Life is a sacrament

All of life - every single bit of it - is a sacrament, an outward reflection of an inner reality, which is presence.  Reality - authentic REAL reality - is all presence.  It is God's being hood in which we are immersed, in which we "move and have our being."  If we could catch this awareness, like catching the fragrance of a rose as you walk on past it, we would be absolutely awed out of our minds. 

But, we can catch glimpses of this "reality" in our everyday lives.  We all unknowingly participate in this great sacramental life in our actions, thoughts, hopes and dreams.  Some of our actions seem less lovely than others and almost all of us are on a path to deeper awareness or consciousness - which is awareness - of our own personal immersement in life, in the great cosmic God presence.

A few years ago while I was working at a seminary in Western New York, I was chatting with a colleague about issues people have and that mysterious connection between their yet unrecovered childhood traumas and the current traumas in their lives.  I called then those unrecovered childhood traumas interior spiritual shrapnel, the left over shards of metal still inside you from a previous war or conflict.  We are all carrying around shrapnel from the wars we've fought in our lives, in our childhood and from therein.  And, that shrapnel is still like live wire.  It is still magnetic, attracting to us all kinds of life experiences that somewhat mirror the original offense.  That's what I mean by shrapnel. 

We are so much more complex and deep than we can ever realize.  We live - most of us in the western culture - out of our rational minds, that data base we call our brains.  But, that's all it is - a brilliantly wired logic-based computer that retains information and makes connections. Within the heart is our real identity and the portal to the great presence of life, the great divine heartbeat.  It is the heart that is wounded and in which lies that still magnetic shrapnel.  We may dig around in a counselor's office at our memories and intellectually try to sort out our life experiences while the heart's weeping and laughing.  We often become kind of zombie-like in our efforts to sidestep the pain sometimes authenticity requires while actually moving away from where we need healing rather than closer to it.  

I don't think we can remove that buried shrapnel by ourselves.  I think it is an act of Grace that either removes it for us - like the great cosmic heart surgeon God is - or gives us the necessary spiritual gifts to allow us to live with it.  We simply cannot undo the past, but maybe we can live in full awareness and admit and even allow ourselves the honesty that we are all wounded and we are all on the road to healing.  

Everything you do is a magnificent expression of your divine self, radiating outward into the world from the center of your own divine self.  If you sincerely want to heal your life and your hearts, you may want to listen to and look at what is reflected back to you in your life.  As I look at my life, I can see why things may not be as I'd like them and I also can't remove the thorn from my own side.  Only God can do that, but God will and often does that at our invitation.  I think we have to be willing to get close to the pain in our broken hearts in order to invite God into that fire.  This whole process reveals to me this great mystery of who we are - these awesome and incredibly complex, yet beautiful and powerful, creatures.  

I truly believe help is always available if we are willing to call out to God for help and I believe that everything that hurts us today will open the door further to allow God's light to flood our world.  Every broken heart, cracks open the door a bit more.  If we refuse to step into that broken heart, admit it, feel it and experience it, we keep the door shut to God.  If we stay with the pain and the awareness, consciousness will increase and almost axiomatically so will God's presence.



 

Power or Peace

I don't remember when I first realized that the world situation is a mirror of our individual lives.  We are after all, just a great big family. Today, especially, that family is fairly dysfunctional, almost as much as the news that reports on it.  Sadly, attention goes to the biggest noisemaker.  So, what does the bloody situation in the Middle East say about our human family?  What does it say about us also as individuals? I think we are in trouble and need a new story and a new hope.  

But, first, I think there are three components to this out of control scenario. The first, loudest and most obvious, is that the government leaders have complete control over the people.  In fact, they are even willing to kill an entire nation to keep that tight control.  The second loudest and also fairly obvious, are the masses of victims, even children who are too often the ones who suffer the most in a dysfunctional family.  And, then, there's NATO, which represents the savior, those who would help the victims by slaying or eliminating those in control.

