One thing begets another. Fear begets fear. Love begets love. Hate begets hate. Hope begets hope. Sometimes we get so caught up in the process of begetting fear that we forget we have the power to beget hope. Then something will happen and we will be able to find our way back to being hopeful and being able to give hope to others. This is the lesson behind a story I read in a book by R. Wayne Willis called Hope Notes.
"There's an old Egyptian story about a little boy named Miobi who came to a village where the people were very strange
Read moreA few weeks ago, at our Living the Five Agreements group we were talking about gratitude from a Toltec Perspective. We read a paragraph from Sheri Rosenthal’s book The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Toltec Wisdom. One of the points she made was that from a Toltec perspective Warriors do not see experiences as good or bad, but instead as learning experiences. Her writing reminded me of a piece of wisdom my Bubby shared with me that I was to seek the blessing in all situations and circumstances. There is a lesson in every moment of life she would tell me. See the lesson. Who knew that my Bubby, who had never heard of Toltec wisdom, knew that this is what she was teaching me.
Read moreI am not quite sure who said the last thing to discover water would be a fish is, but whoever it was, thank you. Sometimes we are like the fish, it is not until you take us out of our fish bowl that we become conscious of all the blessings in our life. Thich Nhat Hanh in his book Peace Is Every Breath, tells the story about how he remembered to be grateful for the water when the plumbing broke down. Sometimes I forget to give thanks for the electricity, until we have a power outage. I forget to give thanks for my dishwasher until it stops working. I had forgotten what a gift it is to go to the bathroom until I woke up one morning and was unable to urinate. How many things happen in our daily lives that we forget to give thanks for or do not even think of as blessings until we are suddenly and unexpectedly deprived of them
Read moreEvery faith tradition has a teaching about how gratitude balances out greed. One of my favorites can be found in Kyabje Kalu Rinpoche’s book The Way of the Buddha. In it he writes, "At the time of Buddha Sakyamuni, a monk found himself in possession of a marvelous jewel that granted any wish — all the gold, silver, and precious stones you could ask for. The lucky owner thought: 'I am a monk and have no need of all these riches. Better to give this jewel to a poor person. But there are so many of them, why favor one over another? Buddha is omniscient. He will tell me whom to give it to.' So, going to Buddha, he explained his difficulty and asked him to designate a fitting recipient. Buddha Sakyamuni recommended that he give it to the king of that area, a very wealthy and powerful monarch. The monk made the offering, and the king accepted it, inquiring about the reason for the gift. The monk explained, 'I thought I should give this gem to a poor person, but not knowing whom to choose, I asked Buddha Sakyamuni. He advised me to bring it to you.' "
Read moreOn November 1st, our Love and inspiration gathering had a powerful discussion about gratitude. We talked about how gratitude, when practiced, has the potential to be the tapestry of our lives. Everything we give thanks for leads to something else. For example, we talked about giving thanks for indoor plumbing, which led to us giving thanks for our showers, our toilets, our dishwashers, all the appliances that use water. This led to us giving thanks for those that have given to ensure water flows into our homes, which led to a discussion of how often we take things for granted. It is not until our water is shut off for some reason, albeit temporarily that we realize how grateful we are for having it and when it is restored, we are immensely grateful. How rarely do we think about all the people in this world who cannot just get up and get a glass of water? Those who do not have access to clean water? Those who have to walk for miles to even bring water to their families. It is when we stop and follow the thread that we begin to have a deeper understanding not only of what we are grateful for, but why we appreciate it as much as we do.
Read moreThere is a saying that a picture speaks a thousand words. It simply means that a picture tells a story just as well as a large amount of text. All month I have been writing about grace. So this week, I thought I would write little but post pictures I have found that capture people being in grace and let them speak to you as they do.
