GOD-AWARENESS

The contemplative secret is to learn to live in the now. The now is not as empty as it might appear to be or that we fear it may be. Try to realize that everything is right here, right now. When we ¢â‚¬â„¢re doing life right, it means nothing more than it is right now, because God is in this moment in a non-blaming way. When we are able to experience that, taste it and enjoy it, we don ¢â‚¬â„¢t need to hold on to it. The next moment will have its own taste and enjoyment.

Because our moments are not tasted or full or real or in the Presence, we are never full. We create artificial fullness and try to hang on to that. But there ¢â‚¬â„¢s nothing to hold on to when we begin to taste the fullness of the now. God is either in this now or God isn ¢â‚¬â„¢t at all. This moment is as perfect as it can be.

Let this quote from Psalm 46:10 be your entranceway into the now:

Be still and know that I am God.

Be still and know that I am.

Be still and know.

Be still.

Be.

Adapted from Everything Belongs: The Gift of Contemplative Prayer, pp. 60-62

Starter Prayer:  God’s life is living itself in me.

~~

GOD-AWARENESS

Enlightenment is always somehow to see and touch the Big Mystery, the Big Pattern, or the Big Picture. Jesus called it the Kingdom or Reign of God; Buddha called it enlightenment. Both Buddhists and Hindus speak of nirvana. Philosophers might call it Truth. Most of us just call it love. There ¢â‚¬â„¢s no answer, no problem-solving, simply awareness. You cannot not live in the presence of God. You are totally surrounded by God. St. Patrick said it well:

God beneath you,

God in front of you,

God behind you,

God above you,

God within you.

You cannot earn this God. You cannot prove yourself worthy of this God. Feeling God ¢â‚¬â„¢s presence is simply a matter of awareness, of fully allowing and enjoying the present moment. There are moments when it happens naturally, when we are out of the way. Then life makes sense. Once I can see the Mystery here, and trust the Mystery even in this little piece of clay that I am, in this moment of time that I am ¢â‚¬”then I can also see it in you, and eventually in all things. That would be full enlightenment,  ¢â‚¬Å“when God is all in all ¢â‚¬  (1 Corinthians 15:28).

Adapted from Everything Belongs: The Gift of Contemplative Prayer, pp. 56-57

Starter Prayer:

God’s life is living itself in me.

GOD-AWARENESS

We cannot attain the presence of God because we ¢â‚¬â„¢re already totally in the presence of God. What ¢â‚¬â„¢s absent is awareness. Little do we realize that God is maintaining us in existence with every breath we take. As you take another breath (right now!) it means that God is choosing your existence now, and now, and again now. We have nothing to attain or even learn, only something wonderful to accept. We do, however, need to unlearn some things.

To become aware of God ¢â‚¬â„¢s presence in our lives, we have to accept what is often difficult ¢â‚¬”that human culture is in a mass hypnotic trance. We ¢â‚¬â„¢re sleep-walkers. All religious teachers have recognized that we human beings do not naturally see; we have to be taught how to see. That ¢â‚¬â„¢s why the Buddha and Jesus say with one voice,  ¢â‚¬Å“Be awake. ¢â‚¬  We have to learn to see what is already there.

Prayer is not primarily saying words or thinking thoughts. It is, rather, a stance. It ¢â‚¬â„¢s a way of living in the Presence, living in awareness of the Presence, and even of enjoying the Presence. The full contemplative is not just aware of the Presence, but trusts, allows, and delights inside of an active and experienced Union.

Adapted from Everything Belongs: The Gift of Contemplative Prayer,

pp. 29-31

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Beginner ¢â‚¬â„¢s mind is a posture of eagerness, of spiritual hunger. The beginner ¢â‚¬â„¢s mind knows it needs something, just as children do. This is a rare feeling in today ¢â‚¬â„¢s treacherously seductive culture. Because we are offered so many things that are immediately satisfying (albeit in a superficial way), it is hard to remain spiritually hungry. We give answers too quickly, take away pain too easily, and too commonly stimulate ourselves with nonsense. In terms of soul work, we dare not get rid of pain before we have learned what it has to teach us. Much that we call entertainment, vacations, or recreation are merely diversionary tactics, and they do not  ¢â‚¬Å“re-create ¢â‚¬  us at all. The word vacation is from the same root as vacuum, and means to  ¢â‚¬Å“empty out, ¢â‚¬  not to fill up. One wonders how many people actually have such vacations!

