ADELE--AND GRACE

 Lynn and I watched the Adele concert aired from the beautiful Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles--beautiful sunset, night sky coming alive with the city lights around her and the stage lights behind her. It was an impressive concert. It was interspersed with segments of an interview with Adele and Oprah in which she spoke of some of the pain that fueled her forlorn music. Most recently [in the last few years] she had felt compelled to divorce her husband and father of her son, not because of any pathology on his part, but in order to “find [her]self”--to “find happiness”. Oprah asked her what it was like for her when her son asked her why she “didn’t love daddy any more.” She said that she told him “I do love him. But I’m not in love with him.” She confessed that she was dealing with some guilt at having “dismantled his life” and “hurt the two people I love the most in the world” in order to find this “self” and “happiness” she was seeking. {I think that guilt is healthy. But I pray it will be healed in her spiritual growth.} Oprah and her spoke of the importance of being able to “love yourself” before you can love others or, by implication, basically do any good in the world. I’m not criticizing Adele when I say this---she has suffered enough without my or anyone’s criticism—but it seems that Adele, [along with probably thousands of others] are chasing the feeling of being “in love” and the elusive butterfly of “happiness”---and hurting people in the process. Or else they are living, as the ladies also alluded to, in the dark, self-generated shadow of staying in an unhappy relationship because of obligation and the desire not to hurt their loved ones. They feel that they are “caving in”, so to speak, to a second-rate life to avoid hurting their loved ones. I’ve had some clients who are chasing this elusive butterfly of needing to be in the state of being “in love”, or who are unhappy and mistakenly believe it is because they married the wrong person—someone who is basically ok, not abusive or addicted to anything, is faithful, etc., but “just not the person who can make me happy”. More than one of my clients have said something like “if I knew then what I know now, I would never have divorced my first spouse.” What they had come to learn was that happiness is an inside job---that it is primarily the by-product of loving people with a deep and committed love; that the “in love” feeling is always time-limited and chasing it is similar to chasing the feelings provided by certain drugs, and that the love that ultimately generates happiness and self-love is sacrificial---the taking up of a cross, as Jesus said [and did!]. This is the Love that brings joy into life—rather than the sorrow so beautifully expressed in Adele’s songs. She looks great, has lost a hundred pounds, works out regularly. Her artistry seems darn near perfect. But she admits that she is not quite there yet as far as happiness is concerned, and she wept [reluctantly] when speaking of some of the sorrow she has generated in her pursuits. Oprah, with her typical keen insight, asked her, “Will you be able to write music when you are happy?” She seemed hopeful but uncertain that she would be able to. The high profile audience loved her performance. They drank deeply from the wine pressed in the crucible of her sorrows. There were numerous standing O’s. But I bet her son still wishes his mom and dad were together.

Is it possible that the pursuit of happiness and being “in love” can become an idol: an altar upon which we sacrifice marriages, covenants, families, childrens’ stability and security? To whatever extent it can, and to whatever extent it is indeed idolatrous, it will lead either to more unhappiness or to an awakening and a turning in a new direction that reveals that much of that sorrow, generated in the delusional state, was unnecessary. Hopefully this awakening, engendered by Christ, can occur without the generation of too much of that sorrow. At any rate, when that awakening happens, we see that all the suffering is miraculously redeemed. All of it. This is Grace. Amazing Grace.

Dreams

 

Dreams. I’ve been thinking about dreams. I like dreams. I rarely have a “bad” one. But when I do, it’s good to remember that it is just a dream---something you wake up from. I think that in some way we are God’s dream. {He/She can do anything!} And just as we can be dreaming and know that we are dreaming, I think God, since He/She knows everything, knows in some part of His/Her consciousness, that S/He is dreaming, but S/He allows this dream to continue. And in it, just as in ours, “good” and “bad” things can happen. But at some point S/He will wake up, and all of us who are in the dream will awaken also [even as we are now awakening]. And what we awaken to is that we are at one with the most benevolent, Loving, powerful and creative Personage imaginable---a Loving Consciousness that fills up the entire universe, capable of dreaming countless dreams throughout eternity from which we always awaken.

