes a concern is us:
"I dare note urge you to your Cross. But God, more powerfully, speaks within you and me, to our truest selves, in our truest moments, and disquiets us with the world's needs. By inner persuasions God draws us to a few very definite tasks, our tasks, God's burdened heart particularizes His burdens in us....
In my deepest heart I know that some of us have to face our comfortable, self-oriented lives all over again. The times are too tragic, God's sorrow is too great, man's night is too dark, the Cross is too glorious for us to live as we have lived, in anything short of holy obedience. It maybe or it may not mean change in geography, in profession, in wealth, in earthly security." (Amazingly he was writing this during WWII because it is a timely now as it was then.) He goes on to say:
" Little groups of such utterly dedicated souls, knowing one another in Divine Fellowship, must take an irrevocable vow to live in this world yet not of this world, kindle again the embers of faith in the midst of a secular world. Our churches were meant to be such groups, but now too many of them are dulled and cooled and flooded by the secular."
I first read these words when I was in my early 20's and I think reading it saved me. Like many people of faith that have strong social justice traditions I absolutely could have died on too many crosses! If I had tried to act on every issue or cause that I could see was unjust or important I would have run around in a frenzy or burned myself out in short order. Or I would have simply given up like so many people do, deciding that I am only one person to small and insignificant to change the world and thus decided to sit at home or take up tennis and leave the worlds problems to "leaders"...(whoever those people are! ;-) Instead I experienced the incredible relief of realizing I had only to listen for what God had tenderized my heart to and given me the gifts to respond to. I took great comfort in the phrase: "God draws us to a few very definite tasks, our tasks." I understood this to mean I could pay attention to just one issue (or the closely related/ intersectional ones.) And as the world has become more complicated and more at risk it has been even more of a blessing to focus on just what is given to me.
It was such a relief to have this "permission" to not do everything! It has meant over the years that I could simply be grateful for the work of my comrades (some known some not) who work on other issues that I care about but am not called to. I celebrate their victories fought for all of us, and I know that they rely on me as well to do my part on the issues I work on and they do not. Singer song writer Libby Roderick expressed this very beautifully in the song Cradle of Dawn. "Sunset in my country, Sunrise in mine...forces facing us are terrible in deed...in the morning I will plant another seed and while you sleep it will take light. ... I feel you there in the dark...I will hold the light up while you
sleep."
Nancy Bieber in her book first identifies ways the world asks us to think about decisions and then offers faith based ways to test discernment.
The worlds way:
Is this safe? Will this build security for me and mine?
It is it likely to be sucessful? How are we defining success?
Does it lead to independence?
Will I gain in status or prestige?
Will it bring happiness?
Alternatively she says faith based discernment questions would be:
Is this decision sacred? Is it holy?
Is this "mine" to do?
Will this decision do the least harm?
Is this decision congruent with others we have made wisely?
Is this Love's way?
For many the path to discernment will not be as "upbeat" or clear as this sounds. In Parker Palmer's book he repeats an often repeated Quaker wisdom that some times we find direction from the doors that close behind us. He also talks about the role of depression in discernment...as well as patient waiting and the importance of knowing ourselves deeply.
Kelly identifies 4 steps to being faithful to leading:
1) The first step of obedience is the flaming vision of the wonder of such a life, a vision which comes occasionally to us all...this vision of an absolutely holy life is, I am convinced, the invading, urging, inviting, persuading work of the Eternal One.
2) Once having the vision, the second step to holy obedience is this: Begin where you are. Obey now....Walk on the streets and chat with your friends. but every moment behind the scenes be in prayer, offering yourselves in continuous obedience.
3.) If you slip and stumble and forget God for a hour, and assert your old proud self, and rely upon your own clever wisdom, don't spend too much time in anguished regrets and self-accusations but begin again, just where you are.
4) The fourth consideration: "Don't grit your teeth and clench your fists and say, "I will! I will!" Relax. Take hands off. Submit yourself to God. Learn to live in the passive voice- a hard saying for Americans - and let life be willed through you. For "I will" spells not obedience.
Many decades ago I sat with a Catholic priest who was helping me with discernment. He listened carefully to the outpouring of details about what I had been doing and what I was confused by and he asked me two simple questions:
1: Does it give you joy?
2. Is it life giving?
These two questions have steered me right over and over again for many, many years I would add one more question:
3) As best you know if the prompting from God or from some other source?
One last piece of advice from Richard Bach in his "handbook for Messiahs"
"And try not to take yourself too seriously."