We must be taught HOW to stay with the pain of life, without answers, without conclusions, and some days without meaning. That is the path, the perilous dark path of true prayer. It is how contemplative prayer differs from the mere recitation of prayers (which can actually be another diversionary tactic instead of any kind of self-emptying).

Adapted from Everything Belongs: The Gift of Contemplative Prayer

~~

Jesus calls us to become like little children, or as the Zen master puts it, to have  ¢â‚¬Å“beginner ¢â‚¬â„¢s mind. ¢â‚¬  Jesus says the only people who can recognize and be ready for what He ¢â‚¬â„¢s talking about are the ones who come with the mind and heart of a child. The older we get, the more we ¢â‚¬â„¢ve been betrayed and hurt and disappointed, the more barriers we put up to beginner ¢â‚¬â„¢s mind. We must always be ready to see anew. But it ¢â‚¬â„¢s so hard to go back, to be vulnerable, to say to your soul,  ¢â‚¬Å“I don ¢â‚¬â„¢t know anything. ¢â‚¬ 

Spirituality is about seeing. It ¢â‚¬â„¢s not about earning or achieving. It ¢â‚¬â„¢s about relationship rather than results or requirements. Once you see, the rest follows. You don ¢â‚¬â„¢t need to push the river, because you are already in it ¢â‚¬”and floating along! The life is lived within us, and we learn how to say yes to that always-existent Life. If we exist on a level where we can see how  ¢â‚¬Å“everything belongs, ¢â‚¬  we can trust the flow and trust the life, the life so large and deep and spacious that it even includes its opposite, death.

Adapted from Everything Belongs: The Gift of Contemplative Prayer,

pp. 32-34

~~

People who have learned to live from their center in God know which boundaries or edges are worth maintaining and which can be surrendered, although it is this very struggle that often constitutes their deepest  ¢â‚¬Å“dark nights. ¢â‚¬  Both maintaining and surrendering boundaries ironically requires an  ¢â‚¬Å“obedience ¢â‚¬  (Romans 16:26) because it requires listening to a Voice beyond your own.

I believe that we have no real access to who we really are except in God. Only when we rest in God can we find the safety, the spaciousness, and the scary freedom to be who we are, all that we are, more than we are, and less than we are. Only when we live and see through God can  ¢â‚¬Å“everything belong. ¢â‚¬  All other systems exclude, expel, punish, and protect to find identity for their members in ideological perfection or some kind of  ¢â‚¬Å“purity. ¢â‚¬  Apart from taking up so much useless time and energy, this effort keeps us from the one and only task of love and union.

Adapted from Everything Belongs: The Gift of Contemplative Prayer,

~~

How do we find what is supposedly already there? How do we awaken our deepest and most profound selves? By praying and meditating? By more silence, solitude, and sacraments? Yes to all of the above, but the most important way is to live and fully accept our reality. This solution sounds so simple and innocuous that most of us fabricate all kinds of religious trappings to avoid taking up our own inglorious, mundane, and ever-present cross.

Living and accepting our own reality will not feel very spiritual. It will feel like we are on the edges rather than dealing with the essence. Thus most run toward more esoteric and dramatic postures instead of bearing the mystery of God ¢â‚¬â„¢s suffering and joy inside themselves. But the edges of our lives ¢â‚¬”fully experienced, suffered, and enjoyed ¢â‚¬”lead us back to the center and the essence.

We do not find our own center; it finds us. Our own mind will not be able to figure it out. Our journeys around and through our realities, or  ¢â‚¬Å“circumferences, ¢â‚¬  lead us to the core reality, where we meet both our truest self and our truest God. We do not really know what it means to be human unless we know God. And, in turn, we do not really know God except through our broken and rejoicing humanity.

Adapted from Everything Belongs: The Gift of Contemplative Prayer, pp. 17-19

~~

In order to arrive at the second half of life, one has to realize there is an incurable wound at the heart of everything. Much of the conflict from the age of twenty-five to sixty-five is just trying to figure this out and then to truly accept it. A Swiss theologian, Hans Urs Von Balthasar (1905-1988), said toward the end of his life:  ¢â‚¬Å“All great thought springs from a conflict between two eventual insights: 1) The wound which we find at the heart of everything is finally incurable. 2) Yet we are necessarily and still driven to try. ¢â‚¬  (Think about that for an hour or so!)