Quiet Time

 

I don’t know about you, but these days, in order to keep peace within my soul, I need a lot of quiet time; meditation and prayer; being still. A friend told me just today about having been invited to tour the floor at the N.Y. Stock Exchange building on Wall Street. When I asked him what was the primary out-take or impression he took away from the visit, he answered in one word: “Pain.” What was that pain, I asked him. “There was too much energy in that place.” A missionary who had spent years in a remote Alaskan town told of how, after returning to the Lower 48 and walking into a Walmart store, she felt so overwhelmed she had to walk out. We live with much stimulation—more than ever before perhaps in human history. We have the noise of this world swirling in our brains, even when we are still. But if we sit long enough in that stillness, getting down to the place where we touch the eternal “I Am”, we are reminded that all is well. The universe is in the hands of the omnipotent, all-wise Love Who has brought All into existence. We rest there with the calm realization that our part is simply to peacefully love all the people in our sphere of influence. Peacefully. Love. That is the very best we can do to bring about the good that we desire for the world. Without the deep stillness we can get lost in this noisy and busy world.

Meditation for Elderly

 

Here’s a meditation for some of my elderly brothers and sisters:

Get into a quiet place where you’re unplugged and isolated from anything that could distract you.

Take some comfortable breaths and settle into your body.

Take your time with this. Read each statement and pause to let the truth of it settle deeply into your consciousness.

“My body is getting weaker. I cannot do some of the things I used to do.

I accept this. Deeply. It is ok for me to be tired.

I rest in my tiredness. In this moment, I do not resist it.

As I go deeper, underneath the tiredness, I become aware that I am not my body. I am IN but not OF my body.

I, my soul, lives temporarily, in this body. My soul resides partially and temporarily in this body. My body has been a wonderful “temple”, and I am thankful for it; but it was destined from birth to return to the earth. I am perfectly ok with this.

In my spirit I hear Jesus say,”Do not allow that which is temporary [your body] to take precedence over that which is eternal [your soul].” I let His words sink into my deeper consciousness. I turn the light of my awareness away from my body and shine it upon my soul; finding there that I am a “Fountain of living water welling up into eternal Life”---a constantly renewed freshness. I realize that I am, in my essence, this Fountain and the Light of awareness that is shining upon it. I am this eternal awareness. I am the Logos, the pre-existent Living Word, that became flesh, dwelt with us as a human, entered into me through faith, and is perpetually awakening me to the fact of my atonement [at-one-ment] with Him and the Creator. I awaken to this Reality now---this “Truth that sets me free” from any worries about my declining body. I am experiencing, more and more, my soul arising up out of my body like new life arising out of a decaying seed. I am thankful and free, as I rest peacefully in this tired body.

Truth

 

We do not create Truth. And we cannot change it. Truth is the matrix in which we exist. It is the correct paradigm. It comprises the principles of life and death. It is the only Standard by which human success and failure can be measured. It can be obscured, avoided, hated or ignored; but its pulses, vibrations, openings, closings, and bulwarks never change, as Light, undaunted by darkness. It is what is left when the smoke and dust of human deception are cleared away. Those who ignore or avoid it accumulate and generate negative energy--”karma”--and fall behind in the psycho-spiritual evolutionary blossoming—the pilgrims’ joyful journey to “New Jerusalem.” Those who respond in reverence to Its perpetual, gracious invitation and submit to Its righteous and loving requirements find unfeigned Peace and Freedom. They wake up and find themselves at Home. John 14:6

Facing the Fear of Hurt

 

When we choose to believe in and hope for the best in people, [even those who have acted in darkness and through whom we have been hurt many times] we are not being naïve or going “out on a limb” of vulnerability, as long as our hearts and minds are guarded by the Love and Wisdom of Christ. He commands us not only to Love [of course!] but also to NOT “cast your pearls before the swine.” Jesus is by no means an “enabler” or anybody’s “whipping post”; but He is also not hiding in fear from the vulnerability that True Love [agape, as some describe it] takes us into. And in all environments, we are eternally and infinitely safe in His Love.

HURT

 

Some words about “Hurt”: the hurt that is felt by all who have lived very long in this world.

I wall myself away from the hurt. I want to get and stay as far away from it as possible. I turn quickly away from anything that reminds me of it, bringing up the dreadful pain that I have felt so many  times before. I don’t want to feel it again, but--- Here it comes! I scramble upward, away from it.

Jesus stands beneath it in infinite Power, Radiant Love, a Refuge, waiting for me to surrender faithfully into it where there is Rest for my Soul.

