Yearnings, temptations, impulses

Yearnings, temptations, and impulses: fear of them, or of the consequences of yielding to them may avoid trouble.  But who wants to be driven by fear?
Much more effective and fulfilling is consciously asking, and doing, what our highest values require, thus both living up to the examples of the people we most admire and, by being good examples, contributing to those who come after us.

Reality check #13: Ethics

Ethics are situational, but how aware are we of the ethical choices we are making?  How carefully do we consider the ethical choices we perceive? 
Do we act as if what we want to do is what our ethics require, or at least permit?
What is the price of claiming ethical values and not acting according to what one's conscience would have one do?

Reality check #12: What would I give up to get others' holiness?

How would my life improve if I really got that each and every person is a holy person? 
How might I contribute to others' lives if I really got that? 
What would I have to give up to really get this? 
How much self-righteousness am I willing to give up?

Reality check #11: Gears in the transmission of Life

When you feel on top of the world, at the top of your game, what if you are just at the top of one gear - ready to shift into the next one? The next professional or creative gear? The next level of consciousness? The next spiritual gear?
What if, in the transmission of life, the next gear is a deeper awareness and a higher level of service to others?
In the moments when life seems great just the way it is, would you rather stay where you are, ignore or forget that there's a higher gear - how many higher gears? - and avoid the discomfort of growth? Of being a beginner again?

November 24, 2019

The Holy Spirit gives each and every person this superpower:

To give love – or to withhold it;

To extend many kindnesses, small and big – or not;

To decide when and how to serve as an agent of grace.

November 17, 2019

When is it appropriate to forget or ignore our values?

When is it appropriate to stop examining our values in the light of our experience or to stop adjusting our values, our actions, or both, as our integrity may require?

When is it appropriate to stop trying to be a good person, an agent of grace?

When is it appropriate to stop studying, and exercising, the power of love?

October 13, 2019

October 13, 2019

I am reading a book by a psychiatrist friend based on his thousands of hours providing psychotherapy to American veterans and active duty armed forces personnel suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.  Each of the chapters of War Stories From the Forgotten Soldiers tells one soldier’s story — anonymously, of course — ­­­including horrific combat incidents, deaths and injuries, and their effects on the patient and his or her family and friends.  I am only part way through an advance copy the book — for which I’m helping the author get endorsements — and I have been moved to tears several times.  I believe the book is of great educational, social and political importance.  My concern for the wide recognition of that importance is that, though I’ve read no graphic or gratuitous descriptions of violence, even the book’s simple descriptions of what the soldier-patients have gone through are so horrible and uncomfortable to read that Americans will refuse to read them, let alone to learn from them.

If we want to have more peace in the world, we need to know more about war and to tell the truth about it.

If we want to have more love in the world, we need to know about anger and hate and to respond to them with compassion.

If we want to contribute to the healing of society, and of our individual neighbors’ wounds, we need to learn much more about the causes, nature and scale of the injuries and the emotional wounds of those our nation has sent to war; more about how our society cares — how we care — for our soldiers; and more about the origins, present wisdom, and future implications of our national policies which led to war and are likely to continue to do so.

Love is essential.

Love, including the will to extend oneself for the benefit and growth of others, is already essential to peace of mind and successful relationships. Ultimately, love will prove essential to the very survival of humanity as well.

September 22, 2019

Habits, for the most part, become easy and comfortable.

Growth is uncomfortable.

In the Bible,* there is a parable of a man who is going on a long trip.  To each of two other men he entrusts money – I think it’s one “talent,” a marvelous irony, in English – with the understanding that each will take care of the money.  When he returns, the first man who undertook stewardship of the talent says, “Here are two talents. I put the one you entrusted to me to work and gained another one.”  The man who gave him the money is pleased and impressed.  The other man entrusted with a talent says, “Here is your talent.  I did as you asked: I guarded it – by burying it - and now I return it to you.”  The man who entrusted the money, much displeased and disappointed, admonishes this man saying, in essence, “you squandered the opportunity to use and enhance that which was entrusted to you.”

Holy Spirit, please help us consciously to discover, use and grow that which we have been given, bearing all necessary discomfort, the better to be agents of Your grace, and to our own peace and benefit.

*  See Matthew 25:14-30.

August 4, 2019

I have some thoughts this morning about the special chemistry of the Holy Spirit for which I am grateful to poet Ross Gay.

