Eve's lack of abundance mentality

Earlier this week I received the update from Kabbalah.com and found a really interesting idea that had never occurred to me before. I studied Genesis in seminary and was particularly drawn (still am) to the idea of us being made in God's image and likeness. I focused several projects on that idea and find that I continue to work with it in my own study and my daily life. If we accept ourselves as being truly made in God's image and likeness, what would that look like in our lives? I think if we could get a sense of our true, indestructible, unchangable oneness with God and with each other, everything in our inner lives and outer lives would balance in perfect peace. We face temptations daily--hourly!--to believe we are mere plodding flawed and sinful mortals. In our days, will we look for evidence that we are blessed or cursed? Will we celebrate the good gifts we've received or clamor in fear to try and fill the lack we are tempted to believe is real?

The idea from Kabbalah.com was that Eve's big mistake was in getting caught up in focusing on what she didn't have. I think that's a fascinating idea! Here was Eve, in paradise, walking and talking with God every day, sharing her life with a man who was made for her (literally), and she gets tempted to think that she somehow lacked something she needed. She's vulnerable to the promptings of the snake because a thought had taken hold in her mind that said there was more she needed, could have, had to have in order to be happy.

This Thanksgiving, my wish for us all is that we take our eyes off that one gleaming thing we want so badly--whether it's an apple, a nest egg, a new home, a relationship, or even better health--and look around at the richness of the paradise already here. Do you have love in your life? Is there pleasure in your day? Can you breathe, walk, connect with others--via phone, voice, Internet, or thought? Can you feel God in your day? Wouldn't it be great if we could grab hold of the richness of our blessings this holiday and really, really celebrate them? We truly have unlimited goodness to be thankful for. This year, more than ever before, I pray we will fully receive and give thanks for it, in a way that makes the angels sing with joy!

Wishing you peace and joy--and a loving, light-filled Thanksgiving!

Silence praying

Ah, the last stanza of "How to be a poet" from one of my all-time favorite poets, Wendell Berry. The whole poem is worth reading at least half a dozen times (slowly, leisurely, in time with your breath). Find it today at Writer's Almanac:

Accept what comes from silence.
Make the best you can of it.
Of the little words that come
out of the silence, like prayers
prayed back to the one who prays,
make a poem that does not disturb
the silence from which it came.

Beautiful.

Waiting in faith

Lately it seems I have had many experiences in which I have to step forward in faith and then, trusting, wait for good (God) to show up. I'm sure God's already there (and here), but my eyes need to adjust to the change in light. Maybe that's a core experience for many of us. This poem from Writer's Almanac this morning reminded me of the quiet gleaming reality of love as it exists even now, especially now, as the world around us seems to churn and struggle.

The Patience of Ordinary Things
by Pat Schneider

It is a kind of love, is it not?
How the cup holds the tea,
How the chair stands sturdy and foursquare,
How the floor receives the bottoms of shoes
Or toes. How soles of feet know
Where they're supposed to be.
I've been thinking about the patience
Of ordinary things, how clothes
Wait respectfully in closets
And soap dries quietly in the dish,
And towels drink the wet
From the skin of the back.
And the lovely repetition of stairs.
And what is more generous than a window?

"The Patience of Ordinary Things" by Pat Schneider from Another River: New and Selected Poems. © Amherst Writers and Artists Press, 2005.

A Prayer for the Care of Animals

Dear God, precious creator of all beings loved, lovely, and loving, we ask your tender care, support, protection, and healing for all the animals who are our companions and helpers; our protectors and angels; our friends and family. Please bless all those who care for these blessed ones and help us all, together and individually, to express the compassion, tenderness, dignity, and oneness of all creation. Thank you for shaping thought and opening hearts and eyes to the need for care for all animals. May we all continue to awaken into a sacred reverence for life and relationship in all its beautiful, varied, and amazing forms. In thanks and wonder, seeking peace for all, we pray. Amen.

