October 31, 2021

Holy Spirit — are You there?

“What does your experience tell you?”

My experience tells me that You are there; that You are present.  But You appear not to be there in the experience of many people.

“I am there for — I am within — every person. But everyone is unique and some people do not experience my presence.  That’s all right.  I love them, too, and provide grace where I can.”

Are You always there for every person?

“Yes.  And I will be with you as part of your spirit through your last breaths and when your spirit departs your body.  And what would make you think I would leave you after that?”

Stewardship of one's body

Stewardship of one's body is an essential responsibility accompanying the gift of life.  Listening to one's body and doing one's best to discern and provide what it needs is part of that responsibility.

Without breath and circulating blood, the human body is inanimate flesh.  With them, the body is both puppet and partner of an individual's personality, intellect, and spirit.  While we have the gift of life, your body and mine are like our spirits' Charlie McCarthy marionettes in that they do our bidding as best we have trained them to do and they bear our mistreatment and neglect.  But our bodies are, and deserve, much more: our consciousness, intellect and spirit depend on our bodies for all physical senses of perception, all physical pleasures, every action in the physical world, and all spiritual growth, fulfillment and pleasures in this life.

Reality check #17 (Loving how I feel)

Whenever I love how I feel - when I feel that at that moment everything is all right just the way it is - I get the experience of heaven.

When do I most often love how I feel?

In whose presence, or in contemplation of whom, do I love how I feel?  

What is it about those people that evokes this reaction; that causes me to love how I feel when I think of them, and especially when I am with them?

How can I more frequently discover, or create within myself, the circumstances in which I love how I feel?

What attitudes, judgments, and conduct must I avoid lest I spoil the experience of simply loving how I feel?

Rest

One of our almost constant, often unconscious, choices is how to balance activity and rest.

Reasonable rest is as essential to health as reasonable activity.  

Rest is not doing nothing.

Rest is not idleness.

Rest is fundamental to self care.

September 19, 2021

Ignorance, inability, failure and lack of comprehension, others' and our own, are often, and from early ages, judged harshly. In ourselves, perhaps that is because those are the qualities, and boundaries, of the selves we have outgrown, or would like to have outgrown. When we judge others, perhaps our insecurities are showing. In any case, from late childhood, people usually try to avoid ignorance, inability, failure, and incomprehension, or deny them.

I recently helped care for my step-grandson Jack. He was ten months old. He couldn't pull himself up to a standing position. But he kept trying. Reaching up and holding onto a coffee table, he'd pull himself up so his bottom was a half inch off the floor - and fall back. He'd try again, get his bottom an inch off the floor - and fall back. He kept trying and failing until he moved on to try something else.

Watching Jack that day, marveling at him, deepened my understanding of the biblical message that only by returning to childhood can one mature in matters of the spirit and enter and experience heaven. However smart, able and accomplished we may be in the physical world and in society, only by accepting our ignorance, inability, failure, and incomprehension — only by child-like innocence, curiosity, and perseverance — can we most fully experience spiritual growth.

[See Matthew 18:3-5]

August 29, 2021

Pain is a part of life.  Pain is rarely invited: it is usually unwelcome and often dreaded.  But pain, including emotional pain — grief and heartache — is also a great and essential teacher.  Pain is a strict teacher, but if we will stay in class and pay attention, pain reminds us that any particular pain is only a small part of Life.  Pain instructs us not only in the need for self-care — for the sensible stewardship of the gift of Life — but also in the danger of self-pity and the importance of an outward perspective.  Pain enables us to understand others' pain; to grow in empathy and compassion for others; and to see the importance to ourselves of helping others and new ways to do so.

August 1, 2021

If I believe that there is some part of God within every person, how can I worship God without affirming, and striving to strengthen, my connection with that shared and holy Spirit in every other person, no matter what their background, their capacities, or their beliefs about God or anything else?