Dear Spiritual Companions,

I was talking with a friend yesterday and we were talking about what is real.  One can get very philosophical about this or even religious, but that is the trap of the ego and I don’t want to get caught up in that today.  Instead, I want to ponder What is Real?  To ponder, of course is to sit with or live with an idea or thought or life event.  It doesn’t entail seeking an answer, although one may come.  It doesn’t mean we have to fix anything or anyone.  It doesn’t even mean we have to have someone agree with us.  To me reality lives in what simply is.  It is our opportunity to get off the  merry go round of being busy or productive.  We don’t have to please anyone or prove our worth, even to our-self.  We have a God given right to be here and enjoy the ride called life.  We are actors on the stage of existence and we can take in the drama, tragedy, comedy or even folly unfolding in our life.

My major understanding of reality is that what I think is real often is just the door to meaning.  I can always tell when I am caught up in too much reality.  I am upset.  I don’t like what is happening.  What someone has said or not said or what someone has done or not done has far too much power in how I feel.  This has even more impact on me when I am the one who has said something I wish I hadn’t or had, done something I wish I hadn’t or had.  I am stuck on what I think is real rather than the meaning of a life event.  e. e. cummings wrote something that has stuck with me for a long time – “Nothing matters but the circus!”  On the surface that statement makes no sense.  No it doesn’t unless you ponder it.  Like a Zen koan there really is no answer found in trying to understand what it means.  It is simply living with cummings line that reveals a deeper meaning.  Like the circus of life nothing matters but the meaning it offers.  In that gift we will find what is real – Love.

Many people have tried to define Love, but it is like trying to define God.  Once you do you have lost God.  Love is the doorway to the Mystery of God found in not trying to wrap everything neatly in a box.  How things happen, how we were born, who we meet, the events of every day, what we see or read that fits so perfectly with out inner life is simly Amazing.  I have discovered how letting life be Amazing is so much better than figuring out how it became amazing.  The time I spend trying to understand life causes me to miss the moment of amazement.  The most fantastic part of this might be found in coming to experience how our various attempts at figuring out life is the doorway to letting life be what it is.  We come to see how all the effort to find out what is real is not helpful and thereby helpful because we don’t have to do it any more – Amazing! 

This is a lot to ponder so rather than continuing to write I invite you to discover, through these words or pondering them, your reality.

Peace

Ever been tied in knots

   I was recently 

   I discovered the source

      The Nots of life

They are like commandments

   We are not to do this or that

   We are not to think this or that

   We are not to feel this or that

   We are not to say this or that

      If we do there will be scary consequences

Once I allowed myself to Not be commanded by others

   I found freedom

      Instead of not being me I could now be who I am

Poor

   Depending less on me and more on God

Mourner

   Feeling the sadness of loss in life

Humble

   It isn’t all about me

Co Creator

   It is about me on God

Merciful

   Others are doing the best they can

Pure

   A listener to the still small voice

Peaceful

   Nothing matters but the circus

Persecuted

   For saying yes to God

I’m no longer tied in knots

   Because I have let go of the Nots of life

   And those who are the keepers of the Nots

Dear Spiritual Companions,

The longer I am on this adventure of a deepening relationship with God called life, the more I discover there is so much more to learn about the major questions of life.  One of the biggest seems to be related to when terrible things happen in our life or those we love.  It has seemed quite apparent to me for some time that God doesn’t cause these problems, but indeed uses them to further reveal the mystery of existence which includes them.  I reread this scripture this morning from the Gospel of John 9:1-5.  “As Jesus walked along he saw a man blind from birth.  His Disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned , this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”  Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him.  We must work the works of Him who sent me while it is day; night is coming when no one can work.  As long as I am in the world I am the light of the world.”  Rather perplexing on many levels as far as I am concerned.  Let’s talk about this.

We are human so part of that humanness is long to have answers for the mysteries of life.  When things like blindness arise in individuals lives we like to blame it on something like them or their parents or the environment.  For example, many of us continue to go through life declaring we are the way we are because of the way our parents treated us.  If we were told we were no good we live as though we are no good.  That to me seems to be a very good definition of being emotionally blind.  In addition, we do not have to be responsible for our actions so we can coast along and not to the hard work of forgiving their short sightedness.  How can there be any alternatives to our behavior if we haven’t let their actions go? On the other hand, sometimes children are given everything they need physically, emotionally and spiritually and wander through life not having a clue to what they have been given.  This again is a sign of blindness.  Is God to blame for either of these situations?  Well yes in the sense of giving us a choice, but no in the sense of making us be who we are.  So who is to blame – No One!  Even as I write this I don’t like that answer.  Are we not responsible for our own actions.  Yes to a certain extent, but there is so much of life that is beyond our control.  It is that part of life outside of our control that plays such a big part in who we are.  Bad things happen to us and try as we might we just can’t overcome it on our own.