Our largely unsuccessful efforts of the first half of life are themselves the training ground for all virtue and growth in holiness. This  ¢â‚¬Å“wound at the heart of life ¢â‚¬  shows itself in many ways, but your holding and  ¢â‚¬Å“suffering ¢â‚¬  of this tragic wound, your persistent but failed attempts to heal it, your final surrender to it, will ironically make you into a wise and holy person. It will make you patient, loving, hopeful, expansive, faithful, and compassionate ¢â‚¬”which is precisely the second half of life wisdom.

Adapted from Loving the Two Halves of Life: The Further Journey

(CD/DVD/MP3). See also Fr. Richard ¢â‚¬â„¢s latest book,

Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life

LIVING A WHOLE LIFE

The first half of life should lead one to become a better law-observing Christian, Muslim, Jew or whatever one ¢â‚¬â„¢s tradition might be. Yet staying in the first half of life too long gives the ego so much satisfaction that the vast majority of people remain there forever, as if it were the whole point. Laws serve us well at the beginning and everybody must go through this stage and internalize these values. But as Paul says, laws are only the  ¢â‚¬Å“nursemaid ¢â‚¬  (Galatians 3:24) to get us started. The fact that we have not taught this makes me think that history, up to now, has been largely  ¢â‚¬Å“first half of life. ¢â‚¬  God did not create us to obey laws but to attend a banquet. Jesus makes that absolutely clear.

In the first half of life we are creating our  ¢â‚¬Å“container. ¢â‚¬  The second half of life begins when we discover the real contents that the container was meant to hold! Jesus is saying the same thing when he says that in order to hold new wine we need new wineskins and, if we do not create new wineskins, we lose both the wine and the wineskins (Mark 2:22)! Do we have a big enough container to hold all that God has created, and all that God is doing in us? The second half of life container can hold much more than structures and laws. It begins to enjoy the wedding banquet itself.

Adapted from Loving the Two Halves of Life: The Further Journey

(CD/DVD/MP3). See also Fr. Richard ¢â‚¬â„¢s latest book,

Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life

Starter Prayer:

Help me grow up by going down.

~~

LIVING A WHOLE LIFE

Thursday, February 2, 2012

Candlemas Day or Groundhog Day

(both longing for Springtime)

All-or-nothing reformations and all-or-nothing revolutions are not true reformations or revolutions. Most history, however, has not known this until now. When a new insight is reached, we must not dismiss the previous era or previous century or previous church as totally wrong. It is never true! We cannot try to reform things in that way anymore.

This is also true in terms of the psyche. When we grow and we pass over into the second half of life, we do not need to throw out the traditions, laws, boundaries, and earlier practices. That is mere rebellion and is why so many revolutions and reformations backfired and kept people in the first half of life. It is false reform, failed revolution, and non-transformation. It is still dualistic thinking, which finally turns against its own group too.

So do not waste time hating mom and dad, hating the church, hating America, hating what has disappointed you. In fact, don’t hate anything. You become so upset with the dark side of things that you never discover how to put the dark and the light together, which is the heart of wisdom, all love, and the trademark of a second half of life person. Maybe that is why we blessed the candles on this day, right in the middle of winter.

Adapted from Loving the Two Halves of Life: The Further Journey

(CD/DVD/MP3). See also Fr. Richard ¢â‚¬â„¢s latest book,

Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life

~~

LIVING A WHOLE LIFE

How does one transition from the survival dance to the sacred dance? Let me tell you how it starts. Did you know the first half of life has to fail you? In fact, if you do not recognize an eventual and necessary dissatisfaction (in the form of sadness, restlessness, emptiness, intellectual conflict, spiritual boredom, even loss of faith, etc.), you will not move on to maturity. You see, faith really is about moving outside your comfort zone, trusting God’s lead, instead of just forever shoring up home base. Too often early religious  ¢â‚¬Å“conditioning ¢â‚¬  largely substitutes for any real faith.

