To see the email I was responding to, click on “More” These are scary times we are living through. But our foremothers and fathers over the centuries and around the world have shown us how to be faithful through these times. Remember that this is not heaven and it was never meant to be. This is the place we learn to live as the image of God incarnate, in these earthly bodies. Whatever happens in our lives is a part of a much bigger story in which we each play a tiny sparkling part of God’s love and righteousness. It is more important than ever to treat one another as if they were Jesus Christ – to love as we would want to be loved, with respect and honesty. This doesn’t mean we always have to be nice we just have to be aware that God chooses to speak and live and love through these human lives of ours. What an honor to be a human being! Don’t give in to evil, not even to win an election.

This is the scariest election we as Christians have ever faced. From the looks of the polls, the Christians aren’t voting Christian values. We all need to be on our knees. Do you believe we can take God at His word? Call upon His name, then stand back and watch His wonders to behold. His scripture gives us, as Christians, ownership of this land and the ability to call upon God to heal it. I challenge you to do so. We have never been more desperate than now for God to heal our land. 2 Chronicles 7:14 : If my people, which are called by my name shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land. During WWII, there was an advisor to Churchill who organized a group of people who dropped what they were doing every night at a prescribed hour for one minute to collectively pray for the safety of England , its people and peace. This had an amazing effect as bombing stopped. There is now a group of people organizing the same thing here in America , The United States of America and our citizens need prayer more than ever!! If you would like to participate: each evening at 9:00 PM Eastern Time, 8:00 PM Central, 7:00 PM Mountain, 6:00 PM Pacific, stop whatever you are doing and spend one minute praying for the safety of the United States , our troops, our citizens, for peace in the world, for wisdom and courage for our leaders, the up-coming election, and that the Bible will remain the basis for the laws governing our land and that Christianity will grow in the U.S. If you know anyone who would like to participate, please pass this along. Someone said if people really understood the full extent of the power we have available through prayer, we might be speechless. Our prayers are the most powerful asset we have. Thank You.

“Chaos in life on the outside starts with chaos on the inside” (the Practical Mystic)

He who does not have attention in himself
cannot be poor in spirit,
cannot weep and be contrite
nor be gentle and meek,
nor hunger and thirst after righteousness,
nor be merciful, nor a peacemaker,
nor suffer persecution for righteousness sake.
(St. Symeon the New Theologian)

It is almost counter-cultural to be self-reflective or self-aware. Such reflection is often dismissed as navel gazing or self-absorbtion; instead this culture would have us blame evil-doers or the demonic other. In contrast, in all spiritual teaching, repentance is basic to the purification of our souls. This requires placing oneself, with all humility, in the Light of God and receiving the grace to see ourselves for who we are rather than who we wish to be. The enemy of life is within our own hearts and cannot be destroyed with nuclear weapons.
May God have mercy on this earth and may our leaders not destroy it.

“O Divine Sculptor, chisel thou me according to thy desires.” (A prayer taught by Parmahansa Yogananda)
This is my paraphrase of a portion of an informal lecture by a devotee of Yoganana, Brother Anandamoy:

Our souls are like the angel that Michelangelo freed from the marble: perfect and beautiful. The circumstances of our lives are the primary way the Divine Sculptor releases our beautiful soul. Troubles come and a chunk of stone (sin, or in other words that which keeps us from God’s intention) is carved away. This is very painful and we often react by grabbing that big chunk of “stone” and glueing it back on! Troubles come again, often the very same sort of trouble that has plagued us before….and the chunk of “stone” is released once again. When we finally surrender and hang on to God rather than our need to be right and perfect in other’s eyes, that chunk of stone is really gone for good. We no longer have to experience that same set of troubles.

All of life is this process of being sculpted, or rather, being released from this stone that entombs the beautiful soul that is ours as sons and daughters of the Divine Sculptor. It is a most powerful prayer: “O Divine Sculptor, chisel thou me according to thy desires.” I commend it to you but with caution – having one’s soul set free is quite the painful process. But being freed is the point of it all.

The celebration of the resurrection of Christ, the rolling away of the stone from the tomb will soon be upon us. It is tempting as Christians to believe that a simple prayer of repentance or being “born again” frees us in a magical way, suddenly taking away the “stone” of sin from our lives. On a cosmic level, this is true. But on a practical level of life in this plane of existance, the spiritual practice of surrender to Christ requires our daily cooperation. Surrender (i.e. devotion to Christ, not just an intellectual belief) is the process by which the soul is set free.

“O Divine Sculptor, chisel thou me according to thy desires.”

