711.

Spiritual

Blessing more than forgiveness

For years in the psychological world and in the spiritual world I would hear one has to forgive, maybe not forget, but forgive to move on.  I believed this and tried to practice it in varying degrees.  Results were not always apparent and hard to read.  Sometimes it cleared the air.  Often the underlying tensions still existed.  It's complex to say the least.

Growing up I found out I was a Cohanan, ie a title passed down from father to son allegedly beginning with Moses' brother Aaron.  Cohanan's give blessings at the temple.  This was something I noted even though how it fit into my life I was not sure.  I do know when being blessed it did seem to lift me if not done mechanically by someone   For a couple of years now I've observed subtly when I bless a certain situation it seems to ease the circumstances and dim the edginess.  Recently I've blessed a couple of situations that were rough and there did seem to be an uplifting result, a kind of bubbling upwards effect.  Forgiveness was feeling mechanical and too related to 'cause and effect.'  Blessing something seemed to leave the full understanding to the above while remaining a mystery as to how it worked, but it did.  One was not required to know how.

My neighbor Jack, a good Catholic, seemed to bless different people and it seemed to ease acceptance of them, even if their actions were not fully acceptable or made sense.  In a conversation with my ex, Maggie, over some situation that I don't remember, she said 'just bless it.'  Hearing that right away I felt some relief.  So, when able or it seems appropriate and I remember, I'll bless a tough situation and it does seem to lift the whole thing.  Let's face it.  If one believes in God, it connects you to that source.  If if one doesn't, there still might be magic in the act.

Now if one finds a cyst in your prostrate and needs a controversial biopsy to find out if it is the big 'C,' it's hard to bless that.  We are human and pain and suffering is part of this whole thing and there is no way to skirt that.  Somethings one has to bear.  However, just being aware of what it is to 'bless' even such a situation  is a good awareness to have.  Down the road it might be able to be worked in.

Blessing also makes forgiveness work.  As stated before forgiveness can be dead end or mechanical. However, when you bless something, you add endless power to forgiveness.  It connects the tension to the above in unforeseen ways and there is something special in that.

706.
​
Spiritual Living

No patience for meandering

I was speaking on the phone to my ex wife Maggie and we were talking about the environment and tornadoes and the diminishing bee population.  I said we should be all on our knees asking for help, as in my first painting.  She then said check out the writer John Michael Greer whom her daughter, a millennial, was into as others in that age group.  Curious, I did and learned he was 66, hippyish looking and had founded recenty an occultist druid organization. Ho hum I thought. He was also a strong environmetnalist.  I thought the tie in should be interesting.

I then turned to a blog page he had and read a four page essay that was crafted well and carefully and was very engaging and involving.  He was a good observer, for example noting many hippies had become Jesus freaks and then moderate Christians.  Okay.  His basic critique was of positive thinking and preferred to let reality speak to us as it is.  He saw many of us as having stories in our minds that we applied to what we saw, instead of just honestly seeing what we saw.  True.  He saw many well off environmentalists as doing harm rather than good in their approaches to help the earth. I forget hhis reasoning. He also saw his own dichotomy in that in being an occultist he favored imagination here on earth which seemingly contradicts his endorsing objective observation. He kept on writing and built his case gradually.

However, it just became clear to me in writing the previous paragraph I don't remember really waht his case was.  I just was left with a general impression that whatever he was for or against and wrote about it was professional and done well but what was he really saying?  It became clearer to me he was just stroking himself, luxurating in his own clevreness.

I relayed this briefly to Maggie and said I did not research him after this..  I had lost some patience.  She also said that she was losing patience reading certain interpretations, or analysis, or explanations of things.  I said maybe some of it has to do with his still being 66.  Sounds old to some but around 70 certain things become clearer and patience runs a little thin, contrary to what I thought it would be like.   Maggie concurred. 

I ended the conversation by speaking brashly and saying I lost patience with his writing.  Basically I wanted his conclusion, where he landed, what he understood life to be.  I wanted to know 'did he believe in God or not' number one and if he did how does he work that in with how 'sh....t' life has become.  I think that covers it all. I wanted to hear his belief and his pain. That's all I was really interested in.  Unforetunately, he was still plaiying around.

702.

Spiritual

702.

The Presence

I think the trick is to not have hard edges, with God or people.  The presence can  be with you all the time, going through experience with you and easing in and out of you.  All is tempered this way.  This is better then having experience beat you up and then in a panic having to run to him, although there is a place for that too in life.. 

Rather, God can be a silent companion as you venture through this seemingly foreign land.    It does seem as if you have to go through everything alone.  Still, you can also have a tempering companion present.  It's not easily done but I think it's the way to go.  It's how to use God and live with God in a real way.

What can be helpful is to begin the day with this intent and as you slip away and forget be drawn back into it.  It's a starting point and hopefully one that can be maintained for periods of time.

685.  Past

Spiritual

The call

Let’s not suppress ourselves.  Let’s reach out and up.  Let’s scream from within and from without.  There is more, there is meaning, there is a maker.  There must be.  The way of life goes one way.  The way of God goes another way.  We have to do both.  Live, but be with God.  It’s hard but it’s the only way.  Reach up, reach out, to Him that made everything. Reach out to others and share this.  Let’s join in this way.  Let it pour forth.  Let it come out of us.  Ah, what a relief. In this there is joy, even for a moment.

684.  Past

Spiritual

Back to God 

I am again brought back to God….that there is just God, and nothing else could be counted on

683.

Spiritual living

The next step

I think some issues of the spirit take prominence when all else is found wanting.   You've tried everything practical, everything social, everything material, and still its not enough.  It's all been exhausted.  Various science of mind paradigms, disciplines, warrior codes just work for a while, then fall apart.  Pleasure fades too fast.  All that's left is the next step because there is no place else to go.

So giving the light a chance to enter, a presence, a God, the God, and relating to it is what's left.  It has to be explored too.  As said, it's the next step.  It will all come short too.  You'll be disappointed eventually.  But still, it's where you have to go.

Sanity, realism, soberness, all just goes so far.  One has to leapfrog to these other levels.  And they too don't stick.  But where else is there to go?  You can't stay still or go backwards.  Somehow you have to settle in to this spiritual realm.

679.

Spiritual


Dream III    

I saw the gates open
and floods of light
poured over our beings.

672.

Spiritual living

Softening



When younger you have a character, definition, a personality, a point of view.
When older you face the opposite of all this......it becomes harder to be so definite.

Faced with all the contradictions of who you were, you ease and mellow and accept.....you must because now you are living between who you were and all that differs from who you were. Since you are not sure where your footing is nor where you appropriately stand, and you are contained between the two within your body, in a sort of no man's land, a softening attitude can calm the spirit and soften the edges and preserve your nerves.

659. 

Spiritual living

Wink

I feel much of what I do
is wrong or off
and when I appeal to God
I receive a wink
instead of a plan.