A Toltec Prayer

I love this prayer and I think it's a good one to use each day or each time I can remember it.

I hope it finds room in your heart.

This is the prayer from the book The Four Agreements.

Today, Creator of the Universe, we ask that you come to us and share with us a
strong communion of love. We know that your real name is Love, that to
have a communion with you mean to share the same vibration, the same frequency
that you are, because you are the only thing that exists in the
universe.

Today, help us to be like you are to love life, to be life, to be
love. Help us to love the way you love with no conditions, no
expectations, no obligations without any judgment. Help us to love and
accept ourselves without any judgment, because when we judge ourselves, we find
ourselves guilty and we need to be punished.

Help us to love everything you create unconditionally, especially other human beings, especially those who live around us –all our relatives and people whom we try so hard to love. Because when we reject them we reject ourselves. And when we reject ourselves, we reject you.

Help us to Love others just the way they are with no conditions. Help us to accept them the way they are, without judgment.
Because if we judge them we find them guilty, we blame them and we have the need to punish them.

Today, clean our hearts of any emotional poisons that we have, free our minds from any judgment so that we can live in complete peace
and complete love.

Today is a very special day, Today we open our hearts to love again so that we can tell each other “I love you.” Without any fear, and really mean it. Today, we offer ourselves to you. Come to us, use our voices, use our eyes, use our hands, and use our hearts to share ourselves in a communion of love with everyone. Today, Creator, help us to be just like you are. Thank you for everything that we receive this day,

especially for the freedom to be who we really are. AMEN

Dark Night of the Soul--Part 2

This is the second of a two-part entry

Just because the dark night happens for all of us, and it's not necessarily a fun time; it doesn't mean it has to be completely morose and somber. In fact, it can serve as a great opportunity to develop your ironic sense of humor. Now of course there's humor that's just plain bitter or mean that can be borne from suffering, but there's also a healthy humor that comes from looking at the absurdity in your situation and can be very therapeutic in the dark night. I'll go back to my dad as an example of this. Years before he was diagnosed, he bought a cancer insurance policy. This policy paid you the cost of each procedure performed on you. Since his regular health insurance covered the treatments and procedures, he would get a check from his cancer insurance after every procedure and that was just extra money. He told me with a grin that while cancer wasn't a barrel of laughs, on the upside it was a pretty lucrative part-time job. We'd also go over to my Grandparents' home frequently on Friday nights and play cards. And if you were playing Spades with my Dad and trumped one of his good cards you can bet you'd hear something along the lines of, "oh, sure pick on the guy with the brain tumor." By him turning a humorous eye to the situation we all were able to find humor in the situation. We were so fortunate to be with him when he died. It was such a powerful, worshipful, sad, gut-wretching, unifying, real soulful experience to be there to send him off to the next chapter. And as we were standing around him waiting for him to go, my dad's not quite petite daughter crawled up on his frail little body and somebody said, "hmm. Look's like Jill's gonna help him along a little bit here." And even in that setting we found cause for laughter. A personal example is when Ronda and I were going through infertility treatment (which, as anyone who has been through it can attest, is about as much fun as ripping your own arm off and beating yourself with it) and I turned it into a stand-up comedy routine. It certainly helped me to laugh at it along the way through that dark night; and of course in retrospect that particular dark night could not have turned out any more perfect for me so I'm hard pressed to label it as "bad." I had to go through that time to get where I am today, so why not laugh some along the way?

While it can be very helpful to find laughter in the darkness we need more than humor to get through the rough spots. Every night when we put the girls to bed we say prayers. It's pretty informal. Sometimes mom or dad says one and the kid say one. Sometimes just the kid, sometimes just the parent; whatever. Abby has always liked to pray but Molly's been more hesitant. Well earlier this year Molly had a nightmare that completely rocked her world. She was literally terrified following this dream. The night after this dream she spent at her Grandma's house and she was still shaken; so Grandma Nancy did two things to help, 1) she slept in the bed with Molly, and 2) she prayed with her. Something about this grandma prayer helped Molly literally fall in love with talking to God. Now she has to say a prayer every night, and I have to say one with her. She told me recently that it made her feel good to pray because even though she was still scared of falling asleep (and she is, we still have to leave the lamp and the night light on) it was nice to know that God was with her. Jesus tells us in the bible that he will not leave us comfortless. Experience shows us that praying will not always immediately change our circumstances, but we are promised companionship, even in the midst of our dark nights.

