LET’S BRING BLESSING BACK

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I often sign my correspondence, “Blessings to you and yours” or “Blessings on your day, your week, etc.”  Yet I am not unaware of the fact that blessing someone or wishing them blessed is a tricky business. The word, like so much vocabulary that points to a larger spiritual reality can oftentimes feel put on, false, or holier than thou. Words that are commonly used in the religious realm oftentimes evoke the opposite reaction than is intended. Many people have suffered in a variety of ways from their childhood faith and the decrees of a religion that contradicts their heart.   

So let us bring back blessing to its rightful root.  In Latin, to bless is benedicere. This means literally to speak (dicere) well (bene) or to say good things.  The benediction often said at the end of Christian and Unitarian services is to send those blessings, those good words out into the world.

I know that I want people in my life to speak well of me, and I’m pretty sure you do too.  This notion is not be confused with the ego’s need to self-aggrandize, to be flattered and then puffed up.  No, it’s something quite different.  Blessing is more than pointing out someone’s talents or good deeds. It is affirming the very being of another. 

It is, as Henri Nouwen points out in his book Life of the Beloved, “Without affirmation, it is hard to live well.  To give someone a blessing is the most significant affirmation we can offer.  It is more than a word of praise or appreciation; it is (even) more than putting someone in the light.  To give a blessing is to affirm, to say “yes” to a person’s Belovedness.  And more than that: to give a blessing creates the reality of which it speaks”.   

In our daily lives, the judging mind is very active.  Without our awareness, we may say to ourselves, “I like this person; I don’t like that person, what he did was wrong, what she said was right.” This goes on and on.  There is a lot of mutual admiration in this world, just as there is a lot of mutual condemnation.  Nouwen continues, “A blessing goes beyond the distinction between admiration or condemnation, between virtue or vices, between good deeds or evil deeds.  A blessing touches the original goodness of the other and calls forth his of her Belovedness“.  

Whenever I send my three children a blessing, it is not a wish or a prayer that they get whatever they want in life.  It is that I hold and affirm their very being, how cherished they are to me. Whether they get into too many fender benders, whether they ‘succeed’ in all the ways the world applauds or not, whether their choices at any given moment are less than stellar, I want to remind them again and again, “When you go into the world, know that YOU matter, that you are Beloved by God, and I am so glad that you are here.  I hope that you can hear these words as spoken to you with all the tenderness and force that my love can hold.” 

These blessings work with everyone whose life you will touch today, including your own.  Blessings on your day, Nun Tuck.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY NUN TUCK (A LENTEN JOURNEY)

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It’s been a year this week since I began this little exercise called “Nun Tuck’s Almanac.”  I can’t believe it, it started off fast and furious with posts almost everyday and gratefully, much traffic.  Then life did it’s little John Lennon thing, you know the “Life happens while you are out busy making other plans” thing as it is wont to do, and so this little venture has been gradually being whisked out to the fringe of my daily activities.   

But whenever I am away for a week or a wee bit more, I miss this kind of spiritual writing and more importantly, thinking about the essence of who we all are, attempting to draw out with the use of language, feelings and understandings  that we all share deep down where the heart resides.  In addition, it continues to be my pleasure to share what little I know about world religions. Islam seems to be the one most people want to learn about and there is no surprise there, world events rapidly unfolding as they are.       

Birthdays and anniversaries of various kinds are great milestones for us to take stock.  And we Christians (Unitarian ones included!) are in the first steps of our annual Lenten journey; another invitation for us to engage in more self-reflection and to employ discipline, not as a punishment, but rather as a tool that chips away at the excesses, compulsions, and indulgences that lead us away from our truest selves. 

Thomas Merton, a well-known modern mystic and Trappist monk, spoke these words which have been resonating or more aptly, percolating with me for a  time now: “To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns, to surrender to too many demands, to commit oneself to too many projects, to want to help everyone in everything is to succumb to violence.  The frenzy of the activist neutralizes his or her work for peace.”

OK, wow and ouch.  No one has categorically summed me up so succinctly before…you can just put a ribbon on it and there you go.  The three words in particular that shout out in neon to all those with an addiction to doing  to PAUSE or HALT or STOP are “FRENZY” and “VIOLENCE” AND “NEUTRALIZES”.  