News stories inspiring this prayer:

• From CNN [10-21-08]: “A $15 million veterinary hospital for four-legged military personnel opened Tuesday at Lackland Air Force Base, offering a long overdue facility that gives advanced medical treatment for combat-wounded dogs. Dogs working for all branches of the military and the Transportation Safety Administration are trained at the base to find explosive devices, drugs and land mines. Some 2,500 dogs are working with military units.”
  
  
• From the Christian Science Monitor [10-17-08]: “America's horse-racing industry is trying to clean up its image with a new high-profile overseer and promises of voluntary certification for tracks that meet tough standards…Reform of the tradition-bound $40 billion industry will be a daunting task. The sport is trying to change behaviors of owners, breeders, trainers, jockeys, and track operators across 38 different state racing jurisdictions.”

Elliott's Elegy

Purring lapmate,
paws spreading, pushing,
curling claws against my chin
(gently, lightly drawing caution,
like goosebumps,
to the surface)
curling like a baby
snuggled on your back.
What or who will take your place?
The siamese yowl,
a surprising voice,
chattering in conversation.
Who will ever sound the same?
The paws beneath the door
when we were separated,
however briefly,
by the artifice of the material world;
they now remind me
how blessed I am and was,
and am,
how blessed were you,
and are you now,
to have shared time and space in love
with no boundaries of species,
doors, language, or claws,
to ever separate us.

Problems Aren't Curses

This morning, driving back from the emergency vet where I just signed a $1,000 estimate for Elliott's possble immediate care expenses, I asked God to help me see this overwhelming and scary situation in the right light. In the midst of a world pitching and swaying in financial crisis, I am working for a nonprofit organization and trying to weather in my own small business the belt tightening many of my clients have undergone. I don't know what else to do but pray, love, work with integrity, and do my best to honor my commitments. And my commitments are promises of love--promises to care tenderly for all life, promises to honor my word, promises to do my best to be honest with myself and engaged with my world, trusting God and others and myself to bring forth, sooner or later, the harmony that is the ground of all being.

As I prayed for calm and light, it occurred to me that problems, when they open up in our lives like huge potholes, do not mean we aren't blessed. It's a very human thing--the mark of a rational mind--to look for cause and effect, to wonder why something is happening, and to investigate the how so that we can perhaps make ourselves safer in the future and avoid it happening again. On one level this is practical and understandable. On another level, it can be self-negating and dangerous. If I interpret problems as signs that I have done something wrong, that I have fallen from God's favor, that I've had too many blessings and now have to take some bad stuff on the chin, what does that say about my thoughts of God? Is God love or not? Is God all-powerful, all-capable, all-present, or not? Does God send us challenges and problems and scary situations to test our mettle, to "teach us a lesson," or to otherwise stir up our lives so we have to turn to God more fully?

This is not the God I know--it may be a fearful mask lurking in my own subconscious that I sometimes attribute to "fate" or "chance" or "misfortune," but it is not God. It is not the face of a loving God that constricts Elliott's heart or causes him to labor for breath. It is not the face of a loving God that causes circumstances that threaten my family's financial security. It is not the face of a loving God that brings unhappy events, scary situations, or wounds that take years to heal.

Where they come from or why they come I do not know. But both from my time as a chaplain and from my own experience of tragedy in my own life, I do know this: God is present in the midst of any circumstance in our lives. God is accessible, reachable, now. When Jesus and the disciples encountered the blind man and they asked, "Who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?" Jesus took the question out of the realm of cause and effect, moving it completely away from the why and the how, and put it fully in the square of the what: Now the glory of God can be known.

So Elliott's heart began to fail this morning--my sweet, tender, loving Elliott who still curls up purring beside me in the chair at night (he's the kitty in my profile photo)--and God is with us both. Good people at two vets helped; timing worked so we could get him in; I noticed early signs; and now he's stable and resting quietly, getting great care and under observation all day. There's a lot of Providence at work in that situation. I trust God to handle the finances too. In this moment, I don't know how it will all work out, but I do know there's a harmony at work here somewhere. God's glory will show up.

