Finding God

If you don't find God in the next person you meet, it's a waste of time looking for him further.
- Mohandas K. Gandhi



If you don't know much about Gandhi I highly recommend any biography and also his autobiography The Story of My Experiments with Truth, in which he says, "I must reduce myself to zero. So long as a man does not of his own free will put himself last among his fellow creatures, there is no salvation for him. Ahimsa is the farthest limit of humility." Ahimsa is pure selfless love for every human being, and indeed for every living creature. It is non-injury in mind, word and deed.

Eckhard Tolle might say Gandhi was referring to the release of the egoic mind, which is that voice in the head, the thought process that continually reminds us that we are superior to others: smarter, better looking, more creative, more loving, more spiritual (you see where thinking can lead?). He says Descartes got it wrong: I Am despite the fact that I think; or, put another way, I Am only when I don't think.

Eckhart interprets Jesus' admonition to "Love your neighbor as yourself," literally. In other words, Jesus didn't mean love your neighbor as you love yourself; he meant love him because he is yourself. Your neighbor--and you--are merely the form that Consciousness/Essence/Being/Spirit/Presence/God has taken in this moment, in this blink of the cosmic eye. We are all merely the life force of the universe in human form.

By the way, if you identify as Christian--or ever did--Tolle draws comparisons with Jesus' teachings throughout his own teachings in a way that has re-opened my mind to true Christianity after many years of disappointment with the religion of my youth. I had painted Christianity with the same broad brush I used on all Christians; not that I wasn't aware of my prejudice, I just didn't know how to give it up. Reading Tolle has been worth my time if for no other reason than this.

Peace.

Bread and Roses

As we go marching, marching, unnumbered women dead
Go crying through our singing their ancient call for bread.
Small art and love and beauty their drudging spirits knew.
Yes, it is bread we fight for, but we fight for roses too.
-Verse 3, song adapted by Mimi Farina from a poem by James Oppenheim, 1911


According to Wikipedia, Macy's fireworks display costs $350,000. That's as close as I could get to finding out how much Seattle spent on its really wonderful show last night over Lake Union. My pics are lousy because I don't have the right camera, but they are good enough (until the battery ran out) for a remembrance of a lovely evening with new friends and a GREAT VIEW from Pat's porch. I would have tried for a skyline shot before it got dark but for some serious power lines blocking an otherwise breath-taking view.


In these tough economic times, is it a good use of limited resources to blow up $350,000? A couple of the women in our group were aghast at the fireworks that private citizens were sending up prior to the main event. Some were almost as good as what we were all waiting until 10 pm to see. "Why do they waste all that money?" someone said, with murmurs of agreement among those who heard her remark. No one thought the city or the taxpayers were wasting money, at least they didn't say so.


Is it because $350,000 is such a drop in the bucket in a multi-million-dollar budget? Or because it's already a done deal and they had no real say in the matter? Is it better to entertain the poor than to feed them? I'm just sayin'.

What would Jesus do?

America, America, God shed his grace on thee.






I love this last one for its silouettes of small boats afloat in a Red Sea.

Day Nine?

Oh yes, Day 9 of 37. It went, never to be seen again. And I went to hear my sister and the Lindenwood Christian Church choir (one of the best in the city) sing Handel, always a favorite of mine. Then we had a lovely lunch with a friend and attended a play, Moonlight and Magnolias, a comedy. I fixed one of my favorite meals, from the old Weight Watchers Cookbook: Thai Marinated Steak (for my meat-eating brother-in-law), with a marinade made up of lime juice, cilantro, jalapeno, green onion, soy sauce and garlic--yum.



I did "not doing" in a lovely sanctuary surrounded by colorful stained glass and people who, like me, were there to find their own inner peace. It was Palm Sunday and the children's choir carried palm fronds and made me cry (as usual when I see children singing).

As I participated in the service I tried to focus on the Jesus I know, who is a different person than the one I knew as a child and as a young adult, a different one from the Jesus the minister talked about. I took the bread and wine that was offered, to be polite, but I didn't think of it as the body and blood. I thought of what Gandhi said: "I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.”

