Monkeying around with Religion

“The beginning of love is to let those we love be perfectly themselves, and not to twist them to fit our own image. Otherwise we love only the reflection of ourselves we see in them.” Thomas Merton

Thomas Merton was a trappist monk of the Abbey of Gethsemani, Kentucky, he was a poet, mystic and a student of comparative religion.

Some may have observed a recent shift toward writing about contemplation, religion and spirituality. The catalyst for this is an e-course called "Crafting your own Religion" in which I am a participate. It is being taught by Thomas Moore, author of Care of the Soul , amongst other books on religion, mind and spirit. 

Today the class was asked to consider perhaps taking a few practices from monastic or cloistered traditions toward crafting our own religions, i.e. taking a deeper dive into things! TM used the word "serious". This sounded serious to me suggesting we take religion seriously. And it felt like a red flag. I have never cottoned to folks who take religion too seriously. But leaning into something to craft a thing most to my own liking is the whole point of the class. So - from my heart - here are vows I might subscribe to and some text I might like to see illuminated in a manuscript.

Thomas Moore says, "Vows help us to avoid forgetfulness and distraction & anchor our vision." Here are my three simple vows:

To be responsible with all human relationships, i.e., be transparent, vulnerable, present & available

To do my best in all things without judgement or expectation

To laugh and be joyful

My scriptorium text (currently) would be 

"Don't think of yourself as an intestinal tract and a tangle of nerves in the skull, that will not work unless you drink coffee. Think of yourself as incandescent power, illuminated perhaps and forever talked to by God and his messengers... Think if Tiffany's made a mosquito, how wonderful we would think it was!" ~ Brenda Ueland 

The vows and quote above appear to advocate an innocence or child's eye view. But from my current perspective this is a fine and wonderful thing. For to partition off from our waking selves "childlike wonder" seems most forgetful indeed!

If you were to monk-ey around with monastic ways what would you do?

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Enlightment at Gunpoint

Looking back, my Religious/Spiritual timeline begins with casual Sunday School for one summer followed by communion and a photo of me in a dress in front of a huge pink azalea. NO inner connections were made. Everything was external and ceremonial.

During my teen years I was hit by a car and felt my soul move away from my body - no tunnel, no bright light but clearly understood at that moment that there are distinct differences between the two. Still no internal connections were felt. It was just another fact of life.

From teen years thru college I relied on my wits and which way the wind was blowing. Still no existential thoughts, feelings, actions or questions. I graduated and had a successful career during my 20s and 30s.

I married somewhat late in life. My husband, a trained Physicist turned computer programmer, was decidedly scientific and I saw myself in complete opposition to his religious skepticism. Still neither he nor I took stands one way or the other. I just led a life of knowing all of life's challenges were somehow to be overcome (dare I say gifts). And in so overcoming growth was inevitable. We supported eachother and created a life together of ease and comfort. There was no need to look further than my own doorstep or my own nose.

Then he died. This is what can be termed "enlightenment at gunpoint." Then I wanted to know more. Then I needed to inspect myself and this life to help me make best choices and become adept at living differently than before. For the very first time in my life feelings were cascading from me and I needed to know how to deal with them.

So here I am today reading everything I can and spending more and more time introspectively coming to know "knowing" and what that means. In a way I see my evolution as familiar territory. I am again, like during my young adulthood, relying on my wits. And those "winds" that propel me forward today are most likely the same that sped me along my path then. I just experience them now as born of intuition for I am now more awake and living more deliberately.

Timelines can be illuminating!

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Valentine's Day

I do not fit snugly into a world built on principles of clock time and corporeal senses alone. I may appear eccentric if I write about things like "straddling eternity." But it is in the effemera I feel most hardy. My strength seems to build upon itself in the light of my spirit. 

What do I do with this new found thing - this core within -which consists only of sweet air, energy and feeling? This thing that has no structure or mass, no handles to grasp, no parts to which I can point? How do I manage to live a life based from an open heart?

