The Fruit

 Someone said, “Go out on a limb.  That is where the fruit is.”  Well, maybe being at this monastery, living this quite different life of a spiritual journey, is going out on a limb.  But when one goes out on a limb, one hopes that the branch does not break or that they do not fall.  In fact, we hope that someone or something has our back. I think of God as being the power supply when I go out onto this limb of a life I am leading. Thinking of trying to live a new life, not sure where it is going, but believing it will lead to the fruit you seek, we need trust and hope that we are not alone.  There were times when I did feel quite alone, hugging the truck or keeping my feet firmly on the ground.  I wasn’t going anywhere for sure.  But it was familiar.  Safety and security efforts can be that way.  But the fruit is when I seem more to abandon myself in trust and hope, and then action.  Climb out onto the limb.  

Listening?

 Someone told me the meaning of “Are you listening?” It means, are you going to do the right action.  This is what the questioner is asking.  For instance, a parent might say to a child, “Did you take out the garbage?”  The child says yes, but in fact did not take out the garbage and is not about to take out the garbage.  Yes, the words were heard, but the response revealed that the hearer was not going to take any action.  We can hear but not listen.  I think of this in terms of God speaking to me in my scriptures.  I hear it but I do nothing.  I say I believe but no action.  A person in recovery may hear or read their recovery literature and take no action.  They are not listening.  A group’s members are those who listen and take action.  Are you a member of a family if you never help out, are only a taker and not a giver?  Maybe the reason there is so much alienation, a feeling of not belonging, is that people hear but do not listen and we let them have a pass.  We cannot make members.  It has to come from the heart, a loving and self-sacrificing heart.  I need to hear better.  My heart needs to be more auditory. 

Surrender

 There are two kinds of “surrender” when it comes to change. The first is the one with which I am most personally familiar.  “I am going to surrender my old ways and change my life.”  Here I am the active changer.  The energy for such change is shame and guilt, with maybe some embarrassment, remorse added in.  It has never worked.  It is short term as is my memory.  The second change is powered by love.  I surrender to someone I love.  Then I allow them to change me through our relationship of love. Think long term spousal or partner marriage relationship.  Here in the monastery, and in my daily prayer efforts and living with imperfect people,  I surrender to my understanding of God, and let the change come from the God power.  Of myself, not much power.  

Perspective

I hear people say that Covid curtails their freedom.  They talk about all the things they cannot do now because of restrictions, or safety issues.  Well, I try to keep things in perspective.  I am not incarcerated, in prison, where all my freedoms are curtailed.  And when I hear about people in prison who have found recovery from addictions that may very well have contributed to their being in prison, they sound full of gratitude. They are grateful for an inner freedom.  Where is my gratitude for the life I do have in the outside world?  Gratitude or whining?   

Still There

 A compass points in one direction, North.  It does not tell that North is, but rather where North is.  But what if the compass is broken?  Just because it can no longer point to the North does not mean there is no longer a “North.”  The same with a map.  The map shows where Libya is located.  Here is Libya.  It exists and the map drawing shows it.  But what if the map is incorrectly drawn or is full of mistakes and fails to show “Libya.”  Does that mean Libya no longer exists?  It is the same with religion.  It is supposed to be a bridge, a connector for us pointing to God.  But if religion is broken, full of mistakes, does that mean God does not exist?  I cannot deny that which I seek, simply because the guides have lost functionality.  

Belonging

 My Mom died on this day in 2003.  As her caregiver, I felt very connected.  I was in the right place, fulfilling her needs and being of service with love.  But years before that I was quite a different person.  In the turbulent 60s, I was quite turbulent.  I had left home for work in Chicago.  With or without people I had a sense of loneliness, of not being OK.  I could not have identified those feelings back then.  I was not into feelings.  I was more into forgetting such discomfort.  From time to time, for brief times I could forget.  But someone had my back, and I was able to move from harming myself to helping others.  So I was able to be a caregiver to my parents.  That someone who had my back would periodically show up in my consciousness, inside me, or maybe around me, and I would know in those moments that things did not have to be the way they were in Chicago at that time.  That someone is a Presence.  Today, I try to keep in conscious contact with this Presence.  And such contact makes me feel OK about being me.  Beats oblivion!

