Turning Back Time

Reading--Ecclesiastes 3:1 (NIV) "There is an appointed time for everything. And there is a time for every event under Heaven." 

 

 

Turning back the clock. How many times have we found ourselves wishing for the power to do just that? "If only", "If I could just turn back time a little bit"...we can easily slip into this mode and, before we know it, we're living lives of regret. And, sometimes, we do regretful things to ourselves and to one another. Nevertheless, if we take the Bible verse above to heart, we know in our heart of hearts that no matter what has transpired, there is indeed a time for every event under Heaven.

 

 

God has granted us a pretty good device to figure out lots and lots of things. Our brains are able to calculate, guess (with pretty close accuracy), and decide how to make good choices.

 

 

But we're not perfect.

 

 

We're not given the gift of knowing all--that left us a long, long time ago. We are fallible; we are capable of making mistakes. We are also capable of longing for the days when life was so much easier...but was it? Perhaps in some cases. But, for the most part, life becomes different. New situations spring up--some seemingly out of nowhere, catching us off-guard. And we wonder...why did this happen to me or to her or to him? What did I do wrong? Sometimes nothing. Sometimes a little. Sometimes a lot. Nevertheless, God is there...always. With His eternal love there's no need to turn back any clocks; there's no need to wish for a do-over.

 

 

The next time something doesn't necessarily go our way, let's not spend a bunch of time lamenting the fact that we can't have a re-run. Let's remember the lesson that "to everything there is a season" and then take the time to sit at the feet of the Master through meditation with Christ to learn the lesson and to grow yet closer to him and our Heavenly Father. His lessons are the best...and the outcomes are miraculous.

 

Peace be with you.

Doing the Right Thing

Exodus 20: 1-17  Mark 12:31

I normally try to keep this blog spiritually based and keep the "profane" of the world out of the central focus. However, after the past couple of weeks, it seems appropriate to voice my frustrations--frustrations of many, I'm guessing.

Doing the right thing. During these irritating times when those of us in the United States become more and more appalled day after day while helplessly watching our elected officials acting more like selfish and entitled spoiled children rather than the statesmen and women they claim to be, we wonder where common sense and clear thinking has gone.

And then, this morning, during the usual political prattle that has become commonplace from the D.C. folks, the term slipped out from one of those folks..."doing the right thing".

My first reaction was how dare you use this term only to push your poorly thought-out arguments.

Doing the right thing. How have we slid so far from center that this morally loaded phrase has lost all meaning?

Maybe we need to head back to the rule book--the original "Big 10". A straightforward, simple set of rules that a child can understand. Here's a few of these ageless rules revisited. Perhaps the egos in tailored suits running amuck in our country's capitol might want to briefly review:

No idols...that includes yourselves, ladies and gentlemen. Your egos have become so unbearably inflated that you believe anything (and I do mean anything) that comes from your mouth. You've increasingly built up yourselves to be idols...bad move.

No stealing...Stop it. Stealing comes in all forms. You're stealing not only currency from the pockets of the taxpayers, but more importantly, you're stealing the very heart of people of all walks of life. While you're pretending to keep our best interests on the forefront, you're actually driving the morale of the country down to some of its absolute lowest levels.

No false testimony against your neighbor...WOW...how about less back stabbing for the sake of your own ego and more working together for the good of those you're suppose to be serving...remember us? The ones who go to work each day and try to keep the country running and running well despite the present situation?

And one more for good measure...Love your neighbors as you love yourself. Health care? Why is it okay for us but not those of you in power? Employment? Again, why do you continue to demand high salaries with no annual evaluations while, at the same time, you're not allowing people who want to work and to support their families go about their business with decent employment? I don't see this as loving one's neighbor as oneself.

Thankfully and mercifully, there are many many people who still look out for one another day after day. Nameless people who will make sure that bills are paid, homes are cooled or warmed, pantries are not empty. We the people. No matter what the conditions in Washington, we will continue to live these heavenly rules to the best of our abilities. They, ladies and gentlemen, are doing the right thing. Bless them all.

Peace be with you.

Empty the Vessel, Become the Instrument

Matthew 19:26 (NIV) "Jesus looked at them and said, "With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible."

 One week ago, I experienced a renewal of my faith--perhaps not a renewal, but a resurgence. I attended a two day Reiki class where I reviewed Reiki I and learned Reiki II. The word Reiki means, in a Japanese translation, "life-giving energy from the divine source". Practiced in its purest sense, it knows no boundaries nor does it hold to any specific religions. We are all welcomed to discover it within our beautiful world and to share it with others. It is, without a doubt, the deepest level of spiritual experience I've ever shared with others.