In chaplaincy training, I learned that "crisis" means literally, "danger" plus "opportunity." Our problems--financial, health, relationship, work, emotional--can be scary and panic-inducing, taking us to the edge of our resources and leaving us wondering how to cope. But rather than interpreting problems as signs that we've done something wrong or have fallen from God's favor, we can hold the space for faith and watch carefully for God to show up. God will, because that's God's nature--to never leave us comfortless.

Peace to you, to Elliott, and to me, and may we individually and collectively feel the presence of God today in very real and transforming ways.

You Are Dear to Me

Looking for a simple, compassionate exercise you can do right at your desk this afternoon? Try this:

Each time you begin an e-mail to someone today, when you type "Dear Rob" (sub your own person's name there), stop a minute and think of that person's face and then say in your heart, "dear Rob..." as God might say it.

We are each and all precious to God and at the center of God's affections, right this very moment. Expressing the dearness of the person you're writing to, whether you're ordering light bulbs, editing an article, or writing to complain about something, puts you in tune with God and part of the shine of love radiating from a benevolent universe.

Try it and see how it instantly softens the energy in your office, dear reader. :)

Morning Prayer

O God, our God, my God

With a grateful heart, I dedicate this day to You.
May all moments be ours together to create and bless,
may love radiate naturally from all events and circumstances,
may your peace be at the simple center of all that occurs.

May all my thoughts arise gently from a knowing of true and eternal love and safety in You.

And may the thoughts, words, and actions of my own life this day contribute to the happiness and freedom of all.

Amen.

Awareness: An Owner's Manual

I just created a new book called Awareness: An Owner's Manual that offers ideas and meditations on our personal awareness--one of the greatest gifts we have for increasing peace, harmony, and compassion in our lives and our world. Along with the flow of the text, I've included the voices of some of my favorite teachers (Rumi, Thomas Merton, Fred Rogers, Thich Nhat Hahn, Deepak Chopra, Pema Chodron, Douglas Steere, and more). It's available in print format or electronic download. Click here for a preview, and if you take a look, post a comment and let me know what you think! :)

Light, Shadow, and Reflection

The light bulb by the back door burned out yesterday, and when I took the dogs outside early this morning, while it was still dark, only the light on the back of the house illumined the backyard stretching to the woods. I stood with them in lighted area, looking up beyond the spotlight to Orion's Belt, listening to crickets. Gorgeous.

As we walked back to the house, we left the illumined area and stepped into the dark. I was very aware of that moment, leaving the light and entered the dark area. But then something unexpected happened; my eyes instantly adjusted and I saw a different light--the moon--lighting our way from behind. I saw clearly our shadows as we walked to the back door. I was amazed to find that it wasn't dark at all.

Now I'm sitting at my desk at work, and all is quiet (most people aren't in yet). I noticed as I turned into our parking lot that the sun was just beginning to come up. The windows of my office face east, but my desk faces west, and I thought how nice it would be to be able to really see the beautiful pink-and-orange sunrise. But right here, across the room from me, I see the sunrise reflected on the wall. Orange light frames the shape of the trees just outside my window. It's almost the same experience as seeing my own shadow by moonglow. Beautiful.

How wonderfully kind and loving is it of our God to always provide the light we need in every circumstance. Even when things seem dark; even when we think we might be missing out; even when we don't know where the light might come from or think we've lost it entirely, God's Light is shining on and for and in us, illumining the way, give us continual beauty, peace, and joy.