Where does that leave us?  Here comes the troubling line, “He was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him.”  Blindness is a part of God’s Creation whether it be physical, emotional or spiritual.  We don’t like that so instead we ask why would God allow such a thing to happen?  Not because God is vengeful, not because God is manipulating us and certainly not because God is punishing us.  Those thoughts are simply our feeble attempt to take the mystery out of life.  I have found through Katrina, my wife’s breast cancer and other unfair aspects of life some incredible gifts.  When I give up searching for an answer I find one – there is none!  Life is a paradox where God says Let It Be What It Is.  Like a Zen koan, where there is no answer, we find our ability to live life to the fullest giving up the search for answers.  When we let blindness be what it is – blindness then we can see how the rest of our senses suddenly step up to help us live life more fully.  When life is a room of manure we can suddenly look for the pony that has to be there.  What we focus on becomes the driving force in our life.  We are often blind to the way God works because it isn’t the way we want God to work.  When we let God be God we can accept God creating a world filled with challenging individuals.  We do not have to engage them or believe what they say is true.  Just because people treat us like manure doesn’t mean we are.

Jesus, along with all of the great spiritual masters, are the Light of the world because they invite us out of our darkness found in being blind to the way life is so we can be in lightened by what they have to say and how they lived and died.  The night of our ignorance can be an invitation to so much more.  When we give up a life that has to make sense, then we can discover a life that often doesn’t and so we are not defeated by it.  We are only defeated because we think or believe we are.  God, by whatever Name you call God always has the last Word – Love.  Our work is to enter what God’s kind of Love means.  It may entail leaving behind all that we have been taught about Love to embrace it in a new way.  So often when I think I have the final answer about something God reveals more.  Do I give up certainty for a lifetime of growth?  I know what my limited sight is providing, but can I trust that there is even more goodness out there?  Could Jesus embrace His Death on the Cross believing that there was more on the other side?  He must have because he told the thief he would be with Him in paradise. In fact, I would venture to say we don’t have to wait until we die to experience paradise.  It is right now and right here when we dare to let life be what it is.

It truly is a mystery isn’t it?

Gary

Is life half empty or half full

   We decide

No one twists our arm to choose one or the other

   Not even God

At any time we can change our mind

   It is up to us

But the rest of our life is dependent upon our choice

   One is death and one is life

Why do we choose death

   The thought there is no other choice

      Where did that thought come from

      Is it ours or someone else’s thought

      If it is someone elses why do we hang onto it

Usually we simply aren’t aware of why we choose death

   But once we become aware we can choose

      Half full rather than half empty

We may become counter cultural

   We are no longer choosing what the world accepts as truth

Others may not recognize us

   Why are you smiling when there is nothing to smile about we are asked

We may feel uncomfortable

   That feeling always goes with trying something new

We may lose some friends

   But happier ones are waiting in the wings to meet us

Half full or half empty

   What is our choice

Dear Spiritual Companions,

In honor of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. I am writing toady about what I think makes someone our hero.  Dr. King is one of my personal guiding lights.  I can remember where I was when I heard the news of his assassination – I was on my way to attend a college class on Industrial Psychology.  I was devastated.  A part of me had died with Martin.  I hope I never forget that moment because of what he meant to me.  You don’t lose certain persons in your life without it having a lasting impact.  I will carry his spirit with me as long as I continue to follow in his footsteps and the lessons he taught me about how to live life in community with others.  I have been a pacifist for a long time and I know Dr. King and Gandhi have been the two key individuals who taught me what Jesus meant by turning the other cheek.  So I dedicate today’s thoughts to the life and memory of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

I think we can do two things with our heroes.  First we can put them on a pedestal and keep them distant from us.  Second we can see how they speak to our similar gifts and talents within us.  It is so tempting to put Dr. King on a level higher than us.  In the various celebrations we sometimes gloss over what a challenge Martin was to the powers of his day.  It wasn’t bad enough that he fought for Civil Rights for African Americans, but when he began challenging our leaders ab0ut the Vietnam War he had gone to far.  It was exactly like Jesus teaching about our responsibility to the widow and orphan and than being an example of what he meant.  That was bad enough, but when he challenged the policies of the Jewish Leaders he had gone too far.  When we fight for the forgotten we can depend on opposition, but when we challenge the social, economic, religious or political structures you can easily see how death may be in your future.  So instead of putting ourselves in this precarious situation we put our heroes on a pedestal and dilute their message.  More importantly we separate ourselves from them because they are also encouraging each of us to join them in transforming not only the world around us, but also transforming ourselves.  No wonder we run and hide when these leaders say, “Greater things than I have done you shall do!”

