High chair tyrants
- Thread starter Childofmine
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Scent of Cedar *
Well-Known Member
Oh, this is beautiful.
Maya Angelou said something similar, once. Asked where or how she achieved the strength of character and purpose she so easily displays, she said something like: Through understanding that God loved her. That God knew and loved her, which meant that she was here on purpose.
She was here on purpose.
With that, with getting that in her bones, she was able then to love God back.
And from her love of God, she takes and gives and takes and gives, fire and strength of conviction and passion.
It was beautiful to hear her.
And this piece is beautiful in that same way, COM.
So...that is where we are all going.
:O)
I would love to be that strong, to make that kind of difference in the world.
Cedar
Interestingly...this is the way difficult child daughter talks about what she did. That her life came to feel meaningless; that she felt she had to revisit the past and clear it.
I think the drug piece was not what she meant.
That, she fell in to and maybe, defeated the purpose and the plan. Or maybe not. I don't know too much about things like this, anymore. At the same time? I feel so differently about people who are nasty and abusive. So I am changing, alright? I just don't know who it is I am changing in to.
I like myself just fine this way.
Cedar
Scent of Cedar *
Well-Known Member
Congratulations, COM. It is fun to read about your changing interpretations of self and other. I know I sound so goofy when I write, but you know what I mean. It feels like you are writing from such a large and open space, now.
That is what I meant.
Like something opened in you and filled up with something you would never have known was love, before.
That is how I feel, too.
I am happy for you and for S.O.
:O)
Cedar
That is what I meant.
Like something opened in you and filled up with something you would never have known was love, before.
That is how I feel, too.
I am happy for you and for S.O.
:O)
Cedar
Childofmine
one day at a time
Part of RR's devotion for today----good stuff about the value of meditation and silence.
Rest: Heart Attention
Evagrius Ponticus, the Syrian deacon (d. 399) who first wrote about eight of the sins that eventually became the Enneagram, saw them as ways in which our heart-presence is “suffocated.” Enneagram teacher G. I. Gurdjieff (1866-1949) saw each type as a way of “self-forgetting,” how we turn away from True Self. My fellow teacher in the Living School, Robert Sardello, offers a simple practice for attending to heart, which helps us remember True Self and return to full presence and authentic life.
“First, we learn to enter the heart. It is best to initiate this learning when calmness rules. Then, with practice—sometimes taking years to develop, sometimes occurring right away—we can find our way into heart-presence even in the midst of greatest turbulence. It is simple. We enter the Silence by simply going to a quiet place and sitting, eyes closed, until we feel the embrace of the Silence. It is an ‘inner region,’ one to which we have to yield in order to experience. The practice of Silence is also ongoing, nothing to be mastered, for She is endless.
“When we have, at least, entered the Silence, we place our attention at the center of the heart. Heart-attention differs, radically, from thinking about the heart. Try this: look at your foot and pay attention to your foot; it appears to be ‘over there’; you are really thinking about your foot. Then, instead, place your attention within your foot. Notice that this is suddenly something like, ‘Hmmm, the whole world now unfolds from this place of my foot.’ Wherever attention is, there you are.
“What is heart interiority? Become a researcher into your own heart. Just observe, notice, sense the qualities. It is as if you are within a vast, spherical space. Within this space, you cannot find a boundary, an ending. The feeling is one of intimate infinity and infinite intimacy, both at once. There is warmth, all warmth. You feel encompassed, held, embraced; you find that you are within heart rather than heart being ‘inside’ you. It is deep, and when there, you do not want to leave. . . .
“When we find, say, that we have fallen into anger, or any of the other transgressions, particularly when we struggle, over and over, with the recurring occurrence, we approach courage by going into Silence and then entering the heart. From within the center of the heart, the place of inviolability, the ‘not I but Christ in me’ (Galatians 2:20) feels the heart’s ardor, that is the strong, strong, strong love of the heart. When that warmth is felt, we can let it resonate through the body until perfect calm comes. We feel the inherent, always present, blessing return. It never went away; we went away from it.”
Adapted from “Transgression and the Return of the Mystical Heart”
by Robert Sardello, in Oneing, “Transgression”, Vol. 2 No. 1, pp. 80-81
Gateway to Silence:
I want to see all—my sin and my gift.
Rest: Heart Attention
Evagrius Ponticus, the Syrian deacon (d. 399) who first wrote about eight of the sins that eventually became the Enneagram, saw them as ways in which our heart-presence is “suffocated.” Enneagram teacher G. I. Gurdjieff (1866-1949) saw each type as a way of “self-forgetting,” how we turn away from True Self. My fellow teacher in the Living School, Robert Sardello, offers a simple practice for attending to heart, which helps us remember True Self and return to full presence and authentic life.
“First, we learn to enter the heart. It is best to initiate this learning when calmness rules. Then, with practice—sometimes taking years to develop, sometimes occurring right away—we can find our way into heart-presence even in the midst of greatest turbulence. It is simple. We enter the Silence by simply going to a quiet place and sitting, eyes closed, until we feel the embrace of the Silence. It is an ‘inner region,’ one to which we have to yield in order to experience. The practice of Silence is also ongoing, nothing to be mastered, for She is endless.
