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.