As Mark Nepo in “The Book of Awakening” writes, “Merton wisely challenges us not just to slow down, but, at the heart of it, to accept our limitations.  We are at best filled with the divine, but have only two hands and one heart.  In a deep and subtle way, the want to do it all is a want to be it all, and though it comes from a desire to do good, it often becomes frenzied because our egos seize our goodness as a way to be revered.” 

So when I ask myself what is at the root from my seemingly inability to say no to another great cause, event, another tug on my time and resources (even while the endeavor may be a great one), it is the sneaky ego. People who have difficulty saying no, often say that it is because they don’t want to let anybody down.  So then I ask question, why don’t I want to let anybody down? Is it because  I don’t want anyone to think I am less than this wonderfully compassionate human? 

Being compassionate enough is (in cases of the activist) probably more than enough.  Saying no to one more thing is self-compassion and self-care, which allows one to walk in the world PRESENT to it.         

Pray daily for all the worthy causes out there that you would like to grow and flourish in their goodness, but devote your time to the one or two that speak most closely to your soul…for today.  The old adage to ‘do one thing and do it well’ applies here.  Wherever I cannot bring my entire being, I am not there.      

What a remarkable gift I have received on this birthday edition of Nun Tuck, to take a day to reflect on my pursuit of the good, to choose to pour my energy into the redemption of my own heart, and then I can perhaps help the rest of the world a little more effectively, and that is to say, more peacefully.

Blessed be.

STOP RUNNING

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For many years I had been obsessed with running…a little too obsessed is what friends and family members had hinted over the years.  I ran in any weather, like the postman, through rain, sleet, and winter’s snow.  I was out there.

Partly it was simply a well ingrained habit, like teeth brushing. And on those days when I was exhausted and blown out, pushing myself to “just do it”, I often returned with a renewed sense of energy…a clearer energy.

Lastly, lacing up those Asics and taking to the streets was a ritual akin to meditation for me.  The rhythm of my breath and the sound of my sneakers hitting the pavement always took any remaining frenetic energy down a notch.  Mindful running- a time to think and to not think…both realities of meditative practice.  Sometimes, I spent the first two miles or so simply repeating to myself, “one, two, one, two.”  Often, returning to work feeling calm with the added occasional bonus of gleaning some insight on a problem that has been bedeviling me for a while.

That all sounds good, right?  This is all reasonable and healthy…right? (bad knees notwithstanding).

But there was a fly in the ointment that only the sweetest, daffiest little lady that used to walk her dog as I ran could see.  Smiling wisely as I run past, shouting, “Good morning, can’t talk now, gotta run” and her kindly reply, “What are you running from today?”

What are you running from today?  Good question.  There was often a sense of urgency that I had felt for much of my life. Perhaps you too have experienced this at times, or more times than you can count?

What a shock when this urgency is unmasked as a terrible illusion.  When feelings or situations APPEAR too hard to face, when being in our body is more than a little uncomfortable, this is when we need to stop running. The only thing that will allow for transformation is letting all of it…all those monsters real and imagined… just BE.  To sit still, to allow painful emotions, whatever is there to wash over us like waves, while we sit like the mountain, like a Redwood, like the Buddha.  This is where peace resides.

Mark Nepo, in The Book of Awakening, speaks to our instinctive flight or fight responses, ” The doorway to your next step of growth is always behind the urgency of now.  Now more than ever, when all feels urgent,  you must cut the strings to all events.  Now more than ever, when the weights seemed tied to your wrists, you must not run or flail.  Now more than ever, when each decision feels like the end, you must believe that each question is a beginning.” He continues, “In this way, pray to have your True Self inch through your turmoil.”

I have been taking this advice for a time now. Renewed courage and expanding compassion bubble up from where my True Self resides.

Of course, in accepting my own human frailties, there are moments when I don’t dip that proverbial bucket down deep enough in order to access that well where ease and wisdom exist eternally.  Again and again, I need to be reminded to go back to the well, to tap it.  It is a well that never “runs” dry.

I’d like to close with a quote for the day (haven’t done that for a while!):

“All man’s miseries derive from not being able to sit quietly in a room alone.”  – Blaise Pascal

 

BE WITH THOSE WHO HELP YOUR BEING

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I was sent this poem written by the Sufi poet, Rumi, sometime ago and it continues to inspire me on many different levels:

“Be with those who help your being.  Don’t sit with indifferent people; whose breath comes cold out of their mouths.  Not these visible forms, your work is deeper.

