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Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Rapture



“We're so engaged in doing things to achieve purposes of outer value that we forget the inner value, the rapture that is associated with being alive, is what it is all about.”
Joseph Campbell


Rapture is the state of being “carried away” or so deeply absorbed in an activity that we forget the ordinary demands of life. It is a state of expanded awareness, or being transported into a state of deep satisfaction. As lofty as this description seems, the reality is that rapture is to be found in the most ordinary of experience and things as well as in the most beautiful and sublime.
Take some time today to recall and write about a time when you were in a state of extreme happiness. Try to describe the details of the experience in detail, including the environment, who was present, what you were wearing and feeling.
Remembering moments of happiness is an effect method of practicing being alert and receptive to experiencing them again.
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Monday, September 21, 2009

Childhood Dreams Part One July 5, 2009

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Childhood Dreams Part Two

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Childhood Dreams

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Saturday, September 19, 2009

Praying



Two learned monks were sailing to the holy land and came to an island that was deserted except for one old hermit who ran down to the sea shore his rags flapping to welcome his visitors. He took them into his hut and prepared for them his best food and gave them pure spring water to drink.

"Teach me to pray he implored the monks. I live here all alone. You can’t imagine how lost I am with no one to teach me what I need to know."

The monks exchanged a superior look.

But they were happy to teach him the lord’s prayer and various church chants and litanies. The three talked all evening about the best way to pray . They told him that if practiced faithfully praying night and day for a long time, some day after many years the Lord God would favor him with special powers that would indicate his spiritual state.

The next morning after breakfast the monks went on their way. As they sailed off one of them looked back and saw the hermit running after their boat across the surface of the water.

"Wait wait," he called, "I’ve forgotten the words of the prayer."

Source unkown

 
 
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Sunday, September 13, 2009

Our Favorite Things


Clerestory Season Opening Concerts:
Our Favorite Things



The music for this program of "singers' favorites" will be selected by all of the members of Clerestory, and will include each of their all-time favorites from the Renaissance to the present day — many of which are certain to be your favorites, too!

For tickets or to listen to Clerestory or get directions to venues, visit http://www.clerestory.org/

Saturday, September 19, 8:00 p.m.
St. Mark's Episcopal Church, Berkeley

Sunday, September 20, 5:00 p.m.
St. Mark's Lutheran Church, San Francisco

Saturday, October 3, 8:00 p.m.
All Saints' Church, Palo Alto
Buy tickets here. http://www.artsatsaintjohns.com/


Sunday, October 4, 4:00 p.m.
Arts at St. John's, Lodi, California
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Friday, September 11, 2009

STORYTELLING



There is no greater agony than
bearing an untold story inside you.
Maya Angelou


I remember the day I realized that my grandmother was not going to be available to me for much longer, and that I had grown used to talking to her whenever I wanted. I realized that she had been so attentive to her grandchildren that we expected her to listen to every word we said.

And she did. Even as an adult, I would pour out my day’s experiences to her, unedited. One day, I stopped and asked her to tell me about her life. I asked her to start at the beginning, omitting nothing, and share every detail.
What followed was a beautiful story that I almost missed because I had been too busy telling my own story.

Try asking someone in your world about his or her life’s story, and expect a fantastic moment of connection and wonder.
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Tuesday, September 8, 2009

What's Happening At The Center

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Monday, September 7, 2009

Absolute Laws



I am questioning whether or not laws are absolute.

For example, the law of cause and effect, which in Science of Mind is a reduction of a more complicated eastern idea that came to us from Hinduism, through Thomas Troward via Ernest Holmes and others. In various forms of Hinduism that particular law is both relative and absolute (which I prefer as an approach). It has all kinds of mitigating and influencing circumstances and even other laws which can alter and interact with it.

For example, the law of grace, which is both a western and an eastern idea that (to be simplistic) cancels out cause/effect (Ernest Holmes deals with it in the Glossary of Terms at the back of the Text Book). Or, for example the law of intercession, which Ernest Holmes does not mention but both believed in and didn’t’ believe in (Page 222.3 where he asserts that we cannot heal a person of a condition that is the result of a mental attitude they are not willing to relinquish, an idea which is in conflict with his documented practice of treating for the man afflicted with alcoholism, with neither permission nor agreement from the man, and no disclosure that he was doing so -- and yet demonstrating success.)

I’m starting to explore what is absolute. I think the only absolute principle may be Principle. Upper case Principle is not a rule (like a principle is), it is Divinity: a state of integrity, harmony, etc.

But I haven’t finished thinking about it yet and I have to iron my shirt now.


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Friday, September 4, 2009

SonoMa Ashram: Aug/Sep Update


SonoMa Ashram & India Service Project Update
August/September 2009

to view the Aug/Sep 2009 update
http://www.sonomaashram.org/pdf/2009_08_and_09_Update.pdf

Website: http://www.sonomaashram.org/
Email: info@sonomaashram.org
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Thursday, September 3, 2009

Mary Oliver


Dear Edward,

Having missed your sermon on sunday, I just listened to it on CD and it nourished me, particularly the bouyancy of your voice. Here is a sweet Mary Oliver poem that speaks to your theme.

With work as my primary addiction, the anxiety about not doing enough has been Big in my life. Our spiritual community's loving support has penetrated deep into my being, empowering me to discover that the emptiness I so feared is full of Light, Love and Peace. I am finding that I belong with a perfect fit in the world, just as I am, whether in action or in stillness. I am so grateful for the beautiful reflection and companionship of my spiritual family on this ever-flowing journey.


Song of the Builders

On a summer morning
I sat down
on a hillside
to think about God -

a worthy pastime.
Near me, I saw
a single cricket;
it was moving the grains of the hillside

this way and that way.
How great was its energy,
how humble its effort.
Let us hope

it will always be like this,
each of us going on
in our inexplicable ways
building the universe.

~ Mary Oliver ~

(Why I Wake Early)
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Tuesday, September 1, 2009

Reflections of an Ordinary Life


I walk this dusty path, nothing before me but the night.
The sun setting on my left, the moon rising to my right.
The shock of this vast existence takes over my mind.
How can this battle of light and dark be so intertwined?
Such beauty in this sunset, yet proof of the days finality.
While the moon, a reminder of the unknowns totality.
I continue on, my faith in what is true and right shall never waver.
This momentary reflection of my life I will forever savor.

(2008)

Natasha Bolling
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Dissent and Disobedience and Peace and Power


The philosopher John Ralston Saul wrote in “Voltaire's Bastards.”

“Those who profess to favour freedom, yet deprecate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground,” “They want rain without thunder and lightening. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical; but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.”


Do you think peace can come without dissent and disobedience? Do you agree with John Ralson Saul?

I think there is another way to stand in the storm and to embrace the ocean without the necessity of struggle.  I think freedom does not depend on agitation and I am  not convinced that the only way to establish liberty for all is through insisting on combat, inwardly or outwardly.

cited by chris hedges
(for full article go to http://www.opednews.com/flyer/news_20090901_1.html)


 
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