Wednesday, June 15, 2016
Suffering
Last Sunday a gun man entered a Gay night club in Orlando, FA and killed almost 50 people and wounded many, many more. US drones are flying over the middle East killing people, and climate change is causing the daily extinction of many species. I have been thinking about suffering.
Clients often ask me why there is suffering. We struggle against what we see as the unfairness and randomness of suffering. It is unfair. We feel if we could understand why suffering took place this would change it. Each great religion offers explanations for suffering. It does not change it for it is still part of our world. We secretly hope that if we could understand suffering that we could escape it, and yet there is no escaping it. Have you ever known anyone who did not suffer at some point in their life? I certainly have not. The question of why there is suffering is the wrong question. The real question is how do we respond to suffering? Perhaps if we could stop struggling against suffering like an animal in a trap we could learn to turn towards in and learn to respond with compassion. Suffering is indeed with us like air, water and breath.
Christianity says that because God gave us all free will that this includes the freedom to do the wrong thing - to "sin" or to do evil. But Christianity also says that God incarnate in the form of Jesus Christ stood looking down from a hill upon humanity and wept in response to our suffering (and way of treating each other.) Christians are directed to identify the ways they sin or separate from God and bring themselves back to God and to pray for others to also have redemption.
Buddhism says that suffering is the nature of human experience. But it also teaches that mindfulness is the way to reach detachment from the illusion of our experience being reality. the Maras are the several forms of suffering that we are said to experience and believers are taught prayers of loving kindness designed to hold both people close to us and even total strangers in compassion and healing energy.
Judaism says that God contracted the divine self to make room for creation. Divine light was held in special vessels, or kelim, some of which shattered and scattered. While most of the light returned to its divine source, some light attached itself to the broken shards. These shards constitute evil and their trapped sparks of light give them power.
Clients often ask me why there is suffering. We struggle against what we see as the unfairness and randomness of suffering. It is unfair. We feel if we could understand why suffering took place this would change it. Each great religion offers explanations for suffering. It does not change it for it is still part of our world. We secretly hope that if we could understand suffering that we could escape it, and yet there is no escaping it. Have you ever known anyone who did not suffer at some point in their life? I certainly have not. The question of why there is suffering is the wrong question. The real question is how do we respond to suffering? Perhaps if we could stop struggling against suffering like an animal in a trap we could learn to turn towards in and learn to respond with compassion. Suffering is indeed with us like air, water and breath.
Christianity says that because God gave us all free will that this includes the freedom to do the wrong thing - to "sin" or to do evil. But Christianity also says that God incarnate in the form of Jesus Christ stood looking down from a hill upon humanity and wept in response to our suffering (and way of treating each other.) Christians are directed to identify the ways they sin or separate from God and bring themselves back to God and to pray for others to also have redemption.
Buddhism says that suffering is the nature of human experience. But it also teaches that mindfulness is the way to reach detachment from the illusion of our experience being reality. the Maras are the several forms of suffering that we are said to experience and believers are taught prayers of loving kindness designed to hold both people close to us and even total strangers in compassion and healing energy.
Judaism says that God contracted the divine self to make room for creation. Divine light was held in special vessels, or kelim, some of which shattered and scattered. While most of the light returned to its divine source, some light attached itself to the broken shards. These shards constitute evil and their trapped sparks of light give them power.
The first man, Adam, was intended to restore the divine sparks through mystical exercises, but his sin interfered. As a result, good and evil remained thoroughly mixed in the created world, and human souls also became imprisoned within the shards. The “repair,” referred to in Judaism as Tikkun Olam that is needed, therefore, is two-fold: the gathering of light and of souls, to be achieved by human beings through the contemplative performance of religious acts.
It is noteworthy that all three of these great religions identify suffering - two of them describing it as separation from God, and all three see the way out of suffering as a spiritual path, that it is our intentional striving for good that is believed to be the cure. All three call their followers to compassion in the face of suffering. Buddhism says we cannot stop or end suffering we can only learn a way to be with us that releases us.
It is noteworthy that all three of these great religions identify suffering - two of them describing it as separation from God, and all three see the way out of suffering as a spiritual path, that it is our intentional striving for good that is believed to be the cure. All three call their followers to compassion in the face of suffering. Buddhism says we cannot stop or end suffering we can only learn a way to be with us that releases us.