Let’s look further at why it is so important for us to enter into a one to one relationship with our heroes.  There is a reason why we look up to these persons and I believe it goes beyond what they did.  It speaks to how they connect to what is within us.  I think we have a part of Dr. King within us because we have as part of God within us.  Servants of God, by whatever Name you call God, are connected to an ongoing identification with the poor and oppressed in the world.  This is true because God is already within them.  When we are one with God we are also one with all of Creation.  If one hurts we all hurt, if one is forgotten all are forgotten, if one is an enemy we are all enemies and on and on.  Carl Jung said that there were archatypes in the world.  They are examples of certain characteristics that lie deep within our soul.  A Hero is an example of an archetype.  They are here to right wrongs and free people from the chains placed upon them by the world they live in.  They cannot rest until they live out their personal adventure which includes enabling others to be set free.  We each have within us a place, like King’s Mountaintop, where we can see God’s Vision of Love for all of Creation.  Once we see our vision than we spend the rest of our lives working on making it a reality.  Our heroes come down off the pedestals we have created for them to take us by hand so we can see what they saw.  This is scary business, but there are more and more people joining in the Heroes Journey today.  Transformation is happening often, we just need the eyes to see and the ears to hear what is occurring around us.  It isn’t the great acts that change the world, but all of the little things done by us which God turns into big things.

As I said this is a dangerous business because we will not only see the best in our hero but also his or her humanness.  If Dr. King had some personal weaknesses does that mean he is less of a hero?  Those in power, who are afraid of his message, would like us to think so.  Judge not less you be judged comes to mind.  If we are not at peace with our own pitfalls and failures as human beings we will project that uneasiness onto others.  We become disappointed and disillusioned when we hear our heroes are human.  They are just like us and maybe it is those very human limitations which provide the basis for working for change.  We cannot separate ourselves from whatever is within us, good or bad.  To think we can, however, leads to a life of attacking who we are which stops us from using our weakness to show God’s Strength.  So often God uses the least of these because they are the ones who know they can’t do it on their own.  They need a grater power and God says, “Here I Am.”  The added benefit is when others find out we  not perfect they can’t defeat us by telling us they know who we are.  We can’t be blackmailed by our imperfection.  I’ll bet this is what made Dr. King strong, as well as the other heroes who went before him.

If you are still with me now it is time to see the greatest gift our leaders can give us.  They open the door to discovering ever more fully who we are.  Certain people touch us more than others because we have similar characteristics and desires.  If you have a deep passion for righting wrongs.  Maybe you had a great injustice done to you a long time ago and whenever you see a similar injustice you are moved to action.  Another possibility might be your compassion for other’s hardships in life.  In each of those situations Dr. King would be someone you could identify with in rectifying wrongs or injustices.  I could go on, but your discovery of yoursimilar gifts rests with you and your inner searching.  By identifying who we are we are freed to act upon our God given gifts and talents.  We can join in the Great Drum Major’s March for Unconditional Love and Freedom for all.  It actually isn’t so scary to invite our heroes off of the pedestals we have placed them on.  We may do the very same thing for ourselves.

Peace

Are we there yet

   The cry of our culture

What if we changed the line to

   I am so glad we are not there yet

Why would we do that

   Because waiting is a wonderful experience

It is filled with surprises of awareness

   We can look before we leap

   Haste often makes waste

   The turtle can beat the hare

   The victory is won by those who wait

Why do we have to hurry through life

   Isn’t it short enough

   Couldn’t we be missing precious moments

   Is noticing a sunrise or sunset so wasteful

   Is laziness really harmful

      Maybe true laziness is rushing life

There is a plague about this moment in history

   It is multi tasking

      One isn’t more efficient doing numerous things at one time

Could Mother Nature have the answer

   Animals are not a part of a rat race

   There is a time for all seasons

   The leaf on the tree only falls at the right time

I could go on

   But wait

      It is time to end this poem

Dear Spiritual Companions,

In a few days it is National Forget Your New Year Resolutions Day.  I am so glad I can end that nonsense.  Only kidding because I haven’t done resolutions for years.  I found the experience self defeating.  I would begin the year with a bang doing my new resolution and then with the passing of each day it became harder and harder to do and gave up.  I finally quit and felt like a failure.  After doing this for a number of years I decided to stop my resolution making because it wasn’t working.  I felt a little bad when people asked me how my resolutions were going, but of course that faded over time too.  Someone else must have thought this way too because January 17 is the day we are encouraged to give up the facade of thinking we can keep our resolutions.  Over my lifetime I have reflected quite a bit on whether change does happen and if so how.  When I was doing counseling with individuals or couples I finally stopped because it didn’t seem to be working.  Being a Spiritual Director has shown me that change is possible, but only if we turn our lives over to a Higher Power and work with It to encounter what this life has to offer.