Most people wear one of those three faces of control and almost all people wear all of them at some point in their lives.  It's a symbiotic dance in which we all participate.  The only way to stop dancing to to simply stop dancing.  When you think about it, if you know someone who is a "victim" of some circumstance or another, it is clearly because at some point in his life, his personal boundaries were violated and he was taught and reinforced to allow those boundaries to be violated.  And literally volumes could be written to define what are "boundaries."  For some countries, it's literally a geographic boundary, or a cultural boundary, or familial boundary.  For others, it's less obvious.  For others, it may be that another person guilts you into doing something you don't want to do, or convinces (just attempting to "convince" someone is controlling) you to do something you wouldn't normally have thought to do by assuring you that you will be more lovable, desirable, beautiful, employable - something more than what you are already, which clearly says between the lines that the way you are right now isn't good enough, already a great unspoken fear by most of us.  

So, now, just stop and think for a moment. Are you feeling like you're good enough exactly the way you are?  If you are feeling a nagging discomfort level within yourself, is that coming from yourself or is it an internalized learned value that you absorbed (learned) from another?  We have all become puppets of something, someone or some system.  I don't know if we can find our way home, back to our natural homeostasis because we've been so deeply programmed by all the different religions, systems, corporate and government voices that blare their messages to get us - manipulate us - into giving them what they want.  

Both children and parents are controlled respectively.  Some parents are controlled by their children, who are controlled by the market place and the media and a sense of entitlement.  So, parents feel guilty, and work themselves half into the grave to provide for their children.  And there are children who are slaves to their alcoholic or drug addicted parents' whims only to gain a crumb of affection from their parents.  There are also hundreds of millions of workers across this nation whose very livelihoods are at the mercy of their bosses who can fire them "at will" anytime, for almost any reason.  So, on some level, we're all victims, slaves to something outside ourselves that holds either a carrot or a belt.  Yet, as long as we play by the rules of this control game, we are all "enablers," those who would reinforce the abuser's pattern of control by not challenging it.  

In the Middle East, the victims have risen up to challenge - albeit a bit late - their ruthless tyrannical dictators.  They are standing up at the cost of their lives.  They are reacting, again one of the ploys induced by manipulative controllers, and yet they've been victims for so long they don't know any other way.  Who is there to teach them?  A savy savior doesn't teach, rather he reaches in to the powerless victim and pulls him out (rather than teaching him how to help himself) in order to reinforce their own sense of self importance and power and furthering the victim's spiritual poverty. So, even a savior can be victimizing.

Until we all become free on this wheel of abuse - step off it entirely - we will each stay trapped in its web and none of us will be free.  It is like the Matrix.  We are all feeding this insane system, this dysfunctional wheel of misfortune.  As I write this this morning, I am aware of a friend's anguish over choosing between doing what is right for her at the risk of her teenage daughters' judgment and disapproval.  I'm thinking of another friend who has decided to step away from a relationship with her husband who demands she meet his every need and has begun to notice that his behavior has become increasingly abusive and she's worried about her own safety and that of her children. I am also sadly aware that as our economy continues to decline millions of talented, creative, brilliant people may have to give up on their dreams to work low level jobs to feed their children. And, what kind of message does this send to the children? 

I urge us all to take more time for reflection, for really thinking about what holds you, what controls you and who do you hold hostage and who do you attempt to rescue?  When you attempt to rescue someone, often you are attempting to rescue a part of your own self that you didn't even know needed rescuing.  When you attempt to control, it's often because there's a part of yourself out of (self) control.  And, the flip side of that is the victim, who actually may have more control over his own mind and life than the others, yet is unable to defend his boundaries.  As you look at the wheel, turn it, and turn it and turn it, and you see the world spinning out of control on its axis of dysfunction.