A chunk of dirt thrown in the air breaks to pieces.  If you don’t try to fly, and so break yourself apart, you will be broken open by death, when it’s too late for all you could become.

Leaves get yellow.  The tree puts out fresh roots and makes them green.  Why are you so content with a love that turns you yellow?”

This poem has become a daily invitation and a challenge to me,  to bravely face all of my preconceived notions of who I am or who I thought I was and what my purpose is.  It reminds me that in this moment, and then in that one, I have to commit to the truth of the hard work and courage that goes along with being that person who is not content with “a love that turns you yellow.” 

It involves becoming a person ready and receptive to the fearless and  dangerous and REAL love that coaxes, prods, and pushes your being towards the flight God intended for you from your moment of creation.

Let yourself be thrown up in the air like a chunk of dirt breaking into tiny pieces?  Wow, this is a radical letting go of the Self that sounds like Bungee jumping to me.  Intellectually, I know that living without a safety net reaps rewards that the majority of folks will never taste…yet still, there is that  jump…

For much of my life, while I have outwardly appeared bold and brazen, my choices reflected a need for security, a tendency to complacency, and a holding on so tightly…I’m surprised I didn’t instantaneously combust!  Being broken open was not on MY agenda…emphasis on the word my.  

But life broke me open anyway (against my will) and what a ride! When you surrender and allow yourself to be broken open, people serendipitously appear who connect with you on a deeper level and bearing such gifts as love and wisdom and compassion that you wondered where all of these souls had been hiding.  They benefit from your person, your gifts, and your love too.  Nature mirrors this vibrancy of living in the light, of moving towards the light, the way a tree strains and grows towards the sun.

So here I am again in this moment, palms open, with the way of Jesus Christ, the path of the Buddha, the latest bestselling self-help book of Eckhart Tolle; loosening by bits that hard scab of self-will that seems to be resistant to removal, yet ripped off it must be as it blocks true joy.  Expanding my love beyond the border of friends and family, to include those difficult to love, those who have caused great hurt, the stranger, the plants and animals…

There are bright green shoots sprouting in my soul, fragile with promise and vulnerable to much, anticipating and percolating under the fertile food of the spirit.  It is a waiting time, much like the buds in winter.  It can be dark and scary at times, like it is at the roots of all things. Yet actively waiting is anything but indifferent and lucky for me there is still heat coming from my mouth.

EMPATHY IN A WORLD OF SYMPATHY

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Recently, I was asked to say a few words on the topic of “empathy in action” as much of what I do involved listening to people in an open and caring way.  Here is some of what I said, and some of what I didn’t have the time to say, in the time alloted to me:

“When I was asked to speak today, to give “a testimony on empathy”, it was framed at first as perhaps talking about my dual roles here as the communications and membership staffer who also serves as a lay pastoral care minister, and how being a good listener plays into those roles.  I immediately laughed, because you see, I do not consider myself a very good listener.  In my great enthusiasm to connect with you or what you’ve said, I can sometimes miss the nuances.  I hear the content…but in my common state of exuberance and haste, I can miss hearing you, you know the real you, the YOU that really matters behind the words.  As a matter of fact, that I’m standing up here talking on the subject, to me, reveals God’s great sense of humor and irony.

But what I can say, is that I have been trying the last several years, to the best of my ability, to earnestly develop this talent, this talent of active listening, engaging my body and all my sense, to in essence, absorb what you’re experiencing.  This is what empathy means to me and it is really unnatural to my constitution.  Yet is has become a conscious and deliberate spiritual practice because there is really no greater gift to give someone, than your full presence.  Not ever.  Isn’t it hard to not speak or not attempt to smooth things over when something horrible is happening in someone’s life?  It is hard work to simply be with someone else’s pain, not asking them to feel better or saying it’s going to be alright.  Sometimes it’s enough, to just look a person in the eye, and say, “This really sucks.” And then nothing.

But not nothing.  That I am willing to stand with you, sit with you, be uncomfortable, and not judge anything that comes out of your mouth because your feelings are just having their way, that is empathy.