Friday, May 27, 2016
Coming Home to the Holy One
Becoming disconnected from the Divine or losing our spiritual way is an age old spiritual problem. Almost all religions proscribe steps one is to take if one is disconnected from God to reconnect. Prayer of course is one of the main ways we are encouraged to make that connection. Recently I was listening to a talk by Tara Brach (which I highly recommend checking out: https://www.tarabrach.com/) When she made the comment that the surest way to turn back to the Holy was to turn towards love. I noticed that just asking myself the question: which direction is loving? seems to help re-orientate me.
Buddhism suggests that the first spiritual motion is to stop, to reflect, to pause and to be mindfully aware of what we notice in the gap. While Buddhism does not believe in a Divine entity I find that for myself taking this pause on a daily basis is the best way for me to take inventory and notice both if I am connected or disconnected from the Divine Parent. It is also the best way for me to notice what are the spiritual issues in my life.
Buddhism also describes the Mara (the demon), said to have 5 daughters or Kleśa-māra (unskillful emotions - or the things that make us off center): greed/attachment/desire/passion, hate, delusion, aversion/discontentment and the worst being fear. It is said that as the Buddha was about to reach enlightment Mara sent all 5 to tempt the Buddha. Buddha had resisted the first 4, but to resist fear Buddha touches the earth drawing upon its strength and energy as an anchor. As a therapist I often find that when working with people in facing the hardest emotions: fear, rage, grief....that people are greatly aided by calling upon God but that for those who do not believe in God that calling on something Vast and mighty like earth, wind, fire, the ocean or mountain is what it takes to anchor us.
What can anchor you? What can help keep you from negative emotions that take you away from God? What kind of prayer practice keeps you connected? What have you learned disconnects you?
Buddhism suggests that the first spiritual motion is to stop, to reflect, to pause and to be mindfully aware of what we notice in the gap. While Buddhism does not believe in a Divine entity I find that for myself taking this pause on a daily basis is the best way for me to take inventory and notice both if I am connected or disconnected from the Divine Parent. It is also the best way for me to notice what are the spiritual issues in my life.
Buddhism also describes the Mara (the demon), said to have 5 daughters or Kleśa-māra (unskillful emotions - or the things that make us off center): greed/attachment/desire/passion, hate, delusion, aversion/discontentment and the worst being fear. It is said that as the Buddha was about to reach enlightment Mara sent all 5 to tempt the Buddha. Buddha had resisted the first 4, but to resist fear Buddha touches the earth drawing upon its strength and energy as an anchor. As a therapist I often find that when working with people in facing the hardest emotions: fear, rage, grief....that people are greatly aided by calling upon God but that for those who do not believe in God that calling on something Vast and mighty like earth, wind, fire, the ocean or mountain is what it takes to anchor us.
What can anchor you? What can help keep you from negative emotions that take you away from God? What kind of prayer practice keeps you connected? What have you learned disconnects you?
Friday, April 29, 2016
The spirit in God's Creation
Is there a square of earth or a couple of trees that you are in relationship with? That you know intimately? In the past 20 years I have lived in 9 or 10 different places, but all within throwing distance of the the same many fingered creek. I have lived in some houses, and many apartments. I have worked hard to always live and work in places where I could look out at nature and not at another building or a parking lot. (It is sad that it is work to accomplish that and how many city dwellers cannot see, without going to a park, God's Creation.)
In each place I have come to know when things bloom and what they look like and the rhythm of their cycle of blooming, flourishing and relinquishing for the winter. I am in relationship with these bits of the earth, and just like the rhythms of my own reproductive cycle grounded me, or the rhythm of day and night, or the cycle of the moon, so too do these cycles. I have tended fruit trees that demanded that they be harvested on their schedule not mine or the fruit would be spoiled on the ground. Similarly dandelions in bud demanded action before they would seed and make next years weeding worse. And invasive weeds let me know that if I did not tend them they would take over and kill everything else.
There is a quiz I took a few years ago. It asks:
1. On what watershed do you live?
2. What are five trees native to your state?
3. What are five native birds?
4. What are five native flowers?
Sadly most Americans cannot even partially answer these questions. Partly because we move so often and partly because of how cut off from the earth we are.
The first year I looked out my apt window at this tree I was completely amused by what happened when the buds opened: it was like party favors burst open. I grew to watch it as a friend.
Recently at my Church retreat we were asked the question is the Light of God in all Life forms? As someone who scored highest on the belief.net test of religions as a pantheist/pagan this was not a hard question form to answer.
I like this quote from Rachel Carson: "I am not afraid of being thought a sentimentalist when I stand here tonight and tell you that I believe natural beauty has a necessary place in the spiritual development of any individual or any society. I believe that whenever we destroy beauty, or whenever we substitute something man-made and artificial for a natural feature of the earth, we have retarded some part of man's spiritual growth."