“When we have, at least, entered the Silence, we place our attention at the center of the heart. Heart-attention differs, radically, from thinking about the heart. Try this: look at your foot and pay attention to your foot; it appears to be ‘over there’; you are really thinking about your foot. Then, instead, place your attention within your foot. Notice that this is suddenly something like, ‘Hmmm, the whole world now unfolds from this place of my foot.’ Wherever attention is, there you are.
“What is heart interiority? Become a researcher into your own heart. Just observe, notice, sense the qualities. It is as if you are within a vast, spherical space. Within this space, you cannot find a boundary, an ending. The feeling is one of intimate infinity and infinite intimacy, both at once. There is warmth, all warmth. You feel encompassed, held, embraced; you find that you are within heart rather than heart being ‘inside’ you. It is deep, and when there, you do not want to leave. . . .
“When we find, say, that we have fallen into anger, or any of the other transgressions, particularly when we struggle, over and over, with the recurring occurrence, we approach courage by going into Silence and then entering the heart. From within the center of the heart, the place of inviolability, the ‘not I but Christ in me’ (Galatians 2:20) feels the heart’s ardor, that is the strong, strong, strong love of the heart. When that warmth is felt, we can let it resonate through the body until perfect calm comes. We feel the inherent, always present, blessing return. It never went away; we went away from it.”
Adapted from “Transgression and the Return of the Mystical Heart”
by Robert Sardello, in Oneing, “Transgression”, Vol. 2 No. 1, pp. 80-81
Gateway to Silence:
I want to see all—my sin and my gift.
Childofmine
one day at a time
Wow. This is powerful.
A Riverbed of Mercy
Thursday, June 12, 2014
There is something in you that is not touched by coming and going, by up and down, by for or against, by the raucous team of totally right or totally wrong. There is a part of you that is patient with both goodness and evil, exactly as God is. There is a part of you that does not rush to judgment or demand closure now. Rather, it stands vigilant and patient in the tragic gap that almost every moment offers.
God is a riverbed of mercy. It is vast, silent, restful, and resourceful, and it receives and also lets go of all the comings and goings. It is awareness itself (as opposed to judgment itself), and awareness is not, as such, “thinking.” It refuses to be pulled into the emotional and mental tugs of war that most of life is. To look out from this untouchable silence is what we mean by contemplation.
In her book The Interior Castle, St. Teresa of Avila says, “The soul is spacious, plentiful, and its amplitude is impossible to exaggerate . . . the sun here radiates to every part . . . and nothing can diminish its beauty” (I, 2). This is your soul. It is God-in-you. This is your True Self.
Gateway to Silence:
Love is the presence of God within me.
A Riverbed of Mercy
Thursday, June 12, 2014
There is something in you that is not touched by coming and going, by up and down, by for or against, by the raucous team of totally right or totally wrong. There is a part of you that is patient with both goodness and evil, exactly as God is. There is a part of you that does not rush to judgment or demand closure now. Rather, it stands vigilant and patient in the tragic gap that almost every moment offers.
God is a riverbed of mercy. It is vast, silent, restful, and resourceful, and it receives and also lets go of all the comings and goings. It is awareness itself (as opposed to judgment itself), and awareness is not, as such, “thinking.” It refuses to be pulled into the emotional and mental tugs of war that most of life is. To look out from this untouchable silence is what we mean by contemplation.
In her book The Interior Castle, St. Teresa of Avila says, “The soul is spacious, plentiful, and its amplitude is impossible to exaggerate . . . the sun here radiates to every part . . . and nothing can diminish its beauty” (I, 2). This is your soul. It is God-in-you. This is your True Self.
Gateway to Silence:
Love is the presence of God within me.
Scent of Cedar *
Well-Known Member
So, that the heart presence is suffocated...that is the nature of sin.
Incredible.
I had always believed that religious belief involved accepting that we were all somehow sinners from before we were born, that we were all to spend our lives trying to store up enough good things to get to Heaven because Hell is not anywhere we want to wind up.
It never made sense to me, even as a child.
R.R.'s interpretation makes such beautiful sense.
Those things which keep us out of love, out of that loving place, are sins because they end, and we are alone. Alone is such a hard place. We take comfort from that outside thing, whatever it was. But every time we take it, it does just a little less for us. Whether we are talking drugs or gluttony or...or any of the "sins". We become trapped in a device of our own creation. The thing we need is right here and always was. We are learning how to find that place.
Extraordinary.
The necessary paths to a Heaven which, today, looks very different than it did before this morning's reading.
Another form of falling and dying...that would be another set of words for describing letting go of control.
And when that happens, fear is over.
?
I don't understand this one. But I do know shamans, magicians, people who claim out of body experiences are possible ~ all are saying something about the permeability of the line between life and death.
I met someone like that, once. She felt humble. She was kind and clear eyed and she felt sincere, aware, and humble.
Beautiful things to read this morning, COM.
Cedar
Childofmine
one day at a time
Another resource, if you like Rohr and want to hear more from him, is a mp3 download I bought today from his Website. It's $10 and titled Emotional Sobriety, Rewiring our Programs for Happiness.