Read moreIn my studies on grace, I have come across a number of analogies. One was that of floating as I discussed in the newsletter. Another was to think about grace like the rays of the sun. The sun is always there. Even when we cannot see it, the sun is present. Regardless of what time we get up, the sun is there. Sometimes, when we first wake up, we see the sun coming in through our window and we roll over and pull the covers over our head. Sometimes we wake up, but leave our doors and windows closed, blocking the sunlight from coming into our spaces. In each of these situations, we are keeping ourselves from experiencing the fullness of God’s grace.
Read moreYears ago, when I was pastoring, we had a tradition we called Hugs and Love. We would always start off with a reminder about how God loves us just as we are. Then we would greet each other and tell each other that God loved us just as we were. I remember the first time I opened this tradition as if it were yesterday. I talked about how we were like coffee cups. When you first go to the store to purchase a cup, it is smooth and clean inside. However, over time and use, there are stains which build up and tiny little cracks that sometimes appear and yet we still go back to that cup time after time and accept it just as it is.
Read moreThe spiritual practice for this month has been forgiveness. Our Sunday morning love and inspiration group has been having some amazing conversations about forgiveness. In the midst of it, I realized that I had not forgiven myself for not writing to anyone last week. I had taken an entire week off from blogging. My first time to do that in five years and I was angry at myself for not having done so. I had to stop and practice forgiveness with myself. I had to forgive myself for expecting that I would write without ceasing and never take a break when I needed one. I had to stop and forgive myself for not trusting those of you who read the meditations of my heart for understanding when I need a vacation or need to take a week off.
As I sat and thought through all this, this past week, I remembered a teaching from my Bubby (Yiddish for grandmother) who taught me to never go to bed angry.
Read moreAs many of you who follow us on a regular basis know, the next few years we are focusing on a different spiritual practice each month. September is the month of forgiveness. While I have always known it to be a spiritual practice, I did not realize that there days that were set aside to calm together as global bodies and practice forgiveness. For example, I just found out that August 5th was International Forgiveness Day, Global Forgiveness Day was August 27th and Regular Forgiveness Day was June 26th. While all these days are important, it is also important to remember that each day has the potential to be forgiveness day in our lives.
After our Living the Five Agreements group tonight, I decided to see what Toltec Wisdom said about forgiveness. In the Everything Toltec Wisdom book, it is written,
Read moreI recently read this quote from Desmond Tutu in Victor Chan’s book The Wisdom of Forgiveness. It was written,
In our country, we speak of something called ubuuntu. When I want to praise you, the highest praise I can give you is to say, you have ubuuntu — this person has what it takes to be a human being. This is a person who recognizes that he exists only because others exist: a person is a person through other persons. When we say you have ubuuntu, we mean that you are gentle, you are compassionate, you are hospitable, you want to share, and you care about the welfare of others. This is because my humanity is caught up in your humanity. So when I dehumanize others, whether I like it or not, inexorably, I dehumanize myself. For we can only by human, we can only be free, together. To forgive is actually the best form of self-interest.
Forgiveness, is not about what you do for others, it is the willingness to help yourself become the best person you can be.
Read moreFor those of you who have never joined us on Sunday mornings for Love & Inspiration on Zoom, we invite you to consider joining us. I know some of you go to places of worship, but for those of you who do not, call in. Why? Because during these calls, we have deep and profound conversations and we would love to share them with you. This month, we have been talking about faith. Yesterday’s conversation kept coming back to what faith is. Is it a possession, as in something we have and possess? Or is faith a relationship with our Higher Power, however, we define that. It is this conversation that inspired me to make it the Sharing Time question for the week and the focus of my blog.
So often we hear people talk about how much faith they have as if faith is a possession, something one owns. So if faith is a possession, what is it you really possess?
Read morePierre Teilhard de Chardin captures an important aspect of faith in these lines from a prayer.
Breathing in: Trust in . . .
Breathing out: the slow work of God.
How many of us remember to trust in the slow work of God? Last year, one of my students said to me, “It sure would be nice if God could answer your prayers in the same amount of time it takes to get a Happy Meal.” I had to stop and remind him that Happy Meals do not always make you happy, at least not in the long run, and that they are not always healthy. However his question got at an important point. How often do we expect God to hear and answer our prayers instantaneously? Do we only trust in God when they are answered quickly or do we trust in the slow work of God?