Molly even filled out a prayer card at church regarding her nightmare and it was shared with the congregation. She then got a phone call from a concerned couple that wanted to pray with her. They said, "we're so glad Molly filled out that card, otherwise we never would have known this was an issue for her." It made me realize that when we're in the midst of a dark night we have to reach out to others for support. And it reminded me of the quote that goes, "we are each of us angels with only one wing. And we can only fly by embracing each other." There is support to be found in prayerful union directly with God. But God uses people too, and they can't comfort us if they don't know there's an issue.

I want to end with one of my favorite anecdotes. The story goes that after WWII there was a poem found on the wall of a room where some Jews had hidden from the Nazi's. It read:

I believe in the sun even when it does not shine.

I believe in love even when it is not shown.

I believe in God even when he does not speak.

Part of the price of admission for living on this planet is going through times when the sun isn't shining, when love seems absent, and when God is silent. But it's often during these times that new wisdom and gifts reveal themselves and its often under these conditions that our souls grow and transform. Accept that dark nights are a part of life. Look for opportunities to laugh along the way. And find the courage to lean on God and each other. And, as Molly will tell you, even if you still have to leave the lights on at night; that's okay.

Dark Night of the Soul--Part 1

The following is the first installment of a two-part entry:

The mysterious "soul" has dominated my spiritual musings over the last several years. I find its slippery nature and ability to elude definition absolutely fascinating. And as I've discussed aspects of the soul with various people, this idea of the "dark night of the soul" seems to pique the most interest. I think that's because the loneliness, pain, and redemption of the dark night resonates with nearly everyone. Most people have been through at least one dark night of the soul, and maybe many. And if you have, then you know the agony, the feelings of solitude and hopelessness that accompany the dark night. But, maybe, hopefully, you can also attest to the growth that comes during the shadow times. In my previous "soul" entries, I kind of skirted around the issue of really defining the soul, but I suggested that the soul happens at the intersection of human and the divine. It's where the most temporal, fragile, non-permanent parts of ourselves meet up with the most divine part of us, which is God. So at this intersection we have our practical self, the part of us that lives each day here; and we've got our divine self, the very breath of God mentioned in Genesis. And we've got our evolving self: that part of us that is becoming whatever it is we choose to be during our time here on this planet.

And just like each day on this planet is marked by both light and darkness; each life on this planet is marked by both comforting times and shadow times. And for better or worse we often learn more about ourselves from the periods of pain. So what exactly is a dark night? Well we're dealing with the soul here so definitions become a bit slippery and don't tend to stay inside the walls we make for them. But essentially, a dark night is a time when we may feel alone and perhaps neglected by God. This can be brought on by any number of circumstances: a failing marriage, illness, children in trouble, work trouble, financial trouble, spiritual seeking that seems to go nowhere, and the list goes on.

There is one distinction I want to make, and it is a subtle one. I'm not necessarily talking about clinical depression here. Depression is a sickness that needs some form of treatment to regulate or hopefully heal. A dark night is often a doorway to a spiritual ordeal. It is a meaningful event. It's not something to be "healed" from as much as it is an opportunity for enrichment. It's a chance to wait on God and see what wisdom and gifts might present themselves. It's a chance to practice patience and maybe live a little smaller than we're used to. Clinical depression may very well be a dark night of the soul; but while waiting on God, some form of treatment should be sought. As with all things "soul," definitions are slippery here and hard and fast rules often only confuse.

Now the darkness I refer to isn't necessarily something sinister. It just means that especially during these times there are things happening to us that aren't readily seen. That the soul is changing in ways that may not come to light for some time. There are some things that can't be learned in the full light of the day. About a year ago I was putting my youngest daughter, Abby, to bed. I turned out the light, went over and sat on her bed, and as I bent down to give her a kiss and tell her how much I loved her something caught my eye. I looked up and noticed a whole row of glow-in-the-dark stickers Abby had put on the wallpaper in her room. So I reached up to peel the first one off, and it started to tear the wall paper. Long story short, a year later the stickers are still there, and that evening I sent Abby into her own dark night of the soul (just kidding!). The point is that just like those glow-in-the-dark stickers there is wisdom and understanding that can only be illuminated under cover of darkness. And while that is true, it's also a lot easier to say than it is to deal with. So what are we to do with these times?

Matthew 26:36-44

Then Jesus came with them to a place called Gethsemane, and said to His disciples, "Sit here while I go over there and pray." And He took with Him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and began to be grieved and distressed. Then He said to them, "My soul is deeply grieved, to the point of death; remain here and keep watch with Me." And He went a little beyond them, and fell on His face and prayed, saying, "My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; yet not as I will, but as Thou wilt." And He came to the disciples and found them sleeping, and said to Peter, "So, you men could not keep watch with Me for one hour? "Keep watching and praying, that you may not enter into temptation; the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak." He went away again a second time and prayed, saying, "My Father, if this cannot pass away unless I drink it, Thy will be done." And again He came and found them sleeping, for their eyes were heavy. And He left them again, and went away and prayed a third time, saying the same thing once more....