The often quotes speech of Chief Si' ahl (pronounced Seattle by non-native white people), chief of the Duwamish also speaks to this deep love of place:
In the face of climate change I can only stand indited by the above. I know that in terms of systems theory there are suppose to be feedback loops in every system that are corrective - signs, indicators that cue the system to correct when something is wrong. But we are so deeply cut off from the earth that we do not even notice the warning signs. I have been appalled as spring comes several months to early and birds arrive way before they should - that my fellow neighbors simply rejoice at "early spring" rather than hearing the earth's distress. That our news reporters report forest fires, droughts and record rain and snow storms without ever uttering the word climate change, and we complain about the impacts of these changes, but we do not react with appropriate alarm saying "the earth is sick and what are we going to do about it?" Many of us live in concrete and steel jungles were we are lucky if we see over manicured grass and a tree stuck in a square in the sidewalk. How would we see then the miles of pine trees dying from pine beetle disease? Or the trees that are dying from drought? People drive by trees being smothered to death by invasive ivy without understanding that there is an invasion happening and a death is occurring in their sight.
Four hundred years ago Descarte taught us that body and mind, man and earth were separate from each other. The whole western way of structuring society has been built upon this misguided polarity which has also separated our body from our soul - and apparently our souls from the earth upon which our very survival depends! We have falsely believed we are masters over the earth rather than understanding that we are living cells within a body and that to fail to care for the body will mean our own death. We have believed that we have the right to cut down trees because they are in our way or because we want to use them. We have believed we have the right to blow the tops off mountains or remove the deep recesses of the earth that which is within. I don't believe in the concept of sin, but if there is such a thing this is what it would be - the desecration of the earth. Who are we to say that there is not the divine spirit within every molecule of life? How would we act if we believed that God's spirit dwelt in every living thing on this planet? How would we act if the life forms around us was our familiar and cherished friends?
In each place I have come to know when things bloom and what they look like and the rhythm of their cycle of blooming, flourishing and relinquishing for the winter. I am in relationship with these bits of the earth, and just like the rhythms of my own reproductive cycle grounded me, or the rhythm of day and night, or the cycle of the moon, so too do these cycles. I have tended fruit trees that demanded that they be harvested on their schedule not mine or the fruit would be spoiled on the ground. Similarly dandelions in bud demanded action before they would seed and make next years weeding worse. And invasive weeds let me know that if I did not tend them they would take over and kill everything else.
There is a quiz I took a few years ago. It asks:
1. On what watershed do you live?
2. What are five trees native to your state?
3. What are five native birds?
4. What are five native flowers?
Sadly most Americans cannot even partially answer these questions. Partly because we move so often and partly because of how cut off from the earth we are.
The first year I looked out my apt window at this tree I was completely amused by what happened when the buds opened: it was like party favors burst open. I grew to watch it as a friend.
I like this quote from Rachel Carson: "I am not afraid of being thought a sentimentalist when I stand here tonight and tell you that I believe natural beauty has a necessary place in the spiritual development of any individual or any society. I believe that whenever we destroy beauty, or whenever we substitute something man-made and artificial for a natural feature of the earth, we have retarded some part of man's spiritual growth."
The often quotes speech of Chief Si' ahl (pronounced Seattle by non-native white people), chief of the Duwamish also speaks to this deep love of place:
Ever part of this soil is sacred in the estimation of my people. Every hillside, every valley, every plain and grove, has been hallowed by some sad or happy event in days long vanished. Even the rocks, which seem to be dumb and dead as the swelter in the sun along the silent shore, thrill with memories of stirring events connected with the lives of my people, and the very dust upon which you now stand responds more lovingly to their footsteps than yours, because it is rich with the blood of our ancestors, and our bare feet are conscious of the sympathetic touch. Our departed braves, fond mothers, glad, happy hearted maidens, and even the little children who lived here and rejoiced here for a brief season, will love these somber solitudes and at eventide they greet shadowy returning spirits. And when the last Red Man shall have perished, and the memory of my tribe shall have become a myth among the White Men, these shores will swarm with the invisible dead of my tribe.... The White Man will never be alone.