 Still, until this morning, I spent this past week measuring my limitations. As I approached the more intensive levels of this beautiful healing gift, I wanted to make sure that I stuck closely to my Christian morals and didn't "cross over" into murkiness that might lead me (or others) to stray from those rules that accompany my beliefs that have been with me for as long as I can remember.

 Then, this morning, as I was sending out a distance Reiki session to a dear young lady I've recently met, the verse "With God, all things are possible" reverberated in my head. It brought a great deal of inner peace to me and I felt myself relaxing and reaching even deeper within myself to a better delivery system of energy to share. If I approach each session with reverence and love and if I ask for guidance from Christ, our great Physician, how can it be wrong or improper on any level?

 So, from that moment on, my Reiki practice has taken on a deeper level of peace. No worrying about breaking the rules or making God angry by not following specific guidelines. The vessel is now empty of those doubts and concerns. The instrument is tuned with pure love.

 And the energy flows and flows...because, with God, all things are indeed possible.

 Peace be with you.

Vary Your Diet

Reading: Jeremiah 23:23-24 "Am I only a God nearby,” declares the Lord,  “and not a God far away? Who can hide in secret places so that I cannot see them?” declares the Lord.  “Do not I fill heaven and earth?”declares the Lord.

We all have been told since we were kids that we should vary our diets. It's actually no healthier to eat only carrots every meal of the day everyday than it is to eat only a hamburger every meal of the day everyday. Besides, it's boring and we'd eventually just get tired of the whole idea of eating and keeping up our health.

I'm kind of this way in my spiritual path when it comes to religions. As a kid growing up, I was raised in one church and that was great--it gave me some really strong roots that have and will continue to guide me throughout life. When I became a teenager and started being with other kids more independent of parents, we had a little singing youth group that would go around to different churches to perform. We were made up of several different churches in our area. No one in our group was concerned that we were all coming from different religious backgrounds; in fact, it was pretty fascinating. Once I started college, my expanse widened. One of my good buddies was Jewish and he took me to his synagogue's Rosh Hashanah services--beautiful and interesting. At that time I was also friends with several Catholics and ended up with them at a mass more than once--beautiful and interesting as well. 

Now, well immersed into my "middle ages", my spiritual path has broadened from my early roots. It is remarkable to me how lives over thousands of years have molded into the various religious groups of today. On a somewhat related note, I also now love to cook. I especially enjoying cooking foods from different regions of the world; I enjoy how food is tied to peoples' history and their spiritual faiths and religions.

My mom taught me a long time ago that it's all about God--not about any specific rules or regulations that groups of people come up with. And like her, I believe that God is everywhere; even in the food we eat and in the ways we prepare it. 

Don't ever let your diet go stale. If you ever start feeling that you are less interested in your spiritual life because of something your particular church is or isn't doing, vary your diet a little. Because, as Kent M. Keith wrote in his Paradoxical Commandments: "You see, in the final analysis, it is all between you and God; It was never between you and them anyway".

Peace be with you.

Setting the Monkey (Mind) Free

Reading: Romans 12:2 "Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect."

The topic of "monkey mind" has come up several times in reflexology sessions this past couple of weeks. I've read in several different books on meditation that "monkey mind" is what happens to us when we just can't turn off our thoughts at the end of the day or during any time we set aside for relaxation. Those who practice intense meditation work for long periods of time to free the monkey from the mind. It can be done, but those monkeys are a stubborn lot!

Continuous thoughts can fill up our heads, day and night, day in and day out. Ever go to sleep at night only to wake up with a start that you'd forgotten something earlier in the day or needed to remember something for tomorrow? Psychologists and numerous magazine article authors advise us to get up and write these things down; better yet, they say, keep a pad of paper and a pen by the bed to write down all these random thoughts that come about. Talk about "conformed to the world". Yikes.

All religions talk about becoming more spiritually in tune; Christianity has a very useful guideline as well; the reading from Romans 12:2 is a nice example and incredibly useful to us. Our need to conform to the world doesn't allow us the renewal of our minds--and a renewal of our minds is vital to living a full life. The monkey represents all that is of this materialistic and limited world, and, more often than not, it's on a rampage of some sort. Have trouble getting to sleep? Staying asleep? Staying focused during the day? The monkey is present. And let's face it--a mind full of monkey is never a good thing.