Here we have Jesus, God incarnate, facing his own dark night and one of the lessons he gives us is to accept it. He is terrified nearly to the point of death, and he asks God to take it away, but ultimately he embraces God's will. A more contemporary example is Nelson Mandela, who fought against the apartheid government in South Africa and spent 27 years in prison. Certainly that could be considered a dark night, yet rather than grow bitter he embraced his time and used it to become a courageous and compassionate leader who, upon his release, changed the government of his country and inspired the world. An example that hits closer to home to me is my own father. He died from cancer several years ago. But before he died from cancer, he lived with it for 11 years. Shortly before he died, he told me about the weight of the illness hitting him especially hard one day. He had come home from a business trip in the middle of the afternoon, it was raining outside and he was all alone. He said he laid on the couch and cried, feeling alone, abandoned, sad, and angry. And even while the tears and fears were quite real, he worked hard and eventually found a way to give back: counseling many people who were dealing with their own cancers. He used to say that, "God may not have given me this time with cancer but he sure is helping me use it." He also used to say that although he hadn't been cured of his cancer, he had been healed. He became more compassionate and less dogmatic. His "religiousness" gave way to a beautiful spirituality and he experienced God in many new and different ways. That healing took place by embracing his situation, looking for the blessings and sharing those. And he became a wounded healer himself, helping others along their own path to healing.

Jesus' garden, Mandela's prison cell, and my father's empty living room were all cocoons of sorts. They were the environments in which the soul grows and experiences a new birth.

In the next entry I'll explore some ways to deal with the dark nights

What is the Soul? Part 2

This is the second of a two-part entry.

When my wife and I were going through the process to adopt, we were told the Chinese story of the red thread. Basically it says that we are connected by an invisible red thread to everyone were supposed to come in contact with. Now how a thread can be both invisible and red they didn't explain. But the idea is that the connection between your child and you has always existed, even when you were half-way around the world apart from each other. And in this connection with each other we find another place where the soul reveals itself and blooms; that's at the intersection of you and me. The Apostle Paul tells us we are all part of the same body, the body of Christ. And if we are all part of the same body then surely we are all connected at the soul level. And let's face it, humans are pack animals and we need connection with others. For example, if you eat at a restaurant next to Abby she will undoubtedly end up on your lap or wallowing next to you. The kid has this incredible desire to feel physically connected all the time. Several years ago, Molly was missing an aunt of hers who had died and I told her that if she just thought about her, she could always feel Aunt Marie in her heart. Molly considered that for a moment, saying nothing. Then she looked at me and said, "Daddy I think that's where heaven is, I think it's in our hearts." Boy, the truth of that statement hit me hard. If we're all connected to God at the soul level and we're all connected to each other at the soul level than why wouldn't heaven actually be in the heart of each and every one of us? And sometimes when we embrace that need for connection and don't hold so tightly to our own identity, we can have some incredibly soulful experiences.

I was in grad school during the first Gulf War, and in the tutoring center where I worked there was some tension. Not only did we help the international students with their speaking and writing skills, but we had one international student on staff. His name was Ahmed, he was Muslim, and he was from Sudan in Africa. So the only differences Ahmed had from the rest of us in the tutoring center were his color, culture, race, and religion. Unfortunately he became a target for some of the other staff members fear of all things Muslim. This really bothered me, so I decided to try and befriend him. We talked about why he was in America and what he wanted to accomplish when he went back to Sudan. We talked about the similarities in his beliefs and mine. We talked about our families: mine two hours away by car, and his half-way round the world. And we found out that we weren't that different. The semester came to a close and we said our good-byes and that was that. Except it wasn't. The next day I was walking in a rain storm back to my apartment from campus just getting drenched, and thinking some of those words that Billy Ray Cyrus Jesus used to get mad at me about. As I was walking I heard a horn honking. As I turned to see who it was the window rolled down and Ahmed said "get in, get in." He was headed out of town and to the airport to go back to Sudan. So I got in, and he took me to my driveway. Before I got out, he grabbed my hand, and said, "my friend it is so good see you." And at that point something beautiful happened and our souls made a real connection. We sat there, holding hands, both of us with tears streaming down our faces. And in that moment all labels fell away, American, African, Muslim, Christian, none of it mattered. At that moment our souls sat in a quiet contentment as if we'd known each other for all eternity. And I believe on the soul level we have.

