I am polishing my fifteen-chapter memoirs about my life as a military brat…. Looking for an agent…. 🙂 Meanwhile….
Every day that I can, I meditate/pray/ (or whatever word you might care to call it) as early as I can. Usually I have personal questions or issues that seem pressing that day, so I attempt to articulate them, along with any fears I might be repressing—both before and during my meditation. Then I do some reading from a variety of inspiring sources. Then I summarize my “sense” of what I felt or learned from that day’s meditations, questions and reading, in a brief “Spiritual Sharing.” The whole process usually averages about an hour, although sometimes it takes just a few minutes.
I don’t profess any knowledge at all other than my personal experience and insights—certainly no universal religious beliefs. I do try to follow the teachings and example of Jesus, and thus consider myself a Christian. But beyond Jesus’ teachings, I am a mystical agnostic, in the sense of not-knowing anything except in a scientific or personally-mystical or spiritual sense. I do have a very personally-designed faith in certain practices which works for me. I make no claims that I know what is true for everyone or that I am “right” in any of my spiritual conclusions. I am a strong advocate of interfaith understanding, dialogue, respect and support, believe that we can all profitably share our truths with one another, and am also an admirer of the humanitarian work and spirit of all secular seekers.
I see my written daily “Spiritual Sharings” as personal expressions of mystical insights from/into to a spiritual dimension; they come to me during my meditations and I write them down. However, all individual human attempts to express any kinds of truth through language are necessarily limited, personal and fallible.
My daily spiritual practice strengthens my faith and has invaluable applications to my own daily life, and I do trust that sharing my results is sometimes useful to some others. But of course, please be assured that I come and go as humbly and fallibly as others do, and as I have always done, continually forgetting or not applying higher truths I have learned and intuitively understand.
I hope you will feel free to substitute (for the term, “God,” in the following meditations) any personal word that best describes or names the Source of your own experience of spiritual power, insight and understanding—whether that source be “God,” guiding spirit, intuition, the unknowable, Nature, conscience, a higher power, Hashem, inner-knowing, Christ, Science, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, natural understanding, YHWH or Yahweh, Shiva, the Over-Soul, the Goddess, the divine, the Name, the Universe, Krishna, friend, G-d, light, Allah, Lord, Jehovah, Abba, the Ineffable, the One, Adonai, Creator, the name of your preferred deity, the ground of your being, I-Am-That-I-Am, or any other word(s) or name(s) that work(s) for you.
I find spiritual truth to be ultimately ineffable and uniquely personal. Our various expressions and explanations of universal spiritual truth/s seem limited because we are mentally and linguistically limited, and ultimately—human. Like so many others, I feel inspired to compose and share my personal and unique understandings, knowing that spiritual truth cannot be ultimately, finally, universally expressed, understood, known or agreed upon.
In this sense, all of our searches for understanding about and communion with “God,” through the multitude of faiths, belief systems, spiritual practices and secular searches for truth, human interdependence, conscience and service are interchangeably valuable, adding to a our higher shared human cultural understanding of the spiritual dimension of life.
The many different personal, linguistic, cultural, religious, experiential and explanatory names we assign to our various but uniquely individual religious, spiritual, humanist and philosophical experiences and understandings cannot change the nature and essence of the source of that spiritual power. Regardless of the conflicting beliefs, perspectives and practices of a world of diverse worshippers, seekers and non-believers, whatever, whoever and however our higher Source may be will never change. In this sense, we all share the same God.
The central message of all the world’s great religions in their highest forms is faith, hope, and love (in all their highest understandings and expressions) whether in human culture or in our highest experiences of a spiritual dimension. In an eternal and spiritual sense, all human cultures and every human life has infinite and even perhaps eternal value, even when those cultures and those humans seem temporally to be struggling with incredible burdens, or conversely, are enjoying disproportionate and inequitable benefits, enlightenment, privileges and support. From an eternal or temporal perspective, however, loving, accepting, forgiving and appreciating one another works best.
I embrace the interfaith movement, which supports the search for authentic worship, community, spirituality, faith and service through familiar traditions, while encouraging better understanding, respect and support for the faiths of others.
It’s possible that I may someday attempt to publish this year’s worth of meditations. Thank you for your help, and for feedback too.
Daily Spiritual Sharing:
5/24/10 – When we’re feeling fearful or awkward about how to react to a situation or person, we can turn the moment over to the guidance, perspective and insights of our higher power—and then relax, knowing the best healing response for all will come to us.
