streams of thought.... march 29th, 2015

Thoughts on this Sunday. 

They say that “silence is golden”. 

We are also told “never say never”.

We are told that we are limited by the size of our dreams; therefore, dream huge colorful dreams.

I say that sometimes silence is not golden at all. That there are times when we have to express meaningful and thoughtful words that may challenge the emotive balance of another person or group of individuals.  I think there are times that saying “never” is exactly what needs to be said.  I believe that there are some actions, policies, and thoughts that need to be challenged.  However, yes, I would agree that we are limited by the dreams that we hold or believe inside.

Recently, we have seen events that have rippled through the internet in a matter of seconds.  With these events, we have been openly questioned as to what we believe and who do we protect as a society.  This was not the first time, nor will it be the last, that “man” has been presented with the opportunity to defend and speak out for the well-being of another. In the 1930’s, Germany had a community of evil chose one segment of society at a time.  They chose them not to exalt but to exterminate.  In the 1800’s, America had a community of evil that held societal and political power late into the 60’s and 70’s (some would even say to this day) that declared that race was a determining factor of not just how to live but whether or not you lived. In the other countries, such as India, Afghanistan, and Iran, a person’s sexual identity controls their destiny of safety and progression in life even to this day. 

It is not a matter of whether we openly accept a person for how they naturally live out their lives.  Honestly, it comes down to whether or not we respect and value the freedom to choose to live an authentic life.  Sadly, in the 50’s some people would have defended the denial of a Negro eating at the counter in a Woolworth’s store.  Thankfully, there were some that stood up and said that this denial was not just a denial of one group of people but the denial of all.

Today some have said it is within the legal right of a company or a business owner to not serve a gay or lesbian person.  I have a question.  Which side would you have stood with in Germany during the 30’s?  Would you have said that society should not protect the rights of a gypsy or a minority, or a mentally handicapped person or a gay or a Jew?

Discrimination is discrimination no matter the time or the place or the person. We all have to ask ourselves these questions: what are we afraid of? Are we afraid of the color of a person’s skin?  Are we afraid of the clothes that a person may wear? Are we afraid of not the sexual choice of another person but the fact that they are attracted to the same sexual person? Are we afraid of someone that thinks differently than we do? Are we afraid of someone that worships differently than we do? Are we afraid or just uncomfortable?

Many of those that have spoken out in favor of a recent legal decision, which will lead to discrimination, have used their faith beliefs as an argument against the rights of another person. Some are using their beliefs as a mallet beating down the rights of another person.  In that person’s defense, they say that they have rights too and yes they do; however, do those rights supersede the rights of another person?  To be honest, those that oppose just want conformity. They want a society that adheres to their standards of “choice”… oddly enough it sounds like another modern religious group that we find appalling in actions as well.

Now, before someone says that this in defense of one demographic group, these thoughts presented here are the same for the Arab, the Jew, the mentally handicapped, the rich, the poor, the Protestant, the Catholic, the Muslim, the gay, and the straight.  This belief of defending the rights of others is for the young and the old, male or female, the Hispanic and the Asian, or for anyone who does not feel like they are a part of any societal community.

So, I ask myself this as much as I am asking you… Do my actions promote discrimination? Am I promoting dividedness in my silence? Do my actions defend the rights of others? Am I living life based on my interpretation or is it based on the loving actions of Christ? Just as He welcomed others, am I doing the same?    

 

streams of thought...february 17th, 2014

Who are you? No really… who are you? We ask this about ourselves all the time in every decision we make throughout the day. 

For example, some of us got up this morning and opened up a box of Lucky Charms cereal and poured it into a bowl. Even the bowl tells us who we envision who we are… if we think that we have a big appetite we got the big “Jethro Beau Dean” mixing bowl… if we saw ourselves as needing to cut back on the “magically delicious” crunch of sugar and cereal then we got out a smaller bowl.
Some of us got up and rushed out the door with a couple pieces of toast and shot of coffee… what we have in the coffee tells us even more about who we have accepted about ourselves.

Others might have mindfully got out a banana… some steel rolled oatmeal… juice… and consumed it in a mindful manner after giving thanks and asking for the grace to carry this meal within our body.
Each example tells us more and more about who we think we either are… or want to be… or better yet are on the path to becoming.

We all make simple and complex choices throughout the day that reflect an inner message.
I remember while in the midst of my struggle; I would discover the strength to walk a few blocks. I had no idea what I looked like on the outside but I know what I felt like on the inside. But you know what I remember the most? The smiles of some of those that I walked past.

