Listening: Curating with our Focus

The only choice we have in how we mature is how we inhabit our vulnerability.

How do we become larger and more courageous
and more compassionate in our intimacy with disappearance?
                  – David Whyte

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. 

The Three Superpowers:

I talk a lot about the power of gratitude in these sound meditations- it is one of the three major superpowers we use;

• Breath

• Sound

•Gratitude

FIrst in the sound meditation on LISTENING

In the Gratitude project, its director, Dr Robert Emmons at the University of California at Davis,  says:

“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.”

Loss & change is chaotic and noisy…

As a hospice chaplain, I have the honor and privilege of witnessing the edge of loss for many… sometimes the ultimate loss.  It is. chaotic and noisy…

How do we listen to the guidance of our hearts amid the noise of the world…and most particularly…loss?We curate…we chose what to focus upon…Meditation and prayer, of course are the path to  that practice…a good life…as well as wise, curious and brave questions.

Questions in the Muck...&
under the lotus?

There are interesting question in the muck of loss and stress…. for a good life.and  for innovation…on any leading edge, cutting edge…or even bleeding edge of business or technology or life...what are the opportunities that present themselves here …in the muck? under the Lotus…

More importantly how do we hear them?How do we hear the lotus…in the muckI think …it is not an either or proposition…but yes and…we have a choice in how we observe this life and its challenges and opportunities…BUT we must first feel safe.  We need to feel our connection to Presence…and to our community and friends.  Then we have access to our inner worlds.

In my intimacy with disappearance,
I try and ask good questions.

How can we access what is under the words? or rather how can I access what is in my own heart? Here's the poet on friendship:

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

Lets take that into our meditation today
Let’s take those connections into meditation today…
to ground into Spirit, and the muck
and ask interesting  questions of the Lotus
…together and in 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
 

ATTRIBUTIONS:

1. CSM November 23, 2020 ; p 26. Finding Uplift in a Dark Year  
2. David Whyte, Consolations-  Friendship
3. Gratitude project, its director, Dr Robert Emmons@ Univ. of Calif at Davis, 
   
4. Fr Richard Rohr Newsletter - Inner and Outer Freedom: Freedom to Love. 6.16.2020
5. Background video LOTUS from Pexels