5/23/10 – We can bow to the world’s cultural dream of fear, sin, judgment, suffering, guilt, depression and death, or we can awaken now to the beauty, peace, love and joy of beloved and loving spirits, eternally celebrating God’s one perfect, abundant creation.
5/22/10 – When I’m feeling negative about any situation, person or issue, and ask to see things differently, the helpful insight I receive encompasses all interests, and reveals my eternal oneness, and loving communication now, with all that is—man, nature, and God.
5/21/10 – God’s forgiveness, and our own, release us from our dreams of retribution and penance for our unjust pasts, and free us to focus now, with God, on acceptance, appreciation and love for all things, the only purposes which assure peace and happiness.
5/20, 2010 – When we remind ourselves that we don’t have to do anything, we will also remember that some of the things we think we have to do are often things we really want to do—which is a happier place to come from.
5/19, 2010 – When we feel weak, beleaguered, hopeless, despairing, angry, guilty, resentful and defiant, we can surrender all to faith, let go, and trust God’s order, purpose, strength, peace, love, innocence and oneness to miraculously transform chaos into peace.
5/18/10 – We can struggle to protect, affirm and aggrandize our illusions of separate, guilty, competing bodies alone in a threatening world; or we can know only one beloved eternal spiritual creation sharing one holy purpose and one peaceful loving home in God.
5/17/10 – When we judge the world and try to fix it, we will see only chaos and error. When we relax, judge not, and see, think and be only love, we will find in ourselves and in all the inner peace and love that gives the world the only meaning it will ever have.
5/16/10 – We can focus on fearful and unsolvable mortal problems, shortcomings and mistakes in a futile attempt to correct and change ourselves and others, or we can let our guiding spirit help us focus on only what is good, true and eternal in ourselves and others.
5/15/10 – “Being” is oneness, wholeness, and the shared loving purpose of a diverse and holy self. This simple truth of one love, one creation and one eternal time of now can be hidden by false, frightening, complex cultural concepts and assumptions, but never lost.
5/14/10 – God’s perfect strength, guidance, and good, holy, beautiful will and eternal love for each of us is expressed and assured—with no conflicts of interest and no divisions—as we choose to love, forgive, accept and appreciate one another now.
5/13/10 – When we see life as a zero-sum game of competing interests, we see nothing but deprivation, scarcity and competition. When we realize that spiritual abundance is equal, universal and eternal, we see only common challenges and cooperative solutions.
5/12/10 – Peace, certainty, sanity and sense in a world of apparent cruelty, chaos and meaninglessness lie in recognizing and practicing only eternal, unified, holy, loving values, attitudes, actions and purposes—which (despite their various names) are all one.
5/11/10 – The opposite of analysis is acceptance. We can’t “figure out” or “make sense” of evil, hate or chaos, because these are meaningless concepts. The beginning of wisdom and understanding comes from a focus upon only that which is good, loving and eternal.
5/10/10 – Our will and God’s will are unchangingly and forever one and the same. We are creations of love itself, eternally open channels through which his love flows. We are co-creators, co-extenders and co-receivers of God’s perfect and endless cycle of love.
5/9/10 – We are always sufficient to each moment’s need, because all of God’s meaning, strength and power lie behind each and every one of even our smallest loving thoughts, gentle touches, healing gestures, and words of acceptance, appreciation and forgiveness.
5/8/10 – We are not separate, unlovable, inadequate, competing, doomed bodies, nor are we—as our human culture tells us—broken pieces of creation. We are one interdependent spiritual self, forever individually, uniquely and creatively expressing the love of God.
5/7/10 – When we are feeling weak and challenged, we can offer up our heartfelt willingness to see each person and situation now as God does; humbly turn over to him each fear, shame and sorrow; and confidently await his miraculous, healing vision.
5/6/10 – I am not guilty, nor is anyone else. We are here and now only to love. As we focus upon this innocent present-purpose, we free ourselves and one another, moment-to-moment, from our sad, angry illusions of an inadequate, unloving, unfair, shared past.
5/5/10 – What and how and whom we choose to love today has nothing at all to do with making up for or changing shared false illusions of a sad, guilty past, which is, after all, gone. Love is what we are now and forever, the only “time” there is to love and be loved.
5/4/10 – We can’t prepare ourselves in advance to know how best to handle each new situation, but we can be ready and willing to turn over each challenging moment trustingly to God, and then to quietly, peacefully and confidently await his sure answers.
5/3/10 – All love, all wholeness, all healing, all relationship, heaven itself, is within—where we share one knowing of our eternal oneness with God, humankind and all of creation.
