Experiencing Ourselves, Experiencing the Holy

Honoring the spiritual tradition of not claiming to know who God is, spiritual teacher Mirabai Starr encourages us to know and honor our lives and experiences more fully: 

In many mystical traditions, across the spectrum of the world’s religions, we find a paradoxical teaching that says the most reliable means for knowing God is by unknowing. Christian mysticism uses the Latin term, via negativa. We are encouraged to actively dismiss any words or concepts to define the vast mystery of the divine, resting in what we cannot say about God, rather than what we think we can say…

Continue reading “Experiencing Ourselves, Experiencing the Holy”

The Authentic Search for God…

Richard Rohr
Richard Rohr (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Dr. Steve McSwain writes:

In an authentic search for God, the cosmos of inclusiveness just keeps widening and expanding, not unlike the ever-expanding universe in which we live.

That’s a bit of a paraphrase of something Fr. Richard Rohr says in his book Immortal Diamond. It has been my experience, too. It seems the more aware I become of the Immortal Presence, the wider my heart stretches to include all persons…all faiths…all traditions.

Without judgment.  With love. Continue reading “The Authentic Search for God…”

Faith

You gotta faith it till you make it

This one goes out to Josie at ‘themiracleisaroundthecorner‘. Great song for a Monday morning here in the western hemisphere…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lu3VTngm1F0

Uh-oh once again…

This cartoon perfectly illustrates a profound thought. I think that when we die we will ALL find out that we were wrong. Christians, I believe that in the first ‘Monday morning meeting’ in Heaven, God will say in his best Dr. Phil imitation “Dudes — this denomination thing. What were you thinking?” Religion is man’s feeble attempt to placate and ultimately control God. God, however, has a different plan I believe. He says:

1Cor 2:9: “as it is written:

“What no eye has seen,
what no ear has heard,
and what no human mind has conceived”[b]
the things God has prepared for those who love him—

10 these are the things God has revealed to us by his Spirit.

The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. 11 For who knows a person’s thoughts except their own spirit within them? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. 12 What we have received is not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may understand what God has freely given us. 13 This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, explaining spiritual realities with Spirit-taught words.[c] 14 The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit.

I’m fully aware I may be wrong about everything I believe, but I think God is more about relationship than religion. Cartoon via Anderson Layman’s Blog Uh-oh once again…………...

Rebuilding Trust After Being Hurt

Letting Go

“When mistrust comes in, love goes out.” ~Irish saying.

An old friend of mine felt betrayed by her boyfriend, but chose not to leave him. Instead, she made him pay for it over and over again.

Through subtle digs and less subtle slights, she repeatedly expressed that she felt contempt for him. But instead of forgiving or walking away, she stayed behind a wall of resentment.

Soon he started responding in kind, until their relationship became a container for mutual silent bitterness. It was two people sharing a suffocating space, overwhelmed by the weight of everything they didn’t say.

I suspect many of us can relate to that feeling of clinging to a grievance. In at least one of our relationships, we’ve felt angry and indignant, and despite wanting to forgive, we just couldn’t.

I know I’ve been there before.

It’s not easy to forget when someone breaks your trust, especially if you fear it might be broken again, but holding onto doubt is a surefire way to suffer.

Little hurts worse than the suspicion that someone else might hurt you.

This isn’t the kind of thing you can just brush off through positive thinking. You can’t make yourself feel trusting by telling yourself you should be, or rationalizing away your feelings.

The reality is it takes time and effort to trust again. It takes the courage to acknowledge how you feel and willingness from the other person to hear and honor it. It takes a mutual commitment to move beyond what happened instead of reliving and rehashing.

But most importantly, it requires you to believe in the goodness of the person who hurt you.

You have to believe someone can treat you with respect and consideration—even if it takes you a while to get there—or else you’ll never let your guard down. That’s a painful place to be.

The thing about being defensive is that everything becomes a battle, and no one ever wins.

