Spiritual Resources

Note of apology to readers:
To those of you who subscribe to Seeking the Spiritual Life, you may have wondered what has happened to the author and the postings?   My goal has always been to post once a month but even in the good years I have posted 10 a year...but this year I'm on track to post 5 - yikes!  And nothing posted since June.    I have actually been in a spiritual tangle (watch for future posting on that issue) and it has interfered with my ability to write for my blog.   But I believe I have untangled myself and will be back in 2016 with more to say.

Spiritual Resources

Today I sat with a group of people as we shared with each other what our spiritual resources are - what the books are that we turn to every time for spiritual nurturance, inspiration or uplift.  All great religions of the world have their own sacred scriptures.  But why be limited to only one source of spiritual enrichment?   Many of the people in the circle shared the same thing - that they had texts they had read all the way through and found inspiring, and now kept in a place of prayer.  They shared that they would open them randomly - trusting that they would be lead to just the right page, and that in fact it did feel that they were lead to just the right bit of wisdom.    So I share with you here the pile of books that lives on my bed stand and a little bit about why (in no particular order).   If you have not read these, then here is some 2016 inspiration for sure:

Illusions by Jonathan Bach...yes this is actually a novel.  But it is a novel about a man on a spiritual journey who is given the "Messiah's handbook"...the quotes in the "handbook" are as meaningful to me now as they were in 1989 when it first came out.   Pages that are not the handbook still point me to the ideas the book contains.

Emmanuel's Book I (or book II) compiled by Pat Rodegast & Judith Stanton.   My best-friend sent this to me as a gift, also in the 80's, with a sort of guilty note about how she did not really believe in channeling (the whole book is channeled - the authors are simply a medium and recorder of a spirit named Emmanuel.) but that she found great spiritual truth's in the book and thus found it useful to read.   I would heartily agree with this.   In other words I don't really understand how channeling would work, but when I hold the words in the book before my truth meter - the words ring true and consistent.    Very complicated spiritual issues are addressed since the audience got to ask questions and the answers are what are recorded.  I found answers in here early in life that helped ground my spiritual journey.  There were things I have not worried about because these answers worked for me.

A Testament of Devotion by Thomas Kelly.    Thomas Kelly, a Quaker, wrote this book in 1945 as WWII was ending.   One would think this would make it dated, but his mysticism and ecstatic expression of God is so profound as to be timeless. (The only way it is dated is somewhat gender heavy language.)   A brief book with just 5 chapters...has to be read slowly, or over and over, to take in its richness.  The chapter On Holy Obedience speaks profoundly to a life of leading and faithfulness.   The chapter on Simplification of Life speaks to the need to slow down and to be faithful - to strip away distracts and false idols.   The chapter on The Eternal Now and Social Concern probably saved my life since I read this in my 20's.  Kelly states: "I dare not urge you to your cross. But He, 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 He draws us to a few very definite tasks, our tasks, God's burdened heart particularizing His burden in us."  In this passage and throughout the book Kelly helped me to know that I did not have to fight every injustice, I had to listen for what the part God wanted me to do was and simply be faithful to that.   Without his words I indeed would have died on way to many crosses that were not mine.

The Power of Intention by Wayne Dyer.   Over the years various Wayne Dyer books have been on my bed stand, but for me the gold standard is this one.   Dyer describes Co-creation or manifesting, but in away that avoids the materialism and self-centeredness of the Secret.  He also describes a helpful spiritual posture and some of the obstacles that get in our way as we try to do this.

The Prophet by Kahil Gibran  This book has also been on my bed stand since my 20's.  For those who came of age in the 70's or 80's this book was so commonly referenced by people as to be rather clique and therefore then disregarded.  However, I have found that those currently in their 20's and 30's are not aware of this book and that is frankly a great tragedy.  Again this book holds such wisdom about 27 different subjects (the key and central areas of life from love, to food, to freedom) in just 1 to 2 page chapters about each - as to inform one for a life time.   My ideas about marriage and child rearing and work have all been permanently and much to the good impacted by Gibran's timeless wisdom coming to us from 1923 Syria.

Happier than God by Neale Donald Walsch.   Walsch is better known for his series of books: Conversations with God (I, II and III).   I have read those and several other Walsch books, but this one is my favorite.   I hate its' title, and yet the book chose me.  I stood in front of a shelf of books by him, closed my eyes and pointed, landing on this one.  I winced and opened it to several different pages and knew that indeed I would need to purchase it.   This book is also about manifesting - but mostly about manifesting a God filled life.   Also Walsch, unlike all other books on manifesting that I have read, does not turn away from the fact that we live in an unjust world, or fail to mention that.   The book is also supremely positive.