Those Moments

 Sometimes I have moments of insanity.  I would think that if I did something for you, or did not do something, avoid some perceived bad behavior, you would like me.  Then I would do this “behavior” this action to gain love, or acceptance, but I would do it with resentment.  The reason that I was not getting love or acceptance was that you had so many faults. You were selfish, or whatever, so why do this good behavior on my part?  Beneath it all, I am feeling NOT OK in those moments and trying to feel OK with some behavior.  The job of making me feel OK was someone else’s and my good behavior, kindness, sacrifice, was to awaken you to do your job.  Ouch!  This blog is way honest.  And you thought I was a guru?  But for some reason honesty makes me feel better.  

The Reasons

 I used to drink at people.  Most of you drank with people in social occasions.  Yes, I remember that too.  But there were occasions when I drank “at people.”  Maybe I was unhappy with people or life was not going my way.  I might have a feeling of not being OK, but those around me did not help me to feel better, or they got blamed for my not feeling OK.  So I drank at them.  I would look around a room of people, no one of whom is making me happy.  And I would have a drink, alone with others.  I was lonely, but instead of having enough sanity to realize that loneliness is simply a part of life from time to time, I would try to get “feelings” to go away or change.  It was all a matter of running away in place.  Today, I have moments of sanity and the freedom to feel but not react in dead end ways.  I think maybe this blog is too honest, so I will stop before you take me off your pedestal.  

Charity

Jesus tells a story about a landowner who hires people all day to work in his fields.  Some work only an hour and some work the whole day depending on when they got hired.  The workers are all day laborers.  At the end of the day, the owner pays everyone the same.  His generosity is in treating them as all equals to one another.  But the first hired complain.  They are of the economic mindset that justice is served when those who do the most should be paid the most and those who do the least should be paid the least.  For them, there is no sense of being equal to one another when it comes to money or material things.  Today, this might play out in the mindset of the charitable giver who has way more than the need, for whatever reason and decides to share some in charity for the poor.  The poor stay poor and the rich stay rich in most of these cases.  So it should be, you say?  Well, if you also say you are a follower of Jesus, he saw justice differently than you do.  Be glad that your God's generosity does not depend on your efforts.  

Behavior Change

 When someone first enters the doors of an AA meeting, they generally don't say they are alcoholic.  They really don't know what that is yet.  What they do know is that they drink too much and want to stop.  They want to change a behavior and don't know how to do that on their own.  Later, if they keep with AA they will find out what an alcoholic is.  I find the same in my religion and in convert work.  People who come and say they "want to become Catholic" don't yet know what a Catholic is.  But they do know what they are now and what their spiritual behavior, if any, is.  They want to change that and think that "Catholic" will be the way.  Why?  Because of people they have met or witnessed being Catholic in behavior.  Just like in AA, newcomers tend to stay and "get it" because of the behavior of those they meet when they enter the AA meeting.  It is all about attraction.  People who try to promote religion, advertise and so forth, don't get as far as those who walk the walk of whatever is their spiritual practice.  My blogs are talking the talk.  I could use some better behavior myself as I trudge along.  I work to limit the number of days and times that I am a de-traction.  

expert

 I am not an expert on spirituality or the interior life.  I think of myself as always a beginner.  Why?  It keeps me open to new ideas, ways of seeing the same thing in a different perspective, and reminding me of things that I had been neglecting.  It is also a relief to be non-professional, a practitioner and not a complete expert.  I don't have to worry so much about doing a perfect blog whatever that my look like.  Sometimes there is a typo that I miss.  So be it.  Since the pressure is off, I can keep doing this, and from time to time even contradict myself when something new strikes me.  And it can keep the ego in check.  So you don't have to be prefect in what you do or even like to do.  If you were perfect you would stop learning.  I know people who are not interested in anything new.  They just keep reading and talking to people who agree with them. 

Remorse

 Remorse is not a plan for change.  It is a feeling, maybe fueled by guilt or shame, but it is not a plan for change.  When I tell someone I am sorry for what I did, I have hopefully begun a process.  Now what is my plan to change me, so that I don’t continue to do the same old bad behavior?  I need a plan of action for change, and I need to know that a bad habit is not mine to change alone.  I need my God.  I have found that people are not so much interested in my apologies as in my change of life.  Action and more action is the courage to change.  

Freedom

 The spiritual journey is really a path to freedom.  It releases us from the captivity to self-centeredness.  I  hear people who are not on a spiritual path say that this is a free country and they can do what they want.  They are slaves to self.  With a spiritual path we discover what is called the "common good."  We are part of one another and our freedom is to be able to fulfill obligations, not to have rights to do what we please.  This is so obvious in addictive people.  Their addictive behavior prevents them from fulfilling a lot of obligations.  They are not trustworthy.  And they generally are all about self.  I try to  keep on the spiritual path practice, for it is so easy to fall back onto self, me and mine.  When I fall back I become lonely, isolated, disconnected.  How does my action affect those around me? is a question I have to ask frequently.  It keeps me honest.  

