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.

Connection

This morning I had the opportunity to connect briefly with a young person who had Down’s syndrome and I was reminded of a similar young man I have known in the past. There was a sense of purity, simplicity and happiness coming from him. With the previous young man there was also a solid connection with God and eternity which I envied since the connection was not cluttered with intellect, as it is with me. I have to work at my connection while his came to him simply and easily. "Seek Him we must, with a headlong love, with enthusiasm and romantic ardor, but also with lowliness and patience, and that is a hard combination." (Gilbert Kilpack)

Courage

The "Serenity Prayer" (God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, Courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference) calls for the courage to make changes in my life. I often feel like I do not have the necessary courage so during meditation I fill myself with gratitude, love and faith, then decide what action to take. When I take the action I frequently a mixture of fear and faith. So far, things have always worked out for the best. "Faith, then, means putting trust in a process that slowly builds an intimate relationship with someone I can neither see nor fully understand, but only feel. Living a life of faith implies being in continual contact with God and opening up to being searched and known." (Elizabeth Ostrander Sutton)

Ministry

Because of the power of love and my connection with God/eternity, I am a great deal more than I was. I would like to share that. Tonight I was able, through meditation, to show that to the spirits and encourage them to pass that on to the living. I also serve as an example of them being able to impact the living in a way that supports the ideals for which they fought and died for. Words and thoughts are not enough to convince them so I let them probe me and show them what that power feels like and has done for me, then they get it. "Great deeds can only be achieved when we are more than our little selves. When we are lent wings we should not reject them." (Irene Claremont deCastillejo)

Gratitude

Today I felt like a creaky old man and the facts are that I am seventy years old, disabled with poor coordination and balance and in a body that I abused for much of my life. I get a choice between being angry for my situation or grateful for my life and glad it is not worse. Neither choice changes anything other than my attitude and the way I feel. I choose gratitude! After all I have a home, several good friends, a wonderful wife, a warm bed and good food. I am also upright, breathing and not in much pain or in a wheel chair. Working with the spirits from Arlington National Cemetery and other places gives me a sense of purpose.

Love And Faith

"Love instead of war, killing, aggression and death" is what I hear for the method of achieving the goals of the ideals the spirits believed in and some died for. Then my mind comes back with the question "what if the perpetrators are intent on using aggression". The feeling that comes back strongly is "trust in the process" so that is what I will do and also present as a solution. It is clear to me that this is a case that logic, reasoning and words will not satisfy while knowing and faith will. "To understand better the value of silence in daily life, and its relation to this spiritual transformation for which we yearn, it is useful first to consider the limitation of language, of words It is next useful to contemplate the limitations of logical reasoning." (Daniel A. Seeger)

Conflict and Resolution

Today, during my meditation with some of the spirits from Arlington National Cemetery, I encountered a conflict which concerned me for a while. Some of the spirits agreed on the one hand that killing, aggression and death would not get us closer to the ideals they believed in and some died for. And on the other hand that killing, aggression and death had to help, a belief they had been taught and were committed to. I felt confused and thought they might be right that violence was necessary, at least some of the time. I asked for guidance and meditated. In that meditation I was flooded with remembrance the many instance when violence melted and vanished as a result of love like when members of a church turned toward prayers for perpetrators rather than retaliation. "In the Dhammapada he [the Buddha] teaches that in this world hate never dispels hate. Only love dispels hate."

Being Right Sized

This morning I commented to my wife that I was feeling confused and she made the very helpful comments that "you are not in charge and you are only one person". It was good to be reminded to be "right sized". During my meditation and contemplation today I made it clear to myself that I needed to liste, did not have the answers to life and did not have a full understanding. All were good thoughts to keep me right sized and in reality. According to the gospel of Thomas Jesus said, "Let the one who seeks not stop seeking until he finds. When he finds he will become troubled; when he becomes troubled, he will be astonished and will rule over all things."

Meditation

The theme for my recovery meeting today was "prayer and meditation", a subject I enjoy and feel very passionate about. The subject of meditation also came up during some conversations and during my own contemplation. I particularly enjoy hearing "beginners" speak of their experience of trying meditation without believing in God or anything else in particular and still benefitting tremendously from the experience, much as I did. During my conversations and contemplation I reflected on the physical healing that I and others have experienced as a result of meditation. I wrote about that two days ago. Meditation is one of those practices that seems ethereal but is, in fact, very practical and simple. I have heard it described as "anything that quiets the clamoring of the intellect".