Of course this doesn’t mean we can ever know for certain that someone won’t hurt us again. The only way we can know if we’re able to trust someone is by first giving them trust.

That means we need to ask ourselves: Is this relationship worth that risk?

Is it worth feeling vulnerable?

Is it worth letting go of the story?

And if it’s worth it, what would it look like to give trust, starting right now?

via Tiny Wisdom: Rebuilding Trust After Being Hurt | Tiny Buddha: Wisdom Quotes, Letting Go, Letting Happiness In.

On understanding the work of God…

http://bible.us/Eccl11.5.NIV As you do not know the path of the wind,
or how the body is formed in a mother’s womb,
so you cannot understand the work of God,
the Maker of all things.

He is not here…

Resurrection of Christ

http://bible.us/Matt28.5.NIV The angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. He is not here; he has risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay.

The Easter Song

Rare live footage of my favorite Christian group singing the ultimate Easter song…

Here’s the same song from Keith Green…

Crank it up! Happy Easter…

Despised and rejected…

“He was despised and rejected by mankind,
a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.
Like one from whom people hide their faces
he was despised, and we held him in low esteem. Surely he took up our pain
and bore our suffering,
yet we considered him punished by God,
stricken by him, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions,
he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was on him,
and by his wounds we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray,
each of us has turned to our own way;
and the Lord has laid on him
the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed and afflicted,
yet he did not open his mouth;
he was led like a lamb to the slaughter,
and as a sheep before its shearers is silent,
so he did not open his mouth. By oppression and judgment he was taken away.
Yet who of his generation protested?
For he was cut off from the land of the living;
for the transgression of my people he was punished.”

http://bible.us/Isa53.3.NIV

When I Survey the Wondrous Cross

These are the words to my favorite Good Friday hymn…

When I survey the wondrous cross
On which the Prince of glory died,
My richest gain I count but loss,
And pour contempt on all my pride.

Forbid it, Lord, that I should boast,
Save in the death of Christ my God!
All the vain things that charm me most,
I sacrifice them to His blood.

See from His head, His hands, His feet,
Sorrow and love flow mingled down!
Did e’er such love and sorrow meet,
Or thorns compose so rich a crown?

His dying crimson, like a robe,
Spreads o’er His body on the tree;
Then I am dead to all the globe,
And all the globe is dead to me.

Were the whole realm of nature mine,
That were a present far too small;
Love so amazing, so divine,
Demands my soul, my life, my all.

Source: When I Survey the Wondrous Cross

Good Friday…

From Jon Swanson’s blog…

Jesus Christ died. The son of God was crucified on a cross. We’ve heard the end of the story – He was raised again and lives forever.

But on Good Friday we celebrate His death. “Celebrate” sounds like the wrong word to use. Why should anyone be happy about such a cruel event? The reason we can celebrate is why Jesus died. Because of his death, our sins are forgiven. We don’t have to live under the troubling guilt of the wrongs we have done to others, to ourselves and to God. The consequences of our actions may well remain, but our internal guilt can be totally wiped away. God says in Isaiah 1:18, “Though your sins are like scarlet, I will make them as white as snow.”

However, we need to turn away from actions that are keeping us from accepting God’s forgiveness. Acts 3:19 says, “Now repent of your sins and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped away.”

The movie, The Passion of the Christ will stay with me a long time. The scenes of the pain Jesus went through to die perhaps the worst possible death are very haunting. Seeing Jesus suffer truly did bring tears to my eyes. I would recommend that you watch the film, if you haven’t seen it yet. It’s good to ponder the cost that Jesus paid for our gain. Just going through Good Friday like any other day is all too easy to do, with the busyness of our lives. Take at least a few moments to reflect on what Jesus did for you and thank Him for it. Pause your routine and go to a different room or outside and express your feelings to God. Bask in His forgiveness.

Today is a Good Friday.