I have a habit that was created within these past few years where I have developed this practice of looking into the eyes of people when I encounter them. Those glimpses seem to tell me a lot. You can see caution in some. You can find peace in others. There are some that all you can see is pain… or searching… or wonder. Every once in a while, I would make eye contact with someone as I would be walking along and sometimes I would be surprised by … their smile. Now I call them my angels. It was the Divine’s way of telling me that I am noticed and loved. It was His way of telling me that I am going to be ok.

How many of us think that we have made choices well in advance? We, may very well, have made decisions in advanced but scientists have discovered that we are given the option to make “mental choices” every fifteen seconds. It is this repetitive action that leads to a habit or a lifestyle. Our brain actually gets used to the chemical and the electrical impulses from those reactions when we make those choices and that repetitive action leads to a normal state of behavior that is called a “habit”.
We are given a lot of choices to consider and some of those are choices lead us to believe who we are. These choice can happen in the moment of time… a mental blink… every fifteen seconds. Our choice of who believe that we are is going to be reflected in our actions… in our words… in our eyes. If we believe that we are nothing more than someone that gets up and shuffles into the “kitchen” to mentally and emotionally eat “junk food” and believes that is all that we are… we will become “junk food” and that is not magically delicious.

Savor the thought… consume the belief that we are more than our circumstances. We are more than the day to day grind of a job that betrays the true value of who we are. We are more than the medicine or the tubes that we have in or hanging from our body. We are more than the bank account that is either barely over zero or exceeds the millions. We are more than just a whisper of time. We are the creative design of a person who has the ability to overcome all opportunities of life. Our intrinsic value is determined not by what we possess but by the passion that is within our own heart and mind.

Breaking script… Namaste

 

streams of thought....february 12th, 2014

Sometimes I get a little lost in the journey.  Do you ever feel that way?

We get caught up in the movement that we exhaustedly sit down at the end of the day and we simply... with a sigh... wonder what happen.  We made plans. We set the calendars. We made lists. We did every conceivable organizational thing we have been taught or promoted to do but yet we think about all that we did not accomplish. We think back on the day and become aware of a lost fifteen minutes driving.... or ten minutes standing in line... or the phone call or project that took a lot longer than we had planned for. 

So, what do we normally do?  We begin to think that we need to just either be more disciplined or we need to plan better or we need to just be more focused... or perhaps... maybe, we need to give ourselves space. 

In the past four months, I have been working on my balance and flexibility.  It has been a difficult two years and the tension of the inner struggle for health has taken its toll on me. However, I know that what I am doing in the present is beyond my wildest imagination. I look back at photos that were taken prior to my diagnosis of cancer and I am reminded that I was not as healthy as I thought that I was at that time.  My body was betraying my own sense of health.  I was running and preparing to participate for a half marathon but the whole time my body was silently dying inside. The thing that I thought was normal was actually anything but normal. I have very little recollection of the first month after my first surgery but I do remember at times driving around the streets of Denver feeling exhausted and confused.  I, now, realize it was the lack of glucose and other vitally important nutrients. In that first month I had not eaten or drank anything of measurable value.

Four more surgical procedures later, I was walking out St Luke's Hospital for the last time.  Well, more like shuffling out of the hospital for the last time. A year after that last surgery, I am sitting here planning on going on an exploratory / immersion trip to Nicaragua. I will have my personal trainer certification from the NCSF at the end of the month. We will be in the second semester of a graduate school program in Counseling/Psychology at Regis University. We will be Level One certified in the practice of Reiki. We will start the completion of a book that will hopefully encourage and inspire others.

Inwardly, I smile that it took me almost a half a century to realize that the act of balance comes not from juggling a lot of projects or tasks. I am now aware that being stable is not the same as being sedentary. But the journey of health and healing came from within before it was seen from the outside.

I remember my yoga instructor, Julieta Claire, inviting me to come back to the practice of yoga.  I knew that I was going to be very limited due to the devices that I had to carry and was attached to at the time. To me the invitation meant more than the actual participation. Since that time, I have had not been able to practice with Julieta but I have carried on the practice in my home. I am aware that for me the invitation was an external gift of belonging. The internal gift of belonging is found in being mindful of my own longing to "be".  To be authentic. To be faithful to my own practice. To be content not in things but content within my own sense of self. To not be judgmental. To not be critical of self.  

The Buddha says that we should only speak when these four criteria are being met:

§  Is it True

§  Is it Timely

§  Is it helpful

§  Is it kind

Christ said that we are to love others as we love ourselves. But how many times do we forget the second part, "as we love ourselves" The act of metta.

