Author Archive
Peace Requires a Spiritual Presence
The Israeli and Palestinian peace talks begin today in Washington. They have tried to reach agreements in the past and have always failed. Each leader comes to the table with different life experiences – knowledge, beliefs, attitudes, values and faith. Intentions need to be the same to form a partnership. Differences in life experiences are an asset, but a partnership cannot be formed without the same intentions.
Do the spiritual callings of each leader fit with how they respond, how they have been leading their countries? Do their relationships and their work, their beingness in this world fit their spiritual archetypes? Putting the two together is important to build a solid foundation on which to launch their intentions and goals into the future.
Ask your Spirit
If the world is in turmoil, it is because its people are.
What does your spirit say about this?
Ask It.
That only you can do, for you cannot enspirit for another.
The way of spirit involves us all in a vast common undertaking.
But it is your adventures to which your spirit invites you.
Listen, then, for your pain.
Listen, then, for your joy.
As these come to you through the embodiment of your spirit,
Listen for the others’
One or many.
This is deep listening.
Being silence.
Giving attention.
Being empathic.
Beyond the Imbalance is Spirit
Dive into the splash of turmoil, dissonance, imbalance, put down.
Beyond the splash is the deep of spirit.
Its space.
Yours….mine….everyone’s
Beyond the sound bites, the visual bites is the deep of spirit.
Its space.
Beyond the value disputes
Beyond the killings.
Beyond the cleansing and the dirtying.
Beyond the lifting up of cultures, ethnics, languages, regions, social classes, religions….
And the putting down.
Beyond the celebration of differences…
And the putting down of the common.
Beyond the celebration of the common…
And the putting down of differences.
Lies the space of reconciliation.
Lies the space of spirit.
How find it?
How know it?
How know if you have found it?
Uncover the criticals.
Go to the fundamentals.
These are the practices.
Spirit Sharing
Persons…in relation…share their spirit.
The space for sharing spirit.
That is what we seek.
The organization is not the name for that.
Perhaps it has no name.
A space without a name.
Place has a name.
Time has a chronology.
The space for sharing spirit has neither name nor time.
Seek not, then to name it.
Seek not, then to time it.
Seek not, then to label it.
This denomination or that.
This organizational strategy or that.
This school reform or that.
This family value or that.
This government or that.
Then what?
Is this no-naming a retreat from the world?
Which world?
Yours…mine…theirs?
Is this no-naming a retreat from reality?
Whose Reality?
Yours….mine….theirs?
Is this no-naming a retreat from the future?
What future?
Yours….mine…theirs?
Of course not.
Spirit lives in world.
Spirit lives in reality.
It is no dream.
It is not ephemeral.
We Seek Our Soul, We Seek Our Spirit
We seek our soul.
Where was it lost?
We seek our spirit.
Where was it lost?
The corporation seeks its soul.
Where was it lost?
The business seeks its spirit.
Where was it lost?
This is no light loss.
This is no light thing.
But it was never lost!
That which is not lost is not be be found.
Soul belongs to the person.
Spirit belongs to God.
Neither belong to the corporation.
The government.
The school.
Policy.
Even the church!
The Real World
We are befuddled.
The future is opaque.
The past has become a dispute over meaning.
Therein too stands a need for reconciliation.
The past and the future as one,
Transcended.
Still, this is a world of policy dispute.
Of governments pretending they know.
Of leaders giving us certitude
Of true believers telling us what is…and what is not.
Where does befuddlement lead?
Tyranny over self….over others.
Not the tyranny of bayonets only…though that too.
Tyranny of freedom without justice.
Of equality without difference.
Of hope without practice.
Of death without life.
Of theory without experience.
Of love bereft of friendship.
Of true belief over possibility.
Is this the real world?
It is certainly a noisy one.
Where is the silence?
Being Silence
This is a meditation
On being silence.
Not a reflection on being silence.
Being silence.
Thus, a practice.
To relearn the sound of the space where spirit dwells.
Silence has its own sound.
Silence is a space empty of noise
Yet full of the sounds of spirit.
The start of your journey
Is to know that sound.
How?
Listen for the silence.
Listen to yourself.
Listen for your deepest self.
Listen for your spirit.
Spiritual Poetry
Ours is not to know spirit as we know knowledge.
Ours is to be with spirit as with a leaf,
A tree.
A blade of grass.
A dog, soft and scratchy behind the ears.
A storm of rain.
A friend.
A lover.
A stranger.
Who are you with this day…
In spirit?
Spiritual Journey
The way of spirit is a journey.
It has started long before you were born.
It will end long after you are dead.
It is always with you, always within you,
Unique and special, the you within the you,
The binding of me, myself and I.
How can you have existed before you existed?
What manner of fetish is this?
How can you exist after you cease existing?
What manner of nonsense is this?
This is not a theology….but a practice.
Be with your spirit on its journey.
It will not leave you behind, aware only of your whims, knowing only your biography.
It will carry you back, carry you forward
On the endless spiral of its way.
Have you not lighted here, now, in this time and place,
On this very Earth, with this body, this family,
This heritage, this color and gender, this language,
This spirit?
Why?
Spiritual Reconciliation
Beyond individual and society lies a reconciliation of spirit.
Between the two, there is always a third. Discover it.
Let us search for the space of reconciliation.
How will we know it?
How will we find it?
How will we know when we have found it?
Reconciliation transcends the claims of the outer because it lives in spirit in the inner.
Reconciliation transcends the claims of the inner because it lives in spirit in the outer.
What does this mean?
Look into the mirror.
Look behind the eyes of your outer to the eyes of your inner.
Look into the eyes of your inner looking back at your outer.
Look to the eyes of your inner looking at your inner.
Look to the eyes of your outer looking at your outer.
This is a meditation of inward looking to the outward.
This is a meditation of outward looking to the inward.