Feelings And Actions

When I am feeling abandoned, lonely, fearful, and troubled by life, I think to myself that I cannot be helpful to anyone or anything at that moment.  My life of messy feelings paralyze me.  But someone said that feeling do not lie within our power.  They just arise.  What does lie within our power is action, virtuous conduct.  Why wait for feelings to catch up or change before I act?  Why be controlled by undisciplined feelings?  What is suggested is to be content with discontent.  I like that.  It helps me to do some good things even though I am feeling some discontent when I begin the virtuous action.  I try to be of some service even when I don't want to be and I find an amazing thing so often happens.  I begin to feel better.  I don't act to feel better.  I try to act in a loving and helpful, compassionate manner because it is the right thing to do, the virtuous action.  If all my energy to do good came from good feelings I would be unreliable and inconsistent, and a messier person than I am now.  Sometimes I write my blogs when I am having a messy patch.  I have a lot of imperfect followers on the blog.  They get it.   

Haloclines

Where the freshwater of a river and the salt water in the ocean meet, it is called a halocline.   Certain forms of life can flourish in this setting that don't seem to flourish anywhere else, so I hear.  I think about cooking and baking.  On the one hand there is me who was afraid of cooking, because I would fail, or it was too hard, or it just was not me.  On the other hand, there is the recipe that I look at, that pushes up against all my negativity and fear.  Bring them together and something unique takes place.  What? The fear went away and now I produce some really good meals, that would not happen if I had not put my fears, and negative attitudes up against the recipe.  I made my first Vietnamese dinner recently.  Spring Rolls and then a pasta with a sauce of ingredients from the Vietnamese recipe.  It was uniquely me.  No one else in the monastery would attempt it.  But I have to figure out how to roll those rice cakes better!  So, when you come up against something that your past says, "is simply not you, or for you," don't walk away so fast, especially if curiosity grabs you.  It could be your salt and clear water unique self coming to the fore.

The Key First

 Someone said, "Sometimes a key arrives before the lock,"  For me, it means that past experiences can open me to future opportunities.  The experience is the key and the opportunity is the lock.  Some years ago I gave up drinking.  It was interfering with my paying attention to possibilities, and opening myself to growth, new experiences.  I learned a lot about paying attention, learning to listen, overcoming fears at the new and untried, becoming comfortable with just being and being with someone without having to do anything to prove myself.  And so on.  These were all keys, but the lock was yet to show up.  It showed up years later when my parents were both dying, and still living, helplessly, in their Florida home.  I had no experience with caregiving of this sort, but I went to live with them and gave myself over to caregiving.  I asked for advice from professionals, did what they said in nursing care, sat with my parents, listened to them and took it one day at a time, abandoning myself to God to lead the way.  Had I been drinking none of this would have happened.  Fear, self-centeredness, fragile ego not wanting to fail, would have won out and I would have been rather useless.  So pay attention to what is going on in your life and around you.  They could be keys.  The lock will show up when it is time.  

Peacemaker

 When I am at odds with someone, or feel wronged, I think that often the role and energy for peacemaking and reconciliation lies with me, the wronged party.  This means that I have to let go of a grievance I carry about.  I am not going to "get even" or punish the other person, but maybe I will find peace that my grievance had kicked out of my heart.  I want to be at peace with myself, and this might require some letting go, which is not always just about being silent.  Look for a common ground, a middle ground, a place of moderation where some things might be resolved simply by my action and conduct around that person.  At times, the other person changes not at all, nor admits anything.  But I have let go of resentment, and have moved not only into acceptance but into a heartfelt serenity.  When my happiness requires that others meet my wants or needs, and be more perfect than they are for me, I have set myself up for much inner and maybe outer turmoil.  And sometimes I just walk away, far away.  And if I am missed it might be more for what I provided them, than for myself.  

The "Right" Who?