In the face of climate change I can only stand indited by the above. I know that in terms of systems theory there are suppose to be feedback loops in every system that are corrective - signs, indicators that cue the system to correct when something is wrong. But we are so deeply cut off from the earth that we do not even notice the warning signs. I have been appalled as spring comes several months to early and birds arrive way before they should - that my fellow neighbors simply rejoice at "early spring" rather than hearing the earth's distress. That our news reporters report forest fires, droughts and record rain and snow storms without ever uttering the word climate change, and we complain about the impacts of these changes, but we do not react with appropriate alarm saying "the earth is sick and what are we going to do about it?" Many of us live in concrete and steel jungles were we are lucky if we see over manicured grass and a tree stuck in a square in the sidewalk. How would we see then the miles of pine trees dying from pine beetle disease? Or the trees that are dying from drought? People drive by trees being smothered to death by invasive ivy without understanding that there is an invasion happening and a death is occurring in their sight.
Four hundred years ago Descarte taught us that body and mind, man and earth were separate from each other. The whole western way of structuring society has been built upon this misguided polarity which has also separated our body from our soul - and apparently our souls from the earth upon which our very survival depends! We have falsely believed we are masters over the earth rather than understanding that we are living cells within a body and that to fail to care for the body will mean our own death. We have believed that we have the right to cut down trees because they are in our way or because we want to use them. We have believed we have the right to blow the tops off mountains or remove the deep recesses of the earth that which is within. I don't believe in the concept of sin, but if there is such a thing this is what it would be - the desecration of the earth. Who are we to say that there is not the divine spirit within every molecule of life? How would we act if we believed that God's spirit dwelt in every living thing on this planet? How would we act if the life forms around us was our familiar and cherished friends?
Sunday, March 6, 2016
Is God Angry?
We know that early cultural tribes often prayed to multiple Gods - often having Gods that represented different aspects of life: war, love, justice, etc. or in other cases represented the spirit within various aspects of nature: mountains, the ocean, trees, etc. But under either of these schema natural disasters were viewed as a sign that the God's were angry. In fact even after cultures increasingly went to Monotheism, the belief in one God, it was believed that God was mad when an earthquake or hurricane or a plague came. I mean think about it, before one understood what germs were or how they spread how do you make sense of a plague coming to a town and wiping out most of the population? It would seem arbitrary and cruel...like someone was trying to punish. Before one could know about the plates underneath the earth shifting and causing earthquakes this too would seem arbitrary and mighty in its power to destroy. Before one could understand conflicting hot and cold fronts and how they effected water bodies a hurricane would seem crazy - normally the water has predictable tides and now it has risen up in a destroying rage.
By the time we have reached the 21st century, science has become such a force that it can explain many if not most things. It has increasingly shaped how humans understand our environment and the way our universe works. It is taught in our schools around the developed world. It binds us to a common understanding of the world even across language barriers. In fact some sociologist have postulated that the waning of both church attendance and church influence in certainly the US is because of the rise of science - a fact that has made many fundamentalist churches actively hostile towards science. Well that and the fact that the religious texts of most religions, written 2,000 some years ago reflect the scientific understanding of that era about the earth, and thus stand in opposition to certain current scientific findings like that humans evolved from apes, and that the earth was not created in 7 days. Some sociologists argue that religion is simply a system by which humanity explains reality, which is increasingly being replaced by a new system for explaining reality: science.
So we stand in a curious time where many Americans have abandoned religion altogether as not a reliable source of truth - a sort of quaint mythology of the past. At the same time that many religions cling stubbornly to their holy books claiming them as a more accurate source of truth than science and fight to keep science out of the school or even out of court cases. So we have a battle in the US right now about what is the more accurate source of truth: religion or science. (Just as several centuries ago the battle of European society was over whether the Bible or the clergy was the more accurate source of knowing Truth.) No where can this disputes difference be more clearly seen than in US response to climate change. While at first a non-partisan issue, the Republican party has increasingly made it matter of doctrine within the Republican party that all "true" party members reject the truth of climate change by pretending that the 97% agreement among scientists means there is not scientific agreement about climate change being created by human activity. The party has actually refused to support financially members who will not embrace this orthodoxy. (Just as the church of a previous era persecuted those who subscribed to the idea that the world was round.)
I read something recently that startled me. It pointed out that for the percentage of the world population that is not literate (~14%), they mostly do not even know the word climate change, much less what it means. It was a shocking idea thinking of people facing tsunamis and droughts with no understanding of why it is happening. Will they again believe that the God(s) are mad? But then the thought occurs to me that if one does not believe in science then again how does one explain all these catastrophes that are coming with increasing frequency. Is God mad at us?