There is a sanskrit word: Namaste, and it means that the divine in me blesses and honors the divine in you. It's typically said as a greeting. That is what happened that day for me and Ahmed. We sat next to each other in his burgundy little Honda experiencing Namaste. There is a beautiful poem that expresses this perfectly. It was written by Rumi, who was a Sufi mystic, and it goes like this:

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field.
I will meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass, the world is too full to talk about.
Ideas, language, even the phrase each other doesn’t make any sense.

What is the soul? I don't know how to define it. But I believe the soul happens at the point where human meets divine. I believe it blossoms when the smallest, most vindictive, poutiest part of you is fully embraced, loved, and accepted by the most divine part of you. And I believe it takes flight when you and I acknowledge our connection and accept each other just as we are. Namaste.

What is the Soul?

The following is the first installment of a two-part entry:

If you want the short answer to the question, "what is the soul?" it's this: I don't know. But if you have time, read on and I'll attempt a deeper dive into the question. In his book Consilience, E. O. Wilson noted that sociology has identified belief in a soul as one of the universal human cultural elements. Every culture has some type of belief in the soul, and yet no one has really been able to concretely define it. For some reason the ability of "soul" to stand outside the gates of a strict definition is part of what makes it so appealing to me. Turning to the "wisdom" of childhood I asked my six-year-old, Abby, "what is the soul?" And she said, "oh you mean like after you sell something." No help there (but even though she got the word wrong, I was kind of impressed that she got the tense right). Then I went to ask the eight-year-old and she said, "um, yeah, I think it's like when you . . . actually I have no idea." And she went back to watching tv. So much for the "mouths of babes."

But then I don't know what I expected. Children think in concrete terms, and as I mentioned earlier, the soul is far too fluid to be confined to a concrete definition. When I was a child I had the concrete faith of a child. I knew who God was, I knew who Jesus was. I knew where they lived--up there in heaven somewhere. I knew what they looked like. God looked kind of like a bright white star, and Jesus looked kind of like Billy Ray Cyrus. Only he frowned at me a lot because I'd get mad at people and think bad words in my head. Well as I've grown, I've found it harder and harder to grasp exactly what God is . . . I just can't seem to construct a definition whose walls God is content to stay inside. Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart said, "I can't define pornography but I know it when I see it." Well I feel much the same way about the soul. I can't define it, but I know it when I feel it. So rather than trying to define what the soul is I want to discuss the relationships in which the soul blossoms and reveals itself.

“And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.”—Genesis 2:7 To me this scripture gives us the first relationship that reveals the soul and that's the relationship of human and divine. Here we have this beautiful explanation of how we are made from the physical stuff of this earth, but that we also have the unseen breath of God in us. It means there is more to us than meets the eye; and boy am I thrilled about that. When I was in college my sister, Jill, had a new friend over to the house who had never met me in person and she saw a picture of Jill and me on the mantel over the fireplace and said, "Oh, is this your brother? I'm so sorry, I didn't know he was mentally challenged." Let me tell you, I for one am glad that there is more to me than meets the eye. Each person is a unique aspect of God. That thought used to be for me, like a millstone around my neck because I could never live up to these expectations I'd made for myself as someone who supposedly had Christ within me. That goes back to Billy Ray Cyrus Jesus I mentioned earlier that scowled at me a lot because I couldn't live up to how I thought he wanted me to be. But the soul is the synthesis of the spiritual and the physical, the perfect and the imperfect, the strong and the weak. It lives at the intersection of the human and divine. This world is full of people who are focused purely on the physical, and that typically leads to hard times. But there are others who try to shun everything in this physical world and deny themselves every physical desire and we can find plenty of examples of that not working out so well, either. Personally, I'm inspired by people who seem able to embrace both aspects of themselves.

If you've read the books or seen "The Lord of the Rings" movies you're familiar with the wizard Gandalf. It's certainly not a stretch to say that his character is a Christ metaphor. The author of "The Lord of the Rings," JRR Tolkien, was a self-professed Christian and great personal friends with Christian author CS Lewis. As the story begins, Gandalf is known as Gandalf the Grey and he's a bit dingy and mysterious and almost scary. In the first third of the trilogy he dies, but later re-emerges in the story. He's back to life and all cleaned up. He's no longer dingy, but now brilliant. And the "new" Gandalf is no longer as mysterious or scary as he is awe-inspiring. Finally, and perhaps not suprisingly his name has changed from Gandalf the Grey to Gandalf the White. And at this point in the story I always get a little sad. I love Gandalf the Grey, but Gandalf the White seems unapproachable to me; somehow not real. In popular culture the word soul tends to be equated with the word "real." Soul music is real music, that touches you at your core. I want my heroes, I want my savior, to be righteous and concerned for others, but I also want them to be comfortable slipping out behind the building to share a dirty joke with the smokers. I want my heroes to be soulful/real, to be a mix of the human and the divine. And to me, it's at this crossroads of the spiritual and temporal that soul really begins to reveal itself.