Read moreRecently I was asked if God still speaks to people. My response was yes and I shared a story about how God had spoken to me. The person said, but that is just you. Can you shareanother story with me? In my gathering of stories on faith for this person, I was led to this one, which really spoke to me about faith, so I thought I would share it with you this week.
A young man had been to Wednesday night Bible Study. The Pastor had spoken about "listening to God and obeying the Lord's voice."
The young man couldn't help but wonder, "Does God still speak to people?" After service he went out with some friends for coffee and pie and they discussed the message. Several different ones talked about how God had led them in different ways. It was about ten o'clock when the young man started driving home. Sitting in his car, he just began to pray,"God, if you still speak to people, speak to me. I will listen. I will do my best to obey."
Read moreI recently came across an article by Mark Batterson, author of In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day, and Wild Goose Chase. I found this while doing some research on the five senses and faith. So I thought I would share this with you this week.
One Quadrillion Synapses
I came across an interesting factoid today as I was researching for my next book.
The human body has approximately 100,000,000 (one hundred million) sensory receptors that enable us to see, hear, taste, touch, and smell. And that is a testament to our Divine Designer. We are fearfully and wonderfully made. By the way, when was the last time you thanked God for each of your senses? We have seven million cones that enable us to perceive about ten million different colors. Doesn’t it seem like we owe God seven million thank yous?
Read moreI was so moved when I watched this video on faith. In the cover article for our monthly newsletter, I had written about how faith is a multisensory experience. I had talked about how the Universe provides us with answers to our prayers in a wide diversity of ways. In the story told in this video, this man’s prayers were answered via a license plate. Something had to draw his eyes to that license plate. Normally, when we are driving, at least from my memory of having driven, we are not paying attention to the license plates of cars on the other side of the highway or road. Even if he had pulled over to the side of the road, as in the video, the chances of him having seen that particular license plate without something directing his vision seem minimal.
Read moreRecently, a few of my students and I engaged in a discussion of the film, But I’m A Cheerleader. While the film had little to do with actually being a cheerleader, it did get me thinking about who the cheerleaders are in my life, who I am a cheerleader for, and the role of cheerleaders in our lives.
It got me thinking back to high school, which for some of us is longer ago than others, and one thing I remembered is that when they were on the field they were always smiling. It did not matter whether the home team was winning or losing, they just kept smiling. It seemed as if on the days when our home school team was doing the worst, they came in smiling and cheering louder and more enthusiastically than ever. We may have thought the situation was hopeless, but their enthusiasm and cheering made you continue to hope for and cheer for the players on the field.
Read moreWhen I told a friend, this is what I was going to title my blog, she suggested I rethink it as I might offend a few people. Although I could not find an official definition of juicy people anywhere, I found numerous references to them as those people who are photographed wearing outfits that make people take pictures of them and post them on Facebook. It seems one of the more popular stores to find this type of juicy person is at Wal-Mart.
However, that is not the type of juicy people I wanted to talk about today.
Read moreThere is this series of videos on YouTube from the Spiritual Literacy Project which illustrate spiritual practices and capture the sacred in everyday life. In a video about enthusiasm, they share a story about Emil’s Sunset. Emil was a gentleman who each night would gather people at the family cottage just to watch the sunset. He would make people stop what they were doing and come and sit in the fully experience the beauty of the sunset. In the video, they talk about how one day after he had passed away, they were busy doing things and someone mentioned there was an Emil sunset. They all stopped what they were doing and sat and took in the beauty of the sunset.
Read moreAt the end of every Qi Gong set, we always say I am Qi and Qi is in me. Then our Qi Gong teacher, Mary Meissner says it in Chinese, but I am not even going to try to spell that out. While it means that I am energy and energy is in me, it reminds me of something greater. For me, the Divine is love and love is energy. Therefore I am the Divine energy and the Divine energy is in me. It is not just in one thing or one person, the Divine energy, the Divine Qi is in everything.
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