walk confidently

"...In your day and times this life seems meaningless, terrifying and full of suffering, violent and easily brushed across the veil because of a thousand menacing dangers.  The purpose of the inward struggles for integrity, to live, even to simply exist, stupefies the philosophers who like all the rest grope blindfolded through the first human stages, for the mystery is not revealed at once, but day by day, little by little and only to the seeker...The events of your times , stages in human personalities of those with whom you must march add to your darkness and confusion.  Under these circumstances of human living great can be the loneliness and the suffering...But the hope and the wonder is that a change comes, a dawning,when you reach a place, when you step forward and choose wisely.  You have acted upon your choice, you have stood your ground and have not weakened so that we can tell you to walk confidently carrying your dawning with you...within you is the light, within you is the freedom, therefore with eye turned inward you are safe...."

Scallop shell of quiet

"Go your way step by step.  Now is the appointed time to do your part: and your part, as you know well, cannot be done with righteous and breathless rectitude, but by being receptive so that you can be used as a channel, which is part of being a temple of the Spirit.  It is the antithesis of noise and dubious fame; be the silent ones, anointed, with rod and staff and the scallop shell of quiet and the promise of truth."

Dwell in the source

December has felt a little mooney, a bit blah.

In fact, I can't quite believe we're this close to Christmas.

Circumstances in my life have shifted considerably and I'm already feeling the 'after Christmas blues'.  Maybe, because November, in many ways was very special. In other ways it was very rough, but within that difficulty I could really hear God. And I'm not hearing Him as well this month.

Last night, a friend and I were talking and she said that she prays and she does her readings but one thing she just can't get is the meditation part.  Meaning, her mind continues to wander whenever she attempts. I almost had to laugh, because she said it as though, she were one of the only ones with this problem.  I told her that I was fairly certain most people had this problem. I'm reading Letters of the Scattered Brotherhood right now and it's a treasure of a book. It speaks quite a bit on going into the silence, hushing the outer man.  If the Desert Fathers recognized the difficulty in meditating, certainly, we in our busy lives will find it near impossible.  But I think that the more we practice, the more we discipline ourselves, we will find that God is waiting to meet with us in the silence.

This section really spoke to me.  This is something I am certainly in need of practicing:

"May I say here that the mind cannot remember easily when it is full of criticism; you cannot afford to take umbrage, to have prejudices, nor hold to yourself these violent human emotions which flare up in human contacts.  Let them go and dwell in the source of all love, infinite love"

The only way I have managed at all during this time is to pray for those I resent.  To try to stay above the human drama and enter instead into the drama of Christ's love for me.  The drama of His birth, His death, and  enter, too, into my own dying to self for Him.

".....Prepare yourselves to be sons of God, rise to your full height and live most of your life in spirit while in the material world....The discipline of the body and the spirit is an exercise as old as time.  The conflict of body and spirit, joy and sorrow, has been an accompanying mystery;"


I am practicing this picture of my inner man rising above. Staying above with the peace that surpasses all understanding.  I heard a suggestion recently to breathe in with the thought, 'I am' and out with the thought, 'Peace'.

"I will give you a talisman to use in times of pressure, of drabness, of temptation.  Say, 'There is no measured time at this place, no future, neither is there a past.  I am in the eternal moment, the limitless, infinite, now.'"


Furthermore, I am in today.  Today only.  Only God know what tomorrow holds, so here and now, I am able to trust.



submitting at Playdates with God

Now and Within

"Each one of us makes his own choice; it is either the way of negation, a materialistic philosophy, or the way of the creative spirit, the Way of Life.  'But one thing is needful,' he said, and 'now is the appointed time.' One has said that 'two of the greatest words in our language are now and within.'"- Letters of the Scattered Brotherhood

wordless wednesday

Seeking Stillness

Tired:

I am always tired, it seems.  I have to continually remind myself that God will give me rest.  And He is faithful in this but I add so much of my own chaos day to day that I often feel unrested.

So, I am learning to turn continually to Him for all my needs.  To not only rise above chaos, but to not create it.  This is no easy task.  In  Letters of the Scattered Brotherhood, there is a line I read this morning which says, "...this still Presence will give you complete majestic dominion over all mankind- that disturbing mankind within yourself.....Wake, then, little, perturbed, anxious, weary, frightened children, and stand released in this holy stillness."

So, I am seeking this stillness.  And I can relate completely to the 'disturbing mankind within' myself.  Meaning, I need morning after morning, afternoon, night, always to allow my crucify my flesh.  It's painful because the flesh does not go willingly.