Ever sine I’ve made this commitment, weird things have been happening to me.  I was at the drugstore a while back, looking at birthday cards.  A women, ostensibly also looking for a birthday card for her daughter, started to tell me of how she is trying to decide whether to divorce her husband. She has been with him since she was 15 in Brazil, and he is like a father to her, as well as a husband, as her own father had died when she was seven.  She has been married for 25 years and he has always made her feel special, but he has violated her trust in an unspeakable way with a child family member.  I didn’t know what to with this.  So I just walked over to her and hugged her and she cried.  I said I didn’t have any answers but that I trusted that she would have the courage to find her answer.

To emphasize with someone involves getting involved.  It means that I am you, and you are me.  I say thing because a lot of people confuse sympathy and empathy.  You will never get a sympathy card from me.  You will get a hand written note on blank stationary or one with a poignant quote that resonates somehow, but never one that reads with sympathy.  Sympathy, implies that I can kind of (similarly) understand what you are going though and I feel bad for you.  Empathy means I am attempting to the best of my ability to be in the trenches with you.

Please know that I am not saying that in all situations to simply say wow, this is really awful, I feel your pain, is the appropriate response.  We hear of the devastating earthquake in Haiti, no even a year ago (200,000) dead and we are shocked.  Then they have a tropical storm and there’s more hardship.  Now there is an outbreak of cholera sweeping the country, an epidemic from which they have no immunity.  Having pity does nothing.  Praying for them is a step up, but still does not serve them.  Empathy sometimes needs feet and arms and alms.  It needs to mobilize doctors, nurses, food stuff, and medicine.  It is active listening AND action.

This commitment to radical acceptance listening (which I still stumble at, at any given moment), has given me the blessing to get know some of you and know your stories.  It is a rare gift to share the deepest and sometimes darkest nights of another’s soul.  With empathy, we come to know how strong the spirit is, how incredibly resilient we humans are, even after our losses, how being heard allows us to move through and forward in our lives, touching the lives around us.

YES VIRGINIA, THE UNITARIANS HAVE MYSTICS-TWO TRANSCENDENTALISTS (PART I)

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OK, OK, Unitarians do not have (to my knowledge anyway) ardent pious folk who took the path of asceticism to the degree of wearing a hair shirt or living in a desert cave for decades. For edification’s sake, asceticism is the part of the mystic or saint’s path that includes renouncing worldly pleasures in order to become closer to God.  Those who have taken these extreme measures did seem to have some remarkable “other worldly” spiritual experiences (see Teresa of Avila, Francis of Assisi, Rabi’a of Persia, and lots of others in almost every other faith, including Buddhists and Hindus (Gandhi chose a life of asceticism as well).  So, I am not knocking it.  It just that most people do not feel such a calling. 

In fact, most people are adverse to giving up anything they find pleasurable, even when they know it is bad for them (hence the challenges during Lent…) However, no matter how we may kick and scream, there must be some giving up of comfort, security, and ego, in order to attain any real semblance of Communion (with a capital C).      

The first and most famous of the Unitarian “mystics”, who chose a counter cultural lifestyle of purposeful simplicity that reflected and embodied both an ancient and more modern approach for those seeking unity with God, with Nature, and others, was Henry David Thoreau.  Coming from a family of wealth and privilege, with a Harvard education, Thoreau (much maligned in his day for it…he was considered eccentric by the kindest and a nut by the rest) chose to live in a hut in the woods of Concord, MA for two years to isolate himself from society so that he could better understand himself and others.  His classic book, Walden, or, Life in the Woods, now required reading for most High School students, is a compilation of this experiment.  Unlike the Desert Fathers, he was not intending to live as a hermit, and did take visitors, he was instead seeking to understand life more deeply by consciously removing many of its distractions.          

What Thoreau was emphasizing (among other themes) was the necessity of solitude, contemplation, and nature to “transcend” our over hurried existence.  His words and works still call to us today, timeless in their appeal: “As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will become simpler, solitude will not be solitude…nor weakness weakness.” While many of his oft quoted words ring of the uniquely American self-reliant spirit, they too challenge us to think and be, rather than to be always about the business of doing.  For as Thoreau puts it, “Being is the great explainer.”  

Many of his criticisms of society were harsh and at many times his views are expressed in an overly zealous manner.  Is that not true of the prophets, the social reformers, and those considered holy men and women of every place and time? I am not suggesting by this question that Thoreau was unique or special as a long revered saint, he was a man with his foibles and misinformation.  Yet there is a reason we keep reading him.

