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The Shema’s teaching…

18 Monday Jul 2016

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What the Shema implies in relation to Identity:
Also thinking today about how the Shema relates to our identities or becoming more whole or integrated. Healing is lodged in understanding the Shema—God is One, therefore wants to make us more one integrated new creation.
The Oneness of God implies moving towards wholeness in our own identities as well. We see that He is One, and therefore wants to make us more one, as we relate to Him in love. As St Augustine said, “Love God and do what you will.” That is to say it is less about the medium, and more about meeting God through your situation.
This is also Paul’s secret of spiritual contentment. We are not our circumstances, they are, instead, mediums through which to encounter the Living God, and be transformed by that ongoing encountering….this is why Paul was content in prison or eating a feast. They were both just places of meeting his God. Whether in sickness health poverty or wealth, season of life etc…
We discover our true identities by staring at His.
We find ourselves by losing ourselves..we gain our names, by seeking to know God’s Name! God is One, and wants to make us one or whole.
My other favorite quote this week: “My heart is broken in two, but God is One. The Shema implies not just God’s integration, but potentially and eventually our own, as we offer our hearts, and naming of ourselves, into His. We become more one, more our true or integrated selves, by staring and encountering His Oneness. Like Peter, we see His True identity, and get our true names. We find ourselves, by losing our self definitions into His naming of us.” Nice

Grace’s pacing….

17 Sunday Jul 2016

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Came across a few more quotes today…about the wisdom of Grace’s pacing…
“Today’s Grace is for today, tomorrow’s will be for then. Give us Lord our daily portion of Grace, and help us to be satisfied with that measure. And trust that You will provide the exact portion we need when the time comes.
 You don’t get the whole loaf of bread at once, but in pieces which are meant to transform us, a day at a time.
That’s how God rolls…(i’m talking challah here, not your regular rolls)! Daily bread stuff.
 We tend to want the whole loaf all at once, and often demand it, but that’s not the Way of the Bread of Life. We are still dawning, still beginners at becoming. Still those who can only handle and ingest, a piece at a time-daily.
 Rather, it is paced and portioned in order to form Wisdom’s Love in us.
  Thankful that the Bread Man passes out daily portions that we need for each day! The Bread of His Presence is enough to sustain the universe forever, and He portions it daily. May each of us receive today what is given for today!” Nice.

15 Friday Jul 2016

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Keep me lean in You Lord
keep me nothing, so you can be everything.
Keep me thin, until you become well rounded in Your  expression of Yourself
through me-the one you made as a poem of Yourself.
In the meantime, keep me myself, so others can see Yourself.