I also thought of what Eckhart says of Jesus: "Jesus on the cross said it all when He says, 'Forgive them for they know not what they do.' Which means they are unconscious. So when you realize that you naturally forgive." That is what I did yesterday morning, while music swelled and the prayers went up.

The Ghost of Christmas Past

It's now Saturday, December 13. Time I finished the post I started nearly a week ago.

I've been visiting friends and relatives in Florida since the week of Thanksgiving, and since they attend church, I have been joining them, mainly for something to do and to "be folks," you know? At least, that's how it started out. But I've discovered that my study of Eckhart Tolle's writings has given me a new perspective on the sayings of Jesus, and that being immersed in Christian doctrine of the Presbyterian variety on Sunday morning (no pun intended, since Presbyterians don't immerse, they just sprinkle) has become less...well..."doctrinaire" when filtered through the lens of my new spiritual understanding.

A couple weeks ago I joined my cousin Peggy at her church in Tampa and even sang in her choir. I've been a choral singer nearly all my life until the last few years. It was the first Sunday in Advent, the first of four Sundays leading to Christmas, so even though the tree was not up yet, the Advent wreath of evergreens with purple, pink and white candles was on display, and the Christmas spirit that Walmart has been trying to instill since the day after Halloween finally was validated in the church sanctuary. A child was chosen to light the first purple candle and as I watched and listened to the familiar words, I harkened back to days of yore (about 1958) when I and my fellow girls' junior choir members sat together in church in our blue robes and I believed that Jesus was the son of God.

I don't remember the title of the minister's sermon, but he held my attention when he recalled his experience of being on retreat at a monastery just before Advent a few years ago. He said he had arrived for the retreat with his usual collection of essential communication devices: cell phone, laptop computer and Blackberry, intent on keeping up with his work while becoming spiritually renewed. He described how he and his fellow attendees did everything the monks did every day, including retiring at 8 p.m. and rising at 4 a.m., prayers, meals, church services and long periods of silence. It was during the silences that he answered e-mails and kept up with correspondence.

The minister then recounted his meeting with the director of the monastery, an audience that all attendees were given during their week-long stay. When his host asked how he was enjoying the retreat, he confessed to the monk that he felt he was not "getting it," that even though he was doing everything the monks did, he was not having the kind of spiritual experience he had expected to have.

"Well, duh," I said to myself. "This comes under the heading of, 'I don't believe I'd have told that.'" (I was feeling rather self-satisfied in my new-found knowledge of being in the stillness.) "Anybody should have known that," I thought.

My very next thought was, "See how quick you are to judge?" Sometimes I wonder if there is any hope for me at all, ever. And don't ask how the "no complaining/gossiping/whining" thing is going. "Today is day one" has become my mantra.

But that is not the point of this post. What I really want to convey is how being in church lately has become almost bearable because what I've heard makes more sense to me now than when I heard it back in my choir days (it was the singing that kept me going back), even as an adult. In his books, Eckhart Tolle often interprets the words of Jesus in such a way that I can almost believe again, if not that Jesus was the son of God, at least that he sure had it goin' on. If you believe in what the Bible says, I encourage you to read A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose by Eckhart Tolle. You may get an enhanced perspective on what it means to be a follower of Christ.

If you don't believe but you're still searching for "the peace that passes all understanding," (Phillipians 4:7 and A New Earth, page 56) like I am, Eckhart says you can stop searching because you already have it in you to be at peace if only you will stop the thoughts in your head and be still. And the best part is you don't have to sit on a cushion with your back perfectly straight in the pretzel--I mean lotus--position for what seems like hours but is really only 30 minutes (not that I'm complaining)... in order to experience the stillness. All you have to do is ask yourself, "Am I still breathing?" That focuses your attention away from the voice in your head ("What voice?" you ask. "That one," Eckhard replies.) and puts it on your body. Beathing in...breathing out.

Live in this moment. Be at peace. And have a holly jolly Christmas.