I have discovered that life is basically a habit.  How we live our lives is built upon the various habits we have chosen over the years.  Here is an example – how we respond to other’s negative behavior towards and with us.  I read this recently, “S.T.E.P. – Stop taking everything personally.”  It simply is a mental or emotional habit to take everything that happens to us personally.  The reason it is so difficult to stop this behavior is because we have been doing it for years.  Someone taught us to do this a long time ago and we accepted their advise and so we have been doing it ever since.  The only way to end such reactions to others is to become aware of what we are doing.  In other words it is learning how to become conscious of the habits we are using.  Like our breathing we only become aware of our habits when we stop and pay attention to them.  The next time someone does or doesn’t do something to us stop and pay attention to the thought and emotional process within you.  Stay in the moment and feel what you are feeling.  Next watch where that feeling might be in your body.  Now you have an opportunity to ask yourself whether you need to continue that feeling.  It may take a long time to do your feeling work, because of the pain or hurt you might have, but after awhile you can ask yourself if you want anther’s actions to affect you in such a strong way.  If you don’t then you have an opportunity to let that feeling go and even change your relationship from your perspective.  You can use the same process with where you carry your feelings in your body.  Once you encounter where it is, you can breath God’s Healing Light around the affected area which will help you to let go of your bodily feelings.  Like your emotional feelings this might take a long time because of the build up over the years.

One of the reasons I believe resolutions aren’t successful is because of the hard work alluded to in the previous paragraph.  no wonder it sometimes takes so long to change.  I don’t mean to be pessimistic about this process, but there are areas in my life I have been working on for most of my life and I am not finished.  In our world we are taught that we are supposed to complete a task and then we can move onto the next one.  From a spiritual perspective the next step might be letting go a little more fully of harmful behaviors, but not completely.  In fact, I believe we are not intended to be totally free of certain habits.   They are our lifetime teachers and so we need them to help us grow.  The completion only comes with the end of this physical existence.  When we  return to the spiritual realm we are then able to reflect on the learnings from this physical lifetime.  We thus become more open to who we are in God and ready to move on into whatever is next.  Life is a school and when we graduate, instead of a diploma, we receive a much greater gift – Awareness.  Instead of attaining something we are free to let go of something.  Instead of calling attention to ourselves we call attention to the Higher Power working through us.  Instead of listening to our ego we listen to the still small voice within.  Instead of making resolutions we resolve to do just the opposite where we don’t have to live out our expectations for change.

The bottom line for me is found in showing up every day.  By doing that we become aware of what a gift a day is.  No wonder God said to Job, “Did you ever command a day to dawn?”  The point of that line is not to reveal an angry or frustrated God, but rather a God encouraging us to appreciate every day, every hour, every moment we are alive.  The end of the story for Job is his life being restored and in abundance.  Job had struggled with not taking everything personally, including his part in life, and discovering sometimes life is a challenge.  Now he was ready to hear God’s Words and to appreciate what he had supposedly thought was good or bad!  When we accept life on its terms – it is what it is, then we can let it be and learn from it.  Nothing that happens in this life is meant to hurt us in any long term way.  It doesn’t mean it might not hurt for a bit, but not forever.  By showing up everyday, no matter what happens, we will be much more open to the Mystery of God’s Unconditional Love for us and everyone else.

I am really glad I can let go of any of my resolutions so I can be free to meet life as it is.  How about you?  We don’t even have to wait until January 17, we can do it now.