Previous inhabitants of the Bed stand:
I have of course over the years had to remove some to make room for others, but I thought the previous ones are worth a mention here.  As noted above other titles by Dyer and Walsh.
The Bible...for obvious reasons.
The Tao of Pooh by Benjamin Hoff.   Hoff quotes from Winnie the Pooh throughout this book while relating it to Toaist teachings.   Both amusing and thought provoking.
Hind's Feet on High Places by Hannah Hurnard - this is an allegorical novel about a journey which takes place on many levels.  Heavily Christian imagery.   It has many allegories that speak profoundly to the spiritual journey.  I eventually removed it because some of the "obedience to God" part seemed to describe a kind of God and a kind of discipline which is not how I now conceptualize God.

Happy Reading.   I would love for readers to post a comment sharing their favorite spiritual source and why.

The Best Version's of Ourselves

"We are here to become the best version of ourselves that we can become".
I found this quote while reading Tomorrow's God By Neale Donald Walsch.  For me this is a very provocative quote.   It is a fascinating process to try to touch into the sense of that.  Try.  Close your eyes and try to feel, to sense, to image, to remember your best self.  Hopefully, it is not too distantly far from who we are this moment or yesterday.  Of course we all have our moments where we are unwarrantedly cross with others, where judgement or bias enters in - but hopefully it is not hard for us to remember moments where we acted with kindness, generosity of spirit, compassion, courage, humility, love, resolve, ___________ or whatever those traits are that we feel would edge us towards our better selves.

It seems both interesting and challenging to try to pull together all those snippets of memory, of lived experience, those traits and gifts into one simultaneous and ongoing expression of self.  That I think would be to be "the best version of ourselves" that Walsch calls us to, or more correctly that the Creator calls us to.

This also reminds me of the quote (erroneously attributed to Nelson Mandala for many years):

"We ask ourselves: who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be?  You are a child of God.  Your playing small doesn't serve the world.  There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you.  We were born to manifest the glory of God that is within us; it's in everyone.  And as we let our light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.  As we are liberated from our fear, our presence automatically liberates others."

I have appreciated the way it talks about how we keep ourselves small and challenges so boldly "what can it possibly serve?"  As Richard Bach also conveyed this idea in Illusions:  "Argue for your limitations and they are yours". Yes, why do we keep ourselves small?  Why do we argue for our limitations - justifying them and claiming them like a familiar worn out sweater, claiming them as insurmountable.

It strikes me that there are two problems:  one being a psychological one and one being a spiritual problem. Psychologically we have had messages laid on us early and reinforced often so we both have negative self image, but also messages limiting what we believe is possible about change.  (These things are addressable through therapy.)  But the spiritual problem is that we see the job of change or growth as all our own work and we do not see or acknowledge the role of the creator in that growth.  We may not have a personal relationship with God, or may not see God as a source of strength available to us, or maybe even as a sympathetic source (See earlier posts about images of God).  Or we may have beliefs about original sin or our own "fallen nature" that get in the way.

As Walsch says:  Here is a central tenet of the New Spirituality: the purpose- and the greatest opportunity and gift- of life is to re-create yourself a new in the next grandest version you ever held about Who You Are. And you can do it every single moment of Now....It is not a question of whether you "have what it takes ," but of whether you take what  you have- and then use it.

Intending who We are

In the book Illusions, the main character of Richard Bach’s novel gets a Messiah’s Handbook which he reads verses of throughout the book.  These snippets indeed carry real wisdom.  Some examples: 

“Remember where you came from where you’re going, and why you crated the mess you got yourself into in the first place.” 

“Learning is finding out what you already know”.

“The simplest questions are the most profound.  Where were you born?  Where is your home?  Where are you going?  What are you doing?  Think about these once in a while, and watch your answers change.”

“You are led through your lifetime by the inner learning creature, the playful spiritual being an that is your real self.  Don’t turn away from possible futures before you’re certain you don’t have anything to learn from them.  You are always free to change your mind and choose a different future, or a different past.”

