Merry Dragon

'Gpd is Not a Christian .....'

2011-06-02T09:26:00.000-07:00

I found the following on Huffington Post. I completely agree on Tutu's point on the accidents of birth and geography. Why then are some so righteous in their faith?

The following is excerpted from the Archbishop Desmond Tutu's new book, 'God Is Not A Christian: And Other Provocations.'

This talk also comes from a forum in Britain, where Tutu addressed leaders of different faiths during a mission to the city of Birmingham in 1989.

They tell the story of a drunk who crossed the street and accosted a pedestrian, asking him, "I shay, which ish the other shide of the shtreet?" The pedestrian, somewhat nonplussed, replied, "That side, of course!" The drunk said, "Shtrange. When I wash on that shide, they shaid it wash thish shide." Where the other side of the street is depends on where we are. Our perspective differs with our context, the things that have helped to form us; and religion is one of the most potent of these formative influences, helping to determine how and what we apprehend of reality and how we operate in our own specific context.

My first point seems overwhelmingly simple: that the accidents of birth and geography determine to a very large extent to what faith we belong. The chances are very great that if you were born in Pakistan you are a Muslim, or a Hindu if you happened to be born in India, or a Shintoist if it is Japan, and a Christian if you were born in Italy. I don't know what significant fact can be drawn from this -- perhaps that we should not succumb too easily to the temptation to exclusiveness and dogmatic claims to a monopoly of the truth of our particular faith. You could so easily have been an adherent of the faith that you are now denigrating, but for the fact that you were born here rather than there.

My second point is this: not to insult the adherents of other faiths by suggesting, as sometimes has happened, that for instance when you are a Christian the adherents of other faiths are really Christians without knowing it. We must acknowledge them for who they are in all their integrity, with their conscientiously held beliefs; we must welcome them and respect them as who they are and walk reverently on what is their holy ground, taking off our shoes, metaphorically and literally. We must hold to our particular and peculiar beliefs tenaciously, not pretending that all religions are the same, for they are patently not the same. We must be ready to learn from one another, not claiming that we alone possess all truth and that somehow we have a corner on God.

We should in humility and joyfulness acknowledge that the supernatural and divine reality we all worship in some form or other transcends all our particular categories of thought and imagining, and that because the divine -- however named, however apprehended or conceived -- is infinite and we are forever finite, we shall never comprehend the divine completely. So we should seek to share all insights we can and be ready to learn, for instance, from the techniques of the spiritual life that are available in religions other than our own. It is interesting that most religions have a transcendent reference point, a mysterium tremendum, that comes to be known by deigning to reveal itself, himself, herself, to humanity; that the transcendent reality is compassionate and concerned; that human beings are creatures of this supreme, supra mundane reality in some way, with a high destiny that hopes for an everlasting life lived in close association with the divine, either as absorbed without distinction between creature and creator, between the divine and human, or in a wonderful intimacy which still retains the distinctions between these two orders of reality.

When we read the classics of the various religions in matters of prayer, meditation, and mysticism, we find substantial convergence, and that is something to rejoice at. We have enough that conspires to separate us; let us celebrate that which unites us, that which we share in common.

Surely it is good to know that God (in the Christian tradition) created us all (not just Christians) in his image, thus investing us all with infinite worth, and that it was with all humankind that God entered into a covenant relationship, depicted in the covenant with Noah when God promised he would not destroy his creation again with water. Surely we can rejoice that the eternal word, the Logos of God, enlightens everyone -- not just Christians, but everyone who comes into the world; that what we call the Spirit of God is not a Christian preserve, for the Spirit of God existed long before there were Christians, inspiring and nurturing women and men in the ways of holiness, bringing them to fruition, bringing to fruition what was best in all. We do scant justice and honor to our God if we want, for instance, to deny that Mahatma Gandhi was a truly great soul, a holy man who walked closely with God. Our God would be too small if he was not also the God of Gandhi: if God is one, as we believe, then he is the only God of all his people, whether they acknowledge him as such or not. God does not need us to protect him. Many of us perhaps need to have our notion of God deepened and expanded. It is often said, half in jest, that God created man in his own image and man has returned the compliment, saddling God with his own narrow prejudices and exclusivity, foibles and temperamental quirks. God remains God, whether God has worshippers or not.

This mission in Birmingham to which I have been invited is a Christian celebration, and we will make our claims for Christ as unique and as the Savior of the world, hoping that we will live out our beliefs in such a way that they help to commend our faith effectively. Our conduct far too often contradicts our profession, however. We are supposed to proclaim the God of love, but we have been guilty as Christians of sowing hatred and suspicion; we commend the one whom we call the Prince of Peace, and yet as Christians we have fought more wars than we care to remember. We have claimed to be a fellowship of compassion and caring and sharing, but as Christians we often sanctify sociopolitical systems that belie this, where the rich grow ever richer and the poor grow ever poorer, where we seem to sanctify a furious competitiveness, ruthless as can only be appropriate to the jungle.

