How I Experience God

“The power which I cannot explain or know or name I call God. God is not God’s name. God is my name for the mystery that looms within and arches beyond the limits of my being. When I pray to God, God’s answer comes to me from within, not beyond. God’s answer is yes, not to the specifics of my prayer but in response to my hunger for meaning and peace.”

~F. Forrester Church (1948-2009) Unitarian Universalist minister in NYC

While suffering from esophagal cancer before his death: “I look back without regrets, and I look forward without fear,” he told The New York Times in 2008. “I have never been more in the present.”

Silence

Silence, as all writers know, allows the word to be heard.

 At a given moment, the silence is so strong that the words express nothing but it alone.

Does this silence, capable of making language tilt over, possess its own language to which one can attribute neither origin nor name?

Inaudible language of the secret?

Those who have been reduced to silence, once, know it best, but know also that they can hear it.

~Edmund Jabès (French poet (1912-1991)

Prays Well With Others

I post this on Facebook a few days ago. When I encountered a friend I rarely see, the father of one of my oldest child's friends, he called me a "heretic" for posting this. He walked away when another friend I said God is bigger than the names we give Him.

Say not, "I have found the one true path of the Spirit!"

Say rather, "I have wonderfully met the Spirit walking on my path."

For the spirit walks upon all paths.

~Kahlil Gibran

(Richard Rohr adapted this from Kahil Gibran, The Prophet (New York: Alfred a Knopf, 1923), p. 55 in Rohr's book Eager to Love: The Alternative Way of Francis of Assisi.)

I need to remember to TARRY!

"The season of Advent means there is something on the horizon the likes of which we have never seen before. . . . What is possible is to not see it, to miss it, to turn just as it brushes past you. And you begin to grasp what it was you missed, like Moses in the cleft of the rock, watching God's (back) fade in the distance. So stay. Sit. Linger. Tarry. Ponder. Wait. Behold. Wonder. There will be time enough for running. For rushing. For worrying. For pushing. For now, stay. Wait. Something is on the horizon."

~~Jan L. Richardson

Blogging again!

Almost two months later, here I am again. Blogging since 2006 recently seemed like too long a time. Having a vacation, various trips, and enduring the hot summer of south TX (which continues), I will attempt to get back to writing. 

So here is a random sampling of my retired life:

• I have gotten two postcards from Dee, who commented on my last post in July that she would like to exchange postcards! I have enjoyed her cards so much that I feel like I have found a new friend! It is really easy to write a few lines on a postcard and count it as "mail." 

• The Wisdom Class started again this past Tuesday with a new book that is sparking interesting conversations: The December Project: An Extraordinary Rabbi and a Skeptical Seeker Confront Life's Greatest Mystery by Sara Davidson.

 Although Reb Zalman died this past July, he spent the previous two years talking to Sara Davidson, a seeking and spiritually cynical writer, about dying and death, with stories about his life thrown in. It is very interesting how he met theologian Howard Thurman when he was a young man and thought he was the janitor!

Later, he came to admire him as his professor.

I liked how Reb Zalman described dying (or the "dark end"):

"I don't think it's all dark. Something continues. It's as if the body and soul are tied together with little strings. The closer you get to leaving, the more the strings loosen and the more you connect with greater awareness, the expanded mind." (6)

So often Americans look to Eastern religions for further answers, but it seemed time for us to look at Judaism, the foundation of Christianity in the Wisdom Class.

Reb Zalman and Sara Davidson

•  On the various trips we've taken, I have read a lot of books. I finished the witches trilogy by Diana Harkness with The Book of Life. It's been fun to read all three books; I even re-read the first two before reading the third when it was published this summer. Just days ago, I finished the latest Louise Penny mystery that features Inspector Gamache: The Long Way Home. Louise Penny writes better with each mystery; this one was excellent. 

• I found other books on my travels in independent book stores, so those will be on my list to write about in the near future. 

• And here is a wonderful quote about listening, which was our opening meditation in the Wisdom Class this past Tuesday:

• “Listening is a magnetic and strange thing, a creative force. When we really listen to people there is an alternating current, and this recharges us so that we never get tired of each other. We are constantly being re-created.”
  
  
  
                      ~~Brenda Ueland (1891-1985) writer, editor, teacher of writing
   

Story? Truth?

“Story helps us with the questions that have no answers. I wish the Church (of all denominations) would be brave enough to acknowledge that there are questions which, during our mortal lives, are not going to be answered. There are no answers to the wonder of Creation, the marvel of the Incarnation, the glory of the Resurrection. Too many answers lead to smug self-righteousness and—even worse—to human beings, rather than God, deciding who is and who is not loved by the Maker. Can’t we trust God?”

Madeleine L’Engle. The Rock That Is Higher: Story As Truth. Colorado Springs: WaterBrook Press, 2002. 102.

