In Yoke

Use the light. Come home to your true nature. Don’t cause yourself injury: This is known as seizing the truth.   – Lao Tzu Easwaran gently instructs: “As human beings, we have been born with the capacity to make choices. No other creature has this capacity, and no human being can avoid this responsibility. Every day, whether we see it or not, we have a choice of two alternatives in what we do, say, and think. These alternatives are: what is pleasant and what is beneficial. The first pleases us now. The second may be unpleasant at the beginning, as anyone who has begun a physical fitness program knows; but it will improve our health and contribute to our peace of mind. Both choices promise satisfaction. One we get immediately, but it comes and goes; the other requires effort, but its benefits stay with us and often benefit those around us as well.” Yesterday, I had a doctor’s appointment with Scott Blattman, MD, my physician—a routine physical. He is...

I let go my desire for security and survival. I let go my desire for esteem and affection. I let go my desire for power and control. I let go my desire to change the situation. As I walk this journey, in Christ, and seek to yield more and more of my will to His will, I find this unvarying litany returns to my consciousness on a regular basis. This is one of the ways he is teaching me to apply his life to my life, to envelop my life with the qualities of His Life. The “paradox of letting go” is a sacred alchemy. It seems that all the sinfulness and impurity in my life comes from my striving for power/control, esteem/affection, security/survival. I must decrease, while he must increase. This is true wisdom-the journey’s joy, the journey’s energies, are to come from His abundance, not from my own will’s striving. “Not my will but Thine be done”, and “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” These are Yeshua’s prayers, and indeed, I pray, are...

Ever notice how the Word of God properly addresses some things to “your mind” and some things to “your heart”? “Lean on, trust in, and be confident in the Lord with all your heart -and mind- and do not rely on your own insight or understanding.” In Proverbs 3:5, the wise sage mentions both our heart and our mind. From our hearts come “insight” from our minds “understanding”… Something tells me there is a nuance, an important difference. Can a quieted heart affect one’s mind? Can hiding God’s word in one’s heart keep one’s mind from agitation?   I am coming to believe that the mind is what we use to interpret circumstances, to interface with the material realm and render judgments as to whether we should react to external stimuli in a peaceful, calm manner, or whether agitation, fear, anxiety should be our response. The mind is designed to be our stimulus/Spirit of the Living One abides. When the mind gets agitated, we do not see life as it truly is, as One. It is th...

“We have subtle subconscious faculties we seldom use. Beyond the limited analytical intellect is a vast realm of mind that includes psychic and extrasensory abilities; intuition, wisdom; a sense of unity; aesthetic, qualitative, and creative faculties; and image forming and symbolic capacities. Though these faculties are many, we give them a single name with some justification, because they are operating best when operating in concert.  They comprise a mind, moreover, in spontaneous connection to the Cosmic Mind. This total mind we call “heart”. ~ p.157, “Living Presence”, Kabir Helminski. I can remember my Sunday School teachers and my mother telling me to “let Jesus come into my heart.” I did not at the time understand what was meant by that. It puzzled me greatly as a child. I am beginning to understand now, some 50 years later. If I allow the Spirit of Yeshua permeate my being, then perhaps this heart—His heart-- can be imbedded within who I am, and who I am seeking to be...

Do not be dismayed, daughters, at the number of things which you have to consider before setting out on this divine journey, which is the royal road to heaven. By taking this road we gain such precious treasures that it is no wonder if the cost seems to us a high one. The time will come when we shall realize that all we have paid has been nothing at all by comparison with the greatness of our prize.   – Saint Teresa of Avila From Easwaran: Those who offer instant enlightenment mislead us. After all, we have to bring the mind itself under control, and there is no more difficult task in life. We should be prepared for a lifetime of challenge. But then, we need challenges, or we stagnate. If you want to judge your progress, ask yourself these questions: Am I more loving? Is my judgment more sound? Do I have more energy? Can my mind remain calm under provocation? Am I free from the conditioning of anger, fear, and greed? Spiritual awareness reveals itse...

“No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other; or else he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You can not serve both God and Mammon.” We ( Baylor - as a university community which says its follows Christ) have blindly served mammon, with the other schools in Texas…and look where it has taken us. Now money is driving the conference groupings even more than before- in 1995. Where will this lead? Texas—that is the University of Texas at Austin, is the driving force of the ‘we deserve more money’ movement. Fair enough, that is as it probably should be. UT is a dominant force in NCAA athletics. It is a secular school. It has absolutely no ties to the Gospel, other than the Gospel’s influence on our culture. Although far less in influence, the same goes for our militaristic land grant school, and our state’s other outpost, which defies description. But Baylor—why do we follow them? We say we are of Christ . I question that. Especially ...

“We die to each other daily. What we know of other people Is only our memory of the moments During which we knew them. And they have changed since then.”  — T.S. Elliot This poem reminds me of the fact that each of us change a little bit each moment, each day. This fact becomes so intensely evident when a new baby is born into a family. Their growth is so dramatic at first! I am reminded to be aware of each little growth spurt that causes myself and each of us--to grow into Christ. Our new Hayden Frances Luce was born on June 4, 2010. It will be such a blessing to watch her grow and change each day, each moment we get to be with her. I will change because of her influence on my life, on her mom's life, on my wife's life. This is a thing of beauty and of grace.