Prayer for Financial Stability

“Cast all your care upon Him; for He cares for you…” —1 Peter 5:7


The waves are rolling today, Lord, threatening to overturn our small boat. Storms are making landfall; financial markets are pitching and swaying. Those we have turned to for security and balance look like they are going under the waves. What can we do? To whom will we turn? You alone hold all creation, all thought, all truth in your hands. You are governing your entire creation perfectly, flawlessly, continually, in this very moment. Help us to see the balance and stability. Help us to hold to our knowledge of you as All Good, caring for us tenderly, as a mother cares for a child. Give us the strength of mind, the presence of soul, the calm of spirit, to turn to you in all things. And when we are too weak to turn on our own or too scared to open our eyes, help us to feel you here, God, with your arm around our shoulders and your Love lighting the path ahead.


Just for today, let’s take a deep breath, even as the world pitches and sways around us. With each inward breath, we can affirm that God is Good. With each exhale, we can release our fear for the future, unhelpful images of lack, and worries about security and health. As we exhale, we can set those ideas free to be dissolved in God’s goodness and care. God truly gives us what we need. As we breathe in the goodness of God, new light and reassurance will come to us. We know it’s true because God loves us with a perfect Love. Try it and see.



PS. Here’s an article I found helpful on this topic: Finding solid ground in a stormy economy [by Ned Odegaard, on Spirituality.com]

A Simple Prayer

I read somewhere that our bodies are made new every seven years--our cells, muscles, and tissues have all regenerated themselves and been replaced in the preceding seven years. This means that physically we have all progressed, grown, and been made new since this heartbreaking and tragic day seven years ago. Old things have passed away, and new life has come to pass. Brokenness has begun to reveal new growth. Desolation and destruction have been seed--what have they produced in our lives, in our world?

I'm not sure how we can ever really heal from September 11, 2001, in the way we can never truly heal--as in return to the way things were before--the loss of a loved one, the shift of a life, the death of a dream. Today, sitting here at my desk, I feel such deep sadness for the families whose lives were changed forever on this day seven years ago. I still mourn for our country--for the loss of the perception of safety and the acts of anger and aggression that were borne of our pain. We move forward, limping and leaning on each other, unsure of what lies ahead and unable to make sense of what lies behind.

I do not know in any human way how we can heal from the pain caused by acts of desperation, but I do trust that God sees, loves, and holds all our thoughts, acts, experiences--our whole world--in a sense of harmony, peace, and goodness. Sometimes my limited view and understanding, and my struggle with the pain, make it hard to see goodness where such anguish still exists, but I know God has a truer view, the only real Big Picture, and that in God's time and in God's perfect way, comfort comes, healing spreads, new growth arises.

It's been seven years. Scientists say we are new in body. May God give us fresh eyes to see, know, feel, and live fully from a sense of newness in soul.

Peace and comfort today, wherever you find yourself, knowing you are safe in God's care.

Growing in tune with the seasons

Today I'm in a preparing-for-fall mood, feeling the coolness of the air, noticing the slight changing of the colors of the trees. Internally, there's a sense of nesting, which I particularly love. Each year September is an important month for me, a time of new beginnings and a celebration of all the inner growth from the previous year. I was thinking about arriving in September again, along with this idea of living in tune with the seasons, and I noticed that, for me, each month has a kind of correlation to the inner spiritual growth and learning that's happening for me through the year. I guess I am in tune with the seasons, more than I knew! Here's a kind of playful calendar for inner work that connects to the seasons of nature (at least in the part of the world where I live):

September: Decide where in your inner and outer life you want to learn and grow next.
October: Harvest the learning and growth you’ve done over the summer.
November: Share your bounty with others and say thanks.
December: Celebrate hope, vision, love, healing, new light, growing consciousness.
January: Start fresh in a relationship, a project, or your understanding of yourself and relation to God.
February: Practice unconditional love toward all beings—whether they are hibernating or not. :)
March: Love the winds of change and open to all possibilities. Life is bringing you good things.
April: Let the seeds of hope, vision, growth, and consciousness be planted (and don’t be afraid to shed a few tears; they enrich the soil).
May: Witness, participate in, and celebrate the euphoric, exploding abundance of your early growth!
June: Tend your growing lovingly, feeding and watering (and appreciating) as needed.
July: Intentionally weed out the thoughts, opinions, and actions that can hold back or delay your growing.
August: Notice how far you’ve come! The season is almost complete. Continue to nourish your growth by caring for it with water, food, shade, and love. Begin thinking of ways to celebrate it at harvest.

