Self-Punishment

 One of the reasons that someone tries to reform their life for their own betterment is because they want to become a friend to themself.  Their addiction to bad behavior has harmed them as well as others.  I like to think that becoming a friend to oneself can be energizing for someone who knows they need to change.  I can apologize to me for causing myself a bad day, but then how am I going to amend my life to make tomorrow better for me.  The spiritual way of becoming friends with oneself avoids self-centeredness.  This is the only true way to change.  It is an inside job that will bear fruit on the outside eventually.  

Old Tapes

 Do you ever judge people by what they used to be like?  They might have changed, but you will have none of it because you live in your past, not their past? At times people repent after their life has gone really bad.  Selfishly, they want to feel better, so they find some spiritual and practical action path to change.  But eventually,  they decide to go tell someone, “I am sorry,” or “I apologize,” or something that admits to the mess they made of the relationship.  They do this as part of their action so as not to fall back into their old way of life and subsequent behavior.  The victim hears the apology but keeps the same judgment about the “reformer.” The victim lives in the past.  They cannot see a changed person, but only the person as they knew them in the past.  Living in the past makes one a double victim.  Forgiveness is a lot more uplifting than resentment.  

St. Francis

 In my blog yesterday, October 4, I spoke about talking to the flowers and trees.  October 4 is also the Feast of St. Francis of Assisi.  He spoke to the plants and the celestial orbs.  Some people thought him crazy.  He was overflowing with love for all.  And not just all people.  The St. Francis Prayer is the one used in AA as their 11th Step prayer.  It is a beautiful prayer that challenges us to be a positive upbeat force and not negative, dragging others down with us into a dark, lonely and isolated abyss.  

All Creation

In Christian Circles, at the end of Mark’s Gospel, Jesus, Risen, asks his disciples to proclaim the Good News to “All Creation.” So this would include flowers, plants and trees, if not your pets.  Include pets.  So when you pass by a flower or a garden or a field of growing food, say hi, and tell them the Good News you have discovered today.  Recovery people have their big book, which they are supposed to be reading and Christian’s have their bible.  Every path has some spiritual literature of good news.  So I talk to the flowers that are blooming in San Francisco.  If I have nothing good to say, it is not the flowers fault, but my need to work on my spiritual life.   

The Purpose

 The monastic life is never chosen for itself.  It is chosen as a conversion process.  The techniques and discipline is for the conversion, to live more deeply in the Spirit of Christ.  It requires a contemplative path.  The monastic life is a vehicle to help take the monk somewhere.  The vehicle is not the goal or the life.  Recovery is not chosen for itself.  It too is a conversion process.  That is why people in recovery practice the steps, go to meetings, help out.  Recovery is not a life.  It is a vehicle to take one to a new way of living, free of addiction.  To just stop drinking is not a conversion process.  It is a dry drunk.  And that is hell.  

A New Value System

 What might be the results of this “inner transformation” that comes with a contemplative way of life?  Values change.  The secular value of success, prestige, acquisition and esteem for instance, begin to be de-valued by the contemplative.  Outside stuff loses its interest.  People don’t choose a simplicity of life, or “poverty” for that matter because they want to have little or nothing.  They simply lose interest in acquisition and “things” for things sake.  A monk who chooses poverty but has no contemplative life, will be a rather unhappy monk.  So practice the prayer first and let the de-valuation process follow more naturally.  

Hospitality

Contemplative prayer is about hospitality.  You become an expectant watcher, focused to become hospitable for the Presence, the experience of God’s dwelling in the true self center of our heart.  God is hidden within.  We cannot “Make” God happen in our experience.  God decides.  We wait.  Become like a good waiter, ready for the call, the invite to come closer, to be of service but not in control.