Adding Up

When I go walking or jogging, I can see the distance I have traveled or I can record it on my iWatch app.  So I get a sense of accomplishment and a good physical feeling from the exercise.  But the inner journey is not so easy to record “progress.”  I sit in meditation for a half hour.  Sometimes feel better, sometimes bored or restless.  Am I making any progress?  How do I know?  My watch is useless except to say how long I have been reading spiritual literature or whatever the inner journey work is.  No single time tells me much, but over time, with consistency, I see progress.  It is how I begin to live my life more virtuously.  

Suggestions

 Someone suggested once a long time ago that I do something.  I thought since it was a ‘suggestion” I had a choice, an option.  He said I had the option of living or dying.  So I asked then why he had said it was a suggestion instead of a must?  He said, “Because you are too stubborn and insane to follow a must.”  Well, I did not want anyone to think me insane and stubborn, so I did what he “suggested.”  Later, under self-examination, another “suggestion,” I discovered I was indeed insane and stubborn.  And a lot more.  So now in my spiritual practice I take suggestions very seriously.  I suggest you do that with my blogs!!!

Snooze Button

 Do you ever find yourself hitting the snooze button when you are told to wake up?  “Wake UP” and change your life!  The snooze button says, “You are right, but not just yet.”  My thought of becoming a priest went on for some years.  I did not simply say no.  And then forget about it.  I hit the snooze button.  It puts off waking up to a new way of life.  I am the sort of person for whom big changes in life are usually preceded by the snooze button.  Some days I just force myself to show up at something, a meeting, an event, because I know that I want to press the snooze button, which will only prolong mediocrity.  I am not so much a good person as I am someone who fears the slippery slope of mediocrity.  

Listening

 What is the purpose in trying to listen in meditation?  Well, one purpose is to prepare you to be a listener for others.  Being a good listener is a gift.  People don’t always want to be told what to do to solve their problems, or not at first maybe.  They want to be heard.  It shows you care.  It takes patience even if you know what they need to do, or think you do.  Listeners learn to make “suggestions” rather than tell people they must do this or that.  And if God does not seem to give you answers bingo right now, maybe it is because God is a good listener.  And you might not be ready for a power greater than yourself.  

Me First

 If you want to be strong enough to take care of others, you need to take care of yourself first.  If the soul gets no fuel, it burns out too quickly in trying to be helpful to others.  Without some spiritual practice, reading, meditating, some exercise, our good intentions start strong but soon whither to resentment and whining.  People become a burden, rather than a gift.  Being of service becomes a weight too much to bear.  And what help are you if you do not care for yourself?  Not much of an example of healing, and recovery or practice of your faith if you ignore your own journey.  

Dark And Cold

 The warm days of summer and the colors of fall in sweater weather are gone.  Winter is strong, cold and dark.  Winter is important because it tells us to wake up when we just want to hunker down and sleep more in the long nights and cold winter mornings.  Nature tells us here in our northern clime that waking up to spiritual necessities and fullness is never easy.  It is not meant to be.  If it were, we could do it with our own power, but such a will is seemingly too weak in winter’s power.  So we need another power.  And there is one that quite possibly made the winter in the first place, as well as the other seasons in our 23 1/2 degree tilted earth facing the sun.  I meditate, sit quietly, let my thinking slow, and allow this Power to work on my weakness.  As the whining lessens, I know this Power is at work and I am becoming not just whole, but replanted for Spring growth.  

Presence

 Happy New Year!  For a New Year Resolution why not make your physical presence something you will do.  Like what?  Service work, being helpful type meetings.  Presence is a gift you always have to give.  You think you have nothing to offer?  Your presence is a value.  A new person might come in and just knowing there are other people there might encourage them that they made a good decision.  Or you might think going to church is a waste since you are not particularly holy, but just going might encourage another person who is hungering for spiritual something, that they are not crazy since someone else is there too…you.  I can go to meetings and say nothing, or “nothing much.”  That does not diminish my value.  God is in charge.