How is your life in tune with the seasons? I'd love to hear, if you want to post a comment and share your thoughts.

Namaste, friends. :)

God's Happy Love

Catherine of Sienna said it all this morning in this quote from her Letters:

If you live every day with respect for others, God's happy love will be your best friend.

Wonderful! Blessings on your day, :) k

Buddhist Proverbs

I got Pema Chodron's Getting Unstuck audiobook from the library yesterday and today after I dropped Cameron off at school I listened to the first part of the first CD. She has such a lovely voice, lyrical and gentle with humor and space. Her words and thoughts and teachings are grounded in such a moving sense of self-awareness and self-acceptance; I found myself wanting to listen just for that loving blessing of the sound of gracious openness, a type of beautiful music.

Visiting her site led me on to other Buddhist teachings, and I found her referenced on this site, along with a huge list of Buddhist proverbs written in the 12th century. The site displays how each of several teachers of Buddhist thought phrase the various proverbs. This captured my imagination and I decided that for my own learning I would create a PowerPoint presentation of the various proverbs, to cycle through on my laptop as a screensaver. What a great way to fit awareness and spiritual practice in with my work! :)

So, just in case you're interested in the same thing, here a link to the simple presentation. Be forewarned--it's long; I think there are close to 70 slides. But don't work too hard at taking it all in; just let it wash over you, like cool mist on a mountain walk. :)

Buddhist proverbs
PowerPoint 1997-2003 version

Note: For some reason the file isn't running automatically as a PowerPoint show, so if the PowerPoint file opens on your computer, just press F5 to start the slide show.

So True

Well, I have to admit this quote of Thomas Merton's is a little deflating for people like me who try to put words--emotions, images, something--on the tiny transformative spark that occurs when faith, heart, and consciousness come together:

No writing on the solitary meditative dimensions of life can say anything that has not already been said better by the wind in the pine trees.

Thomas Merton. Honorable Reader. Robert E. Daggy, editor. New York: The Crossroad Publishing Company, 1991: 91

Today I have the windows open in the sunroom (it was only 59 degrees this morning when I woke up! Wonderful!) and I'm sitting here listening to the wind in the forest as I write. The trees, the locusts, and the voices of children on the school playground a quarter of a mile away all mix together to make the most delightful music proclaiming the goodness of God, the wonder of life, and the real and inexhaustible hope that keeps us loving each other and envisioning a healed world. What else is there to say? We can only listen, receive, and offer our breathless thanks.


Note: To subscribe to the Merton Institute's Weekly Reflection (which is how I received this Merton quote today), go to https://www.mertoninstitute.org/weekly_reflections.php and click Subscribe Now on the right.

Listening & Guidance

It occurred to me this morning--after an exciting, jam-packed, creative week--that the most profound change and deepening in my spiritual life over the last 10 year has not come about because I did more, understood more, or prayed more. It wasn't the books I read (although those certainly helped), the situations I lived (although at each place I found God right there in the midst of it), or thousands upon thousands of prayers, actions, and thoughts that went streaming to the Loving Presence I know as God. Rather, the big inner shift, the opening, the deepening, the enriching happened when all the outer striving and trying and working and acting ceased, and I began to notice a need for listening more. Just a quiet, open, gentle space, where I listened quietly and in love for whatever God would or wouldn't say to my heart. The listening became the prayer, the act, the communion, the point. It is a refreshment like nothing else, a moment of gathering in beauty in the Garden. I highly recommend it, whether you use something like the Centering Prayer (here's a great site for that) or the Jesus Prayer or the simple and beautiful Quaker method of silent worship. Take even the smallest moment and just breathe with God. There's no refreshment like it, and from that still centered spot in the core of your being, everything else begins to blossom. :)

