On worship in thought and action.

What do I worship?
To what Power do I bow, submit and give thanks? 
What Spirit do I honor by my thoughts, thanks and actions?  
Is there a difference between what I worship consciously, intellectually, and my priorities revealed by my actions?

I naturally want to keep worshiping that which I have been worshiping.  I want to be, and to feel, right.  But unless what I worship is love, including love of growth from experience, error and independent thought, it is very difficult to see when what I worship - or how I worship - is not well serving me.

My best: what does that mean?

My best in matters of physical skill is the closest I get to my best: like a golf shot, it is done - well or poorly - in the moment. 
My best in physical matters involving sustained effort - like a race or a project - is the best I can see to do, because that effort depends on my conscious and unconscious decisions about my limits, including how much discomfort I will accept. 

My best in social and professional matters is usually the best I am willing to do.  When I promise to do my best, I am implicitly, and sometimes unconsciously, reserving the right to decide what that is.  If "my best" meant, literally, my actual best, I would promise it to others very rarely - and, when I did promise it, I would grow every time.

October 4, 2015

In our tradition, there are two supreme commandments. 

"Love thy neighbor as thyself" applies to all our relationships with others. 

"Love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, all thy soul, all thy mind and all thy strength" applies to our relationship with God. But that relationship is not with someone else's God. It is with "thy God". That relationship is with God as each of us, individually, conceives God to be.  It is our relationship with Love itself, with the Holy Spirit, with Intellect and Creativity, and with our Sources of power.  That commandment, that exhortation, that invitation, is to think and to grow.