Thoreau is not asking us to build ourselves a cabin and live in the forest, he is asking that we shake off our complacency, that we do not live an unquestioned and unreflected life.  If we are happy with our lives, that’s good and yet we should challenge our assumptions and think more broadly.  If we are unhappy, he is pointing to another way.

“If a man (or woman :)) does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer.  Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.”

THE TORCH OF REASON AND THE FIRST AMENDMENT

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On the eve of the elections and the “increasing heat and decreasing light” of free expression, I think it apropos to remember that in the end it is the torch of reason that should determine how far our first amendment (the right to free speech) is allowed to go.

In the Oct. 4th issue of the Christian Science Monitor, the article “Free Speech, How Free Should it Be?” covered this very topic.  Using many recent examples, among them the US Supreme Court case now underway examining whether members of the Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka, Kansas, went too far when they staged a protest at a fallen marine’s funeral in Maryland.  The demonstrators hoisted signs proclaiming: “You are going to hell” and “Thank God for Dead Soldiers”.  Fred Phelps, pastor of the Westboro church, has made a career out of using blunt and offensive statements to try to shock Americans into joining his crusade against gay rights.  His followers show up at military funerals and announce that God is killing American soldiers for the sins of the country.  Funeral goers are urged to repent…or else.

In Maryland, it was too much for the grieving father, Albert Snyder, to endure.  He sued. The case pits Mr. Snyder’s First Amendment right to peacefully assemble in a church to mourn his son’s passing against the Westboro protesters’ right to chant  harsh slogans and display shocking signs in their campaign for so-called moral salvation for the nation.

The Monitor adds: “The essence of free speech in America is not that you can say whatever you want.  There is no constitutional right to libel someone, or to use ‘fighting words’ that are sure to provoke fisitcuffs…there is no constitutional right to falsely yell ‘Fire!’ in a crowded theater.  Government regulation of that speech is appropriate because of the predictable outcome of panic.”

Yet we are also a country that can paint a Hitler mustache on the president’s likeness without fear of the government’s wrath (something I personally find utterly deplorable nonetheless), while a poem critical of the King in Jordan can land its writer in jail.

So what is the yardstick?  Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis provided a sage response in a 1927 case: “To courageous, self-reliant men, with confidence in the power of free and fearless reasoning applied through the processes of popular government, no danger flowing from speech can be deemed clear and present unless the incidence of the evil apprehended is so imminent that it may befall before there is opportunity for full discussion.  If there be time to expose through discussion the falsehood and fallacies, to avert the evil by the processes of education, the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence.”

In other words, “It is the principle that the best way to counter a stupid idea, a hateful idea, a dangerous idea, is through the expression of better ideas.” 

Sound advice.  We have been hearing from the rabble rousers, the stirrers of the pot, and the haters for months now.  We must use our first amendment to speak up and out against those who will not let a family bury their dead in peace.  We must vote for those who represent us in the forum of public civil discourse, that will be, well, civil. It is not in yelling back, but in providing thoughtful responses that seek consensus and equanimity that the wonder of our first amendment stands.  If we do not use our first amendment right to counter the “stupid, hateful or dangerous ideas, we have no one to blame but ourselves, and oh yeah, as Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert would say, “the media”!

MIND POLLUTION

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Paranoia, Fear, Prejudice…what are they?  They are very simply, negative EMOTIONAL states.  The rational mind is frozen, led by the nose by the “instinctive run or be eaten” part of our primal brain that our very distant ancestors needed for survival. 

For a moment, for years, or for a lifetime, it can rack the minds of its owner and worst yet, collectively, a whole population (ie., the mob mentality).  The ‘us vs. them’ mindset is the perfect atmosphere for charlatans and ego-centric politicians to whip up supporters, with sound bytes as rallying cries.  I’ve already talked about the tea partiers in another post, so we won’t go there.  But this mind pollution has tentacles.

In Arizona, they’re pulling people over who look Hispanic, just in case they might be illegal immigrants  (which is absolutely nuts as there is an overwhelming population of Hispanic Americans residing in that state).  The same people who are screaming about our taxes are now cheering as we pay law enforcement big bucks to play “Big Brother” to fight against the illegal “aliens”.  And they don’t find this shoveling “you know what” against the tide? Us vs. them will not work.   

