Technology

 If I depend upon the computer in our technological culture for my needs and wants, then ultimately I am depending upon my own powers.  The more I know how to work technology the more power and control and even self esteem I have, at least in my own mind.  I never go beyond my own powers and limitations to a deeper dimension in which I discover my center-self, my deeper self.  In meditation I am not the one in control.  It is not my Power that will lead me on this deeper journey.  But it requires time, energy and attention or intention, and that means walking away from the time spent with time-consuming computer/cell phone/iPad and such.  

The Stripping

 Death takes away everything, and does so in an instant.  So why not prepare for this intimate event by letting go of some things.  Like what? Like that which you know in your heart of hearts you don’t really need.  Buy less things.  Become more comfortable with bare necessities.  In trying to move into this simpler life you might discover some things about yourself that all your stuff has covered up.  Maybe a loneliness.  Maybe a sense of inferiority.  Maybe an ego that wants constant feeding.  You might attend to these things as they come up.  Though they are fantasy in reality, they are real to you in your unreality.  The many things we grasp onto are the really unreal.  The fullness of life just might be in the scarcity of stuff.  

Grace

 You cannot love God or anyone for that matter.  But you can want to love.  You fall in love with this person but not that person.  Did you choose to fall in love with this one person?  No.  Saints can love everyone.  The rest of us rely on grace/gift.  You meet several people in a group but only one attracts you.  You did not make it happen.  The attraction is a gift.  In a partnership or marriage, the going gets rough, but you decide to stay and be loving.  The attraction of the other person is gone.  But you decide to love.  The decision is a gift.  From where?  From the source of all love.  God is love.  To the non-believer God is anonymous.  You can only want to love God.  The attraction is gift.  Someone says, “I have decided to get sober.”  If they think it is their own decision, and not a gift, they will simply empower their own self-will to stop the addiction.  They will fail.  Sobriety is a gift and you work to hold onto it.  

The Model

Retirement

 If you are retired but still worry a lot about a lot of stuff, people, places and situations, then all that has changed in retirement is that you now don't get paid to worry.  A retired person may get a bit disoriented at first.  "What is my place in the world?" they may ask themselves.  The fact that you lived to be retired means that now you have the time to find your place in your new world.  Maybe gratitude that you did not get fired for insane living, would be a good start to each puzzling day.  Acceptance that you are older and not younger, alive and not dead.  God still has plans.  Not your plans maybe but God's plans.  So some daily meditation and spiritual reading to get out of your own way would be good.  The ego never retires.  Nor does imperfection, but we can minimize these things with patience and practice.  If you are striving for success in retirement, that is not retirement.  Goals are fine, but too often they lead to wasted time in fantasy.  Maybe be a model of peace for all those who still run around in frantic pursuit of whatever they deem important.  Plant something.  It shows you believe in a future even if you are not here to enjoy the fruits.  That is service to others.  

Bicycle

 The spiritual journey is like riding a bicycle.  You are on a journey on the bike.  But the beginner has training wheels on their bike.  They feel safe and secure.  This is the good beginning of a spiritual fit journey.  The safe and secure say, "I got God."  "I got spiritual stuff."  "I got sobriety."  "I got religion."  And so on.  Lots of gots.  But at some point, and I call it a graced moment or God-shot, a person decides to take the training wheels off the bicycle.  Scary, and not so secure.  Trust and surrender to give the two-wheeler a go.  Voila!  You are on the same journey, with the same bike, but all is different.  So too prayer/meditation/service.  As the prayer deepens, as you let go of control of results, or goals, you find that your service in the world becomes more selfless.  Sobriety deepens.  Deep prayer has fewer parts, as does a two wheeler from a training wheel bicycle.  The God-shots are God's way of saying, "Abandon yourself."

Understanding?

 It is OK for someone new to the spiritual path to have a "god of their understanding."  It is a start.  As time goes on and if the spiritual path deepens in this ongoing time, one realizes that no one understands God.  God is not a thing or in a place.  Go is.  But though we cannot understand God we can love God.  The beginner has no sense of this.  It is probably nonsense or sentimental to the beginner.  I try to be patient with the beginner, but feel a certain sadness for one who says they have been on a spiritual path for a long time, but still are with the god they know.  Spiritual paths are comfortable and comforting, until they are not.  Then the transformation begins.  As Bill says, "abandon yourself."