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I spent an hour in a Sunday School class this morning contemplating the meaning of spirituality and what it means to lead a spiritual life. We were studying the Prologue and first two chapters of The Rule of Benedict (Chittister,1992).

Here are the main “ah-has” I got from the class:

• God is in us and all around us
• If we are not careful we waste our life on things that are of no eternal value
• We need to ask ourselves “Is there life before death?” (p.12)
• What gives life meaning is being open to God in ourselves and in others

What does all that mean to me? Well, to begin with, I need to focus my awareness on God as often as I can—-not just in myself but also in others. Doing so will make what life I have left to live meaningful so that I can “say yes” to having lived a “life before death.” When I make an effort to do this I start viewing my life and everything in it quite differently because everything is framed within the context of God rather than fear and the need to control.

From a longstanding immersion in 12 step values, I already know that serenity comes from living a life focused on acceptance, honesty, willingness, self knowledge, changing my problematic behaviors and reaching out to others. I  know being open to God in others and in myself is what gives my life meaning. I know my purpose in life is to accept God’s love and to share it with others. I know when I waste my awareness and attention on being emotionally mired down in the past or worrying about the future I fail to live in the now with God.

Now the real test, how can this insight be applied in my “one day at a time” existence?

• When I worry, I can  turn what I am worrying about over to God so I am  not throwing my life away on a non-existent future.
•  I need to accept I cannot control anything except my own attitude which often needs to be “shifted” to one of acceptance.
• I need to accept the gift of God’s love and to share that love in my behavior and the way I relate to others.

I hope all of this makes at least some sense! Perhaps if I close with my favorite part from today’s lesson it will help put what I have said in perspective. This is from page 32 where Chittister( 1992) quotes material from the Chinese Book of the Way (Tao Te Ching):

“Fill  your bowl to the brim

and it will spill.

Keep sharpening your knife

and it will blunt.

Chase after money and security

and your heart will never unclench.

Care about people’s approval

and you will be their prisoner.

Do your work, then step back.

The only path to serenity.”

Please  comment and share your ideas about the thoughts expressed in today’s blog. May the force be with you; may God bless and keep you.

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In response to the blog about climbing ladders that was posted yesterday, a good friend explained to me that the ladder Jacob saw in his vision was not there for Jacob to climb——instead angels went up and down the ladder to come to Jacob as God’s messengers. My friend who commented on yesterday’s blog also suggested I read Genesis 28 to revisit the story of “Jacob’s Ladder.” My friend is right, the song about Jacob’s Ladder got it all wrong—–the ladder in that story is not one God means for humans to climb. My friend wished for me that my angel might come down and lead me today. That wish got me to thinking about angels.

I believed in angels, fairies, Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and the Tooth Fairy as a child. Sadly, I lost those beliefs through the years. However, many of my adult friends have a very strong belief in angels as something very, very real.

I like the concept of angels as God’s messengers. Now that I am learning to be more receptive to God’s messages, I realize my life has probably been full of angel’s trying to get God’s message to me— but I was too busy or too blind to receive the message. Contemplative prayer has helped me be more receptive to God’s messages by showing me ways of silence that let me listen for God’s message.

So,  here I am at the turning point between middle age and evolving into a true elder, and my God has given me one more gift to take with me along my pathway….now I, too, can believe in angels. My faith is, hopefully, returning to that pure form I once knew as a small child. Today I am going to be looking up for that angel who is coming to me with God’s message—–and it won’t be a leap of faith to also believe that angel can protect me from harm if that is what God intends.

That’s it for today. I just needed to realize I do believe in angels….and accept them as my guides on my spiritual pathway.

Please share your thoughts about angels. May God bless and keep you.

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As I perused meditations this morning, I came upon a paraphrase of something attributed to Jung. Here is the paraphrase from Forward Day by Day,  (2013, Vol. 79 , No. 2, p.42):

“Years later I read Jung saying ….that we spend the first half of our life climbing up a ladder of ego that we then discover is propped up against the wrong wall.”