When is a decision right

   When we think it is

When is a decision wrong

   When we think it is

So how do we know what is right or wrong for us

   We don’t

      If we are looking for perfection

One of life’s great temptations

   Perfection

If we could only attain this state than

   Anxiety would fade

   Fear would subside

   Expectations would be met

   Others couldn’t find fault with us

   We would be free of personal critism

   We would have arrived

Wrong wrong wrong

   It only happens when this physical reality ends

      For then our eyes are opened spiritually

Then we can see what God sees

   Perfection

We are already there

   We just don’t know it

   We just don’t see it

      Except for those mystical moments

The curtain is now parted

   We catch a glimpse of someone perfect

      Our Self in God

Dear Spiritual Companions,

I love the New Year.  It seems the old is gone and now I can be filled with new possibilities.  This is especially true this year.  I am settling into a God like retirement.  To me this means retirement is not about my ego, but rather it is about God.  I have found life much easier when I listen to my spirit and than actually trust that still small voice within.  To be still is to STOP!  We are constantly listening to a world that knows very little about stillness.  It is very familiar with drama, busyness and supporting the importance of calling attention to itself.  Much like our ego the world’s ego simply does not exist without those three things.  To be still though is to let go.  To not be wrapped up in our ego or the drama of life.  There is only one God and It isn’t found in our short lifetime.  God partially reveals God’s Self in our human lives, but God is so much more than our physical reality.  We are not  our body, but rather are spirit.

So what have I discovered in this spirit of mine?  First and foremost I will always be.  This is totally contrary to the human experience.  In the spiritual reality there are no beginnings and there are no endings.  The past, future and present are one.  If we dare to believe this all those little and big fears found in our human experience lose their power.  We no longer have to fear death if we will always be.  Every World Religion has an End of the World Story.  It always ends the same – God by whatever Name you call this Higher Being, is in charge and lives on.  The point of these mystical and mythic tales are to assure us our spirit will always be.  Death is the last Enemy to be defeated because it is the enemy of our human existence.  Once we overcome this than we can rest comfortably in God’s Everlasting Arms of Love.  They are Everlasting because they go on forever.  The question, as we enter this new year, now becomes “Does this change anything for us?”

So much of what happens to us is not dependent upon what is going on outside of us, but rather inside.  This is the second thing I have learned from my spirit.  How I see my world depends on how much I am in touch with God.  When I let the outer world, rather than God, dictate what it thinks reality is I become confused.  Let me share an example.  I like to read the business section in the daily paper.  I chuckle sometimes when I read how the economy is falling apart in one article while another article says things are becoming better.  Depending who you read or talk to or watch on the news can control our inner well being.  We give the power away for our lives when we let someone else’s opinion or some outer action determine our inner state.  Our thoughts and feelings begin and end with our outlook.  I read an article recently about the problems facing us with today’s environment and global warming.  The author was stating we need to change our lifestyle if we are to save our planet.  To accomplish this goal the question becomes, “Which works better in encouraging people to act – Fear or Optimism?”  Do we need a catastrophe or the fear of one to change, or will encouragement and believing in people doing the right thing carry the day?  On my pessimistic days I know we need the environment to fall apart before anything will happen.  When I am optimistic I see more and more people getting on board with treating our planet as something to treasure and appreciate.  This I hope will create the necessary actions to save Mother Earth.

How this life appears and how what happens after we die begins and ends with me.  God believes in us so God gives us the power to choose our response to our life and death.  This does not mean everything will run smoothly – God forbid!  We are tempted to try and control or think we can control our world.  This is the worst thing that could happen because we are than trapped in this short lifetime.  As stated earlier there is so much more spiritually.  I hope to write a book this year entitled “Disaster as Gift.”  It is based upon the Katrina event for New Orleans in 2005.  Enough time has gone by for me to process my spiritual reflections on the gift of that hurricane.  We have a long way to go in putting our city back together.  Problems continue to exist, but concentration simply on fixing those issues takes us away from God’s many gifts.  The same is true for the hurricanes in your life.  God is present in ways not seen – the spiritual reality.  When we are free to live in that place we can trust in a God who would never let anything ultimately defeat us.  If we live in the outer world it just seems like it is utterly defeating us.

This is my question for this New Year – “Which makes more spiritual sense – What seems like reality to us in our outer world or what is reality in our inner being?”

Peace

Christmas

   Simply stunning

      Surprise surprise

It turns our upside down world right side up

   The weak are the strong

      While the strong are the weak

   The famous are the unknown

      While the unknown are famous

   Silence is God’s language

      While endless words are human babble

   Doing nothing is the ultimate doing

      While endless business is doing nothing

   A little child shall lead them

      While self proclaimed adult leaders shall mislead them

   Innocence is true sophistication

      While sophistication shows the emperor has no clothes

   The forgotten in the world are the remembered

      While the remembered in the world are forgotten

   The least among us become the greatest

      While the greatest become the least

God brings a new message at Christmas

   If it is what we expect

   If it is what it has always been

   If the religious proclaim it as truth

   If it excludes anyone

   If it doesn’t startle and shake us

      It isn’t God’s Christmas Message