Change

The theme for my recovery meeting today was change and one person spoke of a dream she had in which her internal change was symbolized somewhat violently. I told her that it was a great dream and that I had several dreams symbolizing change, sometimes quite violently. In my case change often feels internally violent, a feeling expressed well in dreams with symbols, sometimes even murder. For example, changing my outlook from control and anger to love was extremely internally difficult for me and in one very vivid dream the process was symbolized by the bloody, bludgeoning murder of a rat, which is how it felt. I now have a very loving outlook but getting here was not easy. "Doing shadow-work means making a gentleman's agreement with one's self to engage in an internal conversation that can, at some time down the road result in an authentic self-acceptance and a real compassion for others."(Zweig and Abrams)

Holistic Health

In 1987 and the beginning of ‘88 I was having extreme movement difficulties and went to several Drs. in order to find out what was wrong, finally being diagnosed with cerebellar degeneration by a neurologist at Johns Hopkins hospital. At that point it was clear that the medical community could not help me so I began using a holistic approach and took on the task myself. I now focus my life on health, healing, unconditional love and being of service. I use visualization and meditation several times daily. I constantly push myself to be active and to do as much as I can. For example, I now mow the lawn (slowly!) with a push mower, something I could not do a few years ago. I also exercise 5-6 times a week using an exercise bike, treadmill, free weights and calisthenics and walk very slowly, unaided. In spite of the dismal prognosis I was given, it is now thirty years later and I have difficulties, but I am doing pretty well. Recently I have gone to another neurologist and found that he still does not believe in the approach which has worked for me for thirty years – sigh. "You create a path of your own by looking within yourself and listening to your soul, cultivating your own ways of experiencing the sacred, and then practicing it. Practicing until you make it a song that sings you."(Sue Monk Kidd)

Clarity

For the last several days I have felt lost and groundless because of changes taking place inside me, developing a clearer awareness of what is. This afternoon I just felt gratitude. I have a wonderful life, which includes getting older, disability, pain, connection with all that is, love and gratitude. In the words of Jack Kornfield; "To love fully and live well requires us to recognize finally that we do not possess or own anything---our homes, our cars, our loved ones, not even our own body. Spiritual joy and wisdom do not come through possession but rather through our capacity to open, to love more fully, and to move and be free in life." I have learned to agree with that point of view. He goes on to say; "The happiness we discover in life is not about possessing or owning or even understanding. Instead, it is the discovery of this capacity to love, to have a loving, free and wise relationship with all of life. Such love is not possessive but arises out of a sense of our own well-being and connection with everything."

New Years

It’s New Years Eve and I am thinking that the conditions on this earth we depend on would be very different if we all behaved according to that infinite, eternal loving force or God seed, I spoke of yesterday. On the other hand, taking a more eternal view, everything is moving along just fine, perfect even! Both views are true, and part of me. I was aware today that I have one foot in the present, what "is", and the other in the eternal, "ought". As a result, I feel very much anchor-less. "it is certain that in a person the ought goes beyond the is, the vision of the potential makes the present actual unsatisfying and insufficient."(Rufus Jones)

Potential

Speaking of the God seed, as I state I my book, "that seed is always there no matter how despicable that person appears on the surface." All people have the choice at all times to act according to that infinite, eternal loving force. That force is part of each of us. For me it requires some effort and discipline to stay connected to that force, since I was not raised to even know of its presence and the culture does not support it. "However that may be — and let the man who soaks his evolutionary terms with purpose pause and reflect — it is certain that in a person the ought goes beyond the is, the vision of the potential makes the present actual unsatisfying and insufficient."(Rufus Jones) I strive to stay connected to that force and become all I can be.

God Seed

When I get internally silent and look inside myself, using meditation, I find a very fallible and finite human being but also an infinite or eternal being that is connected to the wonderful, loving force I call God.. When I make that connection, which I do daily, I realize that it makes no difference the names I use for that force, only that I feel and act on the love. I have a number of human traits like anger, jealousy and ego that both interfere with that love and, like a particle of dust in a ray of sunlight, make it possible to feel that love more intensely. My intent is to feel and act on that "God seed", as I call it, in everything I do. "The central fact that concerns us here is that He [Christ] is the revealing organ of a new and higher order of life."(Rufus Jones)

Meditation

During periods of prayer and meditation, at first only in my sacred time in the night and now all day, I encounter the loving force or power I call God. During my meditation I find that I can become one with that power and use it in my day to day life. I have not yet determined the limits to the effects of that contact, but I am working on it! "A mystical touch is a deep, intimate contact-union-experience of God in one of His attributes such as power, light, goodness, beauty, or joy."(Thomas Dubay, S. M) The most readily observed effect is in my physical healing which often puzzles Drs., a source of personal amusement and frustration. A less obvious effect of that contact is a deeply fulfilling life. "Immersion in God entails a being filled with Him, a divine inflowing. Biblical men knew well enough that this self-communication of God is the sole destiny of men." (Thomas Dubay, S. M.)

Becoming

I wrote yesterday of my own tendency to hold myself back and the fact that I see the same tendency in others. I do everything I can to prevent that sort of attitude in myself and attempt to empower others to become "all they can be" - themselves. Most people, including myself, are much more than they think they are. I love mankind and want to see them become that. "It [evolution to higher levels] is not now the result of an escalator coming up from below. It depends on us, and persons like us, whether we go on to further goals or not. The possibilities are in us, there is no compulsion. We can sag down to the level of animal life, or we can climb an inward Jacob’s Ladder and become rightly fashioned by spirits, kindled by a flame from above..... We have the possibility of becoming superbiological.(Rufus Jones)

Self Realization

For the last several years, decades in some cases, I have made a strong effort to not hold myself back due to the limitations placed on myself by my own beliefs. I look around me and notice others limiting themselves and try to escape from my own beliefs. For example, I wrote my book because of the great value I have found through the force of love - but part of me says "you have a lot of nerve promoting your own story". Another example is my disability. I struggle to escape from my own beliefs which I form in response to what I am told by neurologists. I was told that I would never get better and probably continue to worsen. I chose not to listen and, with several setbacks, have gotten quite a bit better and, in many ways, not gotten worse. All of this time I have a negative internal voice, which tends to hold me back. "To become a person one must both affirm and deny himself. One involves the other." (Rufus Jones)

Thoughts

This morning during socializing after an hour of silent worship a group of us were talking about our wish that actions were being taken that were more kind and loving toward each other and the earth. I made the comment that people do not hurt other people unless they have been hurt. Political and cultural decisions are being made out of hurt and fear rather than love and spirituality - unfortunate, or is it. The current trend seems like the natural sequence of events, but I am wary of long term consequences. I am clear that I do not know. "Some course of action which seems so clearly to be leading to disaster may contain a twist of fate which lifts it to success. That accident whose cause was so apparent may have had an inner meaning we cannot see. That sudden death which we think could have been so easily avoided with greater consciousness may not have been the tragedy it appears. The man who died may have been needed elsewhere. We simply do not know. Scientists discover and theologians affirm; but faced with the mystery of life and death we know almost nothing. We can learn from the experts, but our experience may not fit their theories and it is our experience and our experience alone that we should trust."(Claremont deCastillejo)