The Gift of Perfect Peace

The other day Ruby (my 22-month-old granddaughter) was here spending the day with me (which is joy enough) and we had just finished running a bunch of errands. As we turned onto our street, Ruby nodded off to sleep, her arms and legs hanging limp in her car seat, her little head snuggled against the padded cushion. Earlier in the afternoon, we'd spent more than an hour "trying" to go to sleep at naptime (which for Ruby means repeatedly playing the music on her Fisher Price aquarium, singing to herself, and saying "Mama-Dada-Nana" like a mantra). As an active almost-two-year-old, she's fascinated with everything and has lots of good ideas and really doesn't want to give it all up and go to sleep. (I can identify--when I was little, I used to stretch out on my babysitter's bed and sing "These Boots Are Made for Walkin!" at the top of my lungs instead of taking a nap. I guess that dates me, doesn't it?!)

When Ruby slipped off to this peaceful sleep, I knew this was precious time--and a rest she really needed. Come to think of it, maybe I did, too. It was a beautiful day; I parked the car in the garage, rolled down all the windows, left the sunroof open, and enjoyed the breeze, the goldfinches I could see in my rear view mirror, and my sweet, sleeping grandbaby for an entire hour. What did I do? Simply enjoyed the time, loved her, thanked God.

It was the best rest I've had all week! Wonderful. May you find surprising gifts of respite in your day as well.

Singing Thanks

Yesterday I wrote this in a note to a dear friend, and the thought and feeling has stayed with me, so I thought I'd share it here: "In the moments when I feel most awake and present, I get a sense that all creation—-literally all creation—-is singing Thanks! to God. When I am really here without defense, projection, or pretense, I am singing it, too."

Really Sing It today! Countless angels are your backup singers. :)

Living Gratitude

Yesterday afternoon my sons and I spent two hours in the waiting room of a MedCheck while my oldest son found out about chest pains that had begun earlier in the afternoon. Ordinarily this wouldn't be the best place for contemplation--the waiting room was full, my older son was grim and concerned; my younger son was anxious about a school project due today. The fear that usually accompanies an event like this for me wasn't present--I knew from Christopher's voice and color and breathing that all was reasonably well (although I did feel it was important to have his symptoms checked out because my dad had heart problems). After two EKGs and lots of listening, the doctor told Christopher he had strained a muscle in his chest, just above his heart. Nothing a few Ibuprophen and a couple of days' rest can't fix.

While we waited, I read an old book by the Dalai Lama that I found at the library last weekend: Kindness, Clarity, and Insight. The book is a compilation of lectures he gave the U.S. 20 years ago, and they are wonderful, simple, and clear.

In the midst of this experience, the Dalai Lama's voice and thoughts washed soothingly over me. He wrote about compassion, compassion for all beings. This type of compassion is not simple empathy but a kind of love and gratitude that begins within a heightened awareness of our own blessing. He suggests we remember a great kindness someone in our life has done for us--perhaps a parent, a spouse, a sibling, a friend. Then we allow our gratitude for that great kindness to shine brightly within us. Soon we respond to others with that same sense of gratitude, a thank-full approach for the blessing they are bringing into our lives. And from this ever-growing underground stream of gratitude, true compassion pours out naturally--beginning with my thankfulness for you, I want happiness for you and as well as health, freedom, creativity, joy, and love. When I act from compassion, it is because the idea of us as two separate beings has dissolved and I recognize that as you love, I love; as you hurt, I hurt; as you seek peace, I seek peace.

May we flourish in the true compassion that arises from the grateful Heart of all being.