From time to time someone might say, "I hope I meet the right person."  This is usually in finding a partner for one thing or another, or a mate.  It could be for a job one is interviewing for.  Or one might hope to meet the "right" people at an event they are attending as a newcomer or stranger.  But someone reminded me that maybe I should focus on being the right person someone else might want to meet.  Why don't I try to be the person someone might want to be with?  Be the best, real me that I can be.  This is a spiritual process, becoming the real me, because I need to be able to spend quiet, alone time with me and reflect to myself where and when I am most honest,  or most phoney, or fearful of being who I believe I am.  At some point in this process I will need to accept myself, being the truest me.  If I cannot spend time with me, and accept me, why should anyone else want to spend time with me, much less accept me.  When fear is in control I tend to present a mask, an adjusted me that you will accept.  When Love for who and how God made me, along with accepting my life scars, is in focus, I am my best self and that is my truest self.   

Service Wounds

 Just because you decide to be helpful and of service to others does not mean that you won’t be wounded.  Recently, I cooked my first Mexican type dinner for the monks.  I like to do things from scratch as much as possible.  I did not serve refried beans from a can.  I made them myself, as well as the guacamole.  After the meal, one of the monks said, “Those beans were really good.  Did you make them from a can?’  My first thought, was that this monk is a savage.  The second thought is why do I bother serving these worthless people?  I wanted praise for my pain-staking efforts.  Then I remembered that service is to make me a better person, not to change others, be they savages or not.  Being judgmental undoes the purpose of my cooking.  I am God’s recipe being painstakingly transformed into food for others.  Judgment is not one of the ingredients.  

The Look

 When I quit my job to go into the seminary I was living in San Francisco, a bit of a hippie place at the time.  What is a “hippie?”  If you don’t know, ask an old person.  Anyhow, I decided to grow my hair, grow a beard, wear tank top, tie-dyed shirts to show that I did not belong to the business world.  I was different, unique from the world I had just left.  When I went into the seminary I continued this “look.”  I was not part of the establishment church.  I was the “new breed.”  I have come to realize that what I was saying or doing was acting out that I did not belong, before anyone told me that I did not belong.  It was a fear I did not belong, that I dealt with by denying that I belonged.  I was really uncomfortable in my own skin, as I was later to find out.  Drink dealt with that from time to time.  Nowadays, I try not to make my outsides act as an escape my from my insides.  I deal better with the insides, and spend less time on outside outfitting.  

The Choice

 If you ask me why I made the choice to live in this monastery and practice this way of life and prayer, I would say it is not the right question.  Why?  Well, I did not make the choice.  God made the choice for me to be here and I am following that Energy.  When you sense or feel that you are in the right place or space or activity, I suggest that you do not ponder why you chose it.  I might rather be that you have responded to being chosen for this in the here and now.  Which means that there might be a power around and in your life that is other than you.  Faith need not always be about a believing in someone or something, but rather a response to something that is right for you.  We can make too much of dogma and little of action.  Faith is a response to rather than a belief in.  

Inked

 Getting inked refers now to tattoos.  When I first heard “inked” I thought of the old memo machines that made copies of stuff I used for CCD classes.  I would get ink all over my hands at times from the copy sheets.  But it would come off with washing, a lot.  A tattoo is rather permanent.  But our state of mind, opinions, views on things, can change as we grow in experiences.  The tattoo says who one is at that moment in time.  The moment changes.  You change.  The tattoo remains, like memorabilia, but it attaches to you and cannot be put into a memory box or garage storage.  Tattoos can be the result of a drunken night with the boys.  Whatever.  You get sobriety but the tattoo reminds you of the past.  I avoided a tattoo out of fear. I did not like the needle.  Some fears are good.  When we say forever it has consequences.  

Too Busy

I hear someone say that they don't do some bad habit anymore, but now are too busy to pray or follow some time-consuming spiritual practice.  An alcoholic told me she was in recovery, but did not have much time to drink.  So I asked her how much time she devoted to drinking each day, since she said that she did drink each day?  She thought about it and said maybe three hours of drinking.  Well, I asked her, do you not now have three hours free of drinking?  Yes, she said, but now she is busier because she is more functional.  I suggested that maybe she is more functional because she is no longer drinking.  She thought for a moment and then said maybe she could use some of this time to actually pray and do a bit of spiritual reading.  Bad behavior takes time.  So does good behavior.  I don't believe I could stop the bad without the good to replace it.  

Buried Alive

Whenever I try to bury a feeling, I bury it alive.  Yucky!  Rather, I find it better to recognize the feeling, give it a name, if I can, and let it run its course while not letting it control my actions.  While I am aware of the feeling, in this case a disturbing one, I ask why, or what is it all about.  Over time, I can identify the reason that this feeling is acting up in me.  I often find that it connects with some personal past history, or some judgment I make, or false pride, or fear of one thing or another.  This process then educates me about myself, my shortcomings and why I have them.  Over time, the same cause and effect stuff comes up and I quickly recognize it as "old stuff" and the feeling then often loses its energy to control my actions.  Most of the time now, I just laugh at myself and move on to becoming a bit more useful to the world and people around me.  