Spiritual intelligence

15 Friday Jul 2016

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Are we growing in spiritual intelligence?
Spiritual intelligence means that we have allowed our minds to be formed and informed by God’s Mind. This happens through His Holy Spirit.
My favorite Paul quote: “The person who thinks they know, does not yet know as they ought to know.” God’s thoughts, feelings and knowings are higher than ours. We are wise to seek His.
 He affirms our intelligence, but spiritual intelligence is another matter. The things of the Spirit are known by the Spirit. Spiritual knowledge is revealed by His Spirit. This holds for our thoughts, feelings and imagination. All of them must die to be reborn. Each area of self must come to the altar and be altered!
We come to discern the difference between His thoughts and feelings and our own. As we do, we grow in spiritual intelligence.
You can tell when people have spiritual intelligence versus just smart people. It’s a different type or level of knowledge. Your very best thought is still so much lower than God’s.
 When we start to get more of God’s thoughts, feelings and imagination into ours, things alter. I once had a priest tell me, you will begin to feel less of your own pain and more of His. We must do this in each area of who we are—our minds, feelings and imagination. Less of me, more of thee.
The smartest people in history were often spiritually unintelligent. Jesus taught, that many knew the letter, but not the spirit. They knew the law, but not the giver of the Law and His Ways.
Revealed knowledge takes time and prayer. The holy spirit must place it in your spirit. Revealed knowledge is another level of knowing, and leads to greater love of God and others.
Have we yielded our best thoughts, feelings and creativity to God, so that He can transform them into His new creature. To alter us on His Altar in every area!
The truly lasting thoughts of man were revealed by God. The greatest spiritual thinkers downloaded some of the thought seeds of God, they were given some of His keys. A tree is known by its fruit. You think of MLK and the seeds from God he carried, and how they still bear fruit. He had spiritual intelligence.
Perhaps it is most hard for the very smart to lay down their best thoughts and allow His thoughts to inform and transform their own. But this is also true in our emotional and creative lives. Jesus desires to transform the entire person, and that requires us to surrender our thoughts, feeling and imaginations to Jesus.
I had an uncle who was uneducated in the world, but was educated by The Spirit. He was one of the most spiritually intelligent men I ever met. God often uses the simple to confound the wise. Whether we are highly educated in the world, or fishermen like many of the disciples were, we must lay down our thoughts to be formed by His. Perhaps this is why Jesus taught that it was hard for the rich to enter the Kingdom of God. Those who are rich in their own thought life, may be very poor in His!
 This does not negate learning and study, as Jesus did both as He grew in wisdom and stature; but it is the nature of our learning. Are we learning, feeling and creating in His Spirit. If so, we will grow in spiritual intelligence. For we are promised that the Holy Spirit will guide us into all truth! We are not anti-intellectual, but rather like St Paul, we have put our best thoughts on the altar, so that we can become wise.
For many this is a matter of laying down and confessing our intellectual pride, in order to find His Intelligence. We must do this in every area of life. One well downloaded thought of God, can change the world, and will certainly transform us as well!

Priest, Prophet and our King!

13 Wednesday Jul 2016

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Jesus is The Priest, The Prophet and The King! We need to know and be growing in all three aspects of His Nature!
You see that He will establish His Priesthood, His Kingship (understanding His Kingdom and co-ruling with and in Him) and His Prophetic nature which will teach the nations by proclaiming the ways of The Father. All three aspects should be growing in His Church as we approach His full return. He will establish His Kingdom on earth, and has called His People a kingdom of priest. We must move in His priesthood to understand His Kingship.
 You see Samuel and David moving in both, as well as the prophetic. They reflected and moved in all three dimensions of His Being! Daniel was another example, or a ruler who lived priestly.
 The order is priest, prophet king in terms of types of authority in Him. This is because Jesus’ highest part is ministering to The Father, then He proclaims from the father as prophet, then He comes and rules over the nations and humanity as a King. That is also the order of His revelation in history. Priest into prophetic into Kingship. This is why we are progressing towards what He said in His prayer—“Your Kingdom come on earth as it already is in Heaven.”
These three aspects of the Life of Christ should be progressively forming in us. His priesthood speaks of His prayer life and worship; His prophetic Nature of His friendship with God or intimacy and ability to express from it; His Kingship speaks of Justice and His ability to Rule over the nations fairly-ie in righteousness. We are to be growing in each of these three areas. Often we will have seasonal emphasis in our relationship with Him—specific parts of His Life He is downloading into us. But all three aspects should be growing in us.
People are beginning to preach the Kingdom again, not just the salvation gospel; this is partly because He wants us to know and get used to Him as King as we move towards His full reigning on earth. We are the ones not meant to be surprised by the full manifestation of Our King and His Kingdom! So we can play a part in co-ruling with Him.
Do we meet Him as Priest, Prophet and King? In prayer, proclamation, and rulership! Which area do we know Him least in? Let’s work on all three so we offer a fuller representation of who Our Lord really is!

13 Wednesday Jul 2016

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Our faces start sinking, our skin releases over time, yet
the paths that we were meant to be, haven’t changed;
 but we look like less ourselves for a moment, the camera fades,
and then this too-us- passes, until we shine again.
Some struggle harder than others. We resist
 our own becomings. We have to choose again and again whether
we believe in life despite its effects. We do, and move on…
The best oldest ones make us all safe, and feel like the journey
was surely worth it.