If we share our sorrows – if you and I add my sorrow to your sorrow – the result is joy and greater resilience for each of us.

If we share our vulnerabilities – if we add my vulnerabilities to your vulnerabilities – the result is joy and greater strength for each of us.

If we share our joy, and add a tincture of love, the result is more joy.

June 30, 2019

If you think about Life as a body, and of each person, and even every living thing, as a cell within that body, each of us has his or her own role, or function, in service of the health of the body.  We have great freedom in discerning and fulfilling that function.  Just as, in a body, some cells protect other cells, connect other cells, or bring the oxygen others need to function, we each have the responsibility of fulfilling our particular function, and supporting each other - not judging or interfering with each other - in fulfilling each other's function.

Life always works marvelously well (our judgments notwithstanding), its cells unified and informed by something more than its physical components.  There is a Holy Spirit connecting all of Life: a Spirit of Love.

June 2, 2019

Was there a God before there were human beings?

Was there a God Who decided, for this small planet in the vast universe, “It’s time to for me to make some dry land there”?  And later, “It’s time for an Ice Age. I’ll make some glaciers.”

For a long time, I have thought that there were only two fundamental differences between human beings and other mammals – other animals.  First, humans have a qualitatively greater cognitive capacity, including the capacity to imagine, and even to design and create, things that do not exist.  Second, human beings have the capacity to perceive that some things are good, or right, and some things are evil, or wrong.*

Today I have come to believe that there is a third difference between humans and our fellow creatures on this planet – a difference which seems more important than the other two.  That difference is the presence of a Spirit within, and accessible to, each human being.  It is a Spirit which I call the Holy Spirit, and also God, because it beckons each person to a state of holiness; to peace of mind and pacific action despite personal, social and global travails and conflicts, including those caused by violent, oppressive, or improvident use of the other two distinguishing human capacities.  The Holy Spirit beckons us, individually and collectively, to connection and peace between people and, if we allow it to do so, guides us there.

I believe that the Holy Spirit is Love.  I believe that Jesus saw that Spirit – saw love and holiness - in every person and devoted his life to teaching people how to find that Spirit, that holiness – to find God – in themselves, and in each other, including today.**

* In light of experiments such as the “capuchin monkey fairness experiment;” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=meiU6TxysCg ;

I have ceased to believe that only humans perceive differences between right and wrong.

** See the Holy Bible, 1 John 4:8.

Weariness brings choice

weariness brings choice
self pity or awareness
that's all - or there's more

May 5, 2019

Is there a Holy Spirit of incomprehensible power and wisdom – and many names – that is always available to every human being to love us, teach us, guide us, and connect us?

If – as I believe - there is such a Holy Spirit, can it be denied that, on this planet, it accomplishes astonishing things through the agency of people?

For you and for me, in very moment, in decisions and actions big and small, in all our relationships and communications, what source of wisdom and love and peace is equal to the Holy Spirit – including the Holy Spirit within each other?

In each of my decisions and actions, in all my relationships and communications, am I doing my best to be an agent of the Holy Spirit?

April 21, 2019

This morning on my way to Meeting, I listened to an interview of Congressman John Lewis, the only one of six leading organizers of the 1963 march on Washington who is still alive.  He said that his lifelong campaign for civil rights was founded on his total commitment to nonviolence, peace, and love.  He did not connect nonviolence, peace and love, or his commitment to them, to any religion.

Today, Easter, Quakers and other Christians celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ and His restoration to the presence, and living service, of God, His Father and the One Jesus lived to serve.

Today it is particularly appropriate for us to consider for Whom, or for what principles, we are committed to be agents; how we show our commitment to that service; and the degree to which that commitment is founded upon nonviolence, peace, and love.

February 3, 2019

Imagine the reach and depth of the wisdom of the Holy Spirit!  A Spirit which perceives the circumstances and needs of each person – and of each other person with whom we are concerned, moment to moment.  A Spirit which, when asked, may tell me to stay and you to move on; which may tell you to persevere and me to let go; which may tell me to act and you to forebear; which may tell you to speak and me to keep my peace.

Are there as many Holy Spirits as there are people, responding only to the assigned person’s prayers for guidance, as if in some cosmic call center?  Or is there one Holy Spirit uniting all humanity and nurturing each individual’s growth and grace according to her or his circumstances?  The answer is a matter of faith.