The story of Reverend Carlton Pearson, a renowned evangelical pastor in Tulsa, Oklahoma, who cast aside the idea of hell, and with it, everything he’d worked for over his entire life.
Prologue. Carlton Pearson’s church, Higher Dimensions, was once one of the biggest in the city, drawing crowds of 5,000 people every Sunday. But several years ago, scandal engulfed the Reverend. He didn’t have an affair. He didn’t embezzle lots of money. His sin was something that to a lot of people is far worse … he stopped believing in hell. (2 minutes)
Act One. Rise. Reporter Russell Cobb takes us through the remarkable and meteoric rise of Carlton Pearson from a young man to a Pentecostal Bishop: from the moment he first cast the devil out of his seventeen-year-old girlfriend, to the days when he had a close, personal relationship with Oral Roberts and had appearances on TV and at the White House. Just as Reverend Pearson’s career peaked, with more than 5,000 members of his congregation coming every week, he started to think about hell, wondering if a loving God would really condemn most of the human race to burn and writhe in the fire of hell for eternity. (30 minutes)
Act Two. Fall. Once he starts preaching his own revelation, Carlton Pearson’s church falls apart. After all, when there’s no hell (as the logic goes), you don’t really need to believe in Jesus to be saved from it. What follows are the swift departures of his pastors, and an exodus from his congregation – which quickly dwindled to a few hundred people. Donations drop off too, but just as things start looking bleakest, new kinds of people, curious, start showing up on Sunday mornings. (23 minutes)
Song: “Let the Church Roll On,” Mahalia Jackson

Being a part of a community in which people come in all hues and views is of great importance to me. I have to say that I judge the authenticity of a spiritual community by the diversity of it’s members. My clearest moments of being a part of God’s kingdom have come when the physical manifestation of that kingdom was primarily, but not exclusively, people of color. I don’t know if this is fair or not, but it is one of the primary ways I judge the truth of a spiritual path. If people all look and act the same, I assume it cannot be a totally authentic manifestation of God’s spirit. This probably isn’t completely fair of me but so far the test has proved to be accurate.

Lessons on Life

There was a man who had four sons. He wanted his sons to learn not to judge
things too quickly. So he sent them each on a quest, in turn, to go and look
at a pear tree that was a great distance away.

The first son went in the winter, the second in the spring, the third in
summer, and the youngest son in the fall.

When they had all gone and come back, he called them together to describe
what they had seen.

The first son said that the tree was ugly, bent, and twisted.

The second son said no it was covered with green buds and full of promise.

The third son disagreed; he said it was laden with blossoms that smelled so
sweet and looked so beautiful, it was the most graceful thing he had ever seen.

The last son disagreed with all of them; he said it was ripe and drooping
with fruit, full of life and fulfillment.

The man then explained to his sons that they were all right, because they
had each seen but only one season in the tree’s life.

He told them that you cannot judge a tree, or a person, by only one season,
and that the essence of who they are and the pleasure, joy, and love that come
from that life can only be measured at the end, when all the seasons are up.

If you give up when it’s winter, you will miss the promise of your spring,
the beauty of your summer, fulfillment of your fall.

Moral of the lessons:
Don’t let the pain of one season destroy the joy of all the rest.

Don’t judge life by one difficult season.
Persevere through the difficult patches and better times are sure to come some time or later

This townhouse has never been my childrens home and we have never celebrated Christmas here together. This Christmas they will be in Kentucky with their father in another home in which they have never lived. We have learned over the years to share the traditions that we once shared as an intact family. But it is hard on them, very hard.

I think of this when I hear the nonsence about the “political” correctness of the season. The decorations of homes and businesses, government buildings and churches are lovely to see but they have nothing to do with the birth of Christ from my point of view. For the record, I registered great protest through out my children’s public education when they were taught the religious meaning of other holidays but not allowed to sing of the birth of Christ or even to write about their own religious views in their school papers.

The decorations of the season seem to me to be mostly about sentiment, memories and hope for something that we can’t quite grasp as a society. The birth of Christ was so much more than that. Whether or not someone says “Merry Christmas” or “Happy Holidays” on a newscast or when I pay the cashier is meaningless to me. None of it has a wit to do with the birth of Jesus of Nazareth.

The birth of Christ is about hope. The holidays, for my family as for many others, hold a mixture of feelings. We are reminded of our brokenness on each and every one. Our celebration brings back memories that are bittersweet, comforting and grief-filled at the same time. But the birth of Christ? That gives us hope. We cannot of our own be anything but broken. Nothing can change that historical and emotional fact. But Jesus gives us a way to forgive one another, a way to be family because we are children of God together, a way to know a little bit of “Peace on Earth and Goodwill to All” that is beyond logic.

Today I put up the two surviving wreaths out of the dozen or so I had collected over the years. I found a manger similar to the one destroyed and tomorrow we’ll put the crèche in place and I will remember that my children took turns every year choosing how each piece would be displayed. And when I put the baby Jesus in front of Mary and Joseph, I will give thanks for them and I will pray that they will always know the peace of that Christ whose birth we celebrate and that it will sustain them all of their years.