12 Tuesday Jul 2016

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I feel like this today, not sure why, in the midst of so much sorrow, losing friends; and birthing new projects simultaneously—hope and joy enter, and something akin to a yellow expectancy! Photo’s to follow!
Perhaps joy and sorrow are tethered to the same post. That “bright sadness” which the elders develop by staying with God in grief, is, perhaps only possible through pain and loss. Trials make faith authentic or genuine as Peter taught. So don’t waste them, as Nouwen taught. Allow them to become places of transformation in your life.
This is out in one of my favorite spots in north america—the Point Reyes national park, where i did my last birthday. The space makes me feel alive in my spirit—need those spaces in more weightier times!
It’s the type of road i live on inside! I often think of the types of roads or textures people are meant to live in, as my name means: road or path or way-camino basically.
This road always makes me feel alive, myself, and eternal. I think I’ll keep dancing and skipping and kicking on “the path prepared beforehand to be my way”, as the writer of Ephesians put it. May we all! Why not?! Each of us a one of a kind poem!
“In the world, you will have troubles, but I give you My Own Peace.” My favorite translation. I might add, and funky Grace to continue to be! The courage to be is half the battle, as Viktor Frankl put it.

10 Sunday Jul 2016

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Today’s little homily!
Having a study summer obviously this year….
Studying the Rabbi’s today, came across this…
Nice rabbinical condensations of necessary basic ongoing practices:
Out of the 613 Mitzvot mentioned in the Torah, there are six mitzvot which the Sefer Hachinuch calls “constant mitzvot”: “We have six mitzvot which are perpetual and constant, applicable at all times, all the days of our lives”.
To know (the word for intimacy) God, and that he created all things.
Not to have any god(s) beside God (lit. in his face).
To know God’s Oneness.
To fear or reverence God.
To love God.
Not to pursue the passions of your heart and stray after your eyes.
That last one, certainly would bother our current cultural directives. It implies discerning between spiritual passions and “fleshly” ones. The prioritizing of the pursuit of personal happiness at the cost of others, is critiqued here, and also gets at the true nature of desire and passion. What do we really want and need.
 Good study anyways, having fun mulling over and chewing on the thoughts of the rabbis today! Truth comes in many packages as one saint said.
 Not quite as condensed as Jesus’ list (Love God with your whole being, and love others!), but pretty compressed basics in life.
I’m enjoying learning this Summer—it’s the little things of daily growth, increasing embodied knowledge and a capacity to love more fervently and wisely, which are making me happy this Summer. Shall we each continue to grow on….in our love of God and our resulting love for one another! And not be distracted or strayed aside by lesser pursuits.

Summer studies…

09 Saturday Jul 2016

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Having a study summer obviously this year….
Studying the Rabbi’s today, came across this…
Nice rabbinical condensations of necessary basic ongoing practices:
Out of the 613 Mitzvot mentioned in the Torah, there are six mitzvot which the Sefer Hachinuch calls “constant mitzvot”: “We have six mitzvot which are perpetual and constant, applicable at all times, all the days of our lives”.
To know God, and that he created all things.
Not to have any god(s) beside God (lit. in his face).
To know God’s Oneness.
To fear or reverence God.
To love God.
Not to pursue the passions of your heart and stray after your eyes.
That last one, certainly would bother our current cultural directives. It implies discerning between spiritual passions and “fleshly” ones. The prioritizing of the pursuit of personal happiness is critiqued here, and also getting at the true nature of desire and passion. What do we really want and need. Good study anyways, having fun mulling over and chewing on the thoughts of the rabbis today! Truth comes in many packages as one saint said.
 Not quite as condensed as Jesus’ list, but pretty compressed basics in life.
My other favorite quote this week: “My heart is broken in two, but God is One. The Shema implies not just God’s integration, but potentially and eventually our own, as we offer our hearts into His. We become one or integrated by staring and encountering His Oneness. We find ourselves, by losing our self definitions into His naming of us.” Nice