In Yoke

"God expects but one thing of you, and that is that you should come out of yourself insofar as you are a created being and let God be God in you".  – MEISTER ECKHART In those moments when we forget ourselves – not thinking, “Am I happy?” but completely oblivious to our little ego – we spend a brief but beautiful holiday in heaven.  The joy we experience in these moments of self-forgetting is our true nature, our native state. To regain it, we have simply to empty ourselves of what hides this joy: that is, to stop dwelling on ourselves .  To the extent that we are not full of ourselves, God can fill us.  “If you go out of yourself,” says Johannes Tauler, “without doubt he shall go in, and there will be much or little of his entering in according to how much or little you go out.”  - from Sri Eknath Easwaran As you move along in your life journey, take notice. Do you dwell on yourself, your likes, your dislikes? Do you seek to alter the plans and the ac...

From Sri Easwaran -- Thy desire is thy prayer; and if thy desire is without ceasing, thy prayer will also be without ceasing. . . . The continuance of your longing is the continuance of your prayer. – SAINT AUGUSTINE I once had a physicist friend who would gladly discuss electric power; but harnessing the power of a passion or a craving – well, that was not dynamics; that was poetry.  “Power,” he told me sternly, “is the capacity to do work".  He continued, "Work is the energy required to move a definite mass a definite distance. No movement, no work. No work, no power.” Day or night I had never seen my friend far from his desk. Then late one evening I came out of a movie theater and saw him striding along like an athlete, several miles from his office. “What got you up from your desk?” I asked. “You’re breaking the habits of a lifetime.” “Coffee,” he muttered. “I ran out of coffee.” “Here,” I said, “a very definite mass has been propelled at least three miles,...

I think Jesus’ primary metaphor for the mystery of transformation is the sign of Jonah (Matt. 16:4, 12:39, Luke 11:29). It’s taken on a great significance for me. I was reading the Gospel passage in which Jesus says, “It is an evil and adulterous generation that wants a sign” (Luke 11:29). He said the only sign he will give us is the sign of Jonah. That’s the only sign Jesus offers. Think of all the other signs, apparitions, and miracles that religion looks for and seeks and even tries to create. But Jesus says it is an evil and adulterous generation that looks for these things. That’s a pretty hard saying. He says instead we must go inside the belly of the whale for a while. Then and only then will we be spit upon a new shore and understand our call. That’s the only pattern Jesus promised us. Paul spoke of “reproducing the pattern” of his death and thus understanding resurrection (Phil. 3:11). That teaching will never fail. The soul is always freed and formed in such wisdom. Nati...

"The mystery of the Crucified" that Paul speaks of-- in I Corinthians--isn't a statement about Jesus being victimized by the Jews and Romans, or is it a pro-Christian rallying cry, but it is a deep and meaningful metaphor for the universal pattern of disorder inside of order, tragedy inside of holiness, surprise inside of consistency, the last being first, death inside of life, and the fly that seems to get in the ointment. There is a universal pattern of paradox that is as old as the Hindu scriptures, the aphorisms of Confucius and the Books of Exodus and Job.  ---excerpted from Rohr, "The Naked Now" In science, chaos theory is mentioned. Things disintegrate, and integrate. God is One, and within that Oneness is light and dark, life and death, goodness and its opposite. His view is over all and in all. The whole is expressed in the yin/yang of the Tao. In the simple naming of himself as yhwh~~"I am". We are trained as humans to think in a binary...

"O humans, so long as you call upon Me and ask of Me,  I shall forgive you for what you have done, and I shall not mind. O humans, were your sins to reach the clouds of the sky, and you were then to ask forgiveness of Me, I would forgive you. O humans, were you to come to Me with sins as great as the earth, and you were to face Me, I would bring you forgiveness as great." --- MUHAMMAD, The Qur'an and sayings of the Prophet Muhammad: Selections Annotated and explained  Perhaps the single most offensive thing about the traditional church is the judgmental stances of the members, the wholesale lack of forgiveness. This is the most difficult thing about human relationships.  I am looking in the mirror when I make this statement. I seek to keep score about slights and hurts, not simply counting my blessings and the things that I have been given by grace. This sabbath I seek to have a heart that forgives and trusts. May I be open to others and give myse...

After 35 years.  I am under no obligation to celebrate valentine's day.  This is liberating. So, what is the origin of this celebratory day? During the Roman Empire's post Christ event, during the pre Christian days of the Empire(that is - pre 333AD), in a treatise, Valentinus , who became known as Saint Valentine of Rome states that he was imprisoned for performing  weddings  for soldiers who were forbidden to marry and for ministering to Christians, who were  persecuted under the Roman Empire . According to  legend , during his imprisonment, he healed the daughter of his jailer, Asterius . Before his execution he is said to have wrote her a letter signed "Your Valentine" as a farewell.   Today, Saint Valentine's Day is an official  feast day  in the  Anglican Communion ,  as well as in the  Lutheran Church .   Interestingly, the  Eastern Orthodox Church  also celebrates Saint Valentine's Day, albeit on...

"W ho, then, are the wise and aware among you? Let them show their wisdom through the practice of gracious and humble living. If, however, there is bitterness and jealousy among you, or if there is conflict inside your hearts, then you should not be pleased, nor should you try to deny the truth of things. None of this is true wisdom from a transcendent source; rather it is debased and self-serving—even demonic. For wherever jealousy and divisions are present, you are sure to find every other kind of disorder and disruptive practice. However, transcendent wisdom is above all, pure, impeccable, and peaceful in nature. It expresses itself in straight-forward, considerate openmindedness. It is sincere, rich in compassion and in acts of goodness, which are its fruits. Peace, then, becomes the seed-bed of integrity, and peacemakers reap the harvest." The W isdom of Y a’akov, Brother of Yeshua - by Lynn Bauman, Translation of the Epistle of James, 3:13-18...