Lent Madness: Basil about "Prayer"

This Lent, I am subscribing to daily emails from Lent Madness, in which 32 saints are place in competition to determine which one gets the “golden halo” at the end of Lent. Each day, two are offered with their biographies and votes are taken. Now we are down to 16 “winners” to vote for each day. (Surprisingly, yesterday John Wesley was defeated by his brother Charles!)

Today the vote is between Basil the Great and Antony of Egypt. I really liked a few quotes of Basil about prayer, which I am posting below:

How to Pray

"Prayer is a request for what is good, offered by the devout of God. But we do not restrict this request simply to what is stated in words. We should not express our prayer merely in syllables, but also through the attitude of our soul and in the virtuous actions we do in our life. This is how you pray continually — not by offering prayer in words, but by joining yourself to God through your whole way of life, so that your life becomes one continuous and uninterrupted prayer."

Praying Daily

"When you sit down to eat, pray. When you eat bread, do so thanking God for being so generous to you. If you drink wine (or coffee), be mindful of God who has given it to you for your pleasure and as a relief in sickness. When you dress, thank God for His kindness in providing you with clothes. When you look at the sky and the beauty of the stars, throw yourself at God’s feet and adore Him who ordered things this way. When the sun goes down and when it rises, when you are asleep or awake, give thanks to God, who created and arranged all things for your benefit, to have you know, love and praise their Creator."

This was also posted for "Thursday Prayer" at RevGalBlogPals.

Holy Curiosity

Thanks to Elaine, I found this wonderful quote:

 "The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reasons for existing. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries to comprehend a little of this mystery every day. Never lose a holy curiosity." –
Albert Einstein

"Awareness" : 2014 Books

Thanks to the weekly book study, Wisdom Class, I recently read Awareness: The Perils and Opportunities of Reality by Anthony de Mello for the second time. I probably need to re-read it several more times to learn and practice "awareness" more often. These essays seem to be from transcripts of retreats he gave, so reading them aloud enhances understanding. We did not do that very often in our meetings, but needed to be reminded that that was the form of writing. He keeps saying, "Wake up!"

"Put this program into action, a thousand times: (a) identify the negative feelings in you; (b) undertand they are in you, not in the world, not in external reality; (c) do not see them as an essential part of 'I'; these things come and go; (d) understand that when you change, everything changes." (89)


It helped to watch videos of Anthony de Mello; we were fortunate to have these loaned to us to watch. But his talks are available on the internet via U-tube--go here! It is definitely worth the time to look at one or more of these. Here is a 4-minute glimpse:



And about God:

"The fact is that you're surrounded by God and you don't see God, because you 'know' about God. The final barrier to the vision of God is your God concept. You miss God because you think you know. That's the terrible thing about religion. That's what the gospels were saying, that religious people 'knew,' so they got rid of Jesus. The highest knowledge of God is to know God as unknowable. There is far too much God talk; the world is sick of it. There is too little awareness, too little love, too little happiness, but let's not use those words either. There's too little dropping of illusions, dropping of errors, dropping of attachments and cruelty, too little awareness...." (102)

I highly recommend this book and will be reading it again.

Prayer: Years of Quotes from Lebh Shomea

Through the past 18 years of going to Lebh Shomea, I collected 13 composition books full of quotes from various books I read there--plus, a few books from other places. Until my last visit to Lebh Shomea, there had never been a copy machine and so I printed quotes I liked from many different books from their extensive library.

I have been re-reading these books as research and for my personal enrichment in the past few weeks. I copied many down on my computer, which seem more readily accessible than these handwritten compendiums.

Much of my emphasis over the years was on prayer, and so I will copy some of those quotes below. I plan to pre-post various quotes (there are so many!) while we go to visit our granddaughters in Austin.

From Beginning to Pray by Anthony Bloom:

"The day when God is absent, when He is silent--that is the beginning of prayer. Not when we have a lot to say, but when we say to God 'I can't live without You, why are You so cruel, so silent?' This knowledge that we must find or die--that makes us break through to the place where we are in the Presence." (17)

"The moment you try to focus on an imaginary god, or a god you can imagine, you are in great danger of placing an idol between yourself and the real God." (45)

From Catherine de Hueck Doherty in Traits of Healthy Spirituality by Melannie Svoboda:

"Prayer is love. It is love expressed in speech, and love expressed in silence. To put it another way, prayer is the meeting of two loves: the love of God and our love." (88)

"By inviting God to speak to us, we risk being changed; that is, we risk having our attitudes altered, our perspectives broadened, our plans modified." (89)

From Man's Quest for God by Abraham Joshua Heschel:

"Of all the sacred acts, first comes prayer. Religion is not 'what man does with his solitariness.' Religion is what man does with the presence of God. And the spirit of God is present whenever we are willing to accept it. True, God is hiding His face in our time, but He is hiding because we are evading Him." (xiv)