And if you believe in both science and God as the vast majority of Americans do - so science explains to you what is happening in regards to climate change - that begs the question of how God feels about climate change. If God is the creator/designer of all life on this planet through mechanisms exquisitely described by science - how would God not be ....well if not quite angry than certainly heartbroken over what this one species of creation has done to all the rest of creation? I have heard human's very cynically say that if we destroy all life on earth than we will get what we deserve - that we will destroy ourselves, but that the planet will go on without us. This I think is hubris of a different sort and a falsely comforting notion. It denies what happens to a planet if you make its ocean dead, and somehow justifies the destruction of every other species. In science systems have feedback loops, those carry both information and consequences. It is time for us to start listening to the increasingly urgent messages of the planet: earthquakes, droughts, hurricanes, forest fires, and tsunamis and hear the Creator's voice begging us to protect creation. It is time for people of faith to rise up with one voice in moral indignation at what we are doing to the planet.
By the time we have reached the 21st century, science has become such a force that it can explain many if not most things. It has increasingly shaped how humans understand our environment and the way our universe works. It is taught in our schools around the developed world. It binds us to a common understanding of the world even across language barriers. In fact some sociologist have postulated that the waning of both church attendance and church influence in certainly the US is because of the rise of science - a fact that has made many fundamentalist churches actively hostile towards science. Well that and the fact that the religious texts of most religions, written 2,000 some years ago reflect the scientific understanding of that era about the earth, and thus stand in opposition to certain current scientific findings like that humans evolved from apes, and that the earth was not created in 7 days. Some sociologists argue that religion is simply a system by which humanity explains reality, which is increasingly being replaced by a new system for explaining reality: science.
So we stand in a curious time where many Americans have abandoned religion altogether as not a reliable source of truth - a sort of quaint mythology of the past. At the same time that many religions cling stubbornly to their holy books claiming them as a more accurate source of truth than science and fight to keep science out of the school or even out of court cases. So we have a battle in the US right now about what is the more accurate source of truth: religion or science. (Just as several centuries ago the battle of European society was over whether the Bible or the clergy was the more accurate source of knowing Truth.) No where can this disputes difference be more clearly seen than in US response to climate change. While at first a non-partisan issue, the Republican party has increasingly made it matter of doctrine within the Republican party that all "true" party members reject the truth of climate change by pretending that the 97% agreement among scientists means there is not scientific agreement about climate change being created by human activity. The party has actually refused to support financially members who will not embrace this orthodoxy. (Just as the church of a previous era persecuted those who subscribed to the idea that the world was round.)
I read something recently that startled me. It pointed out that for the percentage of the world population that is not literate (~14%), they mostly do not even know the word climate change, much less what it means. It was a shocking idea thinking of people facing tsunamis and droughts with no understanding of why it is happening. Will they again believe that the God(s) are mad? But then the thought occurs to me that if one does not believe in science then again how does one explain all these catastrophes that are coming with increasing frequency. Is God mad at us?
And if you believe in both science and God as the vast majority of Americans do - so science explains to you what is happening in regards to climate change - that begs the question of how God feels about climate change. If God is the creator/designer of all life on this planet through mechanisms exquisitely described by science - how would God not be ....well if not quite angry than certainly heartbroken over what this one species of creation has done to all the rest of creation? I have heard human's very cynically say that if we destroy all life on earth than we will get what we deserve - that we will destroy ourselves, but that the planet will go on without us. This I think is hubris of a different sort and a falsely comforting notion. It denies what happens to a planet if you make its ocean dead, and somehow justifies the destruction of every other species. In science systems have feedback loops, those carry both information and consequences. It is time for us to start listening to the increasingly urgent messages of the planet: earthquakes, droughts, hurricanes, forest fires, and tsunamis and hear the Creator's voice begging us to protect creation. It is time for people of faith to rise up with one voice in moral indignation at what we are doing to the planet.
Sunday, February 21, 2016
Praying to all the Faces of God
In a previous post I have described my written prayer practice, and also in other writings I have talked about my struggle decades ago to figure out to what God did I pray? How did I start my prayers: Lord... as I had been taught (but felt so wrong), Creator, Father, Mother, Protector, etc? Each name felt incomplete and lacking while still also rich in its own right. I eventually came to understand that God was a name for calling spirit as a noun, but not who I prayed to, and that no name was complete and all were valid. I learned to pray by feeling into how I was experiencing God at that moment and calling out that name. Curiously my written prayer practice as previously described does not call out to any name of God.
