The appropriate gift to Him

Yes, it is true that God gave us His Son,
and so maybe we ought also to give gifts
--but what, and to whom? It is also true
that God gave us Himself, and the only
sensible response to that is to give
ourselves to Him. There is nothing else
that He wants from us, or, if there is
something, He can take it. Only I, my ego,
my heart, is truly mine to give or to
withhold--and is therefore the appropriate
gift to Him.
- Walt Whitman (1819-1892), Song of Myself,
in Leaves of Grass

I was never alone

I am not alone at all, I thought.
I was never alone at all. And
that, of course, is the message of
Christmas. We are never alone.
Not when the night is darkest,
the wind coldest, the world
seemingly most indifferent.
For this is still the time God chooses.
- Taylor Caldwell

It is Christmas

It is Christmas every time you let
God love others through you . . .
yes, it is Christmas every time you
smile at your neighbor and offer your hand.
- Mother Teresa

The Pomegranate

Once when I was living in the heart of a pomegranate, I heard a seed saying,
"Someday I shall become a tree, and the wind will sing in my branches,
and the sun will dance on my leaves,
and I shall be strong and beautiful through all the seasons."

Then another seed spoke and said, "When I was as young as you, I too held such views;
but now that I can weigh and measure things, I see that my hopes were in vain."

And a third seed spoke also, "I see nothing that promises so great a future."

And a fourth said, "But what a mockery our life would be, without a greater future."

Said a fifth, "Why dispute what we are, that we shall continue to be."

But whatever we are, that we shall continue to be."

And a seventh said, "I have such a clear idea of how everything will be,
but I cannot put it into words."

Then an eighth spoke--and a ninth--and a tenth--and then many--until all were speaking,
and I could distinguish nothing for the many voices.

And so I moved that day into the heart of a quince,
where the seeds are few and almost silent.

~Khalil Gibran

We are not yet born to the morrow

Enjoy the blessings of this day,
if God sends them; and the evils
of it bear patiently and sweetly:
for this day only is ours, we are
dead to yesterday, and we are not
yet born to the morrow.
- Jeremy Taylor

The great heresy of the Church

The Son of God is the Teacher of men,
giving to them of His Spirit--that Spirit
which manifests the deep things of God,
being to a person the mind of Christ. The
great heresy of the Church of the
present day is unbelief in this Spirit.
- George MacDonald (1824-1905)

Live in the world

Live in the world as if only
God and your soul were in it;
then your heart will never be
made captive by any earthly thing.
... St. John of the Cross (1542-1591)

John Donne (1573-1631)

This was the fulness of time,
when Christ Jesus did come,
that the Messiah should come.
It was so to the Jews,
and it was so to the Gentiles too...
Christ hath excommunicated no nation,
no shire, no house, no man;
He gives none of His ministers
leave to say to any man, thou art
not redeemed; He gives no wounded or
afflicted conscience leave to
say to itself, I am not redeemed.
... John Donne (1573-1631)

From Relative to Absolute

Teachings of enlightenment, whether traditional or evolutionary, always present us with a unique way of thinking about and understanding who we are. What makes an enlightened perspective different from any other is that it emphasizes the significance of those dimensions of Self that are non-relative, or Absolute.

What does Absolute really mean for human beings like us? For most of us who have grown up in a secular culture, almost every way we are accustomed to thinking about ourselves could be called relative. For example, we tend to think of ourselves as individuals with a unique personality based upon some combination of our psychological experience, our ethnic identity, our cultural background, our gender and our personal strengths and talents. Some of us even tend to base our fundamental sense of self on our shortcomings, weaknesses or misfortunes. These are real and valid aspects of ourselves, but they are all relative because they are only partial. There is, however, another dimension altogether upon which we can base our sense of identity. And that dimension is radically different from all others because its very nature is non-relative, or Absolute. Absolute is a metaphor for that which is infinite, that which has no boundaries.

~Andrew Cohen

Solstice and Rumi

Two events converge at this time of year, and in particular this year as we experienced on Winter Solstice the beauty of the Lunar Eclipse--significant perhaps even metaphorically.

If the moon and the sun converged on Solstice--the longest night, then in some way they are brought to convergence through the creative imagination and poetry of the beloved flautists, Rumi. In honor of his seeing, I wanted to bring you these words:

God picks up the reed-flute world and blows.
Each note is a need coming through one of us,
a passion, a longing, a pain.
But remember the lips
where the wind-breath originated,
and let your note be clear.
Don't try to end it.
Be your note.
I'll show you how it is done.
Go up on the roof at night
in this city of the soul and sing.
Let everyone climb up on the roof of their heart
and sing their notes!
Sing for all to hear. Sing loud!
--an adaptation of Coleman Bark's translation.

From Mysterium

A member of the Order, Alice Despard has penned this beautiful poem that is so powerfully evocative of Advent. Here is her offering:

Oh, restless hearts,
so full of disquiet and unease,
unbind yourselves from the mad rush of these days
and seek out the eternal pivot point
upon which the cosmos entire spins
and is still all at once.

Allow the deep mystery to penetrate
through the layers of cold and harsh realities,
to penetrate the heart center
and begin the arduous task
of radiating the glory of Love outward,
back into the ethers of the cosmos,
back into the Source of All That Is.

Take time to rest in quietude,
to explore and ponder the fissures
and recesses of thine own soul.

Smooth the wrinkles of anxiety from your brow
and bow in deep humility towards the Coming One.

Some with furtive step,
some with strongest stride
explore the dark and hidden hallways
of their souls.

Hold a steady gaze upon the inner fire:
Does it smolder and smoke,
or does it blaze and consume brightly?

Breathe upon thine inner fire,
and stoke it with spirit!