QOTD - July 27, 2010

2010-07-27T07:19:00.000-07:00

Optimism is joyful searching; pessimism is a prison of fear and a clutching at illusionary safety.

~ K.A.Brehony (thanks to @CoachCecily)

Prayer/Verse (2010)

2010-07-11T07:41:00.000-07:00

So, here's my first edit:

O Nameless One
who beckons me
Is it you whose silent whisperings
fill my ears?
Whose presence I sense
even alone?

Who are you?
What is your name?
Where can I find you?

I daydream/envision/imagine you
not as a being
but a state of being,

Not a being
but the power that gives us being.

I shall call you the Holy One
... the Holy One
Yes, the Holy One.

You are in all
and all is within you

You suffuse all that is
and was
and is yet to be.

The ordinary and mundane,
the profound and sublime.

You are the knowing beyond me
and the knowing within me.

How shall I see you, O Holy One?
O Faceless One?

Not a particle of matter but a wave of energy?
A neural network, countless pulsing points of life?
A boundless moving mesh?
A divine web, swaying in the breeze of eternity?
With your gossamer strands
fluttering throughout and in my life?

-- from our final retreat,
"In Your Own Voice," December 9, 1995, edited July 11, 2010

Prayer/Verse (1995)

2010-07-11T06:48:00.000-07:00

Cleaning out a closet, I found the following prayer/verse. I'd like to change a few of the words, I think.

O Nameless One
who beckons me
whose silent whisperings
fill my ear
your silken sighs
touch my cheek ...

Who are you?
What is your name?
Where can I find you?

I imagine you
not as a being
but a state of being,

Not as a particle of matter
but a wave of energy

Not a person
but a person-filled power

I shall call you the Holy One
... the Holy One
Yes, the Holy One.

You are in all
and all is within you

You are the interconnectedness
of all that is
and was
and is yet to be.

The ordinary and mundane,
the profound and sublime.

You are the knowing beyond me
and the knowing within me.

You are a neural network,
pulsing points of life,
a divine web, swaying
a mighty moving mesh

With those silken gossamer strands
kissing my life.
-- from our final retreat,
"In Your Own Voice," December 9, 1995

The little things

2010-04-20T05:09:00.000-07:00

Poking around the web, I learned of a poet and spiritual writer named Kathleen Norris.

Here is a quote of hers that caught my attention:

"The Bible is full of evidence that God's attention is indeed fixed on the little things. But this is not because God is a great cosmic cop, eager to catch us in minor transgressions, but simply because God loves us--loves us so much that the divine presence is revealed even in the meaningless workings of daily life. It is in the ordinary, the here-and-now, that God asks us to recognize that the creation is indeed refreshed like dew-laden grass that is "renewed in the morning" or to put it in more personal and also theological terms, "our inner nature is being renewed everyday". Seen in this light, what strikes many modern readers as the ludicrous details in Leviticus involving God in the minuitae of daily life might be revisioned as the very love of God. "
— Kathleen Norris (The Quotidian Mysteries: Laundry, Liturgy and "Women's Work")

I was contemplating adding Norris's book to my Amazon Wish List for a possible Christmas gift, but I found it on Google Books. Have I mentioned recently how much I appreciate Google? See it here. I think the book in its entirety is under 90 pages.

Cooperation, evolution & morality?

2009-04-07T16:02:00.000-07:00

Here's a thoughtful, interesting column by David Brooks, New York Times columnist:

Socrates talked. The assumption behind his approach to philosophy, and the approaches of millions of people since, is that moral thinking is mostly a matter of reason and deliberation: Think through moral problems. Find a just principle. Apply it.

One problem with this kind of approach to morality, as Michael Gazzaniga writes in his 2008 book, “Human,” is that “it has been hard to find any correlation between moral reasoning and proactive moral behavior, such as helping other people. In fact, in most studies, none has been found.”

Today, many psychologists, cognitive scientists and even philosophers embrace a different view of morality. In this view, moral thinking is more like aesthetics. As we look around the world, we are constantly evaluating what we see. Seeing and evaluating are not two separate processes. They are linked and basically simultaneous.

As Steven Quartz of the California Institute of Technology said during a recent discussion of ethics sponsored by the John Templeton Foundation, “Our brain is computing value at every fraction of a second. Everything that we look at, we form an implicit preference. Some of those make it into our awareness; some of them remain at the level of our unconscious, but ... what our brain is for, what our brain has evolved for, is to find what is of value in our environment.”

