Meditating to Heal

The dictionary defines a bridge as a structure spanning and providing passage over . . . (many things).  We are great in building bridges in our lives. We are constantly looking to cross over obstacles, avoiding what these obstacles can do to us. I question what we are missing. Those obstacles we avoid can be great learning experiences that by avoiding, we can never outgrow or overcome.

God does not build bridges; He gives us a direct line to Him, if we recognize and accept it. We  should avoid our bridges, walking on the lighted path that God provides for us. When our feet are not on the ground, we miss God’s message to us. By rising over (bypassing) our difficulties, we often use our egos to avoid problems. Our egos can and will suppress the message of God, which always comes in a whisper.

If the avoidance involves another person, we can sometimes feel good when we cross them off our list of friends, washing our hands of their influence in our lives. Even if these friends try to overlook our voices, ignoring our wishes, they are there for a reason, and not just to strengthen us for argument.

We should face these friends, speak our voice, and settle our differences as the friends that we are, or at least should be. This is the way of God. Often, the face of God is reflected the face of these friends. We can build a stronger relationship with God, when we build a stronger relationship with those we see as bothersome. Listening for the almost silent whispers can open our hearts to great treasures.

Our lives are a gift, gracefully granted to us by God. If we can accept this, then we can also accept that the lives are others are also a gift, gracefully granted by God. If we can all live using these gifts as a start to all relationships, we can truly see the face of God reflected in all those we meet.

 

I feel You! You are all around.

I cannot miss the feeling of your presence

As my life is a joy to live

I saw you in the face of my children

When they were born

 

I know you are with us

When we pray in our prayer corner

Your comfort is warm

Your grace is a blessing

 

Why do I miss your presence

When I am in pain, when I have lost

When I have crossed into an unfamiliar place

When I am depressed

 

Why do I feel alone and abandoned

Why do I think you are not

With me during these bad times

Why do I doubt your presence

 

While on the cross

Jesus asked why you had forsaken him

This was the human side of Jesus

The suffering side

 

It is the human side of me that doubts

It is the human side that loses faith

It is my spiritual side that knows

You are always present in my life.

 

 

Desmond Tutu was a great leader and civil rights activist; his writings are still an inspiration to us all. He reminds us that we are very capable of hurting each other in many ways, and, we feel justified in doing so. I am very active in my diocesan race and reconciliation commission and read a great deal about how I, as a white man, must face the fact that I benefited from a racist society.

With this in mind, I accept that if we truly want to treat others as ourselves, we must realize that God has given us the ability to heal ourselves and others. Just by looking for God in all, we can create great joy in our lives and in our hearts.

I consider myself to be a person who despises racism and all aspects of it, but I must admit that I have benefited from a racist society. Personally, I try to step outside of my comfort zone, go into the community, learn about how others are coping, suffering, do everything I can to change my little corner of the world, realizing that if I can change one or two wrongs, the ripple effect could broaden what I do.

There is no thing that does not belong to God. If we embrace this truth, then we too will belong to God: everything we have, and everything that we are, and then what’s left over after that. We can do this by seeing God in others and work to overcome our prejudices.

May you Walk with God this Lenten season.

 

 

 

Who Can We Trust?

From Psalms: . . . as for me, I have trusted in you, O Lord.

My times are in God’s hands; His face shines upon mine, and, in His loving kindness, keeps me walking on His lighted path.

He made me a teacher, so that I can pass His words to others. He awakens me each morning, filling my mouth with His words; filling my thoughts with His comfort and wonder. I walk in His path; I will neither be disgraced by others or shamed because of my beliefs. My words try to bring His healing touch to others.

He made me a writer, so that I could spread His loving word and His comforting grace to those I do not see, but message with daily. My words are His words; my thoughts of faith are His thoughts of faith. My free-thinking heart, mind, and soul are blessed with His loving touch. I rejoice in this every day. As we all can!

Who can we trust? I love and trust my family; I love and trust my friends; I love and trust those I call friends. I can do this because all of these people, whom I call my dear friends, are placed in my life, on my life’s path, by God. I trust God in His infinite Wisdom, His infinite Love, His infinite desire to see me happy and fulfilled. He has given me you. What more can I add to that blessing?

What if ?