This weekend I realized that what has been missing in the last year of my prayer life has been the part that has to do with laying a burden down, giving things that trouble me over to God, not trying to be my own All powerful Being! As I was trying to reflect on how to weave that successfully into my prayer life I realized I need to pray to all the faces of God. I am going to interweave the steps that have been part of my practice with actually calling out to the faces of the Holy One in the following way. (They are in a different and better order now)
Dear Provider: This is the face of God for me that is God as Abundant and Provider of all Blessings. So just as I have started with naming my blessings, now I will thank the Provider for those Blessings and that Grace. I may even add on here prayers to the Holy One which for me is about the awe, wonder, beauty and mystery made by the Creator. So I may also give thanks for that level of blessing here.
The second motion of my prayer practice has been to identify the worst event of the day and ask the magic question "How can it get any better than this?" That question has helped loosen my despair and attachment to the stuckness of things. It has allowed me to see possibilities and to be open to change. However it has been sadly devoid of God. So now I will pray:
Aba:(or Father): This is addressing to the listening and loving God - a naming of the struggles and burdens of my day.
Dear Transformer: By praying to the source of all transformation and asking the above magical question I can notice better that it is God who enters that difficulty and loosens and transforms it.
Mother (or Comforter): This is the place where I used to notice whether I was in fear or love (which I eventually stopped doing because I was pretty much always in fear which just got discouraging.) By turning to the Comforting God is where I can now begin to lay down my burdens and my fears. I have an image of crying in the Mother Gods arms, or laying upon her breast like when I lie on the sand of a beach. I can even take this one step farther and call out to My Rock if I need to be anchored and grounded for challenges ahead.
Dear Creator: This is where I usually say prayers for others. I have said those as Thanksgiving for that which already exists in the mind of the Creator even though as I make the prayer it has not yet happened. For example Thank you for Carla's new job. So these prayers of Thanksgiving I will make specifically to the Creator in the awareness that it is the Creating force that brings these.
Gardener: I am adding this one in. I'm realizing I need to ask The Holy Gardener to root out, to weed from my soul that which stands in the way of other healthy growth and life. I need to ask that One to also plant seeds where s/he sees fit and where I may not know to even ask! This face of God is helping me to notice the need for humility about all that is unknown about the human journey.
Lover: This is to call in the face of God what loves me...a face I have been sadly disconnected from my whole life. (I did not grow up in one of those churches that sang hymn about "Jesus loves me this I know", or how "God loves all the little children of the world".) I have always believed in a loving God but somehow that did not really translate in to noticing that God loves me specifically. It will be good to pause for a moment in this prayer process and simply feel that and let that in.
Dear Source: This has been the place where I have set spiritual intention for the next day (to walk in love, to forgive, to be grounded, etc.) But again I must notice that all of my intentions must connect to Source or else they are but vain and puny motions of the ego.
And even as I sit back joyously prepared to pray a new I am aware that in another year, or more? or less? Spirit may move me to pray in yet another way as this is a process within the soul, not a practice graven in stone.
This weekend I realized that what has been missing in the last year of my prayer life has been the part that has to do with laying a burden down, giving things that trouble me over to God, not trying to be my own All powerful Being! As I was trying to reflect on how to weave that successfully into my prayer life I realized I need to pray to all the faces of God. I am going to interweave the steps that have been part of my practice with actually calling out to the faces of the Holy One in the following way. (They are in a different and better order now)
Dear Provider: This is the face of God for me that is God as Abundant and Provider of all Blessings. So just as I have started with naming my blessings, now I will thank the Provider for those Blessings and that Grace. I may even add on here prayers to the Holy One which for me is about the awe, wonder, beauty and mystery made by the Creator. So I may also give thanks for that level of blessing here.
The second motion of my prayer practice has been to identify the worst event of the day and ask the magic question "How can it get any better than this?" That question has helped loosen my despair and attachment to the stuckness of things. It has allowed me to see possibilities and to be open to change. However it has been sadly devoid of God. So now I will pray:
Aba:(or Father): This is addressing to the listening and loving God - a naming of the struggles and burdens of my day.
Dear Transformer: By praying to the source of all transformation and asking the above magical question I can notice better that it is God who enters that difficulty and loosens and transforms it.
Mother (or Comforter): This is the place where I used to notice whether I was in fear or love (which I eventually stopped doing because I was pretty much always in fear which just got discouraging.) By turning to the Comforting God is where I can now begin to lay down my burdens and my fears. I have an image of crying in the Mother Gods arms, or laying upon her breast like when I lie on the sand of a beach. I can even take this one step farther and call out to My Rock if I need to be anchored and grounded for challenges ahead.
Dear Creator: This is where I usually say prayers for others. I have said those as Thanksgiving for that which already exists in the mind of the Creator even though as I make the prayer it has not yet happened. For example Thank you for Carla's new job. So these prayers of Thanksgiving I will make specifically to the Creator in the awareness that it is the Creating force that brings these.
