“The truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off.”
–Werner Erhard
Hitting Me Right Between The Eyes
Lately I have been reading Kathleen Norris’ new book, Acedia & Me: A Marriage, Monks, and A Writer’s Life, and yesterday I came upon this prayer that is so perfect for me and where I am right now.
It comes from the Book of Common Prayer: Prayers for use by a Sick Person:
“This is another day, O Lord. I know not what it will bring forth, but make me ready, Lord, for whatever it may be. If I am to stand up, help me to stand bravely. If I am to sit still, help me to sit quietly. If I am to lie low, help me to do it patiently. And if I am to do nothing, let me do it gallantly. Make these words more than words, and give me the Spirit of Jesus. Amen.”
And if I am to do nothing, let me do it gallantly. Hm, doing nothing…gallantly. Never tried that one before.
Doing nothing…
-resentfully
-angrily
-guiltily
-fearfully
-grudgingly
I’ve run the gamut with those.
But “doing nothing gallantly.”
Definitely something to chew on.
Good Words
…in the book of Isaiah the word of God is envisioned as the rain God sends to earth, and the prophet declares that it will not return empty, but bearing good fruit. If we are made in God’s image, perhaps we are also words of God in this sense, and our life’s pilgrimage is to determine what our particular word is and how we are to bring it to fruition. Within this frame of reference, we can envision the whole of our life as a journey home.
-Kathleen Norris
Food For Thought
Just Awesome
Oh, You Mean It Doesn’t Have To Be Hard?
Searching for the Dharma
You’ve traveled up ten thousand steps in search of the Dharma.
So many long days in the archives, copying, copying.
The gravity of the Tang and the profundity of the Sung
make heavy baggage.
Here! I’ve picked you a bunch of wildflowers.
Their meaning is the same
but they’re much easier to carry.
~ Xu Yun ~
Good Words For The Weekend
“God divided beauty and gave it to the ten:
Henna, soap, and silk-these are the first three.
The plough, the livestock, and the hives of bees-
That makes six.
The sun when it rises over the mountains-
That makes seven.
The crescent moon, as thin as a Christian’s blade-
That makes eight.
With horses and with books we come to ten.”
-from The Tenth Gift by Jane Johnson
Never Alone
Yes!
“The woman who takes the time to grow herself in the darkness becomes familiar-perhaps for the first time-with the real source and containment of her psychic strength. No longer is her strength dissipated in obeying an idealized father figure, in pleasing a lover, in trying to satisfy a perpetually unsatisfied mother figure, in accommodating to a patriarchal organization or culture, in appeasing the inner witch who tells her she is worthless. No longer is her strength lost to obeying compulsions, drives, and obsessions that can slip in during the dark night of the soul and substitute for the real thing.
And what is the real thing, the thing for which she longs? The love affair with her own spirit, the inner marriage that commits her to her destiny, the rituals of soul that feed her deepest hunger, and the sense of being pregnant with her Self, her creative essence.”
Jill Mellick, Coming Home To Myself
God Isn’t Fear
God is always within you, and you are never separated from that energy that you are calling God. But you can get fixated on something that does not allow that energy to be felt by you. You are the only one who can disallow that energy that you are calling God in your life, and you are the only one who can find a vibration that allows it. There are so many people in this world today, specifically in this nation today, that are using the rhetoric of being in alignment with God who are no where near the vibrational vicinity of the energy of source. And in their despair they are acting out in ways of trying to level the playing field, or trying to regain their power. Religion has almost become completely fear based… when God is the opposite of fear based. God is the anti of fear, God is the presence of well being, and there is only a source of well being.
Abraham-Hicks
Boulder, CO (6-11-05)
