Watering

The soul is like a plant.  It needs to be watered.  A spiritual guide, God, Higher Power, Ultimate Reality is the water.  If I don’t stay connected with my spiritual source then I wither up and die within.  A plant may wither and die, but still have an outside look of a plant, though pretty dried up.  It no longer buds or shows its full potential.  It just takes up space.  I don’t want to just take up space.  

Neighbors

 Do you know the names of your neighbors?  There is a good chance that you know the names of players on your favorite team, but not your neighbors’ names.  We connect less now with those around us.  As a child in an apartment building, I knew some of my neighbors.  In our suburban home I knew the names of people in houses around us.  If I did not spend time with them that was my shyness, or lack of social skills.  But I knew their names and would talk with them when I saw them.  I knew all the kids on my block.  And so on.  Showing up where the same people meet is a good way to be known and to know names.  

Decisions

 Who makes my decisions about my life practice?  When it is only me, I often end up where I do not want to be.  How did I get into this mess?  Well, I was running my life on my own counsel.  I did not include God.  It seems when I get into “poor me” syndrome, the best solution is to ask God for help.  When God is involved in how I live my life, I am often brought to where I am supposed to be and live how I am supposed to live, a version of my best self.  I turn the mess over to God.  What have I got to lose?  Some people might say God is just a crutch.  Well, if you cannot walk what do you do?

Talent

 Jesus did not pick followers, the Apostles, who were very learned or eloquent.  They would never convince anyone by promotion, words or learning.  They were simple people, but they believed.  So they attracted others by their thorough and deep belief.  I think the best way to attract people to a belief is in how you live it, not in your speeches or exhortations.  That might end up being “saying one thing but doing another.” Attraction is in the action of your life, not in words of promotion.  

The Whirlwind

 As the saying goes, “Sow the wind, you will reap the whirlwind.”  Busyness for its own sake does not feed the heart.  A heart that is not fed will always act inappropriately.  It will act in ways that are like the wind.  Nothing is planted.  So nothing is harvested.  Action without prayer is all busyness that does not feed.  

The Marriage

Good spiritual practice is like the marriage vow.  I do it for better or for worse.  Stuff happens.  Sometimes the prayer/meditation is not what I wanted or expected.  But I don’t give up.  I am in for the long haul, for better or for worse.  Actually the prayer is not “worse.”  Only how I feel about it is worse.  My feelings and  judgments about  results are just my side of things.  I am in relationship with my God, Power who has a God way of doing things.  My job is to be faithful daily in the practice.  

The Fall

 I go out to run in the early morning darkness to avoid pollution and traffic.  My mind tells me to wear a light strapped to the cap I am wearing.  It would shine on the ground in front of me so I would see obstructions, ruts, stones, branches in the running path.  But I say “No.”  I got this.  I don’t need a light.  I know the roads.  So I go out and run.  Just as I pick up the pace, my full speed, I trip over something I did not see in the dark.  I fall.  I am cut up and bleeding.  It is pride goeth before the fall.  I have enough spiritual practice to know the right thing to do, but not enough to do it.