Connection

I am immensely grateful for my mystical connection with God and, through that connection, with everything else. I now have one foot and understanding in this transient earthly reality which I wake up to every morning. The other foot and understanding is focused on the significance of each event within eternity. Each view, separately and together brings me joy. For example I understand and enjoy the fact that one of the large oak trees in the our backyard has a loving sense of a family connection with the English ivy plants around it. The tree and I both know that the same ivy will shorten its life, but that, in the eternal view, that loving connection is more important than a few years of life. "Without needlessly multiplying such testimonies for data, we can say with considerable assurance that mystical experience is consciousness of direct and immediate relationship with some transcendent reality which in the moment of experience is believed to be God."(Rufus Jones)

Service Work

I am one of the "stray dog spiritual seekers" I spoke of yesterday, always looking for understanding and a home. I have found both in the entity I call God and now spend my days attempting to bring that feeling and reality to as many others as possible. Finding that has changed my life immeasurably, allowing me to become an integrated, fulfilled whole. For me, the "others" that I carry the message to includes living humans and those that have transitioned on. "I take the spiritual life to be a life of which aims to discover human wholeness, the integration of all aspects of our humanity - body, soul, mind, emotions - and the connection of the self to all of creation."(Paul A. Lacey)

Challenge

This morning my wife and I attended a Friend’s business meeting where the Ministry and Council Committee presented their annual "Spiritual State of the Meeting" report for 2017.  In that report one of the main points which concerns this faith community is the desire to be "open" and "inclusive" when it comes to other members of the diverse community of "spiritual seekers", an approach that my wife and I welcome. Recently we have been selected to be Co-clerks (leaders) of the Thursday evening meeting for worship, giving us an exciting and daunting task of being open and inclusive of diversity while also staying loosely within Quaker ideals. To put these ideas in more relaxed terms, I would like to welcome and attract some of the "stray dog" spiritual seekers with their passion and diversity. I know they will make me feel uncomfortable at times and challenge my love for them, but that is how I grow. "In the Dhammapada he [the Buddha] teaches that in this world hate never dispels hate. Only love dispels hate."

Addressing the Basics

I find that I need to always remember the basics of recovery and the human condition in general while also addressing the loftier issues of my mystical connection with the Source or my communications with spirits. By the basics I mean dealing with things like the fears or lack of control I wrote about yesterday. The basics also include things like my need to pay attention to self-care, exercise, eating carefully, keeping my weight down and getting enough sleep. Today after exercising and eating my oatmeal breakfast, I began watching a movie which I then shut off realizing I needed the silence of contemplation, meditation and working in the garden. "It [inner silence] is to establish an inner peace, an inner harmony, which will allow us authentically to contribute to the establishment of an outer peace and an outer harmony in the world at large."

Fear

For the last few days I have been dealing with my credit card company on fraud issues and the resultant payment issues with my e-mail account. I am not dealing with either very well. I find that because of past hurt and frustration I am uncomfortable when my attempts at being in control are thwarted. These situations, though trivial in many ways, have ignited fear in me. I need to recognize the difficulty, trust, take the next right action and be at peace. As Jack Kornfield wrote "As we stop the war, each of us will find something from which we have been running -- our loneliness, our unworthiness, our boredom, our shame, our unfulfilled desires." He also wrote "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."

Growth

I agree with the many spiritual leaders who have commented something to the effect that the purpose of living is to learn to give and receive love. Personally, I have gone through some major and very unenjoyable events in my life which have ultimately taught me about love. For example the deaths of family members, divorce, an unpleasant childhood or my disability. In the case of my disability the medical profession made it clear that they could not help me deal with it or to recover so, in desperation, I turned to God and love. I found love to be a powerful healing force which I do not understand but continue to use for myself and give freely to others, a win-win situation. "And if the light one has becomes temporarily dimmer, the light one seeks is brighter still and is to be found at the very heart of the darkness of the unconscious." (John Yungblut)

Mystical Experience

Each night in the "wee" hours, when I get up to pray, meditate and write in this journal, I experience what Jones calls the "transcendent reality" which I have come to know as God, a wonderful gift. I also have that experience often when I work with others or meditate during the day. The feeling can best, though inadequately, be described as a very intense, all encompassing feeling of unconditional love together with a sense of Presence. I consider the feeling to be a force that I use in healing work or selflessly connecting with others. "Without needlessly multiplying such testimonies for data, we can say with considerable assurance that mystical experience is consciousness of direct and immediate relationship with some transcendent reality which in the moment of experience is believed to be God."(Rufus Jones)

Perspective

Because of my connection with the force I call God, I view everything that happens on this earthly plain through a filter of love and with one foot in the eternal, a view which changes my attitude about life events dramatically. That view is the source of yesterday’s comments. I have also had the experience of having a person standing in front of me, berating me while I felt nothing but love and compassion for that person. I felt that he was just another flawed, angry and hurt individual, like myself, so I wanted to hug him and help him — very strange, but also accurate. "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)

Growth

I look back over history and note that, as a species, we have mad a lot of progress in terms of acting in an ethical way or in accordance with the three questions I describe in my book; would I do this in front of God, or whatever you call that power/force?; is my name really on it or is it really my responsibility?; will this increase the integrity of the universe, or is this loving? Basically, overall, we treat each other and the earth in a more loving and respectful way. I also note that we have a long way to go. I like Benjamin Friedman’s comment, that "When material progress falters........people become more jealous of their status relative to others. Anti-immigrant sentiment typically increases, as does conflict between races and classes; concern for the poor tends to decline." I have hope and will do everything I can to help us move in a loving direction.

Strength

The subject for tonight’s recovery meeting was "strength", which caused me to reflect on the challenges I have faced and my own growth. I have heard it said that "you don’t know how strong you are until being strong is the only choice you have" — Very true for me. I have been presented with several situations I didn’t know I could deal with, particularly through my disability and my work with spirits. I am confronted with challenges, ask for guidance and work through them — growing in the process. "Trouble or suffering of any kind does not come from God. It is an indication that there is a lesson to be learned by us, and the trouble itself furnishes us with the very opportunity that we need in order to learn that lesson, so that such a thing need never happen to us again." (Emmet Fox.)