Osama Bin Laden must be gleeful.  The politicians and other pundits have gotten us riled about over the Islamic Center in Manhattan.  He planted the seeds of terror and we ourselves are watering them.  He doesn’t even have to tend the horrifically evil garden he planted.

It was our founding fathers’ explicit wish and was thoughtfully constructed in our Constitution, by the likes of Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and Ben Franklin, that our nation would be a place where everyone (Christians, Jews, and Muhammadans (as John Adams refered to them) could have houses of worship and practice as their conscience dictates (never mind community centers).  Us vs. them will not work.

We moderates better be careful.   When we sat by and thought the lunatic temperance movement would pass, we got Prohibition (There would have been no wine for Nun Tuck) . Over the years, paranoia has gotten us McCarthyism, interned Japanese Americans, racism, classicism, sexism and every other ism. 

I’d like to close this frustrated rant with two excerpts from a RATIONAL editorial by John Buchanan in the Christian Century (Sept. 21) :

“In his New York Times column (August 22), Nicholas Kristof wrote about the controversy over the proposal to build an Islamic community center in lower Manhattan: “For much of American history, demagogues have manipulated irrational fears toward people of minority religious beliefs, particularly Catholics and Jews…Today’s crusaders against the Islamic Community Center are promoting a similar paranoid intolerance, and one day we will be ashamed of it.”…”The most tragic dimension of that irrational fear is the way it is exploited by politicians.  I cannot comprehend how otherwise sane and thoughtful people can conclude that an Islamic community center two blocks away from Ground Zero is inappropriate-not to mention dangerous.  It’s not a mosque and it’s not on the site of the World Trade Center twin towers, but even if it were, the right of all Americans to pray and worship how and who and where they choose is one of the most important rights and values of our nation.  It is not negotiable.”    

Who are we REALLY…as a people, as a nation?

WHAT DOES BEING ‘SPIRITUAL NOT RELIGIOUS’ REALLY MEAN?

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On March 19th, my blog post was entitled The Top Ten Religious Words that the Spin Doctors Doctored. Under #6 was the word ‘religion’, I wrote: “I don’t want to beat a dead horse here.  I mean, after all, hasn’t this word been bludgeoned enough.  But, this word, which has come to represent difference and divisiveness, was originally just a verb, religio, meaning ‘bringing together that which is separated.’ So, all I’m gonna say is, huh?”

My intention in this post is not to try to get you to go to church or not go to church, but to think about the implications involved in the personal belief statement of being “spiritual but not religious.”

When I’m at a party, the gym, at a school function…and I hear, “Oh, I’m spiritual not religious”, I always ask what the person means by that.  Usually, the answers are a combination of the following,  “I didn’t agree with a lot of what the xyz church that I grew up in believes”, “I don’t get anything out of going to church”, “Religion is a construct created by the powerful to appease the poor and downtrodden”, “They’re so hypocritical, the church leaders and so many people I know that go to church”, and so on. 

You know what, I agree with a lot of what they tell me.  There has been a lot of “unholy alliances” between individuals, governments, and church bodies.  Much of what they articulate about why they don’t go to church or practice a faith or why they feel disillusioned or skeptical about much of what is essentially dogma (a good working definition of dogma being, “a corpus of doctrines set forth in an authoritative manner by a church”), are all things I can give a hearty Amen to.

So when people say they are not religious, they mean they have chosen not to limit themselves to the reduced definition of religion as a particular church, synagogue, or mosque with its doctrines, its own definitions of sin, salvation, and exclusions.   

When they do express some of their spiritual practices or ways of experiencing the spiritual, there is also much to concur with. My Buddhist friends use a variety of meditations, both alone and in groups.  And while some will agree that using the original meaning of religion, they are indeed religious. While  others, on principle, still detest the idea. They prefer to call it a philosophy of thought. Here, again, semantics do indeed shape and inform our worldview. Whether it be early bad experiences with a “religion” that has scarred or the in-your- face fundamentalists whose fanatical zeal causes one to recoil…the result is the same.    

Some friends are in 12 step programs, recovering alcoholics, drug addicts, and their loved ones. One of the principles of these programs is that they are a spiritual not religious program.  Again, meaning they are asking you to discover for yourself “God as you understand Him or Her” and to turn your life and will over to the care of this “Higher Power”.  However, this is not done alone, but rather with the aid and support of the group.