Collectively what I got out of these bits of wisdom and the book itself, at the tender age of 23, was a sense that if we let go of external symbols, rules, others expectations, and a sense of  the unweilding “facts” of our lives that we can find our true selves and work with that “clay” throughout our lives.  What goes with that for me is a sense of all of life being an exciting adventure, where learning is always possible and where mistakes really are just learning opportunities.  It means claiming growth as a birthright of all humans.  It has also meant that it is really important to look carefully at the story we tell about our own life and the power that story has to shape the way we feel about and experience our lives.  With clients I see this all the time and am very sad sometimes by the profoundly sad and limiting stories people tell about their own lives and the way they will steadfastly cling to that story even while bemoaning the unhappy and unpalatable results of such a story.  This also has tied back to my offerings of last month about how we involve the divine Spirit in this continuous process of creating the life we lead.

This has also lead to my own unique approach to New Year’s resolutions.  Every New Year’s Eve I sit with my journal and try to remember where I came from and where I’m going.  The very first time I did it I tried to list what I thought I was learning from the events of that year.  Then looking at that I wrote identities I felt I was working on developing: wife, mother, therapist, activist, physical body, spiritual being, etc.

Then for each one I wrote down who I wanted to be more of in the coming year.  In the years that followed I would look at my list of intentions and write about how I did on them and why,  and new learnings and then write down my intentions for the next year.

So for example, as a therapist I want to make time to pray (privately) for my clients, as a spiritual being I want to be more in touch with gratitude and the expression of gratitude and so forth. It is also possible to deal transformatively  in this process with any identity we don’t like.  For if you notice any negative story you tell about your self (I’m too busy, I’m disorganized, don’t have enough friends,…whatever) then it is possible to tell a different story.  To in your statements of becoming for the New Year to positively address those issues.  (“I move purposefully, and at measured pace throughout my life creating order and meaning in my life.”)

I remember once rather innocently describing this process to a man in my church and him saying:  “Wow, I always saw New Year’s resolutions as being about setting goals, but I have never thought that I can have goals for how I live, for who I am.  That feels really good”.  It does…you might want to try it.

Choosing Our Parents

In my twenties I first read Illusions by Richard Bach.  In it he says: "Every problem has its gift" and other pieces of wisdom that suggest we are in charge of our own life experience, not passive victims to it.  I recall taking the worst event of my life and saying:  "Ok what is the gift of that?"  And strangely I could see it, and I could feel it shifting something that had lived in me as a sort of “victim oh poor me” story.  Something in this same exploration suggested to me that we in fact choose our parents.  About 7 years ago I finally read the Celestine Prophesy.   In this spiritual novel he also suggests that we choose our parents; and in fact he suggests we come to earth with a spiritual purpose and that the parents we choose provide certain lessons, for good or for bad, which help shape us for that spiritual purpose.  He calls this our “evolutionary question” and says we each have one.  He somewhat lays out a method for figuring it out (which I have further developed and have done with numerous friends.)  In the last few years in reading various books by Neale Donald Walsch and then most recently Inspiration by Wayne Dyer this idea has again been repeated that we choose our parents.  (This belief does fit best if you believe in reincarnation and karma.) 

In a previous post: God the Father/God the Mother, I talk about the idea that our concepts of God are often powerfully shaped by how we experience our "all powerful" parents during our childhoods.  These two ideas seem to go hand in glove: that we choose parents that provide a certain spiritual (or not) experience that then shapes our spirituality and the tools and concepts with which we pursue our spiritual task on earth.  This has powerful implications for both how we relate to our parents and our experiences with them, but also for those of us who are parents, how we parent.  Do you see your child as a soul that you have a sacred trust with?  Do you nurture not just their body, mind and emotions, but also their spiritual nature or their soul? 

What are the healing potentials with your parents (alive or dead) if you consider that you actually chose them?  For someone who was treated abusively or hatefully by a parent this may seem a fairly repugnant and nonsensical statement...at first glance.  But keep looking.  I think for example of a friend of mine who was beaten by his father during his childhood.   He says it taught him to question authority and to be strong and to be centered in his own internal sense of truth.  He has been an activist throughout his life and this has served him well.  I think of another person whose parents were not religious at all, but has a deep love of beauty, and how that prepared her to create art which has been a path to mysticism.

For myself, despite believing that we choose our parents, I have been mystified for decades trying to understand why I would choose a mother, a good mother, who would die during my childhood?  It has finally come to me in doing Joanna Macy's Work that Reconnects, that I have learned how to be present to grief and loss unflinchingly and unwaveringly....and that in this time of so much loss on this planet, that those of us who fight for peace and for justice must be able to be present to the pain of the world.  As Joanna says:  "Be willing to have your heart be broken open to the pain of the world; it is what your heart was created for...to connect you to life." So I commend to you the question:  Why did I choose my parents?  How have they, for better or for worse, prepared me for my spiritual purpose in life?