The No End

I have found that when I think I have come to the final "no" and the end of the trail, my Spiritual Power sees beyond my "no."  At times, when I am in the Presence during a meditation, or in a fit spiritual condition, I can suddenly see that my "no" or "it is impossible," is just my limited opinion.  In fact, there may yet be a solution, or more action that I  can take.  "I can't go on," does not mean that I can't go on.  So I find that when I think I have reached my limit, it might be a good idea to make sure that I am doing a spiritual practice.  My sense of limits are really only my opinion.  That is why I like a Power greater than my opinions of persons, places and things.   

Gardening

 What is the spiritual life but a kind of gardening.  We are all in some kind of a recovery from missteps, bad habits and a weak self-evaluation.  In gardening we are trying to grow something good, the fruitful plants of a better person.  But there are weeds.  We cannot get rid of the weeds until we know the difference between a weed and a fruitful plant, and then how to uproot the weed.  For example, it takes time to recognize that what we thought was taking care of my needs, was merely selfishness, or my avoiding someone or something is all about self-centered fear or judgments.  And so on.  My prayer each day, spiritual reading, daily meditations, are all about my seeing with new eyes where my weeds are, and how to get rid of them.  Should they grow back?  Get rid of them again.  Become fruit for others.  

The Weed

 My spiritual life is like a weed.  On the monastery ranch we have lots of weeds that grow quite big.  They are not much to look at most of the time.  There is nothing special about them.  That would be me, quite ordinary and unimpressive.  But a weed has deep roots.  This would be like a spiritual life practice that no one sees but where the change is hidden.  I want to be rooted in the Non-Dual Presence in which I believe.  It is not important that it shows to others in some visual fashion, but that it makes me the kind of person, deeply rooted in a practice, that might be from time to time, helpful to another.  So if you feel like a weed, surrounded by beautiful flowers, work on your roots in silence and stillness.  Or however you do it.  When there is a forest fire and everything above ground that was beautiful and useful seems to be burnt up, what is left?  The deep roots are still there, and are the source of some new life.  

Recipe

 If you cook or bake, you know that there are recipes, ingredients that go into the food to make it taste good.  Over time, you might adjust the recipe from your own experience.  My recipe for sanity and contentment has certain ingredients.  One of them is staying in touch with people in various ways, including face to face.  Now with the Coronavirus, in person is not available, so I have learned to adjust to Zoom.  It is a different ingredient, but different does not equal bad.  With Zoom, I can be in touch with people who don't even live near me.  I have learned to shut up, mute, when another person is talking.  And I get to see them when they are not all fixed up for the public.  I, like others, prefer in person, but just like a food, be positive and work with what I have.  This attitude helps with contentment and sanity.  I am not a hermit yet.  I don't do life in solitary.  

Doubt

 A person might say to me that they have so many doubts that they have lost their childhood faith.  Not to worry.  You only lost your faith.  You did not lose God.  God is not roped to your faith or lack of faith.  You don't need faith for God to love you or even empower you to overcome some obstacles.  I have met many a person who has been powerless over one thing or another, and have overcome it on a daily basis without any faith in a deity or God of religion.  These people did believe in one important thing...alone they were screwed.  God does not need to show up as a holy card image.  God can show up as a scruffy old codger, mismatched clothes, coffee mug in one hand and the other hand held out to grasp someone who needs help.  Probably if the codger went into a church, no one would want to sit next to him.  They are all looking for God, who is hidden in plain site.  

Spirituality Poverty

Spiritual poverty is when we realize that we cannot go on under our own power.  If you are trying to do something, or stop doing something, and you find that you cannot, you have arrived at spiritual poverty.  Under your own power, you are stuck where you are, with no change.  But it is actually a spiritual place.  It is not the absence of spirit, but a new beginning.  You go from humiliation to humility.   You go from self-will to surrender, letting go of running the show.  Spirituality is when you actually seek help.  This connects you to a Power source, Spiritual energy that you did not have available to you when you were trying to do everything yourself and your way.  Then you begin to have spiritual riches, and your life evolves into its best self, a better self than when you were trying to do things your way.  I wake up each day with spiritual poverty and do what I need to do so that God can do what God wants to do.