Proverbs

The heart that does not want to know itself is a dangerous heart; as is the one who presumes to know and possess himself completely.

The purer your love for your people the more deeply you will discern what is in their hearts, and the the more powerful will be your ministries to them.

The unenlightened feel justified in their selfish, evil endeavors, and victimized by the consequences that befall them because of those endeavors.

The human heart is steeped in selfishness. We see others through the paradigm of our own personal agenda. We like them if they facilitate our agenda; and we ignore or despise them if they don't.
In this light, it's very important to know what your agenda is.

The Bible is unquestionably the best selling book in the world.  Why not read it? All those folks can't be wrong.

Exercise always seems like a good thing to do----at some time in the future.

Youth and the Elderly

Youth often perceive the elderly as quaintly "out there" somewhere; not really in the present. I have come to understand this to be partly true: The elderly have an incredible storehouse of life experiences stored in their minds--more past than future, from the worldly standpoint. The young frequently dismiss them because of this. This can be a form of unconscious condescension. And it is sad because the elderly also have an incredible storehouse of wisdom that they would love to share with the young but cannot do so because of that dismissive attitude.

Memorial Day Links

Here's a link to Abraham Lincoln's 2nd Inaugural Address, 1865. A good Memorial Day read.

http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/lincoln2.asp

And here's a link to General MacArthur's amazing speech at the Japanese surrender at the end of WWII


http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/macarthur/filmmore/reference/primary/macspeech04.html

Note: MacArthur recognized that "the problem basically is theological" and that "it must be of the spirit if we are to save the flesh."

My Cat

My little cat knows that I don't always allow her to sit in my lap, so, when I'm on my deck and she comes to sit in my lap she at first assumes that I'm going to allow her to come, and she jumps right into my lap. And if I'm not in the mood to have her there I gently nudge her away and she hops down on the deck and doesn't seem to be disappointed at all. So she waits a while as I'm meditating, and starts, at some point to ease back closer to me, then jump up on the table in front of me; sits there for a while, waiting for my mood to change. At some point, with head held low and eyes half closed she puts one paw very gently on my knee as if to ask permission. It's as if she is the prodigal son returning home from the pig pen in a spirit of "I don't deserve to be your cat, but if you would just let me sit here in your lap, you don't even have to pet me, just let me lie peacefully on your knee"... and so I reach out my hand to let her know that she can come; and she comes, and sits peacefully and thankfully on my lap as I stroke her fur and we both benefit from it. And as I am benefiting from it, and thinking about the benefit that I am receiving, I look at this little creature and I realize that God made this little creature for me to be sitting here in my lap in this moment and the affection I feel for this kitty and the affection she feels for me [in whatever way kitties feel affection] are a manifestation of the Love of the God of this universe---the God Who created us both; gave us life; gave all life, and gave all love and all affection. And so this little creature, this experience that we are sharing is like a shaft of light that is the Light of this universe; like a beam flowing down through the forest of sunlight. And like a hologram, this beam contains the Whole.

Getting There

It seems to me that life can never be what we want and need it to be until we receive Jesus Christ as our Lord. And even when we receive Him we continue to have sadness and anger and fear and self-doubts and character defects that we cannot overcome; but we are able to manage these because we have the Power of Eternal Love living within us--Love that never abandons us, never gives up on us, constantly forgives and always encourages and empowers us to simply and peacefully take the next small step onward and upward. We can always take a small step in the direction of Christ's Truth and Love. We will always be able to do so. That is all we will ever need. "I am with you always, even to the end of the world":  This is the only true security that exists. And the only way to have peace as an imperfect human being.