In the next entry I'll explore another way the soul reveals itself.

How do you solve a problem like Jesus?

If there is a more divisive figure than Jesus in the history of spirituality please don't let me know who it is. I'm not sure I could handle it. Although maybe it's not Jesus who's really the divisive one. It might just be mainstream Christianity's presentation of him. No matter how hard some folks try to bread Jesus in a coating of extra crispy love, I still bristle at their “my way or the highway” description of him. I believe his sacrifice is all about love; but I can’t reconcile that kind of unconditional love with the dogma that one must accept him or forever burn in hell. Plus, I don’t even really know what it means to accept him. I’ve said the sinners’ prayer (several times) and sometimes I’ve even felt it was genuine. Other times it was simply motivated by fear or birthed from a CYA mentality. Either way, I'm still confused about what it means to "accept" him. What if I said the wrong prayer? Sometimes I have doubts, even though I "accepted" him, so am I still saved? I’ve been told that God loves us too much to take away our personal freedom, so we’re allowed to choose; but as the choice is typically presented, what a crappy choice it is. “My child, I love you so much I would never impose my will upon you. Now, accept me, or experience unspeakable anguish and torment in hell forever! Oh, and did mention how much I love you?"

So, do I know that my redeemer lives? In a word: no. I hope that he does; I choose to believe that he does. But I don't know. In fact, I have some lingering doubts that loiter (and probably smoke and tell dirty jokes,too!) at the back of my mind. They're eerily similar to the doubts that I had around the age of six about whether Santa Claus "really" existed. Of course, the net/net on that one is that while the particulars of his story may not be factually true, the beauty hidden within the particulars points to a larger truth: that selfless giving is life's greatest gift. Now, I'm not necessarily trying to equate the two, as they are different. I mean Santa Claus is often used to get kids to act right since only "good" kids get toys. Whereas, Jesus' sacrifice was given to everyone, saint and sinner, so no one would ever use Jesus to get people to act a certain way . . . oh, wait.

Anyway, it's this certainty that Jesus lives, that the Bible is inerrant, and that because of those two facts you must accept him that makes Christianity so unpalatable to me (and yes, I consider myself a Christian). If we could be more honest about when we have faith or hope versus when we have knowledge; and about how "accepting" Jesus does not always lift us out of the crap soup of life, then I think we'd go a long way toward making religion a real part of peoples' lives. We might even open the door to more meaningful exchanges with the un-churched (gasp!) and people of other faith traditions (hell-bound heathens!). Maybe, just maybe, if we left the agenda at the door, the power of relationship would unfold and the Spirit would do what it does without our mind-based interference.

I've reached a point in life where I want to be more honest about my spiritual walk, and my questions, so I hope I don't come across as a hater. Many years ago at a church service I attended a man walked onto the stage wearing a Jesus-esque robe. He walked over to a tall wooden cross and picked up a small bucket sitting next to it. He reached in and grabbed a paint brush and wrote LOVE in large block letters with red paint on the cross. He then simply put down the paint and walked off the stage. My mind stopped as I was touched by the power of that moment. It was pristine and sublime; and thankfully no words came to mind as they would have only sullied the beauty. I was overwhelmed with the feeling of being loved and I was utterly grateful. The odd thing is, despite the fact that I have trouble with the party-line interpretation of Jesus, I still get teary-eyed when I think about the kind of love that motivates a sacrifice like the one we're told he made. When I really focus on God accepting me, warts and all, and being willing to die to show it, I default to the emotion of gratitude and sometimes weep."Thank you" is an insufficient response to be sure, but it's all I can manage in those moments. I don't know if that means I've accepted Jesus, but for now it's good enough for me.

“It's not you God, really. It's me.”

I promised myself I'd write at least two entries a week into this blog, but it seems over the last fortnight (thank you Merriam-Webster Word of the Day!), I've not been the least bit interested in anything spiritual. So, here I sit with Pulp Fiction on the TV and a glass of the sacrament close at hand forcing myself to write something about the mystical movement of the ether. It's tough though when I'm on a bit of a “break” with God. It's not that I want freedom to see other Deities (sorry Vishnu). It's just that recently I've been more interested in good coffee and trying to figure out what my next career move should be, than I've been in contemplating the mysteries of the Almighty.