5/2/10 – We are thoughts in the mind of God, innocent and beloved and one with another and God, as we were created. The illusion which our bodies represent is the imagined gap between us and each other, between us and the universe, between us and God.
5/1/10 – We can see everything differently, lovingly, peacefully, helpfully—from a spiritual, eternal perspective—if, when we are afraid, we ask God for his vision and insight, and then wait in trust, knowing we will receive it.
4/30/10 – We are all unique, innocent, indispensable expressions of one beloved creation, all equal heirs to eternal justice, spiritual abundance and unconditional love, all learning love, forgiveness, acceptance and appreciation for one another, ourselves and God.
4/29/10 – When we add the suffering of guilt and worry to pain, see ourselves and others as unfairly treated, think life brief and unjust and God very-conditionally loving, we’ll feel alienated, guilty and angry, having (mis)judged God’s one eternal, perfect creation.
4/28/10 – Our “self” is an eternal whole, one with God and his beloved creation, forever extending, communicating and expressing love, oneness and connection personally and irreplaceably, through unique, temporary bodies, personalities, experiences and talents.
4/27/10 – We can make no decisions based on small ideas of weakness, and give no power to imagined individual limitations, but remember instead that we are open, guided, beloved, strengthened media through whom God uniquely expresses his love.
4/26/10 – In the midst of our daily human dramas, we forget our nature as eternal beings in a spiritual dimension with no past or future, no place or time, but rather always and forever everywhere in an eternal now, sharing all creation, all understanding, all love.
4/25/10 – When we determinedly let go of all judgment, anger, blame, attack and retribution toward someone else, all our own defensiveness about our own illusions of our own guilt will fall away simultaneously and miraculously, leaving behind only love.
4/24/10 – When we show up at any moment as guilt-ridden and inadequate, unforgivable and unlovable, we tell the world that they, too, are worthless and bad, deserving of condemnation and death, and hopelessly divided from man and from God.
4/23/10 – Love isn’t difficult, but removing our many barriers to it requires real commitment and effort. Everything that blocks love—all our guilt, attack, fear, anger, envy and judgment—can be brought to God to be healed, released and transformed.
4/22/10 – When we let go of our cultural dream of judgment, guilt and sin, when we realize that separation of God and his beloved creation was never possible, then we will know we never left his garden of oneness, forgiveness, love, acceptance and appreciation.
4/21/10 – The best change we can make is to let go of guilt. Jesus’ whole life was about teaching us that we are forgiven, beloved and free, now and eternally—to live in peace, innocence and love. Would we refuse to hear his message? Let him teach and die in vain?
4/20/10 – Certainty, purpose and present-focus come from seeing ourselves and all others as lovable, as-is. When we accept others’ choices, thoughts and actions mercifully and gently, we receive in return the gifts of peace, acceptance and freedom from judgment.
4/19/10 – Love cannot co-exist with guilt, fear, judgment and attack. Let these go, and recognize instead, in yourself and in all others, the accepting, free, joyous, loved and loving eternal spirit ready to be born again at each new moment, now and always.
4/18/10 – Relationships are about unlimited opportunities to love and be loved, to serve and heal, and not about fear, guilt and disappointment. When we forgive, accept and appreciate ourselves and others as perfect, innocent, eternal spirits, we share one mind.
4/17/10 – Everyone, without exception, makes mistakes, big and small. We can drag our past miseries into our darkened, miserable presents and bitter futures, or we can let go of guilt—and discover and share with others, lives of innocence, lightheartedness and joy.
4/16/10 – Shall we cling to an old, tired cultural vision of an evil, fallen, unlovable, unforgivable humankind caught in a world of fear, judgment, guilt, sin, condemnation and judgment? Or embrace a joyous new vision of forgiveness and unconditional love?
4/15/10 – The feelings of guilt, fear, condemnation, aloneness and inadequacy written clearly upon our faces announce to everyone else that they too are unforgivable, doomed, irredeemable—and as hopeless as we. Is this the mirror we want to hold up to others?
4/14/10 – If we are God’s eternally beloved creation, then there is no death, time has no direction, and the past has no meaning. We are always and forever with God in the present, now, which is the only time there is, and where all healing, love and joy occur.
4/13/10 – Loving relationships are not about fear, guilt, comparisons or sacrifices. They enhance forgiveness, acceptance, love and appreciation for all, support recognition of the changeless innocence and perfection of all, and thus infinitely and sufficiently bless all.