Think of what happens when you put a new food into your mouth. You don’t have to decide if it’s disgusting. You just know. You don’t have to decide if a landscape is beautiful. You just know.

Moral judgments are like that. They are rapid intuitive decisions and involve the emotion-processing parts of the brain. Most of us make snap moral judgments about what feels fair or not, or what feels good or not. We start doing this when we are babies, before we have language. And even as adults, we often can’t explain to ourselves why something feels wrong.

In other words, reasoning comes later and is often guided by the emotions that preceded it. Or as Jonathan Haidt of the University of Virginia memorably wrote, “The emotions are, in fact, in charge of the temple of morality, and ... moral reasoning is really just a servant masquerading as a high priest.”

The question then becomes: What shapes moral emotions in the first place? The answer has long been evolution, but in recent years there’s an increasing appreciation that evolution isn’t just about competition. It’s also about cooperation within groups. Like bees, humans have long lived or died based on their ability to divide labor, help each other and stand together in the face of common threats. Many of our moral emotions and intuitions reflect that history. We don’t just care about our individual rights, or even the rights of other individuals. We also care about loyalty, respect, traditions, religions. We are all the descendents of successful cooperators.

The first nice thing about this evolutionary approach to morality is that it emphasizes the social nature of moral intuition. People are not discrete units coolly formulating moral arguments. They link themselves together into communities and networks of mutual influence.

The second nice thing is that it entails a warmer view of human nature. Evolution is always about competition, but for humans, as Darwin speculated, competition among groups has turned us into pretty cooperative, empathetic and altruistic creatures — at least within our families, groups and sometimes nations.

The third nice thing is that it explains the haphazard way most of us lead our lives without destroying dignity and choice. Moral intuitions have primacy, Haidt argues, but they are not dictators. There are times, often the most important moments in our lives, when in fact we do use reason to override moral intuitions, and often those reasons — along with new intuitions — come from our friends.

The rise and now dominance of this emotional approach to morality is an epochal change. It challenges all sorts of traditions. It challenges the bookish way philosophy is conceived by most people. It challenges the Talmudic tradition, with its hyper-rational scrutiny of texts. It challenges the new atheists, who see themselves involved in a war of reason against faith and who have an unwarranted faith in the power of pure reason and in the purity of their own reasoning.

Finally, it should also challenge the very scientists who study morality. They’re good at explaining how people make judgments about harm and fairness, but they still struggle to explain the feelings of awe, transcendence, patriotism, joy and self-sacrifice, which are not ancillary to most people’s moral experiences, but central. The evolutionary approach also leads many scientists to neglect the concept of individual responsibility and makes it hard for them to appreciate that most people struggle toward goodness, not as a means, but as an end in itself.

While I'm no philosopher (and neither is Brooks), I like some of the points he makes here. I think it bears more consideration.

Natural as a tree growing in sunlight

2007-05-21T20:02:00.000-07:00

From this website:

As natural as a tree growing in sunlight, creativity permeates our lives and the world in which we live. We cut ourselves off from its constant ebb and flow as we entrain to the rhythm of day to day affairs.

Occasionally, everything falls effortlessly into place; our thoughts, our emotions, our bodies move in sync, as if guided by some force beyond ourselves. We move to a different rhythm, the rhythm of the cosmos.

In those moments of holism, we transcend skill and create things greater than ourselves. We create as if to meet global needs, as if in collective awareness.

Often, creating is left to the "talented few," who we believe, are gifted.

In this time of change, we must reach within, find courage, and go beyond ourselves to the still point of a turning world. In that point of tension is born inspiration and every new idea.

In that still point, we entrain with the universe and break free of the bonds that pattern our lives. In the still point, we heal and recreate ourselves.

--Carlisle Bergquist, Ph.D

Growing old

2007-05-21T08:13:00.000-07:00

I have a good friend whose father is 102 years old. I had dinner with him Saturday night. He is still mobile, able to get around with a walker and he has more moments of lucidity than confusion.

But honestly, I hope I never grow that old. Why does God allow someone to grow this old, this feeble, this vulnerable?

If you believe that in all life there is purposefulness, that God has some intent for us, then what is the purpose of this old, old man slowly shuffling through every day? Is he teaching something to people around him? Does he have things yet to learn? Is he bearing witness to something yet unseen? All questions with no answers. Only God knows.

If it were my choice, I wouldn't ever grow that old.