I spent last week in the northeast, experiencing the bustle of Boston, the majesty of Maine, and the futon of my in-laws (thanks again!). While there I got to swim at the beautiful beach in Ogunquit. The back of the lifeguard stand had a white board listing the water temp (56 shrivel-inducing degrees), and the exact times of the high and low tides. I found it amazing that they could predict, to the minute, when high and low tide would occur. But cycles are more or less predictable, and found everywhere. And that's why I'm not too freaked out about my spiritual malaise. I know how I operate. I've heard the stories of people on fire for God 24/7. That has never been me. I go through periods where all I can think about is God and I see her thumb print everywhere. And invariably, those times are followed by cooling off periods. I used to think my task was to fight through those times and make myself feel passionate for the Almighty. This led to frustration, guilt, acting out, more guilt, despair, anger, and more acting out; ah the joys of the spiritual walk :).

Now, whether through maturity or laziness, I'm more apt to let those times work themselves out as I sit back and watch. You can't make the tide come in or go out any quicker, and as my dad told me (repeatedly), "Don't push the river, Chris, it flows by itself." So this is me not pushing the river. All we can ever offer God is exactly who we are. Sometimes I have the desire to dedicate everything to him; and sometimes it's only the desire to have the desire. Today, it's the latter. Tomorrow, who knows. In the meantime, I'll choose to believe I'm loved regardless, and keep open to any subtle spiritual nudgings that might come my way. See you at high tide.

You Are Going to Church Because You Are Afraid Of What Will Happen If You Don't

Ok, now that I have your attention, what is the truth about your relationship with the church? Are you going because you're afraid of what will happen if you don't? Are you going because you feel you really have to go as a christian? These are healthy questions to ask yourself.

I think there are a great many Christians today, what percent I don't know, who simply go to church because they think it's what they are supposed to do. One of my pastors, who passed away last year, actually spoke with a few pastors of some very large churches over the years. She was someone who studied the scriptures night and day and really knew them cold. She would explain how the grace of God is able to save to the uttermost and that all sin had been declared paid in full at the cross of Christ. She would explain that they truly were free and that there was nothing that could condemn them now. They would argue for a bit and then say, "I can not refute the truth that you are speaking, however if I were to tell my congregation this I wouldn't have but maybe 10% left by next Sunday."

Hold back the utmost truth because people won't come back? How would they make the payments on their gigantic mortgage for their church if no one came back? The truth will make you free and the truth of the gospel is often held back because people fear true freedom. How would you control someone if you gave them absolute freedom?

I remember years ago hearing Karl Marx's statement "Die Religion ... ist das Opium des Volkes." Ok, so I didn't really hear it in German however I did hear the english translation which was

"religion is the opiate of the masses."

I remember how much I hated him for saying that because as a young christian I really thought he hated God and was attacking Him. I think now he was more focused on things that repressed society. Now, I actually agree with him quite a bit. I find now that religion is often more or less an illusion that we create and serve. Have you ever wondered about the statement Jesus made when he said "the children of the darkness are wiser than the children of the light?"

Let's look at Marx's statement in context.

"Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people. The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo, the criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo."

Ask yourself, have your beliefs changed at all since you first believed? Can you look back at some of the things you used to think were very true and solid, things that drove your opinions and behavior and say maybe they weren't as true as I thought? Do you still believe all the things you used to? How much of what you used to believe was a kind of "opium" or illusion? Will you look back 10 years from now and say the same thing about what you currently believe?

I believe fear is the underpinnings that drives the behavior and beliefs of many Christians. It is exactly what drove most of my behaviors, thoughts, discussions and unfortunately how I even read and interpreted scripture for many years. And yet, we find contradictory verses that say "God is Love". I contend that a mind driven by fear is unable to comprehend the love of God. These people think they understand God's love but it's only an illusory form of emotion based on guilt and release.

I will leave you with this thought from 1 John 4:18-19

There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment. But he who fears has not been made perfect in love. We love Him because He first loved us.

Let it Shine!

A couple of months ago I got to attend the talent show at my kids' elementary school. It was excruciating. First of all, the gymnasium was way too crowded, and the 500 plus American bodies (64% of which must have been overweight or obese according to recent studies) heated the place up to somewhere between slightly uncomfortable and just plain smelly. Secondly, I got there too late to get a seat, so I had to stand on the sloped base of a volleyball net pole as there wasn't even room to stand on the floor. Thirdly, speaking in general terms, the talent was awful. Now I'm not trying to sound hateful or mean; I'm just stating that in terms of performance quality, there was none. Ok I'm exaggerating a bit. Some of the kids were actually very good. There were a couple of piano players, some dancers and a singer or two that truly brought the good stuff. Overall though, I found myself wishing Rip Taylor would just strike the dang gong.

