I am now posting primarily to HolySmokeOnTheWater.com because its structure is better suited to my rambling interests: theology, Christianity, my opinions, snippets of what I am reading and hearing,… NotesFromTheMargins.wordpress.com is where I put the dialogues I have with people. I will continue to post items addressing Teachable Moments here. Please join me on these other sites. I miss you.
Thank you. Catherine (Kitsy) Stratton.
Irma has reached South Carolina and we lost power an hour ago. (I’m composing on my cell phone…by candle light.) My first thought when the power went out was that it would be back on soon because we live so close to the source… the dam. But then I remembered the prediction of wide-spread power outages. Such a prediction is a good one because, electrical grid-wise, we are all connected. That’s how and why brown-outs and black-outs occur…one city knocking down another.
Some people feel that images of disasters and heart-breaking stories from around the globe are too much to handle (“I can’t do anything about it.”) However, in reaction to the news reports concerning the people in Texas and Florida, and even in Bangladesh, some internet friends and I have been writing about how we feel compelled to expand our compassion and concern out beyond our usual circle of friends and family. One dear friend in Ireland said that it has changed the way she prays for people. I’m inclined to agree with her because I believe in prayer. I also believe that this is a new era…a time for increased global awareness, accompanied by an increased capacity for global compassion.
In the same way that technology has enabled power companies to interconnect and support and back up each other, we are getting better at doing the same spiritually. On a very small scale, when I struggle emotionally, my close friends step up and fill in with comfort and encouragement until my ‘transformers’ are running again. Healthy extended families and support groups like AA have been working like this for generations but now our awareness of suffering and need is global. How can our compassion cover it all?
Inventors of technology will attest to the truth that necessity is the mother of invention. Our increased awareness of the needs and struggles of others has necessitated a greater need for deeper and larger compassion and, spiritually, I believe we are being granted that greater capacity… almost as if we are able now to turn the light switch on in a previously secret room. Whether mankind has always had the capacity to hold the whole world in its heart…but just didn’t use it much…or whether we have evolved to be able to hold the globe in compassion, I believe we are discovering that it can be done.
Writers like Krista Tippett, Jim Marion, and Cynthia Bourgeault address how we as a civilization are evolving in consciousness. Capabilities like nondual thinking, holding opposing views in a safe mediative space, and praying for the awakened consciousness of others are taking ‘helping others’ to a new level.
One of my friends cautioned me not long ago that I cannot heal the whole world…and she is correct… but I think we are getting closer to loving the whole world in compassion, all the time.
This morning, I asked, “Is there a way to pray the shallow into being more deep? Is there a way to pray the transformation of others?”
I’m finishing up The Wisdom Way of Knowing by Cynthia Bourgeault. Re-reading the paragraph I finished with last night, I read just now
…once your being has become inwardly gentled and peaceable, those qualities of aliveness will flow out to others as a spontaneous healing and delight.
Bingo: Divine Compassion. (As always, thank You.)
The rate at which I have matured in my faith and knowing over the past year is a bit scary. Does it signal the end times of my life…or the end times, in general? Regardless, I am blessed…deeply and profoundly blessed. I am not done, however, but being open to this divine education is such a different place. All of my life, I have been guided along this path with bread crumbs of wisdom. I can look back now and see where I drifted (or bolted) off of the path…and why. But I am here, now…intentionally present…and available.
In order for the cosmos to function properly, human beings need to grow into their own hearts. An inner yes is all it takes. Once the willingness to begin takes over in you, whatever you need will come to you. And you’ll be able to recognize it.
There is no bad place to begin. Simply open your heart and ask, trusting that the gift will come. Do what you can where you are. And be alert for the next step. However it leads you, your heart will know the way home.
“45% of GOP voters believe God helped Trump get elected”
God helps me write. God helps me progress on my spiritual path. God helped Joseph’s brothers get him to Egypt.
I write from where I am spiritually to other people where they are spiritually. I have a ways to go; we all do.
President Trump’s actions and statements are jolting people from despondency and complacency. That’s good.
President Trump’s actions and statements are prompting people on spiritual paths to ramp up their practices. That’s good.
President Trump’s actions and statements are encouraging people to pray. That’s good.
President Trump’s actions and statements are causing people to think things through, to consider the consequences of their actions and comments, to consider who is ‘us’ and who is ‘them.’
“What you meant for harm, God means for good.”
“You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.”
That’s from Genesis.
Jesus said that the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.
Open your ears.
On my former blog, The View from 5022, I wrote about making necessary adjustments to one’s life and efforts by using the analogy of sailing. The post is titled “Coming About.” A few nights ago, I performed the equivalent of pumping out the bilge, trimming the sails, and charting a new course.
To continue with that analogy, since the end of last year, I have experienced stalls, squalls, and I’ve run aground a few times. But more recently, there have been breaks in the clouds and a freshening breeze. When I crawled into bed Monday night, I knew there was much to be thankful for but, because of all of it, I felt a bit battered. I grabbed a pen and the closest thing to write on, a prayer and praise journal (which was fitting), and made an assessment of the gains and the losses.
I had been struggling for months with a particular Canadian-born bank which had mismanaged my account and reversed a payment to the IRS, costing me hundreds of dollars in penalties, fees, and increases in interest. The government consumer protection agency and the senator’s office helping me with the issue informed me Monday that the issue is being dropped. To stay upset would only hurt me. I tossed the issue over-board.
