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.