This is a seemingly innocuous sentence in and of itself. So, why did it jump out at me?

The answer is simple. I realized during the last few decades (I am a slow learner!)  that I had propped my ladder on the wrong wall. I defined my  own self-worth or ego in terms of what I accomplished professionally. I had an “aha!” moment (or several) in which I realized it was my soul I needed to nurture rather than my ego.  I had to move my ladder.

How did I do that? What did I move it to? First, I had to figure out who I really was and stop defining myself as a nurse, a writer, a professor, a consultant, an addictions expert, etc. That started me on the road to retirement, and being retired has given me more time to “find myself.” In nurturing my spirit I have focused on building a stronger relationship with God, and, like any good relationship, I have  to devote time in building and maintaining that relationship.

In the process of coming closer to God, I threw away my ladder. Moving it won’t work. So much for the song, “Climbing Jacob’s Ladder.” My spiritual pathway is enmeshed in a non-linear, non-hierarchical process. I can’t climb a ladder to love. I have to just “be” love….to be a receptor and sender of God’s love. Ladders don’t have a place in a loving relationship. Circles and spirals….maybe.

Here are some of the things I have learned during the last couple of years since I put my ladder down:

• It is okay to drift
• My path does not have to be straight or put me ahead of or “even” with anyone else
• God loves me just as I am; I don’t have to “buy” His love with accomplishments
• It is important to accept God’s love so I can share it
• Accepting and sharing God’s love is the real purpose of my life

The above bullets are truths I’ve found to be important to me. My intent is not to imply they should also be your truths.

Please share your thoughts on this “ladder on the wall” concept. I look forward to hearing them. May God bless and keep you.

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A friend posted a quote from Pablo Picasso this morning on Facebook: “The meaning of life is to find your gift. The purpose of life is to give it away.” That gave me pause until I realized one of the spiritual lessons repeatedly emphasized to me this past year is the importance of receiving God’s love and then expressing it through yourself to others. In a way, then, my gift of God’s love can only be part of my reality if I am willing to receive it, aware of receiving it, and able to share it with others.

I went to bed last night disheartened. I had just read many “non-spiritually focused” political statements, and I got so irritated with one comment that I responded by reminding the person who wrote it that the Bible tells us not to judge others and to love one another as ourselves. That was a mistake. Both parties in the political disagreement got somewhat  defensive——and I realized that my initial posted response was just another expression of “judging others.”

In one of the book study groups I met with this week we were discussing Richard Rohr’s (2009, The Naked Now: Learning to See as the Mystics See, pp. 32-33) discussion of how we should know better than to view everything dualistically, especially when it comes to viewing everything as “all right” or “all wrong.”  He talks about having to cultivate the ability to “stand back and calmly observe my inner dramas, without rushing to judgment” as an essential ingredient of spirituality. One of the paragraphs he wrote in this section of his book (p. 32) directly applies to my choice to become enmeshed in Facebook politics last night:

“Why do we do this to ourselves and one another? Don’t I know that every viewpoint is a view from a point? Why can’t I stand back and calmly observe that I always have a preference or bias or need, perhaps even a good and helpful one? Don’t I know by now that some of the information is never all of the information? What is it that makes it so hard to backtrack from my position once I’ve declared it in my mind, and especially if I declare it publicly?”

Therefore, here is what I “need to know better”:

• Both myself and others are not necessarily right or wrong
• All viewpoints voiced by humans come from a continuum of viewpoints
• These varied view points are based on each person’s unique perception of reality and the information the person has accepted as true
• When something in me (a preference, bias, or need) causes me to justify the rightness of my own viewpoint and to attempt to judgmentally invalidate or change another’s viewpoint I am no longer following a spiritual pathway
• All of these “bullets” are true for me—-even if my intentions meant to be  good/helpful

Hopefully, I am learning to “step back” from the political debates or any argument or announcement posted on Facebook that triggers my “need” to be right and therefore superior.  I am going to make a conscientious effort to allow people, including myself, to have a viewpoint that is simply that—–one person’s point of view. I am going to remind myself none of us have to be “all right” or “all wrong,” that looking at things dualistically implies needing to “improve” reality to match my viewpoint, and that such an ego-centered approach distances me from God’s love and sharing it with others. If I am successful, my serenity and blood pressure should both improve when I am experiencing Facebook’s virtual reality.