He is talking about types of people, and why we think the way we do, and why we try to fix other people and how to unhook from that behavior (so far). He has a very friendly casual tone, laughs at himself, and recognizes all world religions, does talk about God and how our true source of happiness is in him.
FYI.
He is talking about types of people, and why we think the way we do, and why we try to fix other people and how to unhook from that behavior (so far). He has a very friendly casual tone, laughs at himself, and recognizes all world religions, does talk about God and how our true source of happiness is in him.
FYI.
Scent of Cedar *
Well-Known Member
Thank you.
:O)
Cedar
:O)
Cedar
Childofmine
one day at a time
Beautiful writing today. Rohr lays out a tool for us, if we will use it: meditation. I believe these tools and these steps can move us from mere survival from the pain we are living with, to a fuller and richer and happier and peaceful life. If we will only do the work.
Bill W, founder of AA back in the 1940s, put these amazing 12 steps together. Don't let the "God" part be a barrier---anything---Nature, the Cosmos, the Universe, A Force for Good, another person, the group, a doorknob can be your Higher Power. Anything that is not you.
Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation
Spirituality and the Twelve Steps
(Part Two)
Prayer and Power
Thursday, June 26, 2014
We sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God, as we understood [God], praying only for knowledge of [God’s] will for us and the power to carry that out.
— Step Eleven of the Twelve Steps
I have heard that Step Eleven is the least followed of the Twelve Steps. This is probably why the Twelve Step Program often became a program for mere sobriety from a substance, and never moved many toward the “vital spiritual experience” that Bill W. deemed absolutely foundational for full recovery. If we can speak of the traditional Christian stages of the spiritual journey as (1) purgation, (2) illumination, and (3) union, too many addicts never seem to get to the second stage—any real spiritual illumination of the self—and even fewer get to the rich life of experienced union with God. In that, I am sad to say, they mirror many mainline Christians.
It is the prayer of quiet and self-surrender (“contemplation”) that will best allow us to follow Step Eleven, which Bill W. must have recognized by using the word meditation at a time when that word was not common in Christian circles. And he was right, because only contemplative prayer or meditation invades, touches, and heals the unconscious! This is where all the garbage lies—but also where God hides and reveals “in that secret place” (Matthew 6:6). “Do you not know,” Jesus says, “the kingdom of God is within you!” (Luke 17:21). Contemplation opens us to the absolute union and love between God and the soul.
Prayer is not about changing God (to do what we want), but being willing to let God change us, or as Step Eleven states, “praying only for knowledge of [God’s] will for us and for the power to carry it out” (actual inner empowerment and new motivation from a deeper Source). People’s willingness to find God in their own struggle with life—and let it change them—is their deepest and truest obedience to God’s eternal will.
Remember, always remember, that the heartfelt desire to do the will of God is, in fact, the truest will of God. At that point, God has won, the ego has lost, and your prayer has already been answered.
Bill W, founder of AA back in the 1940s, put these amazing 12 steps together. Don't let the "God" part be a barrier---anything---Nature, the Cosmos, the Universe, A Force for Good, another person, the group, a doorknob can be your Higher Power. Anything that is not you.
Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation
Spirituality and the Twelve Steps
(Part Two)
Prayer and Power
Thursday, June 26, 2014
We sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God, as we understood [God], praying only for knowledge of [God’s] will for us and the power to carry that out.
— Step Eleven of the Twelve Steps
I have heard that Step Eleven is the least followed of the Twelve Steps. This is probably why the Twelve Step Program often became a program for mere sobriety from a substance, and never moved many toward the “vital spiritual experience” that Bill W. deemed absolutely foundational for full recovery. If we can speak of the traditional Christian stages of the spiritual journey as (1) purgation, (2) illumination, and (3) union, too many addicts never seem to get to the second stage—any real spiritual illumination of the self—and even fewer get to the rich life of experienced union with God. In that, I am sad to say, they mirror many mainline Christians.
It is the prayer of quiet and self-surrender (“contemplation”) that will best allow us to follow Step Eleven, which Bill W. must have recognized by using the word meditation at a time when that word was not common in Christian circles. And he was right, because only contemplative prayer or meditation invades, touches, and heals the unconscious! This is where all the garbage lies—but also where God hides and reveals “in that secret place” (Matthew 6:6). “Do you not know,” Jesus says, “the kingdom of God is within you!” (Luke 17:21). Contemplation opens us to the absolute union and love between God and the soul.
Prayer is not about changing God (to do what we want), but being willing to let God change us, or as Step Eleven states, “praying only for knowledge of [God’s] will for us and for the power to carry it out” (actual inner empowerment and new motivation from a deeper Source). People’s willingness to find God in their own struggle with life—and let it change them—is their deepest and truest obedience to God’s eternal will.
Remember, always remember, that the heartfelt desire to do the will of God is, in fact, the truest will of God. At that point, God has won, the ego has lost, and your prayer has already been answered.
Childofmine
one day at a time
Richard Rohr's Daily Meditation
Wow, this is great stuff---food for the journey. This is how i want to be, and there are some on this site who show me the pathway to this every day. Thanks to those. What a journey. It's wonderful to hear this type of aspiration, to look up and out to the horizon, knowing there is somewhere I am trying to get to.