The Reverend Jacqui Lewis asks:

What if every human being is anointed, Messiahed, Christ? What if the most fundamental aspect of our identity is that we are each anointed and appointed by The Holy One, by Spirit—to preach good news to the poor, liberty to the captive, and sight to the blind? What if we take seriously being the Body of the Christ—that we are the hands, feet, and heartbeat of the Living God? What if we are Word made flesh, Love made flesh, Light made flesh?

I have been meditating on this idea for a long time. What if? The possibilities are endless. I can image a world free of strife, free of jealousy and anger. I also believe that this is possible, but only if we give up the biggest impediment: ego. I am not better than my neighbor; I am not better than my students. We are all equal in God’s eyes. We should be all equal in each other’s lives. This is God’s way.

I’m not an expert in world religions; I am not even an expert in my Christian religion, but I do consider myself well-versed in seeing people, seeing people beyond the outer shell that we all offer to the world. The next time you see a homeless person, or a person asking for money to support their family, look closely at him. I see a person suffering from the inhumanity of modern society. I see a person concerned with the welfare of his family, his children.

I’m not a rich man, but I do share my bounty with the homeless as often as I can. As Jesus said, the poor will always be with us; but that doesn’t mean we have to ignore or look past them. The poor are my brothers and sisters who may not have had the same opportunities that I have had. I have been blessed by God to realize my shortcomings and to have the courage and strength to accept His help and rise out of poverty myself. I did not do this alone; many people helped, and I try as often as I can to help others.

I also see those that are in the lower economic levels of society helping each other rise above their status, emulating the woman in the Bible who gave her last two pennies. I think we should all try to see the downtrodden as God sees them. His children, our brothers and sisters. Equal in His eyes and they should be equal in ours, too.

As reverend Lewis says, “This is God’s way.” I pray that we can all follow this.

 

 

 

You have brought forth a new spring in our lives

You have led us through the deserts, given us water in the wilderness

Feeding animals and humans, who give You praise

 

You bring us out of our troubles

And return joyful voices in our lives

You have done great things for us

And our hearts are gladdened

When we are tearful You bring us spiritual healing

 

Like the Hebrews of old, we wander in the wilderness

Searching for the righteousness that only You provide

All our gains are losses if we do not have Christ within us

 

We have not found Christ except in our hidden hearts

Yet, You continue to anoint us with the blessings of Your omnipresence

So that You are with us always.

We press on to the goal of joining Christ with You in heaven

 

Healing through Mediation

 It’s time to do ourselves a favor and begin healing ourselves. I’m not talking about a physical ailment; what I am referring to how broken we are spiritually. We have to rid ourselves of the shackles that have weighed us down, probably since we were young. Our parents made us feel guilty about doing wrong; this guilt has prevented us from healing internally and not allowed us to have a closer relationship with God. Our perceived wrongs keep us from His loving grace.

 When Jesus was hanging on the cross, one of the thieves condemned him; one blessed him. Yes, I mean blessed, by proclaiming that Jesus did nothing wrong and did not deserve his plight. In a way, this unnamed thief is confessing his sins and praying that God would forgive him for all the wrong he did. He heard Jesus say that he would be with Jesus in heaven for eternity.

 This is a time of healing for all of us. God overlooks our wrongs and loves us as any parent would; but we may not forgive ourselves. We need to be healed; we need to realize that our perceived wrongs should not be the reasons for our insecurity and guilt. Prayer and meditation go a long way to bring peace to ourselves. Prayer and meditation bring us closer to God; bring us closer to the thief on the cross who prays that God will forgive him.

 We may not be thieves on a cross, but we are human and probably have done things we are not proud of. We must learn to forgive ourselves, and what helps us do this are the twins: prayer and meditation. Our prayers and meditations put God first. We recognize that He is the giver of grace; He is the giver of forgiveness. Let’s accept it!

 

Love and Forgiveness . . . of ourselves and of others.

Ephram the Syrian in 373 said

“What shall I give you, Lord, in return for all your kindness? 
Glory to you for your love. Glory to you for your patience. 
Glory to you for forgiving all our sins.”

It is in forgiving that we are forgiven. We must see ourselves and see others as God sees us. This is the only way that we can be true to ourselves and true to God. Love thy neighbor as thy self is another of saying what Jesus instructed us to do. Can we do this . . . honestly? To be truly humble means that we must love each other as God loves us. Can we be truly humble towards ourselves and towards others?

