Good luck? Bad luck? Who knows?

"If I had to choose the one form of prayer that has made the presence of Christ most
real in my life and given me the deepest sense of being supported and surrounded by
the loving providence of God, I would unhesitantly choose this, the last form of prayer
I propose in this book, the Prayer of Praise." I would also choose it for the great peace
and joy it has so often brought me in times of distress.

The prayer consists, quite simply, of praising and thanking God for everything. It is based
on the belief that nothing happens in our lives that is not foreseen and planned by God—
just nothing, not even our sins."

Then after giving the biblical and liturgical support for this De Mello concludes with this story:

"There is a Chinese story of an old farmer who had an old horse for tilling his fields."
One day the horse escaped into the hills and when all the neighbors sympathized with
the old man over his bad luck, the farmer replied, 'Bad luck? Good luck? Who knows?'
A week later the horse returned with a herd of wild horses from the hills and this
time the neighbors congratulated the farmer on his good luck. His reply was, 'Good
luck? Bad luck' Who knows?' Then, when the farmer's son was attempting to tame one
of the wild horses, he fell off its back and broke his leg. Everyone thought this very
bad luck. Not the farmer, whose only reaction was, 'Bad luck? Good luck? Who knows?'
Some weeks later the army marched into the village and conscripted every able-bodied
youth they found there. When they saw the farmer's son with the broken leg they let
him off. Now was that good luck? Bad luck? Who knows?"

Sadhana, A Way to God, by Anthony DeMello

A Calm Mind

As long as there is a lack of the inner discipline that brings calmness of mind, no matter what external facilities or conditions you have, they will never give you the feeling of joy and happiness that you are seeking. On the other hand, if you possess this inner quality of calmness of mind, a degree of stability within, then even if you lack various external facilities that you would normally consider necessary for happiness, it is still possible to live a happy and joyful life.

-His Holiness the Dalai Lama

My Gene Pool (1922 A.D)

Birds of a Feather

Hey, just found this. It's so good I've got to publish. Sorry.

Squawking, strutting, preening, assailing, fouling their own nests, "birds of a feather flock together."

My candidate for the most profound statement has changed. It used to be: "Ve grow too soon old, and too late schmart." But now it is: "Birds of a feather flock together."

We see it everywhere. Sitting in church one day I remarked to Louise how couples sitting in front of us all had their heads tilted alike, the influence of living together for numerous years. In church, in Kiwanis everyone seeks the same seat each week, the same companions, afraid to venture out and experience other members. Blacks congregate together in their own churches, and places of entertainment. The Country Club is the gathering place for those with wealth, interested in upward mobility. Milwaukee has its south side for the Polish, its third ward for the Italians, its suburbs to the north for the wealthy Caucasians. My YMCA Fitness Center is for the young professionals, all talking the same sports, the conversation never varying from this subject.

But what is the effect of this natural and pervasive tendency in human as well as animal society? I saw in the Free Enterprise luncheons sponsored by our local industries how absurd a group of intelligent people could become when without the checking observations necessary to hone to the truth, they came to advocate a system of laissez faire, condemning any government regulation, wiping out years of progress that have brought safe food, humane working conditions, abolition of child labor.

The church birds who flocked together enforced uniformity throughout the dark ages, blocking the advance of knowledge and discovery by scientists like Galileo, Copernicus, and later by Darwin whose findings are still disputed by the birds of fundamentalism. Motivated by the lust for power rather than than the holy spirit of creativity they were no better than those political leaders who maintain control by means of enforced conformity. But for the courage of those birds willing to seek their own course our world would still be flat, created literally in six days by an anthropomorphic God, the center of a universe where the sun and all the stars revolved around the earth. But for the little boy who cried "the emperor has no clothes" we would all be living in a continuing permanent dark age.

Birds of a feather together can be comfortable, secure, stable, but seen broadly with consideration of its effects it is a great sin. We are all called to venture forth, to seek and live with other flocks of birds to avoid the great sin and evils of conformity.

Henry Thoreau locked in the village jail house was visited by his good friend Emerson who called, "Henry, what are you doing in there." To which Henry replied, "Ralph, what are you doing out there?"

Friend

What if one were to envision God as friend, even as a feminist friend, rather than father or mother? What if God is friend to humanity as a whole, and even more intimately, friend to the individual, to me? A friend whose presence is joy, ever-deepening relationship and love, ever available in direct address, in communion and presence? A friend whose person is fundamentally a mystery, inexhaustible, never fully known, always surprising? Yet a friend, familiar, comforting, at home with us: a friend who urges our freedom and autonomy in decision, yet who is present in the community of interdependence and in fact creates it? A friend who widens our perspectives daily and who deepens our passion for freedom--our own and that of others? What if? Jesus' relationship to his disciples was that of friendship, chosen friends; he was rather critical of familial ties. His friendship transformed their lives--both women and men--expanded their horizons; his Spirit pressed them forward. Can we pray to the God of Jesus, through the Spirit, as friends?
--From Ann Carr in Women's Spirituality edited by Joann Wolski Conn

Hunger for a Cosmic Friend

There was a movie playing in the theaters many years ago that began by showing an empty coke bottle dropping aimlessly from a plane into a tribe of primitive people. The movie was a comedy, ridiculing their attempts to discover the meaning of this event, what the gods were telling them by sending this strange object from the heavens where they reside. Primitive people lived lives filled with meaning, peopled with gods who spoke to them in the events of their day, creating myths to explain the deep mysteries that surrounded them.

We don’t live that way any more, most of us. Since the Enlightenment we have become a reasonable people living in a world of facts. Our culture gives lip service to faith in a God who loves us and is with us in all that we do, but it’s not a great source of comfort to the general population or the leaders of our civilized world. If a strange object fell from the skies can we imagine the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal puzzling over what God was trying to tell us?

Changes in the culture happen slowly. I can remember my mother tearfully telling me as a child that God was punishing us for our sins as the lightening flashed and the thunder crashed about us. And still today a goodly number of people believe that the poor deserve to be poor as God’s judgment on them, tracing back to the Old Testament teaching that wealth was a sign of God’s favor.

But most of us don’t live as though this is God’s world, or if it is, he left it long ago, after the big bang. It’s very difficult today for me to believe God cares about my glaucoma, or my friend Bob’s fast growing cancer.

So that’s what this blog is about. See the post after this for the dream of what God’s relationship to us might be, each of us, personally. Strange that we have to do something to attain this relationship. And stranger still that Mother Teresa, as we have learned lately, never did attain the comfort of God’s presence. But what we seek is certainly worth the effort, isn’t it?

Honest Feelings

When we experience God as a meeting with another to whom we are closely linked as to a father or a friend, then the ambivalence of our feelings is inevitable. It is far better to accept that fact honestly and admit it to ourselves than to repress it. There is great wisdom in Mrs. Patrick Campbell's warning not to do it in the street and frighten the horses. But that prudent condition observed, if you want to blaspheme, then for Christ's sake blaspheme. If you want in your prayers to grouse, then for Christ's sake grouse. If you hate God, then for Christ's sake tell him you do and tell him why. He will know that these things are the necessary obverse of your love for him and that he is himself responsible for having made you that way. By having the courage of your aggression you will show greater trust in him and greater love for him than by all that "resigned submissive meek" stuff which leaves you to take the hell out of other people, and not least out of yourself so that in consequence there is far less of you to give away.
From Tensions by H. A. Williams

To Stop Running

I Want to Stop Running

Eternal God, you are a song amid silence,
a voice out of quietness,
a light out of darkness,
a Presence in the emptiness,
a coming out of the void.
You are all of these things and more.
You are mystery that encompasses meaning,
meaning that penetrates mystery.
You are God.
I am man.
I strut and brag.
I put down my fellows
and bluster out assertions of my achievements.
And then something happens:
I wonder who I am, and if I matter.
Night falls,
I am alone in the dark and afraid.
Someone dies,
I feel so powerless.
A child is born,
I am touched by the miracle of new life.
At such moments I pause . . .
to listen to a song amid silence,
a voice out of stillness,
to look for a light out of darkness.
I want to feel a Presence in the emptiness.
I find myself reaching for a hand.

Oftentimes, the feeling passes quickly,
and I am on the run again:
success to achieve,
money to make.
O Lord, you have to catch me on the run
most of the time.
I am too busy to stop,
too important to pause for contemplation.
I hold up too big a section of the sky
to sit down and meditate.
But even on the run,
an occasional flicker of doubt assails me,
And I suspect I may not be as important
to the world
as I think I am.
Jesus said each of us is important to You.
It is as if every hair of our heads were numbered.
How can that be?
But in the hope that it is so,
I would stop running,
stop shouting,
and be myself.

Let me be still now.
Let me be calm.
Let me rest upon the faith that you are, God,
and I need not be afraid. Amen.

----From A Book of Uncommon Prayer by Kenneth
G. Phifer

Conversion to God

Meninger, William A. The Loving Search for God: Contemplative Prayer and
The Cloud of Unknowing. Continuum, New York. 1998.

"But, dear friend, there comes a time when you will be called from knowing
*about* God to actually knowing God - that is, embracing God in love. You
will be told, 'Taste and see that the Lord is sweet,' or 'Peace, be still,
and know that I am God.' It is at these times that your imagination, your
memory, and your intellect must be abandoned, and your will be allowed to
love even if in darkness." P.12