*********
Compassion
The First Gaze
Monday, June 30, 2014
I am just like you. My immediate response to most situations is with reactions of attachment, defensiveness, judgment, control, and analysis. I am better at calculating than contemplating.
Let’s admit that we all start there. The False Self seems to have the “first gaze” at almost everything.
The first gaze is seldom compassionate. It is too busy weighing and feeling itself: “How will this affect me?” or “How can I get back in control of this situation?” This leads us to an implosion, a self-preoccupation that cannot enter into communion with the other or the moment. In other words, we first feel our feelings before we can relate to the situation and emotion of the other. Only after God has taught us how to live “undefended,” can we immediately stand with and for the other, and in the present moment. It takes lots of practice.
On my better days, when I am “open, undefended, and immediately present,” as Gerald May says, I can sometimes begin with a contemplative mind and heart. Often I can get there later and even end there, but it is usually a second gaze. The True Self seems to always be ridden and blinded by the defensive needs of the False Self. It is an hour-by-hour battle, at least for me. I can see why all spiritual traditions insist on daily prayer, in fact, morning, midday, evening, and before we go to bed, too! Otherwise, I can assume that I am back in the cruise control of small and personal self-interest, the pitiable and fragile “Richard self.”
Adapted from “Contemplation and Compassion: The Second Gaze”
(article by Fr. Richard available free on CAC website)
Gateway to Silence:
May I see with eyes of compassion.
Wow, this is great stuff---food for the journey. This is how i want to be, and there are some on this site who show me the pathway to this every day. Thanks to those. What a journey. It's wonderful to hear this type of aspiration, to look up and out to the horizon, knowing there is somewhere I am trying to get to.
*********
Compassion
The First Gaze
Monday, June 30, 2014
I am just like you. My immediate response to most situations is with reactions of attachment, defensiveness, judgment, control, and analysis. I am better at calculating than contemplating.
Let’s admit that we all start there. The False Self seems to have the “first gaze” at almost everything.
The first gaze is seldom compassionate. It is too busy weighing and feeling itself: “How will this affect me?” or “How can I get back in control of this situation?” This leads us to an implosion, a self-preoccupation that cannot enter into communion with the other or the moment. In other words, we first feel our feelings before we can relate to the situation and emotion of the other. Only after God has taught us how to live “undefended,” can we immediately stand with and for the other, and in the present moment. It takes lots of practice.
On my better days, when I am “open, undefended, and immediately present,” as Gerald May says, I can sometimes begin with a contemplative mind and heart. Often I can get there later and even end there, but it is usually a second gaze. The True Self seems to always be ridden and blinded by the defensive needs of the False Self. It is an hour-by-hour battle, at least for me. I can see why all spiritual traditions insist on daily prayer, in fact, morning, midday, evening, and before we go to bed, too! Otherwise, I can assume that I am back in the cruise control of small and personal self-interest, the pitiable and fragile “Richard self.”
Adapted from “Contemplation and Compassion: The Second Gaze”
(article by Fr. Richard available free on CAC website)
Gateway to Silence:
May I see with eyes of compassion.
Scent of Cedar *
Well-Known Member
In our situations...there was a time when compassion meant to take responsibility, to "fix" the out of balance situation. I spent myself understanding the other person's perspective. I felt it was right to back away from my anger at what seemed unfair.
Our situations with our kids are intense.
The battle for me gets to be that letting go, that doing nothing, that not helping when the consequences of the choices one of my kids have made are so hard...I wonder sometimes whether I am justifying taking the easy way out.
A decision not to help; a decision to trust that there is a pattern and a meaning I cannot see....
Intellectually, I have decided to hand responsibility for where my adult children are in their lives to them. Intellectually, I understand that at this point in their lives, taking responsibility for themselves is the vitally important thing that needs to happen, next.
"...the defensive needs of the False Self...."
There are some things happening this morning that I will post about in another thread.
This posting was helpful to me this morning, COM.
Thank you.
Cedar
Scent of Cedar *
Well-Known Member
Maybe I don't need to post, after all.
Taking responsibility, figuring things out for themselves is the vitally important thing that needs to happen, next.
Cedar
Scent of Cedar *
Well-Known Member
This is true. I felt "less than" because I could not come up with a solution that did not involve "come home".
It is that feeling of "less than", that feeling that I am failing as a mother (again) that has me wavering, questioning the conclusions I have come to regarding how to live...pridefully is the word that comes to mind. How to live pridefully when there is so much that is wrong.
Wow.
"Pridefully" is ego based. So Richard R. is correct in his take on where those "first gaze" feelings are coming from.
At first, it made be feel twisted and ugly to realize this about myself. But Richard R. wrote that this is true of himself, too.
So I am only a human, like everybody, no worse.
"Only after God has taught us how to live undefended...."
Cedar
Childofmine
one day at a time
Ah....this is a really good one. On Letting Go. (underlines are mine below). I believe this the whole point of the suffering humankind endures. To teach us to let go and turn to our Higher Power for sustenance and strength.
Today in Al-Anon someone shared about the fact that through Al-Anon she is learning to "want what she has" instead of trying to "figure out what she wants."
I like this a lot.