But here's the thing, the kids that were performing didn't seem to care if they were "good" or not. They just enjoyed being in front of the crowd. And here's something that really shocked me: while I expected to parents to be polite and clap and not make fun (out loud, anyway); I did not expect the audience of children to be so supportive. But they were more encouraging than even us polite grown ups. At one point, a young child forgot his song half way through the act and got embarrassed. But the crowd of kids didn't pounce. They clapped and started chanting his name, in a positive, encouraging way. They wanted to see him succeed. The kid then finished his act and the crowd went wild for him. It warmed the cockles, I'll tell you.

As I left the school I was experiencing both joy that I was driving away, and sadness that somewhere along on the line most of the kids in that show will probably decide to quit putting themselves out there. I'm not just talking about talent shows, either. I certainly don't think everyone needs to get in front of a crowd and perform. I mean that in life most of us decide to "blend in" at some point, so as not to have to deal with standing out and perhaps being ridiculed or failing at something (whatever that means). The young souls I saw at the talent show wanted desperately to express themselves creatively, whether or not the expression of that creativity was technically "good." And boy do I admire, and aspire to, that.

So many of the things we associate with soul/spirit involve flight. From doves and angels, to the ascension of Jesus, Mohammad, Enoch and other religious figures. The human soul was built for flight. Not in some escapist way, so we can rise above the crap of this world and live a trouble-free existence where it's all Benjamins and Blow-Pops. I mean the spirit was built to be bold in the good times and yuck times. The spirit was made to prevail. Mother Teresa, Nelson Mandela, and Ghandi have proven what a bold spirit can do. But somewhere along the way most of us give in to the voices that tell us we "can't" do something, or "that's just the way it is." So we clip our own wings and settle for comfort and anonymity. And perhaps even worse, at some point many of us start secretly hoping that those around us don't do great things either. We seem to want the herd to stay together.

Since I can't find a point to finish this post with, I'll end with a little confession. As I've been writing I've been nervously editing and censoring my content. I've haven't been sure that what I'm writing makes sense or that it truly represents what I'd like to express; but since I've been writing about these brave kiddos who express themselves without a lot of shine and polish, I'll do the same and post this anyway. Enjoy!

I'll Stop the World and Melt with Me

It happened. At some point when I wasn’t looking, Youth skipped town without paying the rent; now she’s probably shacked up with some Gen Y’er who has tattoos and plays the guitar. And here I am left to fret over aching joints, and both the frequency and quality of my bowel movements. Such are the joys of aging.

But not all is bad about moving into mid-life. As my body has lost some of its elasticity I’ve been drawn to yoga to help keep the joints mobile and the muscles pliable; and it's been quite a gift. My preference is attend a class so the instructor can show me how to get the poses correct. However, family and work sometimes dictate that I can’t make a class. For those times, I purchased a DVD to practice at home. Now to say I enjoy Yoga would be a bit of a stretch (Ha! Stretch. Get it?). For me, it’s kind of like eating broccoli. I don’t hate it, but I really only do it because I know it’s good for me. There is one part of yoga, though, that I absolutely love. And that is Savasana. This is the time at the end of the session where you lie in Corpse Pose and just relax. Each session on the DVD ends with a different Savasana where the instructor takes you through a guided meditation of sorts. My favorite one involves imagining that your body is like ice or butter. You start with your toes and imagine them melting into little pools. You then move to your feet, up your legs, through the torso, the arms and finally the head. As you go through the body you imagine the sun melting it away to nothing. This relaxes me like no other meditation I’ve tried. By the time I get to my head I’m usually completely relaxed. This is an uncommon state for me. I come from a long line of anxious insomniacs (Some people are born with silver spoons in their mouths; in my family we’re born with Tums and Xanax in ours). But all of that flies out the window when I do this particular Savasana. What hit me the other night as I practiced this meditation was that while my body was relaxed to point where it almost didn’t exist to me, my consciousness was still there and aware.

This made me think of the suggestion of many ancient traditions to “die before you die;” put another way, to realize that you are “in this world, but not of it.” It's the perceived pressures of this world that cause my anxiety: bills, relationships, poor quality bowel movements, whatever. But when I realize that everything I can see and touch is temporary; and when I choose to believe that my connection to Spirit lives beyond this temporary world, I’m able to simply observe without worry or judgment. The moments that this happens are fleeting, but they’re there. It’s interesting to me that they happen when I just lie there and “do nothing” (as many popular new age guru-types tell us to do). But to get to the “do nothing” part, I have to get the kinks worked out to the point that I can relax. This requires that I “work hard” (as many popular self-betterment motivator-types tell us to do). As one of my yoga instructors said about a particular pose, “to get this right, you must find the balance between effort and surrender.” If you ask me, that’s good advice for just about anything.

