if you look deeply into a tree...

If you look deeply into a tree, you will discover that a tree is not only a tree. It is also a person. It is a cloud. It is the sunshine. It is the Earth. It is the animals and the minerals. The practice of looking deeply reveals to us that one thing is made up of all other things. One thing contains the whole cosmos.

~~ Thich Nhat Hanh

Where is God in my life?

In my daily life I spend many more hours thinking of what I should be doing in celebration of my Life, my Love, my Passion, than actually celebrating. I spend countless amounts of time worrying about the future instead of seeing the perfect moment in front of me. I have to remind myself to see the beauty in the tress, in the mountains, in the shrill bark of a dog.

And then a patient brings up God in a conversation. I wake up and look at the amazing number of different shades of green outside my bedroom door. I sit in a creek on a warm gorgeous day with birds overhead, a gentle breeze and good friends and the perfect moment is with me, briefly.

I seem to want to ask a lot of Whys. Why do I need this struggle? Why when I know that God is in everything and everyone do I not feel her presence always? There is no Why. Why not? Let go and breathe. I spend my life getting caught up in life but I am reminded and that in itself is a blessing and the glimpses I receive brief though they may be are perfect. I am honored and grateful.

in peace ...

Forget your life ...

This is one of my current favorite poems. I have kept it posted in my work space for a couple of years now to remind me. The truth in it brings tears to my eyes.

in peace ...

Forget your life. Say God is Great. Get up.

You think you know what time it is. It's time to pray.

You've carved so many little figurines, too many.

Don't knock on any random door like a beggar.

Reach your long hand out to another door, beyond where

you go on the street, the street

where everyone says, "How are you?"

and no one says, "How aren't you?"

Tomorrow you'll see what you've broken and torn tonight,

thrashing in the dark. Inside you

there's an artist you don't know about.

He's not interested in how things look different in moonlight.

If you are here unfaithfully with us,

you're causing terrible damage.

If you've opened your loving to God's love,

you're helping people you don't know

and have never seen.

Is what I say true? Say yes quickly,

if you know, if you've known it

from before the beginning of the universe.

~~Rumi

Where do I go from here?

In what started to be a rather mundane conversation with a friend, I was promptly brought back to center. I have been surprisingly content with my job recently and in the conversation, my friend said, "Maybe you have found your niche." All of a sudden I was awake. My dedication to God brought back to the forefront of my being. For the first time, I could see myself attending seminary. I have talked about it for years. I have known I was called to do the work of Spirit for longer than I have considered getting a Masters in Divinity. But I already think too much. I do not wish to spend 2-3 years in school to think more. It has been clear for some time that my path to God is within. But how and where? And what do I do now? The familiar angst is back. So is the feeling that I have waited too late and I have to be on stage in 5 minutes.
Peace is in the trees and flowers and face of a stranger. Love is in every moment of every day. When I stop and remember this there are no questions and everything is right with the world. When I am out of my head, the answers will come.
in peace...

touching my soul

One of my of the books on my current reading list is Tomorrow’s God by Neale Donald Walsch, the same person that wrote the Conversations with God series. Tomorrow’s God is written in the same conversation style. I would like to share some quotes with you that has struck a cord with me.

~~
Change yourself, change the world.
This process cannot be sidestepped or leapfrogged or circumvented in any way. First you must change yourself. Then – and only then – can you change your world.

I guess I just don’t see myself in the “master” role. I know too much about myself. I could never put myself in the category of Jesus or Abraham or Muhammad.

Was it not Jesus who said, “Why are you so amazed? These things, and more, shall you do also?”

~~
I tell you this: a true Master is not the one who creates the most servants, but the one who creates the most masters.
It is my joy to demonstrate to you that you are all masters. I do not need you to demonstrate to me that is what I am. I already know what I am. It is you who have forgotten.
I, therefore, place my Self at your service, that you might remember. And when you place yourself at my service, you demonstrate your own mastery.

~~
Yet you cannot serve Life first if you think that you, individually, lack something. You will always be serving your needs, seeking to have them met, before you can do that which serves Life. On the other hand, if you know that you are Life, then you will see immediately that serving Life means serving your Self.

~~
… Don’t you see how this all works?
You are here to wake each other up.
I have already said to you … Others see their possibility in the reality of you. Be, therefore, a model to all the world.


~~
… You are standing there now trying to tell me that a family starving to death in some far flung place where nobody can seem to get any food, or a child being raped by her father in a moment of unspeakable cruelty, is life working?

You cannot know the agenda of the soul. You can only know the apparent agenda of the body. You cannot even be absolutely certain about that, but you can make some educated guesses.

~~
That is a safe assumption a lot of the time. It is the survival instinct at its most basic level. But there are other levels at which the Essence of Who You Are survives – and other reasons too.

Remember that I’ve told you, you are not your body. You said that every body wants to stay alive and that no body wanted to be hurt and that is correct. Yet, your physical body is the most primitive, basic _expression of the Life Form that is You. At another level of _expression, the Life Form that is You may have a different agenda. You don’t know. Unless you do.

Some human beings are very deeply in touch with the Totality of Who They Are all of the time. Some are in touch part of the time. Some are in touch once in a while, and some are in touch not at all.

When you are in touch with the Totality and the Essence of Who You Are, everything looks different. Suddenly, what seemed important is not important. What appeared to be crucial becomes trivial. What mattered, no longer matters at all.

Like being physically assaulted, or dying of starvation?

Or crucified on a cross?

No fair. None of us are gods here.

Correction. All of you are gods here. Has it not been written, “Ye are Gods”?


~~
You always have a choice. If you observe that your present theology works, that it is functional, that it is producing peace on earth, goodwill to humans, then change nothing. Do not even think about change. Why change when everything is going so well?
But if you observe that all the religious instruction from all the world’s great religions through all the years has done little to move humanity from the brink of self-annihilation, then you may wish to, at the very least, entertain the possibility that there is more to know here about God and about Life.


Lots of thoughts and feelings go along with these quotes. I don’t know why I felt the need to share these with you other than this is what is touching my soul at this moment and it is only proper to share with the rest of the group.
in peace ...