Credulity

2007-05-15T10:16:00.000-07:00

defining credulity: tendency to believe readily

I'm reading an article from Salon called "Manufacturing Belief." It opens this way:

In Lewis Carroll's "Through the Looking Glass," Alice tells the White Queen that she cannot believe in impossible things. But the Queen says Alice simply hasn't had enough practice. "When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast." That human penchant for belief -- or perhaps gullibility -- is what inspired biologist Lewis Wolpert to write a book about the evolutionary origins of belief called "Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast."

As a spiritual person, is credulity an advantage .... or a disadvantage?

A bit difficult is RIGHT!

2007-05-03T15:02:00.000-07:00

You know ... I used to read my horoscope at Astrodienst because it was interesting and entertaining and sometimes, it prompted me to think and reflect on things going on in my life.

Now ... I'm getting long-term horoscopes like this one. Troubling.

A bit difficult
Valid during many months: This may be a period of extreme crisis in your life, if you have been attempting to hide certain inner forces from yourself or from others. The psychological changes that take place now may make it desirable for you to undergo psychotherapy or a similar treatment in order to get more in touch with yourself. With this influence it is extremely important that you get more in touch with yourself!

On the purely psychological level, you may find yourself face to face with aspects of your personality that you have chosen to ignore in the past because you thought that they were "evil" or "weak" or otherwise unacceptable. But they are real aspects of yourself, and their energies can only be suppressed for a time, not entirely eliminated. Under this influence the energies will surface.

The process may start with compulsive actions that are hard to understand. Strange drives may emerge that seem to take over your life, without any regard for your conscious intention. Sometimes the compulsions are so subtle that you are not aware of them at all, except that they affect people around you; in fact you may only encounter them when others respond to you. This can be very upsetting, and you may feel that you are being victimized by some outside force, although the force is within you. Even under the best of conditions, you can expect your relationships to change considerably as others encounter the changes within you. A close relationship such as marriage may undergo especially great changes at this time.

The best tactic with all of these effects is to recognize them and try to understand how they fit into your personality. They are there for a reason, and if you understood yourself thoroughly, you would see that they have a positive purpose in your life, if you allow them to be expressed. Now is a chance to release these energies and make them a positive part of your conscious personality. Even if the effects of this influence are a bit difficult, the final purpose is positive.

Transit selected for today (by user):
Pluto Conjunction Ascendant Pluto(null)ConjunctionAscendant,
activity period from end of December 2006 until middle of October 2008.

In case you missed it, this astrological "influence" is projected to continue for another 18 months. Yikes!

From RLP

2007-03-28T02:27:00.000-07:00

Real Live Preacher is a blog that I read on a regular basis. I can usually count on that RLP will speak to spiritual matters, in one form or another.

Several days ago, I found this posting and feel compelled to excerpt part of it. This captures for me some of the mystery and the poetry and the enigmatic qualities of seeking God:

Some Questions ...

Is the earth ancient and are you a young child, wandering her surface and running your small hands over the bumps and buckled plates of her wisdom? Or are you the old one, tired and cynical and wise, trying to recapture your innocence by walking barefoot and kissing the feet of a newborn morning?

Is goodness somewhere deep in your heart, laid in before the ages and waiting for the year of jubilee? Or is goodness a damsel locked in a distant tower, and you the prince charming who will redeem her at any price?

Are you dragging store-bought values behind you on a little string, smiling like a rube and looking for applause from the masses? Or do you listen to the mysterious voice that lives in the low places beneath your heart? Will you proclaim those words in public, or don't you have the courage?

Can God be jerked out of the heavens and thrown to the ground? Will you leer at her there and run your clumsy hands over her body? Will you brag to your friends later that you’ve known God? Or is God the ultimate seductress, unmoved by our adolescent advances, laughing at our wanton desire and sitting, legs crossed, just outside the orbit of our highest thoughts?

And if you do meet God on the way, how will you stand?

Will you stand frightened and cowed, mired in ancient dogma that binds your feet like sheets in a dream? Or will you laugh in the face of God, smirking and superior? Will you cleave instead to the cyborg beauty, the sacred science you have set apart and called your own?

Or perhaps, having tried all of these things, you will cast off your clothing and stand naked before the horizon, watching God flutter away like a butterfly, soaring beyond all words, swooping east and west to gather all mystics and cynics into the delight of her bosom.

Who are you?

Where are you?

What are you, and what do you intend?

Tell me, for you intrigue me, and I would know you like a father or a brother or a lover or a friend.

Love this poem!

2006-10-11T10:08:00.000-07:00

From this site:

Robert Frost (1874–1963)

Mountain Interval. 1920.

TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I --
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Who is a witness ...?

2006-08-21T07:22:00.000-07:00

Recently, S and I had a conversation about her understanding of being a witness.