Inspired by the marches on Saturday, I enthusiastically volunteered my services to the senator’s office and was told someone might be in touch…at some point…maybe. Issue tossed.
Since just after Christmas, I have written (actual letters on actual note cards in actual cursive handwriting) to 9 friends and family members. None of them have responded. Looking for addresses of others to write to, I came across an old phone list. On it was the name of a former doctor who, earlier last year, had been enduring cancer treatments and surgery, a long time friend who, earlier last year, had been reeling from the emotional blow of retirement, and a former coworker, from 2001 time-frame, who was likely concerned about the future of her career with a governmental climate science agency. I made the calls and was met with instant re-connection, filling my emotional sails with billowed hopes.
These issues and more were lined up down both sides of the pages like small fishing skiffs bobbing in the waves…but there was something else still disturbing me…
Last Summer, when preoccupied with my sister’s arrival from Alaska, I stopped attending the small Episcopal church on the other side of town. Driving by there late last month, I saw on their marquee a notice about an oyster roast. On Saturday, I noticed the date had been changed to this weekend. I called. I volunteered to help. However, I was informed that the priest I had known there had died, suddenly, in December. (I wrote about several of his homilies last year. See “To the Extent that One is Forgiven, One is Capable of Loving” and “What I Didn’t Know.”) He was one of the few people who has believed my inner experience of God. (Father B: “You help me because you are able to hear what it is I am trying to say.”) Recalling that he was now gone from earth, my enthusiasm was suddenly becalmed; I felt more alone on earth than I had before.
My faith and beliefs have come under attack, recently, by bloggers from opposite ends of the religious spectrum. On the one hand, there are the bloggers who hold that all people should believe xyz, strictly and immediately. (I respond that each person should be allowed and encouraged to be where they are on their spiritual path to God; at least they are on the path and God is not done with them yet.) On the other, there are those who hold a larger view but accuse me of insisting that mine is the only way. (I am out of words with that one; My way is MY WAY and I offer it as an example…nothing more.)
At the same time, ironically, I have discovered that there is a spiritual path…a Christian path…with followers who hold the same beliefs I do. Although I have come to my beliefs, faith, and inner life the hard way, having found them, I sought to join them. It seems, however, that although they acknowledge my interest, I have been excluded apparently because I lack the expected background and education. So, I will continue on my own, navigating by the heavens and sailing ‘solo.’
The course I am left with is a simpler one, lacking an itinerary with specified destinations. It is more a way of sailing: trusting in the guiding stars (Jesus and the communion of saints) and the breeze on my face. Watching the tell tail, testing the wind, keeping an eye on the horizon (and the channel markers),…this is the stuff of life.
(I borrowed the image above from the web)
I am quoting Richard Rohr.
In this morning’s meditation, Richard puts into the proper frame of reference, thoughts that I have been presenting on a friend’s blog post, “What’s God got to do with it?” My friend has lamented, sarcastically, that “believers always have an answer.” Well, there is a reason for that.
Richard Rohr gives this “succinct summary of the Perennial Tradition:
Richard includes in his message…and this is important…that
There have been many generations of sincere seekers who’ve gone through the same human journey and there is plenty of collective and common wisdom to be had. …it keeps recurring in different world religions with different metaphors and vocabulary. The foundational wisdom is much the same, although never exactly the same.
See https://cac.org/ for more from Richard Rohr.
Just a moment ago, I stepped out onto my back porch and took a deep breath. It’s a delightful 69 degrees and sunny. My first thought, after the breath, was to all of the gazillion things I think (thought) I need to get done. And then spirit spoke:
this one moment is what it is about
I am…life is…we all are…creation is…perfect in this moment.
My panic and striving is because I know I spent 59.8 years of my life working on MY agenda and, now that I intend to be working on God’s agenda, I feel the need to get as much done as quickly as possible because I don’t know how much time I have left.
My next thought was to my new watch-word: Allow It refers to a new intention to allow others to be in a different place from me spiritually. It refers to a new intention to allow others to make different choices for their own lives…even if I know those choices will set them back. It refers to a new intention to allow imperfection…even in myself.
So, what was I left with? Awareness. Awareness that…in this moment…it is all perfect, on time, playing out, and in God’s hands. And I giggled: Is this fun?
That’s when I remembered those words, spoken to his team…while taking a moment…“Man, isn’t this fun?! Is this not fun? This is what it’s all about!” (the second video of the interview with Dabo Swinney. But, I recommend listening to the first video, too.)
This IS what it’s all about. It took me 59.9 years to realize that marketing myself and my talents was NOT what is was about. Now, after having cleared all that major clutter out of the way, I am working on small pockets of clutter that remain (small resentments, expectations, fleeting goals,…) and strengthening my awareness…my ability to hear the reminders and nudges to stop…take a moment…and acknowledge: ‘Ain’t this fun?’
(Thank You.)
(I borrowed the image above from http://www.seattlepi.com.)
A few days ago, I posted my thoughts on God’s interest in everyday, technically non-religious, and seemingly non-spiritual events like football games.
In this morning’s meditation from Richard Rohr, he does a better job of saying the same thing:
God’s revelations are through the concrete and specific.
We have created an artificial divide or dualism between the spiritual and the so-called non-spiritual.
Biblical revelation is saying that we are already spiritual beings; we just don’t know it yet
Here’s to our learning just that!
Richard Rohr’s daily meditations are found through his Center for Action and Contemplation website.
Today's Teachable Moment 