In a manner not unlike the Apostle Paul, I have journeyed to many places in the United States during this decade. Hopefully, I can travel to the southwest during