That surrender takes me downward in a vortex of heart-smothering, oppressive, fatal-feeling hurt that quickly launches out ward and upward like a volcanic eruption fueled by that Radiant Light that was waiting for me. I am surrounded by Love. Infused with the Power of that Love. My heart is now connected with forever, and in “Forever” everything and everything and everything is so much more than perfect. The Longing is fulfilled. The Hurt is embraced and becomes the important fuel for the fires of Love.

I turn and walk down the mountain, like the disciples after the Transfiguration.

There’s important peaceful work to do.

Meditations

 

The only way that we could possibly have the inner [sometimes subdued, sometime strong and clear] desire for PEACE and FREEDOM, is that our Creator has placed it within us as a holy and ATTAINABLE reality. God is not so cruel that He would put this desire for eternal life, peace and freedom within us as something forever unattainable. That would be like holding a piece of candy before a child, and keeping her from having it. The desires of your heart are attainable; you just have to know where and how to look. Not every way of “looking” is “seeing”. Blindness is real.

The most important thing is not to create something or to attain anything….anything! The most important thing is to AWAKEN….to be REBORN into the awareness of the Spirit of Christ within you. Every helpful creation and worthy attainment flows from that Awakened Spirit of Divine Love. Everything not done in that Spirit is useless at best. And at its worst, the Holocaust and world wars are good examples.

On earth it may be in some way, as Darwin has suggested, “survival of the fittest”. In heaven, it is and will be survival of those who Love.

Cutting down trees and destroying forests for money is like selling pieces of our lungs. If we cut down all the timber in our forests to build houses in the desert, we will turn the forests into deserts.

If your body is tired and weary; if it is in pain, or even on its last leg; don’t forget that you are not that body. You are an eternal soul. Your body is the temporary home of that soul. Don’t let that which is temporary take precedence over that which is eternal. Your body stops when your heart stops. Your soul is set free at that time.

The Bible tells us to “Be still and know….God.” At some points in that stillness and openness, we touch more deeply the sorrow that resides in every heart. We’ve all been hurt, suffered loss and watched our loved ones suffer---oftentimes in ways that we, in our blindness, have brought upon ourselves. We grieve this. It is holy to grieve the suffering of the human family, as Jesus did [Lk 13:34]. But when we go deeper into the Stillness, we touch the profound and liberating Reality that founds and transcends, not only our suffering, but every conceivable and inconceivable aspect of the Universe. In this place all suffering becomes fuel for the Consuming Fire of Divine Power and Love. All our suffering becomes like the transforming and liberating suffering of Christ on the Cross. And we experience, in Faith, the Joy that that suffering is leading to.

The good that we do in the Kingdom is truly satisfying---but only briefly. The Master Gardener prunes away that satisfaction to make room for fresh outcrops of goodness. We feed our souls by doing good in the Spirit of Love. We do not feel this as an obligation; we feel it as the most wonderful opportunity.

The ocean, at its shore, joyfully licks the feet of children and the awakened ones whose hearts are filled with gratitude and Love.

BE STILL

 

How many times have you read or quoted this verse “Be still, and know that I am God [Psm 46:10].”? Can you be still? When is the last time you tried, consciously, for any length of time to “Be still”? If you have, you know how difficult it is. You know how relentless your “mind” is---how thoughts relentlessly assail the walls you construct for your fortress of “stillness.” You know how pervasive and sneaky these thoughts are. Those useless, vain, worrisome thoughts seem to creep through every defense. If being still is like sinking down into an ocean of freedom and peace; most people barely get below the first six feet of depth---which is where all the urgent churning keeps us occupied until we have a near-death experience or something else that rattles our cage hard enough to wake us up. It’s much better not to wait for that, but rather to discover, by “being still” the place that that catastrophe is designed to get you to: in-touchness with your eternal Soul which is now and ever will be connected to the Loving Source of this universe. All-encompassing Peace. A feeling of omnipotence within a universe created, sustained and infused with Absolute, Perfect Love. This is true because, if you read on in this verse, beyond “Be still”, we receive these words into our heart: “AND KNOW THAT I AM GOD.” What does it mean---what does it FEEL like to “know God?” Not to wonder about God, doubt God [though we may have to go through some doubt to get to Him} or talk about God---but to “KNOW” God? Knowing God is experiencing the greatest freedom and peace available to the human soul. How could it possibly be otherwise? {“I am in you...” [Jesus]} Get to the depth. Be still.