How does dualistic thinking influence your life? What gifts will you be able to find and give away or share if you begin to accept viewpoints without needing to justify or change them?

Enough said. I meant to focus on a patriotic 4th of July theme today, but this is what emerged from my keyboard instead; probably because I needed to clarify this topic for myself. I am sure 4th of July themes will abound elsewhere…..and maybe in the next few days my four little white dogs will quit being startled and barking when firecrackers go off. May you have a safe and fun 4th of July, and may God bless and keep you.

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I just read a meditation about the importance of viewing our lives “as a libation”—-a phrase taken from  2 Timothy 4:6-7: “As for me, I am already being poured out as a libation, and the time of my departure has come. I have fought the good fight. I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.”

Naturally, when I thought about ” libation” I thought of all the drinking I did back in the day when drinking libations was something I did with friends at first, and later by myself, to lighten “my spirit.” I read on….and, I am glad I did. I found out that “A libation in pagan ritual was drink poured onto the ground, offered to the gods—-‘wasted’ essentially for an invisible higher purpose”(Anonymous, 2013, Forward Day by Day, 79 (2): 62). So my past drinking of libations was a form of pouring libations/drinks down my throat—-wasting them for a selfish, eventually harmful purpose. There was very little ritual involved unless you can call toasting someone or something a ritual, and there was definitely nothing being consciously offered to God.

Thankfully, my life has changed. Looking back I can see that much of what I have done “for the good” in my life has been the type of libation pouring Paul referred to in the above quoted bible verse. The meditation I was reading emphasized  although we sometimes feel our efforts have been wasted because we cannot observe the immediate results of them our efforts may actually lead to important outcomes in the future for those who come behind us.

Most of my adult life in recovery has been devoted to what I have thought of through the years as “planting seeds.” I plant ideas, hope, faith, and, yes—-on my better days—-love. I hardly ever see an immediate result other than a smile. I also know that many of those in early recovery who relapse may someday remember and nurture one of those seeds until it grows into active and prolonged recovery. Likewise,  I have “planted seeds” in the depressed, schizophrenic, suicidal, hallucinating, cursing, angry, and aggressive persons I have dealt with as a “psychiatric nurse.” I sew similar seeds in the nursing students I teach with faith that their eventual outcomes will benefit future patients, including myself.

The meditation I was reading closed by emphasizing the outcomes of what we do are not important and that “finishing the race” and “keeping the faith” are  important. This morning’s meditation had an important message for me:  I need to keep  planting seeds with faith that they will “bear fruit” in God’s time and in God’s way. I cannot make a seed grow. A growing seed is a magical gift from God. I hope I can keep doing my part by planting the right seeds.

What are your thoughts about your actions and efforts being a libation for God’s greater good? What role does “planting seeds” have in your life?   Please share your comments. May God bless and keep you.

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One of the pictures I encountered as I scrolled through Facebook this morning was of a staircase winding up to an open door. The doorway was filled with a beautiful blue sky and white, fleecy clouds. The word “faith” was superimposed over the staircase, and the comment below the picture focused on how we need to trust God and take that next step—-even when we do not know where it is going.

Now, I don’t know about you, but I am scared of heights.  Regardless, in my journey, the stairs keep going up, and God seems to be taking me to even higher elevations. There always comes a time when I realize I can go no further on my own without reaching out for God’s hand, and then I am safe and can keep climbing without thinking about falling into an eternal “nothingness.”

My mind yesterday and today keeps returning over and over again to the 19 young firefighters who died in Arizona. I imagine how awful their death must have been. I grieve  and pray for the unspeakable loss they and their loved ones are enmeshed in at this point. I wonder over and over again, “why?”