"Prayer is an emanation of what is most precious in us toward Him, the outpouring of the heart before Him." (10)

"God loves what is left over at the bottom of the heart and cannot be expressed in words." (40)

Empty!

by MonkiFenn

That's how I feel but am trying to remember:

"Ignore your inner nagging thoughts. They are seldom accurate perceptions of what you are actually achieving. It is deeply unfair to criticize your navigation skills when taking a journey into unknown territory. Try not to demoralize yourself. I call my first draft “the Lewis and Clark.” Any freaking way to the coast is the correct way! Do not criticize yourself for the odd wrong turn, the weather slowing you down, having to stop for supplies. There is no bad route when you are on a voyage of discovery. Just keep going!"
PEN DENSHAM

Do Your Little Bit

Found on Facebook from Kissing Fish

And I just learned about and ordered the book Kissing Fish: Christianity for People Who Don't Like Christianity by the same person, Roger Woolsey. The Kindle edition only costs $3.03!

Begin!

O, Begin!

Fix some part of every day for private exercises. . . . 

Whether you like it or no, read and pray daily.

It is for your life; there is no other way:

else you will be trifler all your days. . . .

Do justice to your own soul;

give it time and means to grow.

Do not starve yourself any longer.

~John Wesley

The Growing Edge

Remember God

"At any time in the day, take a break and remind yourself of God's presence. . . say a prayer. Or just pause and create silent space inside of you. Feel God's love filling you. Remember God when you see a child laughing or witness a stranger's kind words to another. Remember God when you hear tragic news or observe a friend's sadness. Remember God when surrounded by a crowd, sitting alone, or lying in bed in the quiet of early morning. Remember God when you check your email or when you receive a text message. Remember God. God is there, waiting for you to remember."

~~Beth Richardson, The Uncluttered Heart: Making Room for God During Advent and Christmas

Advent: "Something is on the horizon."

"The season of Advent means there is something on the horizon the likes of which we have never seen before. . . . What is possible is to not see it, to miss it, to turn just as it brushes past you. And you begin to grasp what it was you missed, like Moses in the cleft of the rock, watching God's (back) fade in the distance. So stay. Sit. Linger. Tarry. Ponder. Wait. Behold. Wonder. There will be time enough for running. For rushing. For worrying. For pushing. For now, stay. Wait. Something is on the horizon."

~~Jan L. Richardson

Wake up!

"A man found an eagle's egg and put it in a nest of a barnyard hen. The eaglet hatched with the brood of chicks and grew up with them.
"All his life the eagle did what the barnyard chicks did, thinking he was a barnyard chicken. He scratched the earth for worms and insects. He clucked and cackled. And he would thrash his wings and fly a few feet into the air.
"Years passed and the eagle grew very old. One day he saw a magnificent bird above him in the cloudless sky. It glided in graceful majesty among the powerful wind currents, with scarcely a beat of its strong golden wings.
"The eagle looked up in awe. 'Who's that?' he asked.
"'That's the eagle, the king of the birds,' said his neighbor. 'He belongs to the sky. We belong to the earth--we're chickens.' So the eagle lived and died a chicken, for that's what he thought he was."

~Anthony de Mello. Awareness: The Perils and Opportunities of Reality. NY: Doubleday, 1992. 3. (originally published in Song of the Bird by de Mello.)

Our Spiritual Path

“I think joy and sweetness and affection are a spiritual path. We’re here to know God, to love and serve God, and to be blown away by the beauty and miracle of nature. You just have to get rid of so much baggage to be light enough to dance, to sing, to play. You don’t have time to carry grudges; you don’t have time to cling to the need to be right.” 

~ Anne Lamott

Thanks to Quaker Dave for bringing this beautiful quote to my attention.

Listening

“In every experience of true listening, especially to God but also to another person, there is a mysterious moment in which the one who listens steps out from a fortress of self-concern and dwells silently in the truth of the one who speaks. This is a moment of great risk and great courage, for it ushers us into a different way of being in the world. Over time, we may even cease to be people who listen and become people who are listening, people whose very being is shaped by the posture of listening. This is the posture of the servant, whose attentiveness is not a sign of cringing compliance but a mark of human life lived ever more fully in the Spirit of love (see I Sam. 3:10).”

                                                                      ~John S. Mogabgab

                                                                         Editor, Weavings magazine

I Samuel 3:10

          Now the Lord came and stood there, calling as before, “Samuel! Samuel!” And Samuel said, “Speak, for your servant is listening.”

NOW

“Presence is what we are all starving for. Real presence! We are too busy to be present, too blind to see the nourishment and salvation in the crumbs of life, the experience of each moment. Yet the secret of life is this: There are no leftovers! There is nothing -- no thing, no person, no experience, no thought, no joy or pain -- that cannot be harvested and used for nourishment on our journey to God. “

~Macrina Wiederkehr