A psychologist, William Moulton Marston, embarked to ask three thousand persons, “What do you have to live for?” He was shocked to find that 94% were simply enduring the present while they waited for the future;
waited for “something” to happen;
waited for children to grow up and leave home;
waited for next year;
waited for another time to ake a long dreamed-about trip;
waited for someone to die;
waited for tomorrow…
those who were waiting had no realization that today (now) was practically what they really had.”

I hate waiting. I have become better at it over the years – life is less urgent in these AARP years. Less places to go. Fewer timetables to meet. Fewer bills to pay. Less waiting. But I still hate it.

Learning various chants from various mystical practices has helped to a great degree. I chant within my thoughts mantras for clarity when I get anxious waiting in lines or driving long distances. I chant within my thoughts the Jesus Prayer when my thoughts are obnoxious even to me. I chant a prayer of blessing for the cashier when his or her seeming incompetence would otherwise make my blood boil. I chant requests for forgiveness when I’d rather have hateful thoughts because someone elses words have annoyed or offended me. In fact, it has been through these various practices that my “endurance” of waiting has actually often opened my eyes to the present right in front of me.

I remember waiting in line with a particularly slow and seemingly incompetent cashier at the grocery store. As she oh-so-slowly scanned each item of the people in front of me, and oh-so-slowly moved her eyes between the items scanned and the cash register, and oh-so-slowly (and I must admit gently) placed each item in the proper bags, the smoke gathered in my brain and oozed out my ears. Annoyed beyond reason ( I had no place I really had to go), I began to chant in my mind, “Lord have mercy, Lord have mercy” and when that didn’t work I moved on to: “Lord bless. Lord bless, Lord bless.” Eventually the line moved forward. I was still steaming but at least I was using the energy generated by my anger by attempting to pray.

And the line slowly moved forward. I put my items on the conveyor and watched them move oh-so-slowly toward her shaking hands and into the bags. Shaking hands. I noticed her shaking hands and looked up at her face. Her eyes were red rimmed and dark shadowed. I looked down at her hands and saw how thin they were. Glancing up again at her face, I saw the perspiration on her brow and the weariness in her eyes.

I was so ashamed of my thoughts and at the same time grateful for the spiritual practices which taught me to bless instead of curse. I softly touched her arm and said, “you are in terrible pain, aren’t you?” She looked at me anxiously, and just nodded her head. I told her I understood a bit about pain myself and that I hoped her pain would soon be eased.

Waiting can be just a way to endure the present. It can also be a discipline through which we are awakened to the present and able to see that Christ is right here in our midst, right now.

Because we’re the ones with the power and we don’t have to care. In Europe, the immigration of people from the asias is much greater per capita than it is here. They have to care – they belong to the whole global communitiy and they know it. The European and British send aid readily with little fanfare. We, on the other hand, have much fanfare when we give anything and far less actual aid given. In the case of Pakistan, it seems we aren’t even given much opportunity to care.

In recent years our leaders have been glaringly calling us a Christian Nation. I shake my head in wonder at what other nations are learning about what it means to be a Christian from our example. And wonder why I feel most at home with those who would call themselves agnostic.

I believe that any tragedy brings with it carification of what is really important. This is true on in individual level as well as on a global level. It is clear, once again, that power and wealth is what is important to us as a nation. People without either are disposable. And this for a people who claim the name of one who died poor and abandoned on a hillside outside of Jerusalem. The same hillside, perhaps, on which he sat a few weeks earlier and wept because his people could not turn from wealth and power to see the kingdom of God within each willing heart.

.You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it, You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the law and the prophets.”

(from the Gospel of Matthew, New Revised Standard Version)

Although simple words at first glance, it takes a life time to understand and truly live these words. Bernard of Clairvaux wrote Four Degress of Love way back in the 12th Century. I have not yet found a better understanding of how to live these two commandments of Jesus Christ.

The First Degree of Love: Love of Self for Self’s Sake “Love is a natural human affection. It comes from God. Hence the first and greatest commandment is, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God.” But human nature is weak and therefore compelled to love itself and serve itself first. In the human realm people love themselves for their own sake. This is implanted within us for who ever hated his own self?…

The Second Degree of Love: Love of God for Self’s Sake “When we are free from trouble we are happy but in our pride we may conclude that we are responsible for our security. Then, when we suffer some calamity, some storm in our lives, we turn to God and ask his help, calling upon him in times of trouble. This is how we who only love ourselves first begin to love God.”