She asked me, "Who is a witness to your life?" Who witnesses who you are as a person and what you have done in your life?

I said I wasn't sure I understood what she was asking. "Are you speaking of 'witness' as in a legal sense?"

No, she said. There are lots of other kinds of witnesses. John the Baptist was a witness. He witnessed to (or foretold of ) Jesus' coming. He also witnessed to others while Jesus did his preaching and teaching.

S said the shepherds were witnesses in the story of Jesus' birth. The angels too.

Okay, I said. A little light was emerging in the darkness of my mind.

A witness can be a person outside the legal sense. You have witnesses at a wedding. Yes, I agreed. They are people who will 'testify' or 'certify' that yes, on this day, in this place, these two people committed their lives to one another. That is certainly acting as a witness.

S believes her purpose (at least one purpose) in her life is to act or serve as a witness.

And, as my partner, I asked, what do you witness about me? S replied that I am hard on myself. There is a part of myself, deep within she guesses, that almost loathes who I am. She said, "Allow yourself to have flaws." Because I strive for such perfection, she said, I don't let others get too close, so they can't see the flaws ... the flaws that I can't bear to see in myself.

Ahh, yes. Ooh, ouch, no! The truth can be painful to hear.

Quote

2006-08-21T06:46:00.000-07:00

from Marcus Borg:

..."It shifts the focus of the Christian life from believing in Jesus [italics my emphasis] or believing in God to being in relationship to the same Spirit that Jesus knew ... that Christian life moves beyond believing in God to being in relationship with God."

- - - - - ### - - - ### - - - - -

And if you're unfamiliar with the author, here's a blurb about Marcus Borg:

Marcus Borg is an O[regon] S[tate] U[niversity] Distinguished Professor in Religion and Culture and the Hundere Endowed Chair in Religious Studies.

Known as one of the leading historical Jesus scholars of this generation, he recently organized and spoke at OSU’s nationally televised symposium, God at 2000, that included, among several internationally regarded scholars of religion, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Bishop Desmond Tutu. Two of Borg’s nine books have become best-sellers — Jesus: A New Vision and Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time. He has lectured at the Smithsonian and Chautauqua Institutions and in England, Austria, Germany, Belgium, Hungary, Israel, and South Africa.

An outstanding teacher, Borg has received all of OSU’s major awards for teaching and has been recognized by the Oregon State Legislature. The first person in the OSU College of Liberal Arts to be designated as an OSU Distinguished Professor, Borg has twice been president of the CLA Faculty Council. His upper and lower-division courses include Great Ideas, World-Views and Values in the Bible, Philosophy and Religion, World-Views and Environmental Values, and Great Figures: The Historical Jesus.

Borg sees philosophy as primarily concerned with the role of ideas in our lives. “Ideas matter much more than we commonly think they do, especially our world-views and values, namely our ideas about what is real and how we are to live,” Borg says. “We receive such ideas from our culture as we grow up, and unless we examine them, we will not be free persons, but will to a large extent live out the agenda of our socialization.”

Being rather than doing?

2006-07-27T12:58:00.000-07:00

From Oprah's website:

The one big question most of us ask ourselves is "What should I do with my life?" For most people, it's very difficult to answer. Use these simple suggestions from people who have successfully answered this question and are now living the life of their dreams. Be inspired to pursue your dreams and discover the impact you are meant to have on the world!

Listen to your inner voice. It takes practice to hear your true desires. Your passion will often come as a whisper or serendipitous event that reminds you of what's important and what makes you happy.
Recognize crisis. Does your job feel like a grind? Are you spending your free time on something you love? Take an opportunity to appraise your happiness. One of the keys to living a purposeful life is seeing that you feel unfulfilled.
Dwell in possibilities. Your passions could lead you in a lot of different directions to find fulfillment. Explore your life and unearth all of the things that bring you joy.
Tune out the voice of the world. Make the strongest voice in your life your own. Finding your purpose could mean going against the advice of close friends and family. Take a leap of faith and trust in your dreams.
Decide what kind of person you want to be. Rather than concentrating on what you want to do, think in terms of what kind of person you want to be. Let that guide your choices.
Bring your heart to your work. It takes passion and courage to find a profession that you love. Spending the time to discover that job is time well spent—it could make all the difference in your life!
Trust transformation. Hard times are a natural part of life. Don't be afraid to change because of your experiences. Instead, let them shape and steer your course.
Have no regrets. According to the experts, it's easy to regret the time you've spent being unhappy or unfulfilled. Realize that during that time, you developed the skills you need to succeed!
Take the first step. Destiny can't help you until you are willing to step out of your comfort zone. Get prepared to make changes in your life…and start making them!
Be patient. Finding your life purpose won't happen overnight. In every life, there's a fast road and a slow road. Most of us take the slow road! Keep your commitment and take small steps to make it happen.