I must rely on my faith to answer that question. When I look through my mind’s eye I do not see 19 scared men cowering under a piece of plastic anticipating and feeling unspeakable pain. I focus instead on seeing 19 brave soul’s reaching out for God’s hand as He comforts them and guides them over that top step into an eternity far removed from fire, smoke, and pain. I turn to faith again when I wonder how on earth all those families, many of them young children, are going to survive the pain of their loss—-the pain of not having a father, husband, son, or brother there to share their lives with. With a “faith focus” I “see” and believe that God is reaching out to them,  hugging them, and using His love and the love of others to help them cope with their grief, pain, and ongoing loss.

The Bible tells me when I am on earth I will “see through a glass darkly” and that once I leave this earth I will be given true understanding of what transpired on earth. I always imagine spending a lot of time asking God to answer all the “why” questions I asked in my previous existence.

This quote from Bill W. (As Bill Sees It, 1967, p.3)  helps me “climb the stairway of faith” when I am agonizing over why painful things happen:  “Believe more deeply. Hold your face up to the Light, even though for the moment you do not see.”

I will close on that note. May you believe more deeply and allow your face to be bathed in God’s light.

Please share your thoughts and comments about the role faith has played in your life. May God bless and keep you.

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Richard Rohr (2009, The Naked Now: Learning to See as the Mystics See, p.50) has written, “You really know only that which you first love…because otherwise you invariably distort and divide your sight and eliminate any bothersome or threatening information. Then you do not love it but (at best) only your idea of it.

When I was reading this morning, this quote jumped out at me because it immediately made me think of the times in my life that I was in love with my “idea” of who a person was or the potential I wanted them to be rather than the person they actually were. Suddenly, the quote seemed full of profound wisdom. Where else do I inadvertently fall into the same trap? When I:

• Don’t like something because of the “idea” or perception I have of it rather than the actual “it”
• Only love myself when I successfully meet unrealistic self-expectations shaped by others
• Use “not being perfect” as an excuse to indulge in addictive or harmful behaviors
• Judge conservative Republican well-to-do people as totally wrong and selfish

My list could go on and on, but what I am realizing is  the “mistake” of accepting my perception or “idea” as the only reality totally limits  my world as I know it. How sad that my “blinders” keep me from perceiving life as it actually is. But then, my next thought is, “How scary is that?” Maybe I don’t want to know reality; maybe I am more comfortable with my habitual perception of reality….maybe I am protecting myself—or, at least, the “self” I have allowed myself to know through the years.

But then comes the thought,  “wasn’t that what I was doing back in the day when I used to get drunk rather than face a reality I didn’t like?” Did excessive drinking or eating ever really protect me from reality? Of course not. Again, my ideas and perceptions gave me a false sense of security and actually eventually endangered my life.

Enough meandering. The main points of this conversation I am having with myself and you this morning are:

• it is important to realize that one’s idea/perception, even if it is mine, is not the only view of reality available
• accepting an erroneous idea/perception as reality can result in harm to self and/or others
• opening my mind and heart to other ideas and perceptions of reality enriches my experience of life and, perhaps, gets me closer to “truth”
• allowing myself and others to be as we are without judging opens me up to be a better channel for God’s unconditional love—to feeling loved and to loving others

I hope you are having a good day. Please share your thoughts on the topic of reality vs. perception. May God bless and keep you.

Down time. Time to self-nurture. Recovering from GI upset/flu. To all my friends out there, enjoy this day that has been gifted us…take time to smell the flowers, look at the sky, feel the grass under your feet. Hopefully, I will feel more like writing tomorrow. God bless and keep you.

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How can cutting one’s nails possibly be connected with either spirituality or recovery? Good question. Something is telling me I need to view nail cutting from that perspective anyway, so here goes.

I guess, for me, cutting my nails is a bit like grooming or cutting away pieces of my personal attributes (character defects) that create barriers between me and the God  Within myself and others. It is important to understand that I hate clipping my fingernails. I will put it off until I have a painful hangnail or a chipped or split nail that forces me to take action if I want to avoid pain.