The answer?  The answer, for me, is God,  acceptance and surrender.  Surrender doesn't mean you allow yourself to become a victim.  Fighting in reaction means that.  Surrender means that you are giving God the control and inviting God to bring forward a solution.  Surrender with hope and acceptance with a dream mean that you don't give up, but you don't give in either. Rather, you wait patiently on God with full awareness of your place in the circle of life and stay aware of opportunities to grow, heal, gain in strength and speak out.  We all must wake up to what is buried deep within us, listen to it, listen to our feelings - because feelings don't lie - and then have the courage to give up our addictions, stop controlling others in all the many small and less noticeable ways until we enter into peace.  In that peace, we will find our power - not a power to control, but a power not to control. We can't change the world outside ourselves until we change, or rather heal, our own souls.  

I would say that the first step in the peace process is looking at your own life, peering deeply into your own soul, and being honest with yourself.  Too often we control (or allow) ourselves to be controlled in order to win external rewards - like the teenage girl who diets herself to death because the thin girls get the clothes and the boys.  Adults often work their years away for reasons that don't serve their souls.  I think it's urgent that we all stop and listen to our hearts and wake up to our own inner voice. Then, someday, there will be peace - at home and around the world.

Not of this world

"If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world." John 15-18

Authentic reality, the REAL deal, is not what we see "out there" on the newscape every night on NBC, CNN or your local news station or even in the world's most respected newspapers.  Those are the highlights of what the world's editors think we want to see, want to know about.  It seems that the world has become a nightmare on main street thriller, or worse, a B rated gorey slasher movie.  But, the really important thing to remember, and possibly the hardest is that it's not real, really.  It's the horror channel we've chosen.  Maybe we can choose another channel.

While it feels real and seems real, in the big picture, the cosmic scene, it's just what we have agreed to experience.  In my blog post, "In memory of a slain child," Thaddeus commented in words that just touched my heart so profoundly and even inspired this post, "Forgive us angel for sitting by and allowing this to happen."  

In Luke's gospel, Jesus tells us that "we" are not of this world and that the Kingdom of God is within us.  Modern physicists have come to realize, in scientific terms, that the power of consciousness, directed thinking, can have extremely powerful effects on matter.  We can literally, if we focused hard enough - and can you just imagine if we ALL focused hard enough! - move mountains.  The biggest mountain facing us today is clearly the whole world.  We have before us a monumental opportunity to change our thoughts - one by one, community by community, nation by nation - and choose to focus our thoughts, our dreams, our hopes - not on materialism, not on gaining the power over a competitor, not on filling our lives and our minds with useless junk that doesn't matter really a year from now - but on peace.  Plain and simple peace.  If we still the storms within, perhaps we will still the storms outside ourselves.  

Recently, I was helping out a neighbor who needed to get to a job orientation session in North Portland, a half hour drive away.  He was both excited and nervous about the day ahead.  I knew exactly where we were going and yet as we approached, he grew increasingly anxious, started yelling at me for not knowing the way afterall, scolding my driving, demanding to know why I didn't have a GPS, and was just about to jump out of the car.  I started to feel upset, but decided to remain calm.  I admit that the more anxious he became, the less confident I became in knowing the directions.  I started to doubt myself and literally drove around three blocks three times and was about to go back on the freeway at the person's insistence. Instead, I calmed my mind and said to myself, "no, I know the way," I turned the car around and drove straight to the destination.  The person was delivered to the location 15 minutes early and yet had wanted to be there half an hour early.  He was upset with me.  As I drove on to work, I realized happily that I had stayed calm under pressure, monitored my thoughts, watched my internal reactions to the person's neurotic anxiety and by not being swayed by it was able to get him to the location in plenty of time.

Maybe life is like that.  Today the world is out of control in anxiety. Anxiety over the Middle East had certainly imploded my interior mind with grief - not good.  And yet, I can't help but care, but I had to realize the ultimate reality show, which is a "kingdom" of sublime peace, of love, of real power, is within me.  Maybe we do battle all day long in the world, but need to remember, really challenge ourselves to remember that we are "in the world, but not of the world," we do not need to allow our minds to be controlled by the world's neurosis.  