Reflections

2006-07-27T12:09:00.000-07:00

S and I had a far-ranging, rather spiritual conversation yesterday morning, over breakfast, that I want to try to capture here for posting.

We were talking about our friend, Jeanne. Jeanne and S have always felt this 'connection' that defies rational explanation. They met only about ten years ago. Within a short time after their meeting, S said to me that she felt like she 'knew' Jeanne in ways she couldn't explain. When Jeanne speaks, S feels like she can finish her sentences for her. S has actually said that she believes (hard as it may seem) that she and Jeanne knew one another intimately in another lifetime. (Soul intimacy? Probably a more common expression is "soul mates.") She has spoken about this before, so it was not a surprise for me. She thinks other people probably experience these kinds of feelings or beliefs as well. What is unusual is to meet or know someone who can validate the feelings. That is what Jeanne can do. She validates S's sense of 'connection' in the same way that S validates hers.

From that unexplainable, spiritual 'soul connection,' we talked about how each of us is feeling, about our lives and our relationship with one another.

S said it this way: "I am where I'm supposed to be." Silence.

"Where is that relative to our relationship?"

A jabbing finger pointed at me. "I'm with YOU."

I chuckled. "Yes, you are."

She went on to say that she believes we may have known one another in another life. The 'sense' she has of me is as a young, rather insecure, little girl. She believes she was an adult (rather than a child), who felt protective of me. Beyond that, she doesn't know.

And for me? What does this mean?

I don't have any knowledge or prescience or sense about other or previous lives. I do feel that I'm supposed to be with S. I used to check my feelings about her and I always wanted to be with her. It felt right. But, honestly, our relationship is not an easy one; it requires a lot of hard work and determination to be together. When I consider leaving, moving on, seeking elsewhere, seeking out someone else, there is this very clear (repeat, very clear) sense that that would be a huge mistake. I am meant to be here, in this relationship, with S, easy or not. There are things I am meant to learn from her. She is the mentor, I am the student. I will learn from her, I will benefit by her. Part of my task is to be patient, to be still and listen, to observe, to learn. That is what is very clear in my purpose in this relationship, in this life.

S, too, says having this sense of being where she is supposed to be, creates a sense of comfort. But, beyond that comfort, there is a feeling of peace knowing that she is where is supposed to be.

I suppose, that in the large scheme of things, being where one is supposed to be is a reason to be thankful.

Weaving webs and tapestries

2006-06-16T09:23:00.000-07:00

While I posted this on my other blog, I think I want to repost at least part of it here at Merry Dragon.

Vicki, a woman who teaches people about labyrinths writes about meditation with a reference to spiders as weavers. I have long been fascinated with the idea of webs as a metaphor for the connections we all "weave" as we create -- many times, completely unaware -- the "tapestries" of our lives. It's a rich, deep imagery that holds a lot of meaning for me. Here's part of Vicki's thoughts:

Spiders are weavers... their webs can become quite large and intricate. And so very beautiful, especially when they capture the morning dew...

The human part of us sometimes has difficulty quieting the chatter in our mind long enough to hear what our soul is trying to tell us. Meditation is the art of paying attention, of listening to your heart and learning to be present in the moment. Sometimes without being fully conscious of it, we withdraw from the present and live in the past or the future.

We stay in the past by holding on to learned negative behaviors and patterns that no longer serve us. Perhaps we are angry or unhappy about our current circumstances, not realizing that we can untangle ourselves from this web of our own making. Our soul continually creates circumstances so we can learn life lessons, whatever they may be. Until we learn these lessons, we stay caught in the web with only the circumstances changing... more than likely looming larger as the need to learn the lessons grows. Meditation brings us into the present and teaches us to accept the past and let go of these old behaviors.

Some of us are fearful of the future. The human part of us doubts whether we are capable of making correct decisions on our life path. By releasing this tangled web we learn to be in the “now,” transforming these fears and learning to trust our intuition or soul voice. Faith is born of this trust and our lives become more simplified. Meditation can help us live more fully, more effectively, and more peacefully.

Catch some Brain Rain in your life?

2006-06-13T08:42:00.000-07:00

I subscribe to BlogLines and get an RSS feed from 43 folders. Here's an article from six weeks ago that I liked.

I'm re-posting it here (among other places) as a gentle reminder to myself:

Keys to catching the brain rain:

set aside 10 minutes, each and every day

have pen and paper handy

allow yourself the freedom to think crazy thoughts

don’t worry if nothing really productive springs to mind right away

periodically scan over your notes from these sessions as things may pop into your mind after they have “marinated” for a while

if no ideas pop into your head pick a fun topic and doodle a bit

use word association to get things rolling if you feel stuck e.g. thinking -> thoughts -> mind -> brainstorm -> brain rain

The original posting was entitled "Warm, Partly Cloudy, 100% Chance of Brain Rain."