A Statement of Faith???

While the idea of the “lone wolf” is romantically appealing, and I admit to occasional fantasies of a solitary existence, I know at my core I’m a pack animal. I find comfort in friends and family, in a circle of people who are similar to me and will nod their heads in agreement at most things I say. There’s comfort in being a valued part of the “family” (however you define the word). That’s one of the chief appeals of organized religion. You can meet with like-minded folks. It’s comforting to worship together, to sing to the Almighty in one voice with a group of people whose ideas and beliefs are similar to yours. I suppose having others believe as we do provides a sense that we are justified in what we believe; that it must be “right” because it’s validated by all of those around me.

As a child this was huge for me. I enjoyed going to church, only playing sick on rare occasions to stay home and watch “All-Star Wrestling.” Most of the appeal was that feeling of kinship and acceptance; of belonging to something bigger than me. I have so many cherished memories of the grandmotherly and grandfatherly folks in my congregation who took an interest in me and were happy to see me each Sunday. Another aspect I liked was learning what I believed. Sunday school and sermons let me know what “we believed.” And for an impressionable child this served a wonderful purpose and built a strong foundation. I know this wasn’t exclusive to my church as I had discussions (and arguments) with Catholic friends and Baptist friends about our beliefs. All of us were very sure of the legitimacy of what we believed and had no trouble describing in concrete terms what we knew to be right. And, all of us were parroting exactly what we’d been told in our respective churches.

This foundation continues to support my spiritual evolution. Yet like a snake that to grow must shed the skin that once protected it; I’ve had to shed many literal beliefs that once nurtured me. And it seems that each new belief which emerges is more subtle than the last. There was a time when my beliefs were easily articulated and defined. And for the most part they involved whether or not a certain story was factually true. A statement of faith for me was clear and definitive. I could craft little walled gardens of definitions inside whose boundaries my ideas were happy to stay. Now, however, my beliefs refuse to play in small yards. They’re slippery and subtle, and easily elude my attempts to cage them. As I’m drawn further into mystery I find myself less in need of concrete, easily articulated beliefs; and correspondingly, less in need of a tribe around me that shares my statement of faith. While I still find my association with church to be a source of support and kinship, I’m much less concerned that those around me share my “beliefs.” It’s comfort enough to know that we are collectively supporting each other on our individual journeys.

Don't do certain things or eat certain things to please God? Your weak in faith according to Paul

Are you very careful about what you eat or drink for the Lord? Or do you eat all things and bless His name knowing that nothing in and of itself is evil or good but our thoughts make it so?

You can apply this to almost anything in the christian life. There are those who only do certain things because they think they may be offending God. Then there are those who do all things as unto Him without worrying about the legalities of right and wrong.

It can all be summed up in a few little verses from Romans 14. No you won't hear any preacher or teacher talking about these because you see it confuses their points about sin and right and wrong in the church because these verses speak of those who don't watch what they eat or what they do as much as being "strong" in faith not weak. In the christian community it's the opposite thought that tends to dominate thought; that is you are strong in faith if you do live your life just so.

Take a look for yourself. Romans 14:2

"For one believeth that he may eat all things: another, who is weak, eateth herbs."

That's right, the one who is really trying to please God by just doing certain things is what? "weak in faith."

"One man esteemeth one day above another: another esteemeth every day alike. Let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind."

There is the key, the "mind". The mind is where all the discrepencies lay when it comes to your faith. It is your thinking that makes it so said Shakespear and Paul.

So why do we have thousands of versions of christianity? The mind. Why do whe have millions of christians each with their own ideas of what sin is and isn't? The mind. Why we do we have wars of religion? The mind. I think you get the point. The mind is carnal and even referred to in the bible as an enemy or "enmity" against God.

Romans 14:14 reads:

"I know, and am persuaded by the Lord Jesus, that there is nothing unclean
of itself: but to him that esteemeth any thing to be unclean, to him it is
unclean."

Again it's what you "esteemth" or what your mind decides.

Romans 14:22

"Hast thou faith? have it to thyself before God. Happy is he that condemneth not
himself in that thing which he alloweth."

Anything not of faith is basically sin according to Paul in this chapter so live your life in faith and stop trying to judge yourself and others. If it is love that is the fulfillment of all the law then live in faith and love for this is the goal of the teachings of Jesus. If you are being harsh on yourself and judging then you are not living in faith and love.