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The United States has a new president…and a country to heal. How do we do that? As a hospice chaplain, I have a few superpowers…the first and foremost one is listening. This post and its sound meditation is the second of three…in a series on listening. David Whyte lent us a quote or two (again) about friendship’s “privilege of witnessing another’s whole self over time” NOT JUST THE NICE PARTS…but also (and especially) in crisis…” when our armored personalities run into the inevitable natural disasters and vulnerabilities found in even the most average existence….” I call these the our tender human trenches…which this country is in. I’d say we need to be friends now more than ever…
How do we listen with our hearts open?So How do we do this? How do we listen with our hearts open? I am heart centered. It is my practice to listen to the ‘the still small voice’ of Divine Guidance in my own heart…but I read too. "Finding the information given to me from the cranky, and well-intentioned is not easy. The linkage that makes me renewable is being able to course correct. This is fertile soil…” - EM Hager Feed Me Feedback No. 30 I believe in the “Feed Me Feedback” of the world …that is, in the muck and from which the lotus blossoms. I believe in feedback of others…but it is my own mind and heart that decides what to use and what to give back to the muck...
We REMAIN IN SIGHT of our friends (…and family) the ultimate touch stone of friendship (and listening) is not improvement, but the privilege of witness. Personal Experience of God & the Muck I trust Spirit to speak. I know it by its voice of wisdom and love…and it is above all kind…not coddling…not easy… but good.I speak a lot about this direct experience WITH OUR OWN Higher Power here. It is oddly, something the spiritually progressive mystics have in common with the thoughtful but more traditionally religious evangelicals. Prayer and Meditation is a conversation with the Divine. Meditation is about getting still and LISTENING to Spirit...so we can witness our friends and even those who we do not yet (or perhaps might not ever) call a friend. So it was particularly troubling when I read a CSM article last week about the militant evangelical conservatives who guided the “Stop the steal” JERICHO Washington March in mid December and rioted at the capital on Jan 6th. The article says it is a new 'Christian Nationalism' which is reminiscent of the South after the Civil war. Apparently, they think they are listening to God too... Here’s the quote from one of its leaders that is most troubling to me: “When God gives you a vision, you don’t need to know anything else.” - Eric Metaxas, A prominent conservative writer and Jericho March’s Emcee. It’s an interesting and well-balanced article…as is usual from Christian Science Monitor. December 11, 2020 How can I know that the voice to which I am listening is Divine guidance or one of fear? i.e. the inner 'devil' That is the question for this meditation... How can I know for certain that the voice inside which I am listening to is Divine Guidance or one of fear … (the small personality, my ego or the inner devil whispering) Gratefully, Jesus has some clarifying thoughts here: You shall know the tree by its fruits… LUKE 6:44-45 LUKE 6:43 … figs are not gathered from thornbushes, nor grapes from brambles. 45 The good man brings good things out of the good treasure of his heart, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil treasure of his heart. So that’s clear. If you want grapes, plant a vineyard. If you want love, sow it. Common Grace? Goodness? You have the seeds readily available… I listen to the tree through its fruits… |
 | The only choice we have in how we mature is how we inhabit our vulnerability. |
How we become larger and more courageous
and more compassionate in our
intimacy with disappearance?
Friendship transcends disappearance
REMAIN IN SIGHT of our friends.
The ultimate touch stone of friendship (and connection) is not improvement, but the privilege of witness.
Keep your heart Open;
Stay connected
Begin again.
• Breath | FIrst in the sound meditation on LISTENING |
“It is precisely under crisis conditions when we have the most to gain by a grateful perspective on life. IN the face of demoralization, gratitude has the power to energize . IN the face of brokenness, gratitude has the power to heal. In the face of despair, gratitude has the power to bring hope. …He goes on to say “ But the sense that there’s real skin in the game – real potential for loss – is important. Sometimes, maybe, actually experiencing loss is what has to happen to wake us up.”
The dynamic of friendship is almost always underestimated as a constant force in human life: a diminishing circle of friends is the first terrible diagnostic of a life in deep trouble: of overwork, of too much emphasis on a professional identity, of forgetting who will be there when our armored personalities run into the inevitable natural disasters and vulnerabilities found in even the most average existence…
A friend knows our difficulties and shadows and remains in sight, a companion to our vulnerabilities more than our triumphs- even when we are under the strange illusion we do not need them….Friendship transcends disappearance: an enduring friendship goes on after death, the exchange only transmuted by absence the relationship advancing and maturing in a silent internal conversational way even after on half of the bond has passed on….
But no matter the medicinal virtues of being a true a true friend or sustaining a long close relationship with another, the ultimate touch stone of friendship is not improvement, neither of the other nor of the self, the ultimate touchstone is witness, the privilege of having been seen by someone and the equal privilege of being granted the sight of the essence of another to have walked with them and to have believed in them, and sometimes just to have accompanied them for however brief a span, on a journey impossible to accomplish alone.
–David Whyte Excerpts from his book Consolations- Friendship
There is a love which itself has the power to free the human heart.
Whoever arrives at this place looks at the world differently. The distinctions on the surface no longer exist.
Love does not come as theory. It moves in bodies, in nature, in the ground beneath us and the space between.
True Love is not emotional. It is a different nature, waiting in us like a secret seed
…this is the truth we all must find. The profound problems of …the inner and outer world… will be solved by love, and love alone
-Richard Rohr - Inner and Outer Freedom:
Freedom to Love. 6.16.2020
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