In Yoke

“There is an underlying attitude that cripples and blinds each of us. It can be so pervasive that we do not often question it. This attitude is a perversion of the natural order created by our loneliness and insecurity, by the illusion of separateness, by ignorance. The problem, in a way, is quite simple: we think of ourselves too often and in the wrong way . The result is self importance (or its’ opposite, self hatred), and greed.” As I share the long and sometimes sordid story of my own autobiography, I do so from a “Spiritual lessons” point of view, keeping this aforementioned premise in mind. I can really relate to this…because for a great portion of my life- I have thought of myself too often and in the wrong way . I have been studying the enneagram as a way of self revelation and understanding for the purposes of transformation by the Spirit of Yahweh, through Jesus Christ(YESHUA-His Aramaic name). As an Enneagram three, who is seeking redemption from my natural b...

The Divine Precinct is where our body, souls and spirits dwell when we are dedicated to the service of the King of Kings. The diagrams that my brothers and I were shown recently while on retreat shows the process of re-orientation, from the egoic realm where we live most days and waking moments, to the Divine Precinct—the “holy of holies” where the Spirit of God dwells within my heart. It is interesting to consider that our inner chamber is set up just like the original  Temple in Jerusalem( II Chron. 2:3) that YHWH told Solomon to construct, after it was revealed years earlier that his father David was unqualified to do... apparently our Creator has our hearts in mind when He laid out the plans for the Temple in Jerusalem. Just as the priests who ministered at this original Temple had to be ritually cleansed through sacrifice and through baptism or cleansing, so do our hearts, and lives. This diagram expresses and symbolizes the soma(body), psyche(soul) and pneuma (spirit)....

Today-January 14, 2010- I depart my day to day routines, my home, my family, my work, my church, my hometown, and leave for a 3 day “retreat”. I am grateful to Leslie for this giving me the space, and freedom from the day to day responsibilities, to do this. This retreat is of a somewhat spiritual nature, especially if one relates truth, reality, and life’s values as spiritual. ( and I do)… My desire for the next three days of retreat is to come to grips with the present malaise, and seek to grasp the meaning of the past ten year period, and hopefully construct an aim for the next decade, all in the perceived will of the Source of Life- aka God. Raimon Panikkar , in his short book, called Experience of God: Icons of the Mystery, begins to explore the ground of knowledge that I possibly am called to explore at this juncture of my life experience .. . what meaning or significance my life has, and must have, must be filtered through and weighed- in light of the indwelling, omnipres...

As the end of 2009 approaches, causing me to reflect on the past ten years of experience and eventual emergence from a ‘die before you die’ death experience which began in 1997 and culminated in 2001, I am resonant with the insightful thoughts of Teresa of Avila , when she was considering the twenty plus years she journeyed in order to “become established” in God…    “On the one hand I felt the call of God; on the other, I continued to follow the world. All the things of God gave me great pleasure, but I was held captive by those of the world. I might have been said to be trying to reconcile these two extremes, to bring contraries together: the spiritual life on the one hand and worldly satisfactions, pleasures, and pastimes on the other.” This little Spanish girl evolved into a remarkably spiritual woman.  As a girl she could say passionately, "I want something that will last forever!" She became one of the world's greatest mystics. In order to progress and...

  “Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed  thus: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.  I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.’  But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’  I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.” The apparent point of Jesus little story about the prayer postures of two individuals is cast against a cultural context whereby the Pharisees were the group that were the respected ‘church’ people, approved by all their peers, as those who took the Law seriously and sought to follow God with sincerity, and the tax collectors , who...

“Knowledge of ourselves teaches us whence we come, where we are and whither we are going. We come from God and we are in exile; and it is because our potency of affection tends towards God that we are aware of this state of exile.”  -Jan van Ruysbroeck Like the story of the prodigal son in the Bible, Easwaran tells of a legend--*a story of a prince who is kidnapped by robbers when he is very young. He forgets all about the palace, even about his father and mother. He just grows up as a bandit, learning to master the bow and arrow, ambush passersby, and disappear without getting caught. Then one day the king's spiritual teacher happens by. Many years have passed; the little child is a grown man, rough and cocksure. But the teacher recognizes him, and with great love embraces him, and calls him "your royal highness." The young man, outraged, pushes him away. But the teacher's faith is unshaken. He begins to tell the young man stories about his childhood, h...

“For who sees anything different in you? What do you have that you did not receive? If then you received it, why do you boast as if you did not receive it?”                                                              ~Paul of Tarsus One of the most repeated phrases in scripture in both the old and the new testaments is that God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble . A key aspect of that humility that is a prerequisite for the receiving of grace from God is to realize—each day, as best I can—each moment, that my life is a pure gift. All I have and all I “am” is wrapped up in the Creator’s creation of ‘me’ as a human being. It is an imperative for my life as a disciple ...