Also someone else said today: Nothing is impossible if you're not the one doing it.
I have been thinking on that today, and it gives me greater insight into other people, and how we all struggle, and how judging other people is not something I want to do, even though I do it. I want to have more compassion and I want to be free of judging.
It was a great Al-Anon meeting this morning. Even the silences were full of meaning and richness. What a gift.
***************************************************
Letting Go
The Spirituality of Subtraction
Sunday, July 20, 2014
Meister Eckhart said, “The spiritual life has much more to do with subtraction than it does with addition.” All great spirituality is about letting go. But we have grown up with a capitalist worldview, and it has blinded our spiritual seeing. We tend to think at almost every level that more is better, even though, as E. F. Schumacher said years ago, “less is more.”
There is an alternative worldview. There is a worldview in which all of us can succeed. It isn’t a win/lose capitalist worldview where only a few win and most lose. It’s a win/win worldview—if we’re willing to let go and if we’re willing to recognize that this, right here, right now, is enough. This is all I need. But that can only be true if we move to the level of being and away from the levels of doing and acquiring.
True religion is always pointing us toward being. At that level we experience enoughness, abundance, more than enoughness. If we’ve never been introduced to that world, we will of course try to satisfy ourselves with possessions, accomplishments, important initials after our names, fancy cars, beautiful homes—none of which are bad in themselves. They’re only unable to satisfy; and that’s exactly why we need more and more of them. As the Twelve-Steppers say, “We need more and more of what does not work.” If it worked, we would not need more of it!
Adapted from The Art of Letting Go: Living the Wisdom of Saint Francis,
disc 1 (CD)
Gateway to Silence:
Let go and let God.
“To pray and actually mean ‘thy Kingdom come,’ we must also be able to say ‘my kingdoms go.’ Francis and Clare’s first citizenship was always and in every case elsewhere, which ironically allowed them to live in the world with joy, detachment, and freedom.” — Richard Rohr
Today in Al-Anon someone shared about the fact that through Al-Anon she is learning to "want what she has" instead of trying to "figure out what she wants."
I like this a lot.
Also someone else said today: Nothing is impossible if you're not the one doing it.
I have been thinking on that today, and it gives me greater insight into other people, and how we all struggle, and how judging other people is not something I want to do, even though I do it. I want to have more compassion and I want to be free of judging.
It was a great Al-Anon meeting this morning. Even the silences were full of meaning and richness. What a gift.
***************************************************
Letting Go
The Spirituality of Subtraction
Sunday, July 20, 2014
Meister Eckhart said, “The spiritual life has much more to do with subtraction than it does with addition.” All great spirituality is about letting go. But we have grown up with a capitalist worldview, and it has blinded our spiritual seeing. We tend to think at almost every level that more is better, even though, as E. F. Schumacher said years ago, “less is more.”
There is an alternative worldview. There is a worldview in which all of us can succeed. It isn’t a win/lose capitalist worldview where only a few win and most lose. It’s a win/win worldview—if we’re willing to let go and if we’re willing to recognize that this, right here, right now, is enough. This is all I need. But that can only be true if we move to the level of being and away from the levels of doing and acquiring.
True religion is always pointing us toward being. At that level we experience enoughness, abundance, more than enoughness. If we’ve never been introduced to that world, we will of course try to satisfy ourselves with possessions, accomplishments, important initials after our names, fancy cars, beautiful homes—none of which are bad in themselves. They’re only unable to satisfy; and that’s exactly why we need more and more of them. As the Twelve-Steppers say, “We need more and more of what does not work.” If it worked, we would not need more of it!
Adapted from The Art of Letting Go: Living the Wisdom of Saint Francis,
disc 1 (CD)
Gateway to Silence:
Let go and let God.
“To pray and actually mean ‘thy Kingdom come,’ we must also be able to say ‘my kingdoms go.’ Francis and Clare’s first citizenship was always and in every case elsewhere, which ironically allowed them to live in the world with joy, detachment, and freedom.” — Richard Rohr
Scent of Cedar *
Well-Known Member
For reasons I cannot understand, that is the lesson we are all here ~ especially, here on the site ~ trying so hard to accept.
We have no choice but to learn...something to do with the heart, something to do with seeing and defining and joy, the joy that there is in each moment.
I suppose that once we have lost enough, we will be right here, right here in the grubbiness of whatever the moment holds, joyfully.
Here is a story: Benedictine nuns. One of them is a photographer. In the place where this monastery is, the winters are long and impossibly hard and dark.
This is the picture:
A frozen branch; snow, heavy snow, in the background.
This is the caption:
"Ice and snow, praise the Lord!"
It was about acceptance, and joy in what is.
I never forgot seeing that.
Cedar
We have no choice but to learn...something to do with the heart, something to do with seeing and defining and joy, the joy that there is in each moment.
I suppose that once we have lost enough, we will be right here, right here in the grubbiness of whatever the moment holds, joyfully.
Here is a story: Benedictine nuns. One of them is a photographer. In the place where this monastery is, the winters are long and impossibly hard and dark.
This is the picture:
A frozen branch; snow, heavy snow, in the background.
This is the caption:
"Ice and snow, praise the Lord!"
It was about acceptance, and joy in what is.