Questions to ponder

2006-06-08T10:30:00.000-07:00

So ....

I met with my good friend of twenty-plus years, Carol, last night, somewhat unexpectedly. She lives in another state and was visiting here. We dined at a fashionable, family-friendly restaurant in Royal Oak.

Here's some questions she asked me in the course of our conversation (probably not exactly as she phrased them, but as I remembered them):

-- What are your dreams?

-- Why not take this time for some travel? Open yourself up to other possibilities?

-- Have you thought about searching out a progressive, spiritual community?

-- What makes your heart sing? (Carol was actually speaking of what made her heart sing, but I internalized the question!)

-- Would you consider going to therapy again?

Because of our longstanding friendship and some of the strengths and skills Carol possesses, I value beyond words her listening and questioning and counseling of me.

What are my dreams, indeed?

"...Faced with the ineffable and the indescribable..."

2006-05-31T08:13:00.000-07:00

Today, I read an article in Salon called "Going Beyond God" interviewing the author, Karen Armstrong. Here are some of my favorite excerpts:

...You're saying these ancient sages really didn't care about big metaphysical systems. They didn't care about theology.

No, none of them did. And neither did Jesus. Jesus did not spend a great deal of time discoursing about the trinity or original sin or the incarnation, which have preoccupied later Christians. He went around doing good and being compassionate. In the Quran, metaphysical speculation is regarded as self-indulgent guesswork. And it makes people, the Quran says, quarrelsome and stupidly sectarian. You can't prove these things one way or the other, so why quarrel about it? The Taoists said this kind of speculation where people pompously hold forth about their opinions was egotism. And when you're faced with the ineffable and the indescribable, they would say it's belittling to cut it down to size. Sometimes, I think the way monotheists talk about God is unreligious.

Unreligious? Like talk about a personal God?

Yes, people very often talk about him as a kind of acquaintance, whom they can second-guess. People will say God loves that, God wills that, and God despises the other. And very often, the opinions of the deity are made to coincide exactly with those of the speaker.

Well, it seems to me you're also saying that to be religious -- truly religious -- is tremendously hard work. It's far harder than just ...

... singing a few hymns.

... or just reading the scriptures literally. You can't live that way.

Religion is hard work. It's an art form. It's a way of finding meaning, like art, like painting, like poetry, in a world that is violent and cruel and often seems meaningless. And art is hard work. You don't just dash off a painting. It takes years of study. I think we expect religious knowledge to be instant. But religious knowledge comes incrementally and slowly. And religion is like any other activity. It's like cooking or sex or science. You have good art, sex and science, and bad art, sex and science. It's not easy to do it well.

So how should we approach the sacred texts? How should we read them?

Sacred texts have traditionally been a bridge to the divine. They're all difficult. They're not a simple manual -- a how-to book that will tell you how to gain enlightenment by next week, like how to lose weight on the Atkins diet. This is a slow process. I think the best image for reading scripture occurs in the story of Jacob, who wrestles with a stranger all night long. And in the morning, the stranger seems to have been his God. That's when Jacob is given the name Israel -- "one who fights with God." And he goes away limping as he walks into the sunrise. Scriptures are a struggle.

What about an afterlife?

It's a red herring as far as I'm concerned.

But you must have thought about that question. Does everything end once we die?

I don't know. I prefer to be agnostic on that matter, as do most of the world's religions. It's really only Christianity and Islam that are obsessed with afterlife in this way. It was not a concern in the Axial Age, not for any of them. I think the old scenarios of heaven and hell can be unreligious. People can perform their good deeds in the spirit of putting their installments in their retirement annuities. And there's nothing religious about that. Religion is supposed to be about the loss of the ego, not about its eternal survival.

And is there an endpoint? From the cosmological perspective, was the universe designed specifically for life? Are those important questions?

Yeah, I think they can be wonderful questions. But they don't occupy me very much. I believe that what we have is now. The religions say you can experience eternity in this life, here and now, by getting those moments of ecstasy where time ceases to be a constraint. And you do it by the exercise of the Golden Rule and by compassion. And just endless speculation about the next world is depriving you of a great experience in this one.

an email prayer

2006-05-08T17:47:00.000-07:00

I get these occasionally in the mail. Usually I don't read them, send them on or spend enough energy to delete them.

But this one touched me. I'm wondering if there really was a Saint Theresa?