Feeling Free

 A good question to ask ourselves is “Do I FEEL free?” I don’t mean “Do you KNOW you are free, or sing songs about freedom or pledge allegiance to the flag that represents “liberty” for all. I mean do you FEEL free? And if not, why not? [This is also a very good question to ask our self.]  We live in the most freedom-providing nation that has perhaps ever existed on this earth. But we see that no political system can provide the FEELING of freedom because there are always problems that political systems can not solve. Jesus said “In this world you will have tribulation.” There! He nailed it down, once and for all: we will never, in this life on earth, get to the place where there is no tribulation---problems, challenges, difficulties, suffering, loss and grief. We’re not going to get there. So if our feeling of freedom can only come with a better political system or a world with no problems, then we will never, in this earthly life FEEL free. 

This is a good [potentially wonderful] affirmation to make : “My life is exactly where I want it to be.” You will probably have to repeat it a few times before you can begin to feel the Truth of it---to feel it deeply within yourself. It is a true statement because the only place you can ever be is here and now. Wherever you go, you will always be here and now. You can never escape here and now. So if here and now is not where you want your life to be, you will never be where you want your life to be. This creates an unnecessary inner conflict that is resolved when you settle deeply into “My life is exactly where I want it to be.” This does not mean that we are no longer having problems or that we would not prefer that people would Love each other better. We certainly do have problems---some of them feel gargantuan---and we do long for a peaceful world where people Love each other better. In fact we are living in ways that we believe INCREASE that Love in this world. But we have come to have faith in the God of this universe, Who is Love, and we have dedicated our lives to that Love, in the Spirit of Christ Who gave His life in Love. And by faith we know that we are here and now because the God of this universe has ordained it to be so.  Therefore it has to be perfect, in the eternal sense, for me to be here and now. No matter how it feels in the temporary sense.  All my sins are forgiven. My Lord doesn’t expect me to be at the top of my game all the time---or maybe ever.  He is working ALL things together for my [and our] good. I [we] are loved beyond our ability to comprehend---more than we love our children!  Knowing this Truth deeply can open up within us the FEELING of freedom. “The Truth will set you free” [Jesus].  The freedom-feeling, which is akin to peace, envelops--swallows up-- all the tribulation, problems, difficulties, unrighteousness, injustice, grief, sadness, sorrow and losses. It holds all the hurt in the arms of divine Love. It spreads throughout the universe---not just this planet. It comprises the core of your being. It is the essence of what you eternally are. It is the FEELING of Love.  God = Jesus = Truth = Love = Freedom.

Introspection

 

[Mat 7:3-5 NET] 3 “Why do you see the speck in your brother's eye, but fail to see the beam of wood in your own? 4 Or how can you say to your brother, 'Let me remove the speck from your eye,' while there is a beam in your own? 5 You hypocrite! First remove the beam from your own eye, and then you can see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye.” Jesus

When we meditate on this enlightened teaching of Christ, we realize both the importance of it and how frequently it is violated in our world. How easy for us to see the character defects of others. [And how annoying.] And how difficult for us to see our own. [And how gratifying to the ego, and detrimental to ourselves and others.] Love constrains us to be honestly introspective—something that may be impossible without an adequate understanding of Grace. Without Grace, honest introspection can lead to morbid guilt. This is true because all of us have a “beam” in our eye, which means character defects. These defects always hurt someone—that is why they are called defects, or from the Christian perspective [my perspective] sinful nature manifestations. And we ALL have a sinful nature. It is naively insensitive at best; and it is sociopathic at worst. The failure to acknowledge and take responsibility for it causes great unnecessary suffering in our world. This is why Love constrains us to see it and deal rightly with it—constrain it, confess it, and seek help from Above and from our fellow man with it. One who does not do this cannot honestly say that he is loving those who will be negatively affected by it: his family, friends and associates. The one who fails to apply this wonderful teaching becomes a drag on the forward movement---the psycho-spiritual evolution---of the human family. This is one of countless examples of how Jesus Christ [Who is so militantly avoided in a large segment of our world, and actually forbidden in tyrannical nations] can help us attain what all humans, in the core of their being, are trying to attain: peace and harmony in a world infused with sincere Love for all fellow beings. “Thy will be done, on earth as in heaven.”

