Meditating to Heal

Faith

 

Look to heaven;

blue skies bring the sun;

white clouds add beauty

to God’s wonders.

Dark clouds bring

life-giving rain,

feeding our soil,

feeding our flocks,

feeding ourselves.

 

Look to the earth;

rich soil brings us

the food we eat.

Soil brings us trees for shade

And beauty.

The soil accepts our bodies when

we are called to God.

 

The heavens and earth

are full of God’s grace.

We are its shepherds.

We must preserve it

for our children;

we must preserve it

as God preserves us.

We must preserve it

as a lustrous gift of God.

 

As I look to the heavens

and the earth,

I realize that I am

but a grain of sand on the beach,

a grain of sand

preserved in God’s Love

preserved and caressed

by God

God is my past!

God is my future!

God is within me . . .

always!

The Wind

He passes through me like the gale winds on a stormy beach,

but always leaves something behind.

 

I do a great deal of reading and studying in the Bible. Although I take nothing literally, I do understand the messages that it offers. Today, I read from John about the wind; where it comes from and where it goes, we do not know. We hear it; we feel it; but we do not see it. We only see the effects of it.

John continues by saying that everyone who is born of the Spirit is like the wind. Jesus is the wind; we don’t know where he comes from or where he goes. But we do know that he is always within us. Inside, rustling our inner beings

with love, kindness, and concern for other, blessing us for walking in his light.

When his disciples saw the change in Jesus, when his transfiguration occurred, I wonder of the misconception here in my own mind. I do not believe that Jesus was transfigured at this moment in time. Jesus was and is always the Son of God. what I believe is that his disciples’ eyes were opened, and they experienced the true Jesus, as God. When God spoke, they heard Jesus for the first time.

We also need to experience this transformation; then we too can hear God for all times. When we do, we can know for the first time what the Song of Songs says: “for now, the winter is past; the rain is over and gone.” The dark times of our life are truly taken up by Jesus, and like the disciples, we see Jesus as God desires.

He passes through me like the gale winds on a stormy beach,

but always leaves love behind.

 

 

Temptation

In this week’s lectionary, much is discussed about sin. I do not believe in original sin; therefore, I cannot accept that we are condemned because of one story in the Bible about how one man defied the will of God and attained the knowledge (of good and evil). If we read the story of Adam, the devil in the disguise of a snake, convinced Eve that man should eat from the tree of life. Mankind in the form of Eve was unable to resist the temptation of evil.

We are tempted every day, and yet, most of us can resist the temptation to leave the paths of our lives and do wrong, in the church’s words, sin. According to the church, most things that man does are sins. How can that be, if we indeed are made in the image and likeness of God, as it says in the Bible.

I will make one example. According to the story, when Adam and Eve were both created, they were naked, and they were not ashamed. They ate of the tree and then were ashamed, ashamed, not sinned. According to the church, nudity is a sin. But God made man naked in His original design. In God’s eyes, being naked cannot be a sin, only in the limited outlook of church leaders. I may be uncomfortable without clothing, but I am not sinning.

God asks only one thing, and that is for us to say yes to Him. By saying yes to God, we are in fact worshiping and serving only Him. If we say yes to God, we cannot be tempted by evil; we cannot be tempted to leave our righteous paths to seek something God does not want for us. When we pray, we are listening for God to show us the way we are meant to follow. When we listen and say yes, we do not sin. Say yes to God.

Golden Morning of Created Bliss

 

Rising with the morning sun,

alive with renewed life,

God’s creation around us,                     

paradisiac,

abounding with glorious life.

Morning’s aura surrounds us,

feeling nothing but impotence,

as we awaken to each new reality

of each newly created morning.

But whose reality?

As the sun grows in brilliance,

rising above the horizon,

we thrust forward

to feel the glory

of a new day, a new life.

Every day created anew

offers a newly created life,

shining in creative solemnitude,

or tottering on the edge of pettiness?

Ours is the choice;

the day is ours to embrace,

but always,

we are God’s images on earth,

newly formed each

golden morning of created bliss.

 

 

 

 

 

Genesis 2

 God created the earth,

then the heavens.

The fields were dry;

He caused the rains to come

and the rivers to flow.

His lustrous fields reflected a field of gold,

with flora of wondrous greens

intensifying the golden aura.

God then created man,

to plow His fields

and live life from the bounty of His earth.

And, thus, Eden was formed.

Wonder

              God gives us the ability to wonder; it is one of our greatest gifts. We need to live the miracle of our lives, every moment of every day. Yes, we have to balance the idea that we are children of God and mortal human beings; we have our weaknesses and our limitations, but with the gift of wonder, we see the greatness of our lives, the truth about ourselves and the truth about everyone else.