A good friend Rachael Medd said, "To help cultivate a state of balance and stability; among the suffering and noise, [we need to know] what it is to be ‘alive’ and to be able to make sense of this, accept this and use this to not only realize, but explore… who we truly are."

When I read those words, I was reminded of what John O’Donohue wrote. He writes, “The beauty of being human is the capacity and desire for intimacy” It is not an intimacy that is met by the presence of another but by the presence of ourselves. We become so deeply aware of who we are that we reflect it in what we do. It is on the “mat” that we are drawn deeper into gently embrace the spiritual tension that we feel.  We want to embrace the tension not in the sense that we approve of it but that we acknowledge it.  We are present with our own situation that we learn from the emotions that those tensions create. We become mindful that the presence of tension promotes within us the inflexibility of being able to give ourselves the space and the grace to just be whom we truly are.   O’Donohue leads us in seeing that the intimate awareness of who we are is the greater angel that comes along to interact with the emotions that insecurity and doubt may create. And this interaction is not an internal session of struggle but acceptance.  Because with acceptance comes understanding. This understanding leads us to know more deeply and safely where we need to redeem the lesser part of who we struggle to be.   Because without this redemption we lose our balance and stability.

Breaking script… Namaste

streams of thought...january 16th, 2014

There are times that I am not sure where to begin.
I remember this time as a teenager when I was leading a group of other teenagers through the woods near the farmhouse that I grew up in. There is no other way of saying this other than this… we were lost. I was too ashamed to admit it at the time but I had no clue as to where we were or the direction we were going.  You see, I had played in these woods so many times but at night it looked so different. The creek beds were going in directions that I did not recognize. It was so cold and pitch black. The group of laughing teenagers grew into a worried confused group of wandering kids.
As I think about it, rarely do I ever get lost in the daytime. There is something about the daytime that allows us to get our internal compass straight.
This is not easy to say but there are times that inwardly the light gets dim and darkens.  It is like the dusk of emotions settles into the moonless night of darkness. The shadow of the day lengthens until the shadow is all that there seems to be. It takes a moment to adjust our vision as we walk into each room of thoughts. Sometimes the first inclination is to find a light switch… and like a stumbling person in the middle of the night we grasp and grope along the wall to find it. But as we do we realize that our eyes are getting more accustomed to the new darkness. For myself, there are other times when I just sit in the darkness… in my chair… listening to the music that I always have on at a low volume… always and everyday… the music is playing. I will sit in my chair as I settle into this moment of darkness. As I do, I allow my mind to escape the need for its frantic pace that it moves at as I move throughout the day.
We avoid the darkness many times.  Instead of allowing this to be a moment that our inner self gets to rest and slow down, we want something to preoccupy the space. We turn on the TV… we turn on all the lights that we have in every room… we get dressed and go out to have fun and celebration with our friends… we want to do anything we can to avoid the darkness of night.
A seed is planted in the depth and darkness of the soil. It will not feel the warmth and nurturing light of the sun until it grows from the darkness of its bed. A seed of who we are in planted in the depth and darkness of our soul. It is in the hidden places that we find a part of who we are… and who we will become. Maybe that is why we avoid the darkness because we are reluctant to get our inner vision adjusted to see a part of who we are. We are afraid that it will expose the lesser part. Yet, this lesser part is nonetheless a part of who we are.
Why is it that we struggle to only reveal the greater part when all the long to be truly authentic we need to reveal all of who we are… what is there to be afraid of?  Is it a fear of rejection? Is it pride? Is it because it is not a good “marketing” ploy? Are we afraid that the person of our affection or possibly a friend will not accept the lesser along with the greater? So, we have to ask ourselves this one question.
Am I willing to embrace in a healthy way all that I am? Am I so afraid of the thoughts of others that I will embrace their relationship instead of embracing my true self?
Am I willing to understand the lesser so that it can grow as an accent to the greater? Keeping in mind that a bouquet of flowers is made even more beautiful with the lesser garnishment… so it is with the beauty of who we are. It is not the best of us that makes us who we are; it is the authentic unification of the lesser along with the greater that gives us depth and true completion.
This path of ours is many times lonely… dark… cold… and confusing. Move into it with the open willingness to discover the purpose for our struggles. I know that this is not the easiest message to read and it is not the easiest one to write. I need to remind myself that it is in the darkness of the dirt that some of the most beautiful flowers grow out from.
breaking script…. Namaste