Source: Good Friday | 300 words a day

The "Confessio" of St. Patrick and lessons for today

DSCF2665In my humble opinion, the story of St. Patrick is a story of a lost opportunity for the modern church. It begins like this…

1 I, Patrick, a sinner, a most simple countryman, the least of all the faithful and most contemptible to many, had for father the deacon Calpurnius, son of the late Potitus, a priest, of the settlement [vicus] of Bannavem Taburniae; he had a small villa nearby where I was taken captive. I was at that time about sixteen years of age. I did not, indeed, know the true God; and I was taken into captivity in Ireland with many thousands of people, according to our desserts, for quite drawn away from God, we did not keep his precepts, nor were we obedient to our priests who used to remind us of our salvation. And the Lord brought down on us the fury of his being and scattered us among many nations, even to the ends of the earth, where I, in my smallness, am now to be found among foreigners.

Continue reading “The "Confessio" of St. Patrick and lessons for today”

Why you’re not getting what you want

Farmer plowing in Fahrenwalde, Mecklenburg-Vor...

I like this perspective from Mastin Kipp at The Daily Love…

Plain and simple, we get what we ask for.

Not just with our words, but also with our actions. In fact, our actions will show us what we are asking for far more than our words. We only take action on what we truly believe, so if we want to see what we are really asking for, let us look towards our actions.

If you say you want to lose weight, but your actions are to eat high calorie food and stay inactive, you aren’t really asking for health.

If you say you have faith but your actions are actions that are faithless, then you don’t really have faith.

If you say you love someone and your actions are unloving, then you don’t really love that person.

Let us be mindful of our actions.

The precursor to action is thought. Sometimes it can be VERY hard to be aware of what we are actually thinking, especially because many of our actions come from unconscious thoughts. If we want to tap into what’s really running us, but are having a hard time, let us see what actions we are taking.

We want love, but we run away when it shows up. There is a misalignment there of desire and thought.

We want weight loss and a healthy body, but we don’t get off our ass and exercise. There is a misalignment there, too.

In this literal Uni-verse, we can LITERALLY create (from the inside out) any type of experience we wish to choose. It is when our desires, our thoughts and our actions are in alignment that this kind of life begins to emerge.

The seed of a desire for something greater lives within all of us, but our lack of action prevents that kind of life from unfolding.

Imagine if a farmer had seeds and land to plant his seeds, but doubted that the seeds would grow if he planted them. So if this doubt were strong enough, the seeds would never get planted. Or, they get planted, but then the farmer can be too impatient and dig up the seeds the next day or the next week because the crop hasn’t come yet.

The farmer still has no harvest. Then a second farmer comes by at harvest time with a full crop of harvest, and the first farmer gets jealous and angry at the second farmer for having abundance. The first farmer may blame The Uni-verse or say, “People like me aren’t supposed to have this harvest”, but in reality, it is the farmers own doubt and impatience that prevents him from reaping his harvest.

We are many times like the first farmer. Our seeds are our desires. Our fields are our daily actions. We must plant our desires in actions and then be patient. If weeds of doubt creep in, we must clear them out. And in perfect time we will be able to harvest the fruit of our faith.

This is how life is. We need to nurture the fertile soil of our actions with faith and patience.

So, today, are you not getting what you want? Look at your desires. Look at your actions. Where is there a disconnect? How can you adjust your actions to sync up with your desires? And, if that feels weird, how can you change your MENTAL habits to allow yourself to take the proper action that is in alignment with your desires?

The answers to the lack you may be temporarily experiencing is all within you. Show up, let go and trust The Uni-verse one day at a time. Get your desires, thoughts and actions in alignment and then let your patience and faith shower down on the fertile soil of your actions.

Your harvest WILL come.

Sorry — I don’t normally curate such a long quote, but I wanted to share the whole post with you. Here’s another perspective on getting what you want…

“1 What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? 2 You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God. 3 When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.” James 4

How about you? Getting what you want?