I believe there is one Holy Spirit available to each person at all times, if we ask; if we strive to stay connected to that Spirit – including to the presence of that Spirit in each other despite all human and cultural differences; if we seek to be agents of that Spirit of love and grace for our growth and for the contributions we can make to others.

January 27, 2019

How many times has it been asked, “How could a loving God allow that to happen?!” 

War, genocide, murder, rape, torture, violence, abuse of all kinds! 

Cheating, greed and corruption no matter the cost to others! 

Famines, epidemics, heartbreaking miscarriages, awful birth defects, catastrophic accidents and natural disasters!

How could a loving God allow such things?

Is it possible that our understanding of how God works is, though naturally human, simply wrong?

Is it possible that God has given life, function and opportunity to all living things and, particularly to each human being, stewardship – whether we accept it or not - of the gift of life, including care of ourselves, of each other, and of our planetary ecosystem?

Is it possible that we do not want that responsibility?

Two inexhaustible energy sources

Self-righteousness - whether concluding quietly to oneself or asserting vociferously to others that one is right - is the easier of humanity's two inexhaustible sources of energy.

The other one, the much more powerful one, is love.

Self-righteousness is instinctual, requires neither effort nor growth, and is at least initially comforting, especially when we go with a crowd.  The high costs of self-righteousness - loneliness, stress, atrophy of love of others and curiosity about them and their views - often appear after the habit of self-righteousness has taken hold so firmly that we do not see their origin.

Love is instinctual, too, but is much harder work because its focus is on growth and service, not on feeling emotionally or physically comfortable.  Love includes others.  Love includes curiosity about and care of others, as well as self-care.  Love includes acceptance of others, and modesty, because true acceptance of another means accepting that we might have something to give away, not protect, and that we might have something - maybe a lot - to learn from others.  Love includes curiosity about how we and others might grow, not how we might protect what we have, including our self-perception.  Love, too, can become a habit, and easier each day, once its value - particularly its value compared to self-righteousness - becomes clear.

Love is the powerful discipline.

Reality check #10

Temptation, including the blink-of-an-eye temptation to act on impulse, and how we respond to temptation clearly reveal our values - if we are willing to look.

If personal responsibility is really one of my core values, is what I'm tempted to do something for which I will shrink from taking responsibility?

Is what I'm tempted to do something which will diminish my awareness of my responsibilities?

January 20, 2019

We are enough.

Each of you is enough.

I am enough.

Though we gather as seekers, we must remember what we have already found: we have found many truths which bring us the experience of love, peace, strength, and courage.

You are enough.

I am enough.

Does the Holy Spirit within each person look upon us and our choices and condemn us? 

Does the Holy Spirit tell us, “you are not enough”?

I don’t think so.  I think the Holy Spirit says to us,

“Do your best joyfully and productively to use the gift of Life and stop trying to be more perfect than I made you.”

And we will be joyful and productive if we look upon each other, and every other person, with love, and with the conviction that “you are enough and I am enough.”

Creativity in dreams

One way to think about dreams: 
All the creativity they represent, night after night, is within the dreamer.
That creativity is worth cultivating in ourselves and honoring and encouraging in others.

What, or whom, do you represent?

What, or whom, do you represent? 
For what or for whom are you an agent, constantly or variously from moment to moment?
Is it God (however named), or Love?
Your family?
A friend or friends?
Your church or faith?
Your nation, state, district, or community?
A cause, or a person or group advancing that cause?
One or more principles, such as integrity, honesty, fidelity, or equal justice under law?
Your organization, employer, or colleagues?

Why do you choose to represent what, or whom, you do?  The choice is yours, isn't it?

If you see yourself as being completely unencumbered by commitment; as representing no thing or person, as being an agent of nothing and no one; isn't that a choice?

Don't you still and always represent yourself?

#confessionofaselfishman

December 23, 2018

I recently listened to a full choral and symphonic performance of The Battle Hymn of the Republic. As usual, it moved this former conscientious objector to tears.
"Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored.
He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword.
His truth is marching on."

This is clearly a Christian hymn:
"As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free."

Relatively few people die in the physical struggle for freedom, justice, and peace. But it takes nothing away from the due honor and glory of those who do for us to honor, thank and support those who dedicate their natural lives to the achievement and preservation of freedom, justice, and peace.

And so today I think the first stanza of The Battle Hymn of the Republic may with all respect be re-framed, rephrased:

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the presence of the Lord. 
He still tramples out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored.
He hath given us the power of Love's self-sustaining word.
His truth still marches on.