4/12/10 – Why would we waste our lives defending and making up for yesterdays that are gone? God’s peace lies in recognizing and appreciating, now, that we are all innocent, unique, indispensable facets of one eternally loved, loving and lovable spiritual creation.
4/11/10 – What kind of God would create an impossible world, and then ask his children to briefly compete for a limited number of exalted or miserable eternal slots? Why would we spend our lives feeling—and thus making others feel—guilty and inadequate?
4/10/10 – Truth is total, and can be understood only when we are peacefully aware of our loved, lovable and loving oneness with God, nature, and all humankind. Condemnation, conflict and guilt are meaningless, senseless and irrational, and cannot be understood.
4/9/10 – Truth, knowledge and understanding do not lie in extremes, separation, polarity, division or opposition, nor in anger, self-righteousness or conflict. They can only be recognized in unity, harmony, acceptance, forgiveness, oneness, reconciliation and peace.
4/8/10 – When we see ourselves and others merely as flesh-and-blood human mortals, separated from each other and doomed to die, we lose sight of our mutual eternal reality as spirit—forever loved and loving, forever innocent, forever reborn in an eternal present.
4/7/10 – Who are we? We are the eternal love that created us. We are the love that expresses creatively through our unique experiences, learning and talents. We are the love which together forgives, comforts, enlightens, empowers—and moves mountains.
4/6/10 – Love created us by a loving thought, and we continue creation through our own loving thoughts. Life itself is a cycle of creation of love through a multitude of unique forms and expressions. Nothing else is real, nothing else matters, nothing else lasts.
4/5/10 – Shall we spend our lives guiltily groveling, defending ourselves, and rebelling against feeling judged? Or shall we joyously recognize, accept, and celebrate each moment of a life that is not about judging or being judged, but about eternal innocence?
4/4/10 – Together we are God’s one strong, loving, confident, eternal, diverse creation, an irresistibly loving, lovable force, no “part” of which ever needs defending. Defending our illusions of separate, uncertain, inadequate, imagined “selves” only weakens us.
4/3/10 – We are powerful and loving beyond our imaginations, but we can’t recognize or fulfill our own unique and infinite potential until we respect, support and appreciate all others’ potential—as equally, eternally and uniquely amazing, infinite and wonderful.
4/2/10 – We can focus on goodness—seek it, appreciate it, offer it—because it’s pointless to try to understand or fix goodness’ senseless opposites—all errors, sins, evil, mistakes and wrongs. Instead, we can forgive, accept, love, (ourselves too), and let the rest go.
4/1/10 – We are eternal spirits, living life now as one innocent, valuable, beloved, diverse creation, sharing the same interests, and longing for the oneness of loving and being loved. Such awareness offers surrender, peace, forgiveness, acceptance and appreciation.
3/31/10 – Acceptance that we are forever unique, innocent and diverse, as we were created by an unconditionally and eternally loving God to be, helps us let go of the guilt and judgment we project onto others and ourselves, that causes most of the world’s pain.
3/30/10 – When we remember to respond to everyone, every time, with acceptance, forgiveness and appreciation—they like it! J
3/29/10 – Did God create us to drag along feeling guilty, weak and inadequate, or to recognize our capacity to be his loving, joyous, glorious children? If we ask, he will affirm all our ambitions to be our best selves in each moment.
3/28/10 – When we doubt and fear others, we can rely upon God’s inspiration, perspective and strength to help us live out our faith in the inextinguishable spark of divinity and love which is that-of-God eternally present in everyone’s essential nature.
3/27/10 – God created us with the goal of sharing his love and joy with us. We can share in his purpose and achieve his goal by sharing his love and joy with everyone else. The love and joy which then returns to him completes an infinitely loving, joyful cycle.
3/26/10 – We don’t need to learn love, which we all recognize, feel, and intuitively understand. But we do need to get rid of all our wrong-minded cultural ideas which cover, hide and bury our loving natures beneath their burden of guilt, fear and judgment.
3/25/10 – Instead of using anger in a futile attempt to push onto others our own present guilt feelings about the past, we can surrender all guilt entirely to an infinitely patient, understanding, forgiving God, and share his healing, motivating love, grace and peace.
3/24/10 – Each time we take a moment to request, receive and allow God’s unexpected, surprising, miraculous perspectives and inspiration, we will see, accept, appreciate, encourage and lift ourselves and others in incalculable, unforeseeable ways.
3/23/10 – When we finally realize that we don’t know anything, we may be more willing to learn everything from one who does understand, and who teaches by gently offering healing insight, inspiration and perspective to each question we humbly surrender to him.