These are the questions that we should ask ourselves on a daily basis. We can recognize the brokenness inside ourselves that is caused by either our own failures. And, can we recognize the brokenness in others that are caused by us, by what we say or what we do. Unfortunately, our best intentions and our best efforts to promote love sometimes are blurred by our own selfishness and can be hurtful to others.

We cannot avoid this; we must accept this; and, ask for forgiveness for these unintentional slights our hurts. We must also forgive others for the unintentional pains that others cause for us. This is what Jesus meant in his prayer, to forgive us for their transgressions as we forgive those who transgress against us.

Instead of just saying these automatically, if we truly live these small asks, we can be so much happier in our own lives, while bringing happiness to others in their lives. We know we are not perfect, and we know that others are not perfect. God forgives us for our imperfections. We can only do the same in the name of the Love of God.

 

    

Dreams

I have often wondered why I have the same recurring dream; not every night, but often enough that I wonder what is going on in my mind. This particular dream takes place in the early days of a business I owned in my twenties. The people in the dream are those who worked for me then. This was twenty years before I became a teacher, making it over fifty years ago.

But this dream recurs often, and the one constant in the dream is that I am unable to lock the door to go home. I am forever stuck with an open door, customers constantly entering. I cannot get out of this time of my life. I have looked upon this dream as a nightmare, because the business ended poorly, before I entered teaching.

I read an article recently, in which two theologians are discussing the lack of concentration many people have today, causing them to have lost the ability to read a good book, participate in a meaningful conversation, or to meditate without distractions. I feel that one of the reasons for this is the availability of the cell phone; it is always dinging or buzzing with new distractions, interrupting any deep thinking we may be doing.

In this article, the subject of dreams arose, when one of the theologians said that we may not remember our dreams, but God does – forever. This caused me to think of my recurring dream and how I wish I could not remember it. But then I thought more on the meaning of this dream and why God wants me to remember this one.

The dream is always about the good times, not the bad. The bad thoughts of the dream always occur when I awake, the bad times and loss of the business are never a part of the dream. It was a good time in my life, free from any real worries. I want to say that this was a simple time of my life, a simple time, and easy-going time.

God is telling me to forget the bad part; the good part is what is important. The joy I had with the people that worked with and for me. And perhaps, God is telling me that the reason my business failed was due to technology changes and it was time for me to move on, become a teacher, and be a mentor to those looking for their own path in life.

Dreams!!! If God has chosen dreams that we remember, perhaps we should listen to God and cherish the message that God is laying before us. Try not to make things difficult, suffer the misery, rethink what could have been. We all must move on to new things, to the new doors that open in our lives. Sometimes all it takes is to open our minds and hearts to God.  

Deeper Spirituality

Some of us search for deeper spirituality. This is not easy. Many men and women become priests or other clergy. They devote their lives to the search for deeper spirituality. They must, because they are here to serve those of us who do not have this. The question arises whether we as lay people can also attain this without going through seminary. Can we become as spiritual as a trained minister?

I believe we can, but it is not easy; we must give up something to attain this. I don’t think that it is possible in the first half of our lives, when we are beginning a family, earning a good living, maybe buying a house. Our efforts are too absorbed by attaining a material level where we are comfortable. We do not have the time to devote our lives to the study of scripture.

This can all change when we realize that we are in the second half of our lives. We can’t put an age on this, but for many it is when the children leave home. Our responsibilities are greatly reduced and if we desire and truly want spirituality, we can give up some of the things we enjoy, pursuing this new goal. I meditate daily and write about what I pray. Mostly, this is to concentrate on how our world does not recognize our spirituality. And the importance of it.

I am not an expert on the Bible; I cannot quote scripture as some can. But I do have the uncanny ability to read something, such as one of Jesus’s parables and discern what this story may have meant to the poor in His time. Many times, His stories were messages to the Pharisees and the ruling class of Jews. Very few understood what his message was.

I may not know what his message was, but I do try to relate to the life of a person without a cell phone, computer, or television. Failing this, I spend time discern what His message means in today’s world. This is the world we live in; this is the world we must navigate by using His messages, as best we can.

We may not have the education that a minister of God has, but we do have working brains that allow us to take a story, relate it to our lives, bring our lives into what we feel is the message of God, and then, live by this. Not easy, but not so difficult either.

May you use the time you have to grow closer to the messages from God. Bless you all.