When I get a vague answer about trying to be a good person, they often add how they don’t need a church to become one (agreed). Most of the people who say this, I know to be good people, caring and true.  So, when I ask them if they could be a bit more specific, they say things like they go weekly with their family to volunteer at a food bank or they are a part of quilting bee that creates blankets for those undergoing cancer treatments.    All of the above examples include a component of community as part of the individual spiritual framework.

“My own kind of prayer” and “being in nature” (responses I often get) are also spiritual experiences and are vital parts of the equation, but are not complete without the balance of others.  I too often find a  centering while walking in the woods, a wonderful “un-lonely” solitude, that feels a communion with God. Yet it also feeds me so that I can help, serve, and nurture others and that I am able to receive the same from them.

In closing, an excerpt from A House for Hope by John Buehrens and Rebecca Parker:  

“Is it really preferable (0r even possible) to be religious alone?  Or, is there an importance to religious community life that need to be claimed anew, while protecting against the liabilities and dangers that community life can pose?  I strongly believe the answer to the first question is no and the answer to the second is yes.  We need life together, and we would be wise to invest in rebuilding the walls of community.  My suspicion is that religious conservatism has grown not because its theology is more inspiring than that of liberal theology, but because conservatives in recent decades have been better at creating and sustaining religious communities that offer people meaningful connection with one another and support in enduring life’s trials and tribulations.”

 So…I am back, congregants of the blogosphere!…new job…yada yada.

SPIRITUAL NOTES TO MYSELF

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Hugh Prather, whom the New York Times has called “an American Kahil Gibran”, wrote a book with the title of today’s blog.  In it, are anecdotes, observations, and  spiritual wisdom that Prather has collected and absorbed for himself in over 30 years as minister, lecturer, and counselor.

You may have notebooks or quotes on your memo board that speak poignantly to your heart.  Or perhaps, they are there in way as a reminder for spiritual or emotional hopes you have…the person you would like to be at your best.

Also, there are literally thousands (probably more like millions) of books on meditation, prayer, affirmation, every religion since the dawn of time, and spirituality…practices, techniques, and thoughts.

I have more than a few of them myself.  I also keep several notebooks full with quotes, ideas, and prayers that inspire, teach, or bring comfort to me.

However, I tack a few up on my cork board beside my writing desk for several months at a time.  After absorbing their wisdom, I rotate in fresh ones . Here’s what’s up there right now:

“I will not die an unlived life.  I will not live in fear of falling or catching fire.  I choose to inhabit my days, to allow my living to open me, to make me less afraid, more accessible, to loosen my heart until it becomes a wing, a torch, a promise.  I choose to risk my significance, to live so that which came to me as seed goes to the next as blossom, and that which came to me as blossom, goes on as fruit.”  – Dawna Markova   

“For things that you believe in, pray like a preacher but fight like the Devil”.

“If we hold resentments toward the people who let us down, we’ll be exhausted.  It’s better to focus on the ones who have been there for us”.

The content of two fortune cookies are pinned up there: “Everybody feels lucky for having you as a friend” AND “We are made to persist.  That’s how we find out who we are”.

“In spite of illness, in spite even of the archenemy sorrow, one can remain alive long past the usual date of disintegration if one is unafraid of change, insatiable in intellectual curiosity, interested in big things, and happy in small ways.”- Edith Wharton

A note that my beloved Dad (who tragically died too young) had written me many years ago:

 “In case you’re depressed today and feeling lonely: You are pretty!  You are smart!  You are vivacious! You have a warm smile!  You have an interesting personality!  You are a little wacky!  Five out of six ain’t bad, Love, Dad xxx” 

These thoughts make me laugh, give me a spiritual shot in the arm, and keep me reaching towards my Higher Self, the one God wants for me.

These are fitting thoughts as my little/big chicks fly the summer coop: one off to another year of college in Rhode Island, one on a year’s adventure, first in Paris and then to Senegal, and the “baby”, 6’1″, driving a car, writing his own music, towering over me, teasing me, “his little mama”.  

In closing, a gem from Mr. Prather: “Our children can see us.  They can’t see God.  Our function is not to describe God’s love or to talk endlessly about it, but to reflect it so that it can be seen.”