Be grateful for where you are now

Faith Happens
Image via Wikipedia

“It doesn’t take as much faith to believe that everything happens for a reason as it does to embrace the belief that I am who and where I am now, today, for a reason—even if I don’t know what that reason is and even if I don’t particularly like who or where I am today,” a friend said to me. “When I can take that in, my dissatisfaction and negativity disappear, and I can proceed calmly and gratefully with my life. To me,” he said, “that’s what spirituality is all about.”

Faith and hope aren’t just for the future. Try using them on today.

Could it be that you’re who you are and where you are now for a reason? Thank God for your life, exactly as it is, right now.

God, give me enough faith to believe in today.

via January 28: be Grateful for Where You are Now | Language of Letting Go.

The Sobering Effect of Year-Ends

Source: http://vimeo.com/33313457

Psalm 51:10-12

This is my mantra these days as I ‘reboot myself’…

“10 Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. 11 Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me. 12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.”

via Psalm 51:4 NIV – YouVersion.com.

Bookmarking the Bible

10 Things from Your Life That Will Survive Your Death

English painter from the 1700s depicts Satan a...
Image via Wikipedia

STOP! Right now. You know who you are. You don’t like talking about death.  In fact, it makes you very uncomfortable. So you’d just as soon skip the whole conversation.

Fair enough, but consider this. Death will not skip the conversation. You’ve heard the “certain as death or taxes” aphorism. So hang around; death may be inevitable, but there’s a lot of benefit to taking into consideration some of the elements of life that will sail right on through the experience, barely skipping a beat.

All Pro Dad suggests the following “10 things from your life” that most certainly will survive your death. It’s got to make you think!

Follow the ‘via’ link if you want the list…

Don’t Follow your Heart

Why not?

Should you just “follow your heart” as you date, in your marriage, while you work, as you socialize?  No. At least not most of the time.  That’s because when most people say, “follow your heart,” they’re really just saying, “follow your feelings.”  And yes, feelings by themselves can sometimes lead you down a smooth road, but more often than not, they’ll lead you on a road full of potholes and maybe even a fatal crash.

Think about it

How many times have you heard about husbands divorcing their wives of many years to get that “loving feeling” with a new “trophy wife?” How many women have said to you, “I just don’t feel in love anymore.” They’re leaving their husbands for a man who “really listens, understands and cares.”  And how many have left their job on a whim because they “felt” like it in order to start a new business that quickly went out of business?

The Problem

We live in a culture where people make major decisions solely in response to their feelings, regardless of who they hurt or what promises they break. Authors Stephen and Alex Kendrick in their book, The Love Dare, say the problem with “following your heart”, as most people define it, is that you are just chasing whatever feels right at the moment, even though it may not be right.  It means throwing caution to the wind and pursuing your latest whim, even though it may not be logical.  The Kendricks further note that, “People forget that feelings and emotions are shallow, fickle, and unreliable.” Emotions can fluctuate depending upon circumstances.  The Kendricks further suggest that instead of following your heart, lead your heart.

Follow the ‘via’ link if you want to connect with author Mark Merrill…

American Minute for July 3

An 1864 Mathew Brady photo depicts President L...
Image via Wikipedia

Washington, D.C., was in a panic as 70,000 Confederate troops were just sixty miles away near Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. The furious battle had lasted three days. As General Lee found his ammunition running low, he ordered General Pickett to make a direct attack. After an hour of murderous fire and bloody hand-to-hand combat, the Confederates were pushed back and the Battle of Gettysburg ended JULY 3, 1863, with over 50,000 casualties. President Abraham Lincoln confided to a general wounded in the battle: “When everyone seemed panic-stricken…I went to my room…and got down on my knees before Almighty God and prayed.” Days later, July 15, 1863, President Lincoln proclaimed a National Day of Thanksgiving, Praise and Prayer: “It is meet and right to recognize and confess the presence of the Almighty Father and the power of His hand equally in these triumphs and in these sorrows…I invite the people of the United States to…render the homage due to the Divine Majesty for the wonderful things He has done in the nation’s behalf and invoke the influence of His Holy Spirit to subdue the anger which has produced and so long sustained a needless and cruel rebellion.”

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