I never forgot seeing that.
Cedar
Childofmine
one day at a time
Today's continuation of RR on Letting Go. Really good stuff and relevant to us here. If we don't learn to let go, or at least to let go sometimes, we remain stuck. We keep doing the same things over and over again that do not work. In all areas of our lives. Really letting go, even if it's for a short time, is the most wonderful feeling in the world. It makes you want to let go again.
*****
Letting Go
Letting Go of Our Demons
Monday, July 21, 2014
The spiritual journey is a journey into Mystery, requiring us to enter the “cloud of unknowing” where the left brain always fears to tread. Precisely because we’re being led into Mystery, we have to let go of our need to know and our need to keep everything under control. Most of us are shocked to discover how great this need is.
There are three primary things that we have to let go of, in my opinion. First is the compulsion to be successful. Second is the compulsion to be right—even, and especially, to be theologically right. (That’s merely an ego trip, and because of this need, churches have split in half, with both parties prisoners of their own egos.) Finally there is the compulsion to be powerful, to have everything under control.
I’m convinced these are the three demons Jesus faced in the wilderness (Matthew 4:1-11). Until we each look these three demons in their eyes, we should presume that they are still in charge in every life. The demons have to be called by name, clearly, concretely, and practically, spelling out just how imperious, controlling, and self-righteous we all are. This is the first lesson in the spirituality of subtraction.
Adapted from Simplicity: The Freedom of Letting Go, pp. 42-43
Gateway to Silence:
Let go and let God.
*****
Letting Go
Letting Go of Our Demons
Monday, July 21, 2014
The spiritual journey is a journey into Mystery, requiring us to enter the “cloud of unknowing” where the left brain always fears to tread. Precisely because we’re being led into Mystery, we have to let go of our need to know and our need to keep everything under control. Most of us are shocked to discover how great this need is.
There are three primary things that we have to let go of, in my opinion. First is the compulsion to be successful. Second is the compulsion to be right—even, and especially, to be theologically right. (That’s merely an ego trip, and because of this need, churches have split in half, with both parties prisoners of their own egos.) Finally there is the compulsion to be powerful, to have everything under control.
I’m convinced these are the three demons Jesus faced in the wilderness (Matthew 4:1-11). Until we each look these three demons in their eyes, we should presume that they are still in charge in every life. The demons have to be called by name, clearly, concretely, and practically, spelling out just how imperious, controlling, and self-righteous we all are. This is the first lesson in the spirituality of subtraction.
Adapted from Simplicity: The Freedom of Letting Go, pp. 42-43
Gateway to Silence:
Let go and let God.
Scent of Cedar *
Well-Known Member
Seen in this light, the person able to let it be, to let it go, to have peace in the face of the ego's emotional blandishments and blackmail...you would have to be so securely in possession of yourself to do that.
I can see it after it's over.
That is a beginning, and I am grateful for it...but man, it would take overwhelming strength of character to believe you are who you are no matter what; to believe you are someone worthwhile though you fail; to believe enough in yourself that you can walk that so thin line between being right and refusing to be wrong, that you could somehow surmount that almost reflexive need to judge and find yourself trapped in that old awe/patronization thing.
I like how clearly his presentations help me to see.
Thank you, COM.
Cedar
Cedar at the library, that is. I cannot log on from my house. I was so angry at our carrier this morning that it totally blew the morning.
And then...I saw this.
Wish I could see these things before I get all twisted. I went roaring through every one of those phases this morning, plus about thirteen R Rohr does not mention.
Ahem.
:O)
Thanks COM and Cedar.
A few things came to my mind as I was reading along.
Brene Brown's quote that the opposite of scarcity is not abundance, it is enough.
Buddha's quote, the cause of our suffering is our attachments.
Kris Kristofferson's song, sung by Janis Joplin, "Freedom is another word for nothing left to lose."
John Lilly said something like, you are most alive when you are at your highest level of uncertainty. Control kills life.
We are given this information in many forms throughout our lives, but for most of the time, we aren't in a place to hear it or really listen. When we are torn apart, as we are here, with our whole belief system in ruins, that's when we can listen................ and it all makes sense.
A few things came to my mind as I was reading along.
Brene Brown's quote that the opposite of scarcity is not abundance, it is enough.
Buddha's quote, the cause of our suffering is our attachments.
Kris Kristofferson's song, sung by Janis Joplin, "Freedom is another word for nothing left to lose."
John Lilly said something like, you are most alive when you are at your highest level of uncertainty. Control kills life.
We are given this information in many forms throughout our lives, but for most of the time, we aren't in a place to hear it or really listen. When we are torn apart, as we are here, with our whole belief system in ruins, that's when we can listen................ and it all makes sense.
Childofmine
one day at a time
More on this topic...this is truly great stuff and gets us "off" focusing obsessively on other people and what they do or don't do, and gets us to the true problem: ourselves. We are our own greatest obstacle. We are the only thing standing in the way of change. Focusing on someone else, waiting and managing and controlling and fixing and praying and hoping and crying and screaming and begging, will never bring us peace, regardless of whether or not all of that activity is followed by change or the same behaviors.