Mark Graham

GET FREE

 

[Mat 15:13-14 NLT] Jesus replied, "Every plant not planted by my heavenly Father will be uprooted, so ignore them. They are blind guides leading the blind, and if one blind person guides another, they will both fall into a ditch."

Jesus told his disciples to “ignore” the blind spiritual leaders of His day. To ignore means to withdraw attention from or disassociate with. When we are enlightened by the Holy Spirit of Christ within us, we have a growing discernment of good and evil; spiritual enlightenment and blindness. We can see more and more clearly the direction of a person’s life---whether they are headed toward a “ditch” or toward a more heavenly existence. And when we see that they are just not getting it about Love and Truth and integrity, humility, servant-heartedness, and responsibility, etc. we know that it is best to ignore them; disassociate from them. We do this with Love toward them. We do not hold anything against them---Jesus Loves them, just as He loved those blind Pharisees. He died for them too. But if we associate with them, to whatever degree we associate with them, we will be allowing ourselves to be pulled toward the “ditch” that Jesus referred to. Some people are just not yet capable of hearing the words of Truth that would set them free. Judas is an example of this. He was with Jesus; saw the miracles, heard the teachings, walked and ate with Him. But he did not “get it”. And Jesus accepted it. He was not expending wasted energy on trying to persuade Judas, collaring him and pressing in deeply with coercive teaching methods, trying to get Judas to awaken. Mysteriously, He told Judas to “do quickly” what Satan had put in his heart to do---betray Him. And our Heavenly Father used the blind betrayal of Judas, inspired by Satan, to salvage the faithful from the grip that Satan had upon them. A hellacious backfire for the old serpent! And an earth-shaking, heavenly victory for humankind!

And there is this very practical and useful principle that we can derive from this: Dissociate from the militantly spiritually blind folks---those who distort or ignore the Truth over and over again. Don’t “cast your pearls before the swine”, as Jesus said. Get yourself free from needing them to “get it”. But you must never stop loving them; Jesus does not allow that, and we do not want what He does not allow. Christ’s Love in us for those whom we have come to “ignore” is the very evidence of our freedom from the spirit of blindness in them. Some of these blind ones may be in your family—a spouse, parent or adult child. These are the most difficult to lovingly dissociate from. But if we do not, the spirit that is in them will take precedence over the Spirit of Christ in us, and we will dragged toward the ditch where we cannot benefit from the blessings that Christ died and lives for us to receive. It would be as if Jesus were sitting in a dark cave somewhere pining over His unrequited love for Judas and ignoring the mission of the Cross, and the “joy that was set before Him” [Heb. 12:2].

Who's to blame?

 

It seems that many are searching for [or think they have discovered] the person or group or tribe or party or race that is to blame for all this. And I want to know too. So I asked “Lord...” [when I want to get to the Truth, I don’t ask myself; I’m the one who is asking. I trust the Lord because I know He loves all of us] “Lord, who is to blame for this?” And I think I’ve got it! I’m pretty sure I know now who is really to blame for all this chaotic upheaval. It is that group of people who have allowed hatred or fear to become the dominant motivator of their words and actions. Especially hate. But fear too, because fear fuels a lot of hatred. Some hatred is not fed by fear, however—and that’s worst kind. It’s the cold, mean hatred that usually resides in those whose hearts have been twisted by a lack of Love in their upbringing. They come into adulthood deprived of the “family feeling”. They feel alienated from Love and family. So they band together in the “family” [virtual or real time] of those who also are driven by hate and fear. They exchange one dysfunctional family for another, perhaps more pathological one. These are the ones who are preventing us or slowing us down in the forward movement--- to the ongoing Awakening; the emergence of the Kingdom. We are, of course, tempted to hate or fear them. But, if we are Awake, we know that we must not become like them. So we pray “Father forgive them for they don’t know what they are doing.” And we let what would have been hatred or fear become the fuel for the work of Love, knowing that, ultimately, being the most powerful Force in the universe, it will win. And, even as we fight these spiritual battles, we have an unshakable peace and confidence that is only afforded by knowing that we are fighting the right battles, motivated only by this Love. Soooo, Which side are you on?

Mark Graham