Monday, May 25, 2009

More Than Just Word . . .


Today I heard, “hell has no bottom.” I remember that I am good at creating my own hell & wallow in it. Today I do not have to stay struck in the mud.
Let me spend my waking hours seeking an example, finding an example, being an example.

A person may rise to the highest degree of contemplation even when busily occupied. -- St. Mary Euphrasia Pelletier

Patience is the most important asset I bring to my activities - the willingness to allow each step its own time and proper place.

Peacefulness is a feeling everyone deserves.
Thank goodness it's attainable.
Perhaps I am beginning to realize that it always was available even though it didn't seem within my grasp.
The fault was never the result of external circumstances, even though that was where I laid the blame.
Finally, I am becoming willing to see that I will have all the peace and good fortune I want by simply taking charge of how I interpret the experiences that trouble me.
Peace can be enjoyed by me today, regardless of circumstances, if I shift my perception ever so slightly.

In three words, I can sum up everything I've learned about life: It goes on. -- Robert Frost

Life doesn't stop for me to lick wounds or add fuel to grievances.
Hours pass, I grow older, nature continues.
Every event is part of life's cycle.
I can't run away from anything.
I must meet life head-on and adjust to its ebb and flow.
I can look at an unplanned event in my life as part of life's cycle.
I need to trust that life will go on.

Genuine contemplation involves no tension.
There is no reason why it should affect anyone's nerves: on the contrary, it relaxes them.
It leaves you rested and refreshed in your whole being.
There is no strain in real contemplation, because when the gift is real, you do not depend on it, you are not enslaved by the "need" to experience anything.
The contemplative does not seek reassurance in himself, in his virtue, in his state, in his "prayer".
His trust is in God, not in himself.
The peace and "rest" of contemplation is the fruit of a living faith in the action of divine grace.
The contemplative is able to let go of himself and everything else, knowing that everything that matters in his life is in God's hands, and that he does not have to "take thought for the morrow."
He fully realizes the meaning of the Gospel message of salvation by the grace of God and not by dependence on human ingenuity. -- Thomas Merton. The Inner Experience: Notes on Contemplation.

Ever let mercy outweigh all else in you. Let our compassion be a mirror where we may see in ourselves that likeness and that true image which belong to the Divine nature and Divine essence. -- St. Isaac of Syria

Be yourself. Who else is better qualified? --Frank J. Giblin, II
Life is not made up of people who are good & bad, happy & sad, rich & poor, beautiful & ugly.
Life is made up of people being themselves.

Sunday, May 24, 2009

A Rainy Sunday In SC


Another lazy and rainy Sunday in South Carolina. Started the day off with my brothers and sisters at the Dark Side. It is also a great way to start a Sunday of pray and the week ahead – with the Force.

Hear two things that I will add to my tool bag for life as I trudge the spiritual path before me.

(1) When God close one door in my life, he opens a new one for me to walk through. It is the hallways of life that suck.

(2) Choosing who is forgiven and who is not is above my pay grade. I can only ask for the willingness to forgive all in my life on a daily basis.

I found the following on the pains of life in my daily readings.

Grief and crisis . . . accept it as a wise teacher. Life brings trial
& defeat as part of its package. . . . Out of defeat is born new strength. . . . The false comforts of self-pity and blame may tempt us in our pain, but they take much more from us than they give back.


It has been an awesome day and it is not my fault. Keep adjusting your sails and may the good of the day be with you.

P.S.
It is blackberry picking time in SC and GA. Read about it: http://blogs.augusta.com/node/2865

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

DOCTOR'S PROGNOSIS

"We have a steamroller of socialism being driven by Nancy Pelosi and by Harry Reid, and it's being fueled by the administration and Barack Obama. The American people need to put a stop sign and speed bumps in the path of this steamroller." -- Congressman and medical doctor Paul Broun, Georgia Republican, speaking to the nation from the House floor this week.

Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Love and Need


Our philosophy of life is not something we create all by ourselves out of nothing. Our ways of thinking, even our attitudes toward ourselves, are more and more determined from the outside. Even our love tends to fit ready-made forms. We consciously or unconsciously tailor our notions of love according to patterns we are exposed to day after day....
Love [Merton begins to examine one of these patterns] is regarded as a deal. The deal presupposes that we all have needs which have to be fulfilled by means of exchange. In order to make a deal you have to appear in the market with a worthwhile product, or if the product is worthless, you can get by if you dress it up in a good-looking package. We unconsciously think of ourselves as objects for sale on the market. We want to be wanted. We want to attract customers. We want to look like the kind of product that makes money. ...In doing this we come to consider ourselves and others not as persons but as products, as "goods," or in other words, as packages. We appraise one another commercially. We size each other up and make deals with a view to our own profit. We do not give ourselves in love, we make a deal that will enhance our own product, and therefore no deal is final. Our eye is already on the next deal, and this next deal need not necessarily be with the same customer. Life is more interesting when you make a lot of deals with a lot of new customers. -- Thomas Merton, "Love and Need: Is Love a Package or a Message?"

The trouble with this commercialized idea of love is that it diverts your attention more and more from the essentials to the accessories of love. You are no longer able to really love the other person, for you become obsessed with the effectiveness of your own package, your own product, your own market value. -- Thomas Merton, "Love and Need: Is Love a Package or a Message?"

Saturday, May 2, 2009

Veiled Truth

The truth need not be veiled,
for it veils itself from the eyes of the ignorant.
Bowl of Saki, by Hazrat Inayat Khan
Excerpts from commentary by Pir-o-Murshid Inayat Khan

It is the deaf ears of the heart and the closed eyes of the soul which prevent man from seeing and hearing it. There is a verse of a Hindustani poet which says:

0' self, it is not the fault of the divine Beloved
that you do not see Him, that you do not hear Him.
He is continually before you and He is continually speaking to you.
If you do not hear it and if you do not see it, it is your own fault.

It is for this purpose that every soul has been created and it is in the fulfillment of this that man fulfills the object of God.

Man is the most egoistic being in creation. He keeps himself veiled from God, the perfect Self within, by the veil of his imperfect self, which has formed his false ego. ... and when the ego is absolutely crushed, then God remains within and without, in both planes, and none exists save He.