Usually, without growth being forced on us, few of us go willingly on the spiritual journey. Why would we? The rug has to be pulled out from beneath our game, so we redefine what balance really is. More than anything else, this falling/rising cycle is what moves us into the second half of our own lives. There is a  ¢â‚¬Å“necessary suffering ¢â‚¬  to human life, and if we avoid its cycles we remain immature forever. It can take the form of failed relationships, facing our own shadow self, conflicts and contradictions, disappointments, moral lapses, or depression in any number of forms.

All of these have the potential to either edge us forward in life or to dig in our heels even deeper, producing narcissistic and adolescent responses that everybody can see except ourselves. We either  ¢â‚¬Å“fall upward, ¢â‚¬  or we just keep falling.

Adapted from  Loving the Two Halves of Life: The Further Journey
(CD/DVD/MP3). See also Fr. Richard ¢â‚¬â„¢s latest book,
Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life

~~

Bill Plotkin speaks of the first half of life as doing our  ¢â‚¬Å“survival dance. ¢â‚¬  The second half of life can then become our  ¢â‚¬Å“sacred dance. ¢â‚¬  Most of us never get beyond our survival dance to ask the deep concerns of the soul (we are too busy  ¢â‚¬Å“saving ¢â‚¬  our souls, whatever that means!) to do our sacred dance. Money, status symbols, group identity, and security are of limited value, but to the soul they are a distraction, and finally they become the very problem itself.

However, don ¢â‚¬â„¢t misunderstand me ¢â‚¬”and I say this as strongly as I can ¢â‚¬”you ¢â‚¬â„¢ve got to go through this first half of life and its concerns. Every level of growth builds on the previous ones. The principle is this: transcendence means including the previous stages. Then you can see the limited ¢â‚¬”but real ¢â‚¬”value of the early stages. But you will no longer put too much energy into just looking good, making money, feeling secure at all costs, and making sure you are right and others are wrong. That ¢â‚¬â„¢s what it means to grow up, and Christians need to grow up just like everybody else.

Adapted from Loving the Two Halves of Life: The Further Journey

(CD/DVD/MP3). See also Fr. Richard ¢â‚¬â„¢s latest book,

Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life

~~

To live in the first half of life is largely a matter of survival. All it takes is what some call the reptilian brain, and like any good reptile it is largely concerned with reproduction, food, and survival. All that is important at this stage is my private, moral superiority which was supposed to make me pleasing to God for some reason. First half of life morality is largely concerned with various  ¢â‚¬Å“purity codes. ¢â‚¬  As one monk said to me, you could be  ¢â‚¬Å“pure as an angel while still proud as a devil. ¢â‚¬  I am afraid that is as far as first half of life values can get you.

Identity, security, and boundary questions are basically concerns of the ego. That does not make them bad, but they are just a starting point. The soul has different concerns. Our politicians continually assure us that they will keep us safe, and this is usually enough to get them elected, because most people are not yet asking higher questions in the hierarchy of needs ¢â‚¬”things like education, affordable housing, earth care, justice, the arts, immigration, penal reform, and the morality of war itself.

Adapted from Loving the Two Halves of Life: The Further Journey

(CD/DVD/MP3). See also Fr. Richard ¢â‚¬â„¢s latest book,

Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life

~~

The first half of life is invariably about creating identity, finding some boundary markers (traditions, trustworthy authorities and structures), making some money, getting an education, marrying, and raising children ¢â‚¬”which we then must defend for the rest of our lives. Most of us are so invested in these first answers by the age of 40, that we can ¢â‚¬â„¢t imagine anything more ¢â‚¬”not realizing that  ¢â‚¬Å“It ¢â‚¬â„¢s still all about me! ¢â‚¬ 

Christians in the first half of life became obsessed with dying a happy death and going to heaven. Even religion became a rather privatized evacuation plan for the next world, and the clergy seldom recognized that much of religion was trapped at the individualistic and egocentric level. No actual love of neighbor, outsider, the poor, or even God was really necessary. This is  ¢â‚¬Å“garden variety ¢â‚¬  first half of life religion, and it has passed for the real thing for much of the Christian era.

Adapted from Loving the Two Halves of Life: The Further Journey (CD/DVD/MP3). See also Fr. Richard ¢â‚¬â„¢s book,

Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life

Starter Prayer:   Help me grow up by going down.