If we can step out of the madness long enough every day, to focus on what is bright and beautiful, healing and loving, gentle and pure, we will begin to turn this planet around.  This may sound unbelievably idealistic, but I don't know of any alternative.  We don't need more religion, or more piety, or more rules of human behavior.  We need to stop the madness, listen to the music of your loving soul and calm your minds, and remember that whatever is going on around you - whether it's the economy, the wars, Washington, politics, scandals or even the nightly news about a murder, a robbery, whatever - remember, those are the actions of misguided minds who don't know that they are loved and are capable of living a much more masterful life.

I read recently something so simple and yet so thought provoking.  It said our life purpose is to grow in faith and consciousness. Period.  That's it.  But, what a powerful, and empowering thought.  Consciousness calls us to the awareness that the misbehaviors of other people and nations is not WHO we are.  It is who they are, for now, until they wake up also.  We can focus, with faith, our consciousness on WHO we CAN BE.  We can be liberators of our own minds, freedom fighters with the cause of being powerful conscious creators, bringers of real life to each other, mind healers for ourselves with a rippling effect out into the world, of each other. 

Our goals can be focused on ourselves and allow the power and light and energy of our newly focused minds to brighten the space around us, lift others up as a consequence and yet not as a goal.  We  all live by the "prime directive," to quote Star Trek, not to interfere with each other's choices or lives, but we can know that any choices we make, will impact the world around us. Human consciousness is a powerful energy realm that affects the world around us, if only because all thoughts are contagious.

So, if all we can do today is remember that we have a choice of which world we want to live in.  We can live in peace, poised calmly to encounter whatever may come at us, knowing that with consciousness and faith, we will get to our final destination, safely and on time.

Bless the Children

All the world's children are our children, each little face, each little life is part of us.  I pray we as a world will never let another child suffer, ever go hungry at night, shiver in the cold, sleep in terror or wake in fear of what the day may bring.   

I pray that we will all open our hearts to each little one, hold them in our hearts and our arms with tenderness, compassion offering them strength and security against the dark forces that seek to destroy this world, and stampede over the tender dream we have as a world for ourselves, our children and the future of mankind.   

I pray the world will wake up that we are all our brothers' keepers. No one is less than a precious child of God. We are all loved by our Creator.  When we can see that, when we can release the need to control, to compete, to prey on anyone, even to resist the changing times, the changing political and governmental  tides, we will open the door to a brighter future.   

Where are the days when mothers sang to their children, held them, made sure they ate their vegetables?  Where are the days when whole families ate together and looked out for the children, when men went to war to PROTECT the women and children?  What kind of nightmare has gripped and taken hold of our world that men  rape the women and torture and kill the children?  

I pray that today will be the turning point in this nightmare and the new day will bring a new hope.  I hope my own three precious children remember how loved they are and always have been.

Artwork:  

"Mother and Child" by Howard Weingarden, visionary artist; 

http://www.normankoren.com/Weingarden/drawings_1.html

In memory of a slain child

Hamza Ali al-Khateeb

Oh sweet and precious child, your life cut short so horrifically, too quickly, without mercy, without love, my heart aches for what you must have endured. With a most tragic hope, I hope your death came quickly to end your suffering. A child-man, once with life so promising, your bright eyes and sweet tender face show us all the sanctity of childhood and the horrific shadow that stills it in contrast to your bright child light. Goodbye, dear precious habbibi Hamza. 

You are in the care of God and his angels now, your suffering is over, your eternal life begun too young. May you now feel in some incomprehensible way, the love of all the mothers in the world. May our love, our tears, carry you into the arms of our God. 

The outrage of your death is ineffable. I only hope it will bring an end to the oppressive, evil regime that tortured you and tortures your courageous Syrian countrymen still. May God intervene in this tragedy of all tragedies. And, may the peace of God hold you in heaven's arms eternally.

Tears come to me today where words are meant to flow. My heart is too deeply troubled to allow me to address intelligibly my sadness over the macabre torture and death of a 13-year-old Syrian boy, barely out of his childhood. It is unimaginable what the human race has become.