The Third Degree of Love: Love of God for God’s Sake In order to arrive at this we must continually go to God with our needs and pray. In those prayers the grace of God is tasted and by frequent tasting it is proved to us how sweet the Lord is. Thus it happens that once God’s sweetness has been tasted, it draws us to the pure love of God more than our needs compell us to love him… When we begin to feel this, it will not be hard to fulfill the second commandment to love our neighbor….We have obtained this degree of love when we can say, “Give praise to the Lord for he is good, not because he is good to me, but because he is good.” It should be noted that in this third degree we will stand still for a long time.

The Fourth Degree of Love: Love of Self for God’s Sake Blessed are those who experience the fourth degree of love wherein we love ourselves for God’s sake. Such experiences are rare and come only for a moment. In a manner of speaking, we lose ourselves as though we did not exist, utterly unconcious of ourselves and emptied of ourselves…..During those moments we will be of one mind with God and our wills in one accord with God. The prayer, “Thy will be done,” will be our prayer and our delight. Just as a drop of water mixed with a lot of wine seems to entirely lose its own identity….so it is like for those who melt away from themselves and are entirely transfused into the will of God. This perfect love of God with our heart, soul, mind and strength will not happen until we are no longer compelled to think about our bodily needs…this is why in the present body it is difficult to maintain. But it is within God’s power to give such an experience to whom he wills, and it is not attained by our own efforts. When this happens, we will experience the joy of the Lord and be forgetful of ourselves in a wonderful way. We are, for those moments, one mind and one spirit with God.

(From the treatise On the Love of God by Bernard of Clairvaux 1090-1152 C.E.)

Priest: All reverence to the Great Holy Compassionate Father of all things . Allaha!
Oh radiant Jade-faced One
Exalted as the sun and the moon
Your virtues are greater than those
Of all the Holy Ones and Dharma Lords *

Congregation: The laws of Compassion save us all!
Echoing through the world like a tolling golden bell.

Priest: Great Holy Law Giver.
You bring us back to our original nature.
And the souls that are saved are countless:
Divine compassion lifts them up from the dust
Redeeming them from the saddened realm of ghosts.

Congregation: The hundred Ways bring us clarity and kind-hearted mercy.

Priest: Now I draw close to our Holy Compassionate Father
The One who creates salvation —-
See the angelic spirits crossing the Ocean of Dharma
We know to practice peace in our hearts through You
This whole gathering unites in singing to You Honored One:

All: The Great Law is now the Heavenly Wheel of returning . to You.

Worship the Dharma Kings. Begin with the Sutra** of Dharma King John. Then continue the Sutra of the Psalms and the Path of Grace Sutra.

On the second day of the fifth month of Hai Yun {720} Su Yun of the Da Qin Religion of Light in the Great Holy Oneness of the Dharma, a monk of the Da Qin monastery at Shachou wrote this faithfully for the faithful.

* i.e. .saints. Dharma means .teaching.

** Sutra is the written teachings, here referring to the Gospel of John

Christian Liturgy in Praise of the Three Sacred Powers

The highest skies are in love with You.
The great Earth opens its palms in peace.
Our truest being is anchored in Your Purity
You are Allaha: Compassionate Father of the Three

Everything praises you, sounding its true note.
All the Enlightened chant praises —
Every being takes its refuge in You
And the light of Your Holy Compassion frees us all.

Beyond knowing, beyond words
You are the truth, steadfast for all time.
Compassionate Father, Radiant Son.
Pure Wind King . three in one.

In the midst of kings and emperors, You are supreme
Among the World Famous, You are Lord of Everything.

You live perpetually in light
The light which enters every sphere.
Yet You have never been seen
No eye can see Your Form
Or you Unclouded Nature.

Among all spirits You alone are unchanging
Making all that is good, beyond reckoning
The root and essence . the thing itself!

Today I reflect on Your Compassion and Grace.
I delight in Your Delight which covers our land
Messiah, Great Holy Son of the Honored One
As countless of the Suffering are saved .

Supreme King, Will of Ages,
Compassionate Joyous Lamb
Loving all who suffer
Fearless as You strive for us
Free us of the karma of our lives,
Bring us back to our original nature
Delivered from all danger

Divine Son invited to stand on the right of the Father
This Alter exceeds all others
Great Messiah: hear our prayers
Send your raft of salvation
To save us from the burning streams!

Great Teacher, I stand in awe of the Father
Great Teacher, I am awed by the Holy Lord
Great Teacher, I am speechless before the King of Dharma
Great Teacher, I am dazzled by the Enlightened Mind —
Great Teacher, You who do everything to save us.

Everything looks to You, without thinking.
Shower us with Your Healing Rain!
Help us to overcome, give life to what has withered.
And water the roots of kindness in us.
Great Holy World Honored One,
Messiah, as we love our Father.
Boundless Sea of Compassion
And the Clean Pure Wind
Whose clarity cleanses through the Law
Reaching beyond all grace

(from the Tang Dynasty era as translated by Martin Palmer in The Jesus Sutras Ballantine/Wellspring Press)