Religious Lostness

And the Lord said: "Because this people draw near with their mouth and honor me with their lips, while their hearts are far from me, and their fear of me is a commandment of men learned by rote;.. Isa 29:13

The people being confronted by God through Isaiah in this passage were religious people: prophets, priests, synagogue-attenders, etc. God said they honored Him with their words, but their hearts were far from Him. I recently saw a couple in therapy who were very religious Christians. They attended not only regular church services, but extra-curricular Bible studies, and even taught a Bible class [the husband]. And I believe they were sincere in their faith. But their hearts were full of criticism, anger, and hostility that caused them to have to separate from each other because one could not tolerate the physical presence of the other. I asked the husband to lead in prayer at the end of a session and he prayed with some eloquence, as a man accustomed to public praying. He did not, however, mention his wife, with whom he was having obvious problems, in the prayer, so I asked, after he had closed, if he would pray for her. He stammered and struggled through a prayer, obviously trying, not quite successfully, to avoid sounding like an indictment against his wife. She was full of anxiety, with a pattern of chronic defensiveness that sounded like a whining, victimized, but counterattacking shrew.

Their painful patterns reminded me of the very important truth elucidated in the above passage. We religious folks can be living behind a veneer of love for Christ while harboring a heart full of bitterness, resentment, and critical blame toward our own spouse or some other person in our life. One man said, "It's easier to forgive folks you don't live with." [Or have ever lived with, I would add.] That's true I believe. But Jesus has not given us an out on this score. He commanded us to love our enemies, bless those who curse us, do good to those who hate us, and pray for those who despitefully use and persecute us. [Mt. 5:44]. Guess that pretty much covers any evil thing my wife might do to me. Love?! Bless?! Pray for?! Do good to?!

We can get so much negative crap built up in our souls that trying to do that is like trying to eat your own vomit. Unless we allow the Truth that is at the core of it transform that vomit into the most potent and sweetest nectar that ever passed through our lips, into the heart, like a healing potent, warming and opening the heart, and washing away all the plaque-like clusters that had been blocking the flow of one's very life; relaxing constriction into freedom. As one writer penned, it's like setting a prisoner free, then determining that the prisoner was you.

What is this Truth that is at the core of this commandment of Christ? It is that He commands us to be motivated only by His Love. He wants us to be free from the heavy, leaden, grip of an angry, bitter heart. He knows that we are creating unnecessary suffering for ourselves [and others] by languishing in that darkness. He is inviting us into the light. "But men loved darkness more than light" Jesus said. [Jn 3:19]  And they just get lost in it...lost in the darkness. While the Light is shining all around them.

Fear of God

The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom, as recorded in Proverbs. Jesus teaches us that the Love of God is the fulfillment of it. And one deceives himself if he says that he loves God and yet does not practice love for every human being: even one's enemies. [Mat. 5:44]. The most important thing you will do today, and every day, will be to consciously practice love for those whom God places within your sphere of influence. And we must never deceive ourselves by believing that this is an easy or natural process. It takes prayer and sincere openness to the Holy Spirit of Christ within us. No person is easy to love all the time. And some are extremely difficult to love [You may be one of them ! ;>).]  But our Lord offers no excuses for us. He commands us to love, do good, bless and pray for those who hate, curse, despitefully use and persecute us.
If I try to proselytize people while not practicing love for them I will damage the image of Christ and His Kingdom, for it is grounded and motivated only by Love. I must never allow my ministry to outpace my love for people. I must not pretend to love people, which is hypocrisy. I must sincerely love them. None of us does this perfectly; and that is quite all right as long as we admit it. Jesus is the only perfect Lover of our souls; and He has gracefully promised to abide within those who receive Him. His Love within us is pure. Our work is to allow that pure Light to shine through us, unencumbered by our apathy, ego-centric need to impress people or our self-centered judgments and critical spirits emanating from our sinful nature. People will always hurt, betray, disrespect or wrongfully ignore us sooner or later. They're only human. Like Jesus, we must not allow this to deter us in loving them. This does not make us victims; it makes us victors! More than conquerors! Because this loving way of being in the world is what we freely choose in obedience to our Lord; it is not determined by others, especially the worst that is in them! In the likeness of Christ's love for us, we love them in spite of their sinful nature manifestations, which is a symptom of their [our] blindness. Like our Lord we pray, "Father forgive them, for they know not what they do." But unlike Him, we must also pray, "And forgive me, for I have not been knowing much about what I've been doing either."
We only really know what we are doing when we are practicing Christ's Love peacefully and joyfully. Then all is well in the universe. This is where the fear of God leads us--again and again and again.