That’s a familiar concept—not doing something until I have to in order to avoid pain. I have been working on character defects for over 32 years, and, of course, I still have those “nails” growing back.  Dr. Paul O. (1995, There’s More to Quitting Drinking Than Quitting Drinking) describes his method for “cutting nails” or dealing with character defects as one in which he turns whatever the character defect is over to God at night when he goes to bed and then asks God to return the portion He wants him to have in the morning.

Dr. O (1995, p.143)describes the result of his character defect handling process thus: “Of the many times I’ve offered a defect to God in this manner, He has never responded by immediately removing it completely. Neither has He ever failed to remove a sizable segment of it. Furthermore, the remainder continually decreases in intensity…  .”

Dr. O’s way of handling character defects is one I can adopt. For years I resisted getting rid of character defects because I thought they were “who I was.” I thought I needed them to survive. By accept and adopt in my life. By doing so, I can allow God on a daily basis to “take what He wants and leave the rest”—-the part of my character defects God thinks I need.  If Dr. O is right, every time I “trim my nails” this way, my character defects will never completely go away. What will change, however, is the strength or size of the character defects. These will lessen because I am working with God in handling them—-and I won’t have to wait until problems and consequent pain motivate me to do something about my character defects.

Sounds good to me, think I’ll keep trying to co-create my reality with God—-including the part associated with character defects.

Please comment on the topic of handling character defects. Thanks. May God bless and keep you.

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As I scrolled through Facebook this morning, this bit of wisdom jumped out at me:

“A bad attitude is like a flat tire. You can’t go anywhere till you change it.” accessed 6/19/13 at https://www.facebook.com/GodlyWomanDaily

This quote focused my thinking on what changing my attitudes has meant in my life. Changing my attitudes, for me, has been one of the essential ingredients of my recovery.  I agree with Dr. Paul O.’s (1995, There’s More to Quitting Drinking than Quitting Drinking, p. 63) statement:

“My days, one at a time, consist of reality, created by God, plus my attitude, created by me. God and I are thus co-creators of my day…I believe that each day God gives me everything I need to have a good day. My choice of attitude determines whether or not I enjoy His gift.”

This concept is not new. How many times have you been reminded that a glass of water can be viewed as half full or half empty?  Accepting that my attitudes and thoughts shape my reality, quite frankly, scares me.  It was not until I admitted my life was unmanageable when I tried to handle it on my own, started to believe that a power outside of myself could restore me to some semblance of sanity, and became willing to let my Higher Power handle things for and/or with me that I truly entered recovery some thirty-two plus years ago. My fear of creating my own reality without God’s help is quieted by my faith and belief that God is co-creator of my reality as long as I am willing to let Him do so. If I was not working in co-creation with God, my life would once again be a mess.

I have learned through the years to redirect my thinking into a positive direction. I view life as a gift from God that I cannot squander on negative thinking and worry. I need to focus on thoughts and attitudes that will let me enjoy the gift. It has become easier through the years to do so, but it can still be a battle at times. Giving into self-pity, fear, worry, resentment, anger, and other negative thoughts can quickly turn me into a helpless victim caught in a resilient bog of quicksand that persistently drags me down into a miserable, depressed place. I don’t want to get caught there, but I spent half of my life doing so before I entered recovery, and if I am not careful I can easily fall back into that trap.

I am going to close by quoting a Cherokee parable of two wolves that I think summarizes the importance of persisting in cultivating positive attitudes:

“An old Cherokee chief was teaching his grandson about life…

“A fight is going on inside me,” he said to the boy.
“It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves.

“One is evil – he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, self-doubt, and ego.

“The other is good – he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith.

“This same fight is going on inside you – and inside every other person, too.”

The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather,
“Which wolf will win?”

The old chief simply replied,
“The one you feed.”

accessed 6/19/13 at:

http://www.sapphyr.net/natam/two-wolves.htm

Please comment on how “feeding attitudes” has influenced your life. God bless and keep you.