Saint Theresa is known as the Saint of the Little Ways . . . meaning she believed in doing the little things in life well and with great love. She is also the patron Saint of flower growers and florists. She is represented by roses.

St. Theresa's Prayer:
May today there be peace within.
May you trust God that you are exactly where you are meant to be.
May you not forget the infinite possibilities that are born of faith.
May you use those gifts that you have received, and pass on the love that has been given to you . . .
May you be content knowing you are a child of God . . .
Let this presence settle into your bones, and allow your soul the freedom to sing, dance, praise and love. It is there for each and every one of us.

being: word-happy

2005-11-17T09:50:00.000-08:00

Is having four, yes, FOUR, blogs a tip-off that I like writing and words and writing words?

In a word: Yes. I do.

I enjoy reading great prose and reading well-thought-out thoughts and wish, wish, WISH I could write like those so gifted.

So, I write in my blogs. This is the fourth of four.

I love words!

Every once in a while, several of us "get going," creating a thread of emails that usually is spontaneous, light-hearted and downright funny. Here's one that just happened today. Makes me smile. MAKES ME SMILE BIG.

I love words. I am word-happy.

being: thankful

2005-11-12T07:49:00.000-08:00

I just wrote a posting on one of my other blogs about my sister, Ruth, and giving thanks for her presence in my life.

I guess my friend, Carol, and my conversation is still swirling around in my head about life as a gift. I can embrace that completely and, ... as a corollary to that, acknowledge my sister as a gift as well.

As the recipient of a profoundly generous gift, I want to acknowledge the gift, celebrate not only the gift but the gift-giver too, and thank the gift-giver for the generosity of the gift.

Being: theology and a small, insistent voice

2005-11-10T10:09:00.000-08:00

A small, insistent voice told me to call my pastor friend, Carol, today. So I did.

Carol and I have known one another since 1984, the year that she came to East Lansing to serve as a campus pastor at the church I attended.

She gave me the names of two books which I may ask Santa for; both are by the esteemed theologian, Douglas John Hall.

The first title is Bound and Free; A Theologian's Journey which talks about life as a gift. We were talking about life as something to be "consumed" and how unappealing a verb that is. Carol mentioned that Hall speaks of being good stewards of that which is a gift, life. I'm intrigued.

The second title is Why Christian? People on the Edge of Faith (or something close to that) which, I presume, was her gentle nudging of me to seek and find a spiritual community with which I can participate.

As more than just a few people have told me, I probably should have studied theology. I positively LOVE reading theology.

And that is a "being" part of me, not a "doing" part.

Doing: busyness

2005-11-06T09:45:00.000-08:00

One of the things that I suspect may impede my spiritual journey is my busyness. I tend to engage in more busyness than may be good for me. Yes. Truly.

For example, spending time on the computer. Blogging. Sometimes ... many times, computer time feels like something fun to do, something I want to do, but it also has an element of busyness to it. What is that all about?

Is spending time surfing on the internet, reading blogs, even blogging myself -- is that akin to (sharp intake of breath) watching TV???!?

Let's observe this, you and me, shall we?

Being: spiritual, part I

2005-11-05T08:41:00.000-08:00

I believe that I am a spiritual being. I believe that we are all spiritual beings. Some of us have more awareness of that, some of us have less.

I believe in a Divine Creator. I also like the paradigm of a Creator/Redeemer/Sustainer although I have more of a problem with the word, Redeemer. That implies that somehow we are broken and need God to "repair" us and make us whole again.

I definitely believe that God creates us and everything around us.

I definitely believe that God sustains us, whether it is the oxygen-rich atmosphere that blankets our little world, the sun rising every morning or the involuntary pumping of our hearts, enabling our every breath and movement. Who but God could do such miraculous and marvelous sustaining activities?

I'll write more later.

Doing: piano playing (second post of Merry Dragon)

2005-11-05T03:32:00.000-08:00

Good morning, world! It's Saturday morning, probably my favorite morning of the week, I'm home among the pine trees and with my sweetheart. All is well with my world!

I played the piano this morning. That is definitely an important part of who I am.

I'm working on the Second Prelude of the Bach's English Suites. I think it's in the key of G-minor(?)

And ... I am writing this post from Writely once again, testing out the software. I think I might like this.

Who am I?

2005-11-04T14:11:00.000-08:00

I happened to catch Oprah earlier this week. The theme of her show was recovering your true inner self.

I've created this blog (my fourth!) as a stealth blog so that I can post about this who-am-I stuff.

We'll see how it goes.

By the way, Merry Dragon used to be the name of my blog over at Squarespace. While I wasn't crazy about Sq~~~~, I was crazy about the name. I felt compelled to recover it!