Once we really and truly start to see that, that is a good day. I know that most of us mothers, here on this site, have an almost impossible time detangling ourselves from our now-adult children. That's because for so many years, it was our job to bring them up, to raise them, to guide and nurture them. But now---we have to do something different. Now they are adults, and even with PCs, we have to stop. We have to let them go. We have to let them do whatever it is they are going to do. It's not our job anymore. Our job is done. But how do we do this? This is how we do it:
And I think, for me, that what I'm guilty of, the "doing it wrong" that Rohr writes about below, is that I kept on way too long. I didn't know better so I kept doing the same thing over and over again. But now I know better.
There is tremendous freedom here, to be claimed, for all of us. A blessed freedom that is filled with all of the great riches of life: peace, joy, serenity, contentment, purpose, completion...so many desired states of being.
**********************
Letting Go
Forgiving Ourselves
Friday, July 25, 2014
Perhaps the most difficult forgiveness, the greatest letting go, is to forgive ourselves for doing it wrong. We need to realize that we are not perfect, and we are not innocent. “One learns one’s mystery at the price of one’s innocence” says Robertson Davies. If I want to maintain an image of myself as innocent, superior, or righteous, I can only do so at the cost of truth. I would have to reject the mysterious side, the shadow side, the broken side, the unconscious side of almost everything. We have for too long confused holiness with innocence, whereas holiness is actually mistakes overcome and transformed, not necessary mistakes avoided.
Letting go is different than denying or repressing. To let go of it, you have to admit it. You have to own it. Letting go is different than turning it against yourself. Letting go is different than projecting it onto others. Letting go means that the denied, repressed, rejected parts of myself are seen for what they are. You see it and you hand it over to God. You hand it over to history. You refuse to let the negative story line that you’ve wrapped yourself around define your life.
This is a very different way of living. It implies that you see your mistake, your dark side, and you don’t split from it. You don’t pretend it’s not true. You go to the place that has been called “the gift of tears.” Weeping is a word to describe that inner attitude where I can’t fix it, I can’t explain it, I can’t control it, I can’t even understand it. I can only forgive it—weep over it and let go of it. Grieving reality is different than hating it.
Letting go of our cherished images of ourselves is really the way to heaven, because when you fall down to the bottom, you fall on solid ground, the Great Foundation, the bedrock of God. It looks like an abyss, but it’s actually a foundation. On that foundation, you have nothing to prove, nothing to protect: “I am who I am who I am,” and for some unbelievable reason, that’s what God has chosen to love. At that point, the one you’re in love with is both God and yourself too, and you find yourself henceforth inside of God (John 14:20)!
Adapted from The Art of Letting Go: Living the Wisdom of Saint Francis,
disc 6 (CD)
Gateway to Silence:
Let go and let God.
Once we really and truly start to see that, that is a good day. I know that most of us mothers, here on this site, have an almost impossible time detangling ourselves from our now-adult children. That's because for so many years, it was our job to bring them up, to raise them, to guide and nurture them. But now---we have to do something different. Now they are adults, and even with PCs, we have to stop. We have to let them go. We have to let them do whatever it is they are going to do. It's not our job anymore. Our job is done. But how do we do this? This is how we do it:
And I think, for me, that what I'm guilty of, the "doing it wrong" that Rohr writes about below, is that I kept on way too long. I didn't know better so I kept doing the same thing over and over again. But now I know better.
There is tremendous freedom here, to be claimed, for all of us. A blessed freedom that is filled with all of the great riches of life: peace, joy, serenity, contentment, purpose, completion...so many desired states of being.
**********************
Letting Go
Forgiving Ourselves
Friday, July 25, 2014
Perhaps the most difficult forgiveness, the greatest letting go, is to forgive ourselves for doing it wrong. We need to realize that we are not perfect, and we are not innocent. “One learns one’s mystery at the price of one’s innocence” says Robertson Davies. If I want to maintain an image of myself as innocent, superior, or righteous, I can only do so at the cost of truth. I would have to reject the mysterious side, the shadow side, the broken side, the unconscious side of almost everything. We have for too long confused holiness with innocence, whereas holiness is actually mistakes overcome and transformed, not necessary mistakes avoided.
Letting go is different than denying or repressing. To let go of it, you have to admit it. You have to own it. Letting go is different than turning it against yourself. Letting go is different than projecting it onto others. Letting go means that the denied, repressed, rejected parts of myself are seen for what they are. You see it and you hand it over to God. You hand it over to history. You refuse to let the negative story line that you’ve wrapped yourself around define your life.
This is a very different way of living. It implies that you see your mistake, your dark side, and you don’t split from it. You don’t pretend it’s not true. You go to the place that has been called “the gift of tears.” Weeping is a word to describe that inner attitude where I can’t fix it, I can’t explain it, I can’t control it, I can’t even understand it. I can only forgive it—weep over it and let go of it. Grieving reality is different than hating it.
Letting go of our cherished images of ourselves is really the way to heaven, because when you fall down to the bottom, you fall on solid ground, the Great Foundation, the bedrock of God. It looks like an abyss, but it’s actually a foundation. On that foundation, you have nothing to prove, nothing to protect: “I am who I am who I am,” and for some unbelievable reason, that’s what God has chosen to love. At that point, the one you’re in love with is both God and yourself too, and you find yourself henceforth inside of God (John 14:20)!