 Renewal of the mind comes from the ability to meditate throughout the day as well as enjoying restorative sleep at night. We don't get either of these as long as we limit our minds to the mundane. We need to remember at all times that we are spiritual bodies on a journey--this truly isn't all there is. When we limit ourselves to this small way of thinking, our problems seem bigger and many times insurmountable. And the monkey runs rampant.

We can, however, quiet the maddening monkey in our heads. Wayne Dyer, in his book There's a Spiritual Solution to Every Problem writes, "I simply do not know how to resolve this situation and I am turning it over to the same force that I turn my physical body over to every night when I go to sleep." Acknowledgement is the first step. If we can admit with conviction that our small, limited thinking of I can handle this on my own (aka ego) will not still the monkey but will only feed it, then we can open up our lives and our minds to a daily spiritual walk with God. It is the infinite power of God that will set the monkey (mind) free...and we will once again sleep and go throughout our days with great restoration of our minds and our bodies.

Peace be with you.

Want? Need? What's the Difference?

Readings:
Matthew 6:33 "But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well."
2 Timothy 3:1-4 "But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God." 

We've all been there...the little kiddo in the store in the midst of a meltdown, the parent nose-to-nose with the little guy or gal asking above the wailing, "What do you want?" And, usually, the child can't answer...and the wailing gets a bit louder.

More than likely the little person can't answer because, frankly, the little person doesn't know what he/she wants. It's all too overwhelming. Too many choices...too much stimulus from all the "stuff" in the big, giant store. It's frustrating and, in little person terms, this equates a meltdown.

We're not much different these days, it seems. So many meltdowns all around us--locally, on a national scale, on a world-wide scale. It seems that we have so much of what we "want" that we've begun to overlook what we "need".

Maslow's hierarchy of needs is a tried-and-true theory triangle that shows that we humans, in order to become better at being truly good humans, need certain things. We need shelter, we need food, we need safety. Once we have these, we can move up a ladder of sorts into being able to distinguish wants from needs. In today's society, we are beginning to invert the triangle. We're bent to getting our wants met with immediacy. We want to have the nicest car, the best vacation, the easiest lives, etc. We're pretty good at wants. Herein lays the problem...we have, many times, what we want, but it's coming at the sacrifice of what we need. We want nice things, so we work crazy hours of the day, we max out credit cards, we burn out, and then we wonder why we're still not happy. We've forgotten to first take care of our needs. We need to have good food in our bodies--not junk. We need to have good food for our souls--God's word and time for meditation. We need to have safety in our lives--not compiling so much that we need to barricade ourselves in with our "stuff". We need to be able to sleep at night--not lie awake at night worrying about our over-spending and our over-indulgences. And we need to care for one another--not being self-centered with our time, possessions, and our patience. When we once again meet our true needs, our wants will fall into our lives more neatly and more orderly.

Want? Need? What's the difference? There's a big difference, indeed. We need to make the triangle point the right direction once again. The easiest and quickest way to do this is right at our doorstep...love one another, help one another, and, above all else, love God.

Peace be with you.

Clutter, Clutter Everywhere

Reading: Matthew 6:19-21    
“Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."
I woke up this morning thinking about clutter--rather the temporary disposal of it. By temporary, I mean removing it from view.

I'm just not a fan of clutter. I think it has something to do with claustrophobia; I don't like tight spaces and a bunch of clutter gives me the same feeling as being in a too tight spot.

So, this morning, after a fruitful weekend of cleaning and hauling various treasures and trash to the Goodwill and the dumpster, I woke up thinking about how to take on the next batch of clutter.

How or why do we accumulate so much stuff? I have no clue.

When I was younger, I tended to be much more cluttered--just ask my mom. My bedroom was cluttered to say the least. I didn't throw much away; it all held some fun memory, so I thought I needed to keep it. Happily, as my mom predicted, I passed through that teen-age phase of hanging on to anything and everything and got pretty much clutter-free. Nevertheless, living in the same house for 20+ years tends to invite clutter, no matter how vigilant we are. So, every once in awhile, I take on the role of anti-clutter ninja and clutter becomes enemy #1.

The reading today tells us to not get too carried away with these earthly "treasures". And it's right--they do tend to rust, break down, and lose their initial enticement. It's that temptation to buy more, more, and more rather than help a neighbor--near or far away--with our limited resources that gets us in hot water. "For where your treasure is, there you heart will be also."

So, the next time I'm out and about and I'm thinking that whatever it is I'm looking at would be just great at our house, I'm going to do my best to remember today's reading. Uncluttered home--uncluttered mind. Sounds great!

Peace be with you.