             Wonder gives us the wisdom of nature, the beauty of the rest of God’s creation, the creation worthy of dignity, honor; when we wonder in awe of nature, we see the truth about ourselves, other human beings and every other living thing on earth. We are all children and equal in our individual beauty. We all have an inner voice that belongs to God. He puts words in our mouths and words on our pages; we are covered by the Shadow of God’s forgiving being.

            We deport ourselves with kindness in the face of every creature of God, toward the flowers and crops, and trees, to the air and water. We are living in a time where so many of our certainties are being destroyed by our money-hungry leadership. We are exposed to too much by social media, and we know too little. We have to give great effort to live kindly. Trust in God’s work, no matter how slow it seems to come to us.

God is my shepherd, I need nothing. He allows me lie down in green pastures. He leads me to quieter times and refreshes my very being. He guides me along the right path. These honors, I respect and cherish. The desert fathers and mothers of first-century Christianity knew, as we should today, that God is always with us. They physically withdrew to the deserts to escape the falsehoods of the Roman Empire; we cannot do the same today. Our leaders are ever present in our lives with their destructive ideas and lack of faith in God. Our prayers for these leaders bring calm to our inner voices.

I pray that the wonder in all that is good is that I have can overcome the unreliability of our leaders, and I do not have to seek the desert for safety. God has given me an inner freedom that is a place of mystical conversion, where the structure of my old self dies, and my new self is born to be a representative of love for all of creation.

If you also wonder how great your inner peace can be, meditate on God’s goodness and the presence God has in your life. You may also wonder at the goodness of God and all creation.

 

Denying Temptation

            In our lives, we rarely follow what is asked of us by Jesus; we also ignore the teachings that appear in what we refer to as the Old Testament. God’s presence is always within us, if we are prepared to recognize and listen. God give us rest, when we are stressed our oppressed. He knows us by name, since before we were born. What is true is that God is true in us. We need to sense this intuitively, not intellectually. To me this is what we refer to as a no-brainer.

            Because we are creations of God, we are empowered to create more love in this world. We need to demonstrate and practice compassion in everything we do in our daily lives. This is the blessing we receive to share that comes from God. When we give and practice to everyone and everything, we are giving back to God what is given to us. God creates from within us, and these creations are eternally growing and changing life for the best there is. We have many gifts and many ministries to share.

            Thank God for that!!!

Over and over and over

 

Tell me, over, and over, and over

We are busy killing ourselves

 

We don’t know how to change

We’re drowning in a very deep gulf of waste

Everything is wrong but seems so right

Everything right seems so strange

 

Tell me, over, and over, and over

Why we only know wars

 

We’re sending our youth to endless wars

Our leaders are numb to any reasonable peace

We own more guns than Bibles

We have more guns than people

 

Tell me, over, and over, and over

Why we need our automatic guns

 

The killing goes on in nightclubs

The killing goes on in shopping malls

The killing goes on is schools

The killing goes on in churches

And synagogues

And mosques

And temples

The killing grounds are in our front yards

 

Tell me, over, and over, and over

Our world is a good killing ground for our future

 

The ice caps are melting to drown us, I guess

The cities are flooding but caring is less

Our oceans are filthy with our plastic waste

Killing the fish with no lack of haste

 

Tell me, over, and over, and over

That we don’t care to change our ways

The faster we go to end our days

 

Tell me, over, and over, and over

Tell me, over and over, and over

 

 

God’s Children

We are the children of God; we cannot sell ourselves short. There is a prophetic message to all people, regardless of their backgrounds, race, religion, or sexual preference. If we allow ourselves to be open, to recognize and respect the tiniest things on this earth, we will show our love and honor for God’s presence in our lives.

We are God’s shining light, defeating the darkness of the world, of our lives. When each day dawns, our morning stars rise in the sky and in our hearts. Our rising confirms our small place in God’s massive eternity. When we rise each morning with love in our hearts, we rise is glory without the media-induced fears that bombard our minds hourly.

Look at all things, all people, all creatures as creations of God. the dandelion in my front yard is just as important to God as the Shenandoah mountains to the west of my house. I am a tiny atom in God’s universe, yet I play an important role when I live God’s special covenant with humanity. God sees me as His child; therefore, I am able to rejoice with trembling happiness of the life I live.

I have lived on the mountain; I have lived in the valley; as with all of my fellow humanity, I am blessed as I put my trust, my life in God’s hands.

Meditative Prayer

 

I meditate on God’s commandments

and envisage his Words as my way.

God’s words are gifts of Love;

I treasure God’s life within me.

 

God’s words give me understanding

to Love deeply.

I find wisdom in God’s presence

as a gift of eternal Love.

 

With God’s wisdom in my heart,

my soul is at ease.

God’s Love preserves me;

my understanding keeps me strong

and delivers me from the way of sin.