Lay your cares carefully upon the inner fire-
balancing them like logs just so-
and sense the burning,
the inner conflagration of sin
upon heart's heat,
and let this dense matter
be consumed utterly in divine flame,
leaving only lightest ash to drift upward
in offering to the Most High.

Offer up yourselves, consumed in fire,
burning off heaviness and care,
leaving behind only a lingering fragrance
of incarnate purity.

-- from Majesterium by Alice Despard

A Christmas Wish

I salute you. I am your friend, and my love for you goes deep. There is nothing I can give you which have not got. But there is much, very much, that while I cannot give you, you can take.

No heaven can come to us unless our hearts find rest in it today. Take heaven.

No peace lies in the future which is not hidden in this present instance. Take peace.

The gloom of the world is but a shadow. Behind it, yet with our reach is joy. Take joy.

Life is so full of meaning and purpose, so full of beauty...that you will find the earth but cloaks your heaven. Courage then to claim it, that is all! And so I greet you with profound esteem and with the prayer that for you, now and forever, the day breaks and the shadows flee away.

Fra Giovanni
Letter to a friend at Christmas, 1513

His purpose is in sight

A saint's life is in the hands of God as a
bow and arrow in the hands of an archer. God
is aiming at something the saint cannot see;
He stretches and strains, and every now and
again the saint says, I cannot stand any more.
But God does not heed; He goes on stretching
until His purpose is in sight, then He lets fly.
- Oswald Chambers

A Tipping Point

"Eventually, in the path and practice of evolutionary enlightenment, a tipping point is reached-an inner threshold that, once crossed, changes everything. It is that moment in your own evolution when you begin to care more about the process as a whole than you care about your ego's fears, desires, or concerns. And it represents the essential shift of identity that this teaching rests on: the shift from the ego to the Authenic Self. When this occurs, your very motive for pursuing enlightenment evolves from one that is fundamentally self centered to one that is focused upon the evolution of consciousness itself."

~Andrew Cohen

God's grace gives us faith

One of the essential paradoxes of Advent:
that while we wait for God, we are with God
all along, that while we need to be reassured
of God's arrival, or the arrival of our
homecoming, we are already at home. While we
wait, we have to trust, to have faith, but
it is God's grace that gives us that faith.
As with all spiritual knowledge, two things
are true, and equally true, at once. The mind
can't grasp paradox; it is the knowledge of
the soul.
- Michelle Blake, "The Tentmaker"

Creating a resting place for Himself

In the same manner in which we clean and prepare
our homes in the anticipation of welcomed guests
and family members this Christmas season, let us
also prepare our hearts in anticipation of the
Lord's coming. Christ, our most honoured and eagerly
anticipated guest, desires to meet with us in a
heart prepared for his arrival. So eager is he
to meet with us that he offers to help us with our
spiritual housecleaning, working with us; creating
a resting place for Himself within our hearts.
- Katherine Walden

Worship As Life

The truest and highest stage of worship is to see God face to face, and to receive his guidance from his own mouth. Those who attain this highest stage, choose for themselves whatever God chooses for them. Their entire characters are transformed by God. They are God's friends; so they no longer discriminate between people, but regard all people as friends. Wherever they go, they go from God; wherever they arrive, they arrive at God. Whatever they do, they do for God; whatever service they perform, they perform it in God. The self has been truly annihilated.

- Junayd, Tawhid

Liberation

The one who is very attached to the cave of the body, that one finds detachment very difficult. Those who constantly crave for pleasure are hard to liberate and certainly cannot be liberated by others, only by themselves. Sometimes it is only death that brings a realization of endings, and then the sensual person, deeply immersed in the body, will shout: "What will happen to me after death?" The way toward liberation is to train yourself to live in the present without any wanting to become anything. Give up becoming this or that, live without cravings, and experience this present moment with full attention. Then you will not cringe at death nor seek for repeated birth.

- Sutta Nipata

I Am Eros

In the beginning,

I am in the void. I am nothingness,

Moving, stirring, anticipating.

In the beginning,

I am pregnant with potential. I am birthing

In the beginning,

I am the hum of the universe. I am the singing. I am the song.

Humming, vibrating, anticipating.

In the beginning,

I am the maestro. I am the composer. I am the singer.

I sing the sun and moon into being. The stars begin to dance.

In the beginning,

I am the song of the universe. I am the musician of the heart.

I hum into being the bubbling brooks and fragrant flowers.

In the beginning, in the void

I move and the birds and insects dance in flight.

In the beginning, in the potential

I stir the life force into clay and humanity leaps.

In the beginning, in the hum

I anticipate all creation unfolding, exploding with birthing power,

Multiplying exponentially.

Life begets life, music begets music, and

Dancing always leads to ecstasy.

I am ecstasy. I am the quickened breath in the silence before creation.

Ecstatic union is my art form. Pleasure is my name.

You I desire. You I hold and love.

I long to pour myself through your body, to cover you, to dwell in your soul.

I will bless you. I am your source of bliss.

Come to me. Love me. Sing with me. Let us create life as we hum together.

Come be the song.

Come, be the dance with me. Be life with me.

Come laugh. Come dance.

You can do nothing less. You are mine.

I in you and you in me.

Come.

~Beverly Dale

Compassion means to suffer with

Compassion means to suffer with, to live with
those who suffer. When Jesus saw the woman of
Nain he realized, This is a widow who has lost
her only son, and he was moved by compassion.
He felt the pain of that woman in his guts.
He felt her pain so deeply in his spirit that
out of compassion he called the son to life so
he could give that son back to his mother.
- Henri J. M. Nouwen

Thank you

The most important prayer in the world is just two words long:
"Thank you"
- Meister Eckhart