I am coming to know when my heart throbs and feels weighty I am tapped into this thing. This actual heaviness in my chest is confirmation for me. It lets me know "this is important." It seems my body can tell me when I am here connecting to whatever this is - my Truth.

I am building strength toward being more awake and available. I look forward to the day this is, if not an automatic, at least a familiar response. In this way, perhaps I can then manage to live more often from this place - a place of higher love. In this way, I figure then every day will be Valentine's Day.

Wishing you a Happy Valentine's Day!

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Thinking About Contemplation

I am struck by the difference in the participants when one contemplates verses when one meditates. It seems to me meditation requires joyous wide and vast emptiness and contemplation joyously lets in all comers. Both allow for emergence of higher understanding. Both require an acknowledgement of an inner life and willingness to see. I am so grateful for this cleaving of ideas which I never knew before!

But it seems meditation is private and contemplation leans toward being more public. Evoking a contemplative state wants grandeur and simplicity to intertwine with all of our senses. And it wants us to document it somehow - in verse, song, essay, art or other - to hopefully evoke itself again in others.

Both straddle eternity.

Have you made time to be contemplative today?

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A Messy Life

My life has made (and is making) a transition as we speak from orderly to NOT. And I am becoming accustomed to it somehow. Through grief I have warmed to uncertainty. Is this why folks want religion - to acquaint themselves with the roiling of life? And to make friends with it?

I recall letting things & circumstances happen in my youth to which I merely reacted. In this way I was carried along a path that brought me to this moment. With no overarching belief system in place I managed just fine.

Now I stretch and anguish to know how to get back to the ease of that way of living, but with an awareness about it. An awareness that allows more depth and communion with myself and others. Perhaps I am on my way there by not only recognizing the value of a non-linear messy miraculous life...but agreeing to allow myself to sink my teeth into it?

What do we have to lose by "going for it?"

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Resistance

 

Lots of pain and lots of tears and lots of strategies employed to get through a rough patch. I am so weary of revisiting these dark places. But by claiming and naming them, by the simple passage of time, and with help from those who care about me - I am slowly coming back from this episode to a life I prefer to live. One of joy, peace, love, and laughter. 

Sumo Wrestlers, that's what I saw when I asked to see behind my pain this time. A small circular battlefield confined this fight between two powerful forces, each agreeing to resist the other. This was me against myself, refusing to give in to 'what is' and pushing against reality with all my might.

I must step aside. 

Instantly I knew by stepping aside the natural FLOW of things would be restored, the tiny battlefield would have the opportunity to once again become an unbounded playing field and I would begin to feel better. 

And so I have been working hard to maintain this stance of non-resistance. Yes, I know I have done this before, but I guess I am not done learning. It is not so easy for a strong willed woman such as myself to let go. And this lesson, like most of the important ones, has many levels to it.

Today I am a follower - a truth seeking giver of nurturing love. I am awake doing just what is in front of me and letting energy FLOW freely through me once again. 

Wonder how long this will last? No matter - there is only NOW to be concerned with anyway. This is the universal recipe for success of any kind!

"Unwanted Wisdom" that's what some call the stuff we get from painful life experiences. Really is true you know. The truth is we do not get to choose everything that happens to us. But we do get to choose how we react to what happens to us.

Are there things you have to keep learning and relearning?

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I am on strike!

Seems creating requires focused alone time, and since (currently) I abhor being alone -- not alone like having no pals or neighbors, but alone like not having a confidant, an intimate buddy who sincerely listens and who sincerely cares & shares in return -- I am finding myself on strike! And so since creating is one of the things that eases the pain, I am finding I am feeling sorrow today - when I allow myself to feel at all.

Being on strike like this is bad stuff. It is generating bad stuff and it is grinding against my well being. I need some help.

Plan A is to lighten up and go out and purposely look for some fun. That sounds soooo good! Plan B is to give in and allow myself to feel it. And hopefully naming it and claiming will end my strike. I think it will take a combination of both. FYI - this is what happens when I stop mediating.

To be continued...

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