Invite Positive Change

The Mystery within...

If you were in the wrong would you rather be admonished or invited to change?  If good religion is sourced in love, compassion and tolerance wouldn't it also be inviting?  If all is sacred, why exclude?  If non-violence creates spiritual healing, wouldn't we all want to become more inclusive and peaceful?  Could the exclusionary hierarchy of patriarchy find peace and healing in promoting diversity among its ranks?  I'm not at all sure. 

Barbara Brown Taylor, a former Episcopal pastor who left her position to teach theology, summarized so beautifully in her book "Leaving Church" what religion needs today:  "We needed a different way of being together before God, shaped more like a circle than pyramid.  We needed to ditch the sheep paradigm.  We needed to take turns filling in for Jesus, understanding that none of us was equal to the task to which all of us had been called.  We needed to share the power."  And she asks this great question, "…might it be time for people of good faith to allow that God's map is vast, with room on it for both a center and an edge?  While the center may be the place where the stories are preserved, the edge is the place where the best of them happen."

Nathan Schneider—The Wisdom of Millennials was a Krista Tippet's On Being guest.  He remarked institutions will always fail us but are necessary and important only if they are willing to change and grow.  He saw the prospect of positive change in the Nones, those claiming no religious affiliation yet many striving to lead a good life.  Though I am considerably older than the Millennials Schneider was talking about, my leaving church has infused me with a blessed freedom.  I have broadened my spirituality through exploring a variety of spiritual practices that have helped me grow.  Will today's Nones be a force for future positive change in religion?  Only time will tell.

What if we trusted God will eventually draw positive growth from the changes happening today?

Contemplative Muffins

God is...

Matthew Fox describes compassion as a creative force and also states it is critical to our and our planet’s survival.  He cites physicist Fritjof Capra's observations that all energy flows through and connects all things and one another.  Our planet and we are one in this giant web of energy.  Fox states that successful life is therefore a cooperative, interdependent venture not a competitive struggle and calls compassion the true creative life force.  He states, …there is no compassion without creativity.

Thomas Moore says it another way as I relate in my memoir as follows:  The idea of caring for myself was so foreign but I sensed it was imperative.  I read Thomas Moore’s “Care of the Soul.”  His assertion that everything has soul—people, trees, buildings, cars, etc., and each is a part of the larger world soul—let me look at everything in an exciting new dimension and feel a part of something bigger than myself.  And I experienced the sense of the world soul later on a walk to the beach.  I wrote:  Coolness was all over that early morning—overcast inland and a gray thick blanket of fog at the now warmer lake.  The water smelled heavy in the curtained air, too heavy to move.  Tall gray herons waded near the shore and seemed only a darker color of fog in the shape of stately birds.  It was easy to sense the seamless world soul in the all-encompassing softness.  …That day I learned, as part of the world’s soul, I create an atmosphere wherever I go. 

Fox cautions against too much introverted meditation and advocates for extrovert meditation saying it is centering by way of creating.  In extrovert meditation we learn to trust our deepest insights about images new and old and thus we learn from these images.  They become our teachers.  He cites the potter with clay, the musician with notes, the dancer with movement, the baker with dough, etc.  So this morning I made blueberry muffins contemplatively with my kitchen radio and TV left off.  Afterwards I washed the dishes by hand being present to the water and the task.  And the muffins I created, I shared.

What if we each tuned in to some creative extrovert meditation everyday?  Could we eventually create a just and peaceful world through our compassionate creativity?  Could we come to function cooperatively as a whole? 

Remembering Serenity

God is...

How important serenity is for successful living has been on my mind since my retreat last weekend.  I am coming to really understand how much I need some sanctuary time (rest, breadth and going within) everyday to keep my inner calm regardless of what is going on around me.  It seems key to good physical, mental and spiritual health.  And when I forget to take care of myself, it is important to simply return to being faithful without incrimination.

Each day I will use the rawhide, beads, and feathers I put together while on retreat.  I will hold my prayer feathers turning to the four directions asking,  “What do I need to let go of today?”  “What do I need to embrace?”  I will also ask for a measure of laughter in each day or a least some genuine smiles.  And the mandala I colored in dappled sunlight under an arbor will be framed so I can see the time I let myself take to be peaceful.

And when life gets really difficult I will remember Matthew Fox and his book Original Blessing and what I wrote in my memoir, God Never Hurries, … what I most needed to learn from Fox was to befriend both light and darkness—to let pain be pain and mystery be mystery, and trust good would come from it.

What if we each made our own daily serenity plan, and when we forget to follow it, simply return to being faithful.