Gardener: I am adding this one in. I'm realizing I need to ask The Holy Gardener to root out, to weed from my soul that which stands in the way of other healthy growth and life. I need to ask that One to also plant seeds where s/he sees fit and where I may not know to even ask! This face of God is helping me to notice the need for humility about all that is unknown about the human journey.
Lover: This is to call in the face of God what loves me...a face I have been sadly disconnected from my whole life. (I did not grow up in one of those churches that sang hymn about "Jesus loves me this I know", or how "God loves all the little children of the world".) I have always believed in a loving God but somehow that did not really translate in to noticing that God loves me specifically. It will be good to pause for a moment in this prayer process and simply feel that and let that in.
Dear Source: This has been the place where I have set spiritual intention for the next day (to walk in love, to forgive, to be grounded, etc.) But again I must notice that all of my intentions must connect to Source or else they are but vain and puny motions of the ego.
And even as I sit back joyously prepared to pray a new I am aware that in another year, or more? or less? Spirit may move me to pray in yet another way as this is a process within the soul, not a practice graven in stone.
Sunday, January 31, 2016
Holy One
Holy One:
Please take this burden from me.
Allow me to lay this down -
to give it into your care and your wisdom greater and deeper than my own.
Allow me to rest in your arms like a child in one's Mother's arm,
Like a shipwrecked sailor tossed up upon your shore.
Let me sleep knowing that what ever comes you will be with be with me, with us unwaveringly
not in perfection, not in everything being fine or without trouble - but that you will be with us
as our Comforter and our Teacher.
Teach me in this moment.
Help me to understand what you would have me learn here
Teach me to make sense out of the missed turns and broken dreams, the series of disappointments that make up this life, that make up all human lives.
Grow me
Grow me into a more perfect disciple of your love, a better vessel of your message.
Heal me.
Heal me of the scar tissue that acts as a barrier to the new or the now.
Heal me of the fears rooted in the past and bring into the present with you.
Forgive me
Forgive me for my timidity that has kept me from action or faithfulness.
Forgive me for the actions I have taken in anger or in hurt that were not as you would have had me act - that were not pure.
Forgive me me from the arrogance of thinking I had forever, for tarrying and wasting precious time, for false priorities or missed opportunities to draw closer to you.
Forgive me for when I forget you and live completely in the Kingdom of Man rather than your Kin-dom.
I would ask you to be with me, but you have already promised me to always be with me.
So open my eyes so I may see you clearly and without fail.
Hold me in your gaze, so I am not wander into the veil of forgetting.
Show me what you want me to do.
Make sense for me out of these confusing maze of life events.
Does this mean stop or does it mean try harder?
Does this mean rest in solitude or does it mean wait for your companion?
Your language is hard for me to understand - help me to hear clearly your intent.
Please take this burden from me.
Allow me to lay this down -
to give it into your care and your wisdom greater and deeper than my own.
Allow me to rest in your arms like a child in one's Mother's arm,
Like a shipwrecked sailor tossed up upon your shore.
Let me sleep knowing that what ever comes you will be with be with me, with us unwaveringly
not in perfection, not in everything being fine or without trouble - but that you will be with us
as our Comforter and our Teacher.
Teach me in this moment.
Help me to understand what you would have me learn here
Teach me to make sense out of the missed turns and broken dreams, the series of disappointments that make up this life, that make up all human lives.
Grow me
Grow me into a more perfect disciple of your love, a better vessel of your message.
Heal me.
Heal me of the scar tissue that acts as a barrier to the new or the now.
Heal me of the fears rooted in the past and bring into the present with you.
Forgive me
Forgive me for my timidity that has kept me from action or faithfulness.
Forgive me for the actions I have taken in anger or in hurt that were not as you would have had me act - that were not pure.
Forgive me me from the arrogance of thinking I had forever, for tarrying and wasting precious time, for false priorities or missed opportunities to draw closer to you.
Forgive me for when I forget you and live completely in the Kingdom of Man rather than your Kin-dom.
I would ask you to be with me, but you have already promised me to always be with me.
So open my eyes so I may see you clearly and without fail.
Hold me in your gaze, so I am not wander into the veil of forgetting.
Show me what you want me to do.
Make sense for me out of these confusing maze of life events.
Does this mean stop or does it mean try harder?
Does this mean rest in solitude or does it mean wait for your companion?
Your language is hard for me to understand - help me to hear clearly your intent.
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