Speaking Gently

The last few days have been an exercise in having people angry at me and not taking it personally, which I did reasonably well, though I like it better when I get a positive response. I am often in a position where people ask me for advice and sometimes they do not like what I say, even when I speak gently. For example, I made several suggestions to someone regarding some potential changes in their behavior at recovery meetings. They responded by getting angry at me, saying "I don’t want to" and deciding to stop talking to me. When I respond to someone I make certain that I am avoiding any personal agendas and that my words are loving and "increase the integrity of the universe, then I speak and let it go.

War Or Love?

Today it is clear to me that war, aggression and killing never "increase the integrity of the universe", those actions are never a loving response. It is also clear to me and I communicate to the spirits I work with, that I do not know what that loving response would be but we agree that war is not it. I believe that using quiet meditation, getting past the fear and anger response and listening to "that small quiet voice" we can arrive at a loving, functional response. As I have learned in my own life, that requires discipline and patience but it works.".... We shall never succeed in stopping war until we have a human society permeated with persons who practice a way of life which removes and abolishes the grounds and occasions of war, and at the same time matures and ripens a spirit of mutual understanding and personal cooperation. (Rufus Jones)

Near-Death-Experience

Today I watched a movie (Let Their Be Light) about an atheist professor who experienced a conversion and transformation because of a Near-Death-Experience during which he was in the tunnel, saw his deceased child, saw a powerful light and felt intense, pure love. The love he felt was much stronger than anything human. He attributed what he saw and felt to Jesus Christ. During my own N.D.E. I felt the same love but saw no visions. The love I was bathed in was much stronger, more pure and unconditional than anything in my human experience and I was told "this is what it feels like to be dead". The love I felt was freely given and I felt no tendency to attribute it to any specific source and,.in fact, I felt that the name used did not matter — the love did. People use many different names and have many different cultural backgrounds and none of that mattered — the love did.

Self-care

I was tending toward becoming a "human doing" rather than a "human being", meaning that I was beginning to emphasize doing things and accomplishments over spiritual well-being. This is a common trap that I have fallen into before. I usually don’t do much since it takes me so long to do things and nothing is easy. I also usually spend several hours meditating, contemplating and just sitting. I had cut back on my meditation time in favor of doing more, a pattern that does not work for me. Time to meditate!

Guidance

I have encountered many situations that baffle me and result in me not knowing how to proceed. The situation I described yesterday is a good example. What I do and what I did is to wait until a time when I was alone so could focus. Then I meditated on the situation and asked for guidance. In this case I was told to take the lead and show my trust and good will first by opening up totally for her scrutiny, which is what I did, and it worked so that she was willing to connect. "Help comes from somewhere and enables us to do what we had always thought could not be done." (Rufus Jones)

Connection

Strange day — I attended a pre-Thanksgiving gathering of in-laws during which I attempted to connect with a four month old baby girl. At first I was across the room and kept trying to connect by projection and was consistently met with a very flat or nothing feeling which I took to mean that in order to connect I needed to have some physical contact. I resisted that idea for a while since it was a crowded room and I am not coordinated or stable. I finally did get up and go over to the baby and her mother while my wife was there. I offered my finger for the baby to grasp which she did and I was still unable to connect, still a flat nothing. I realized then that she did not want to which surprised me since I had always been able to connect with babies before. She finally looked at me and I felt her say "OK.....maybe". We shall see.