Adapted from The Art of Letting Go: Living the Wisdom of Saint Francis,
disc 6 (CD)
Gateway to Silence:
Let go and let God.
Childofmine
one day at a time
Man I love this guy. RR keeps on bringing relevant stuff to me, and showing me how my Higher Power is working.
Faith and belief is so relevant to this journey. In something or somebody that is greater than ourselves.
We have already learned the very hard way that we can't do this by ourselves. I know in AA they tell the newbies, okay so you don't believe in God. Believe in this group, believe in your Sponsor, believe in that doorknob, but believe in something besides yourself and open your mind and heart up, because your best thinking got you right here, today.
We have to knock the barriers down that we create.
Because if we can somehow reconcile what is happening with some greater truths and a Higher Power, we can really start to lean into this journey, regardless of the path it takes us on.
We can start to detach with love and accept, and look reality square in the face, and live with it, and still be happy. Steps. We have to keep taking steps, in whatever language and understanding WE have.
Great stuff below about living with paradoxes: he's good and he's not good, he does bad things and he does good things, I am strong and I am weak, I do things right and I do things wrong, and accepting that these states are not mutually exclusive and there is no black and white, once and for all, up or down, there is only the messy chaotic back and forth of being human. All of us, PCs, difficult children, SOs, DHs, every one of us is really the same.
*************************************
Paradox
The House that Wisdom Builds
Sunday, July 27, 2014
“Paradox” comes from two Greek words: para + doksos, meaning beyond the teaching or beyond the opinion. A paradox emerges when you’ve started to reconcile seeming contradictions, consciously or unconsciously. Paradox is the ability to live with contradictions without making them mutually exclusive, realizing they can often be both/and instead of either/or. G. K. Chesterton said that “a paradox is often a truth standing on its head to get our attention”!
“Dialectic” is the process of overcoming seeming opposites by uncovering a reconciling third. The third way is not simply a third opinion. It’s a third space, a holding tank, where you hold the truth in both positions without dismissing either one of them. It often becomes the “house that wisdom builds” (Proverbs 9:1-6). It’s really the fruit of a contemplative mind.
Contemplation gives us an inner capacity to live with paradoxes and contradictions. It is a quantum leap in our tolerance for ambiguity and mystery. More than anything else, this new way of processing the moment is what moves us from mere intelligence, or correct information, to what we normally mean by wisdom or non-dual thinking. The contemporary mind has almost no training in dialectical thought processes or how to think paradoxically. In fact, what it often means to be “smart” is the ability to make more and more clever distinctions! And we never experience things in their wholeness, thus the angry politics and the angry religion that is overwhelming so many of us today.
Gateway to Silence:
Abide in the One who holds everything together.
Faith and belief is so relevant to this journey. In something or somebody that is greater than ourselves.
We have already learned the very hard way that we can't do this by ourselves. I know in AA they tell the newbies, okay so you don't believe in God. Believe in this group, believe in your Sponsor, believe in that doorknob, but believe in something besides yourself and open your mind and heart up, because your best thinking got you right here, today.
We have to knock the barriers down that we create.
Because if we can somehow reconcile what is happening with some greater truths and a Higher Power, we can really start to lean into this journey, regardless of the path it takes us on.
We can start to detach with love and accept, and look reality square in the face, and live with it, and still be happy. Steps. We have to keep taking steps, in whatever language and understanding WE have.
Great stuff below about living with paradoxes: he's good and he's not good, he does bad things and he does good things, I am strong and I am weak, I do things right and I do things wrong, and accepting that these states are not mutually exclusive and there is no black and white, once and for all, up or down, there is only the messy chaotic back and forth of being human. All of us, PCs, difficult children, SOs, DHs, every one of us is really the same.
*************************************
Paradox
The House that Wisdom Builds
Sunday, July 27, 2014
“Paradox” comes from two Greek words: para + doksos, meaning beyond the teaching or beyond the opinion. A paradox emerges when you’ve started to reconcile seeming contradictions, consciously or unconsciously. Paradox is the ability to live with contradictions without making them mutually exclusive, realizing they can often be both/and instead of either/or. G. K. Chesterton said that “a paradox is often a truth standing on its head to get our attention”!
“Dialectic” is the process of overcoming seeming opposites by uncovering a reconciling third. The third way is not simply a third opinion. It’s a third space, a holding tank, where you hold the truth in both positions without dismissing either one of them. It often becomes the “house that wisdom builds” (Proverbs 9:1-6). It’s really the fruit of a contemplative mind.
Contemplation gives us an inner capacity to live with paradoxes and contradictions. It is a quantum leap in our tolerance for ambiguity and mystery. More than anything else, this new way of processing the moment is what moves us from mere intelligence, or correct information, to what we normally mean by wisdom or non-dual thinking. The contemporary mind has almost no training in dialectical thought processes or how to think paradoxically. In fact, what it often means to be “smart” is the ability to make more and more clever distinctions! And we never experience things in their wholeness, thus the angry politics and the angry religion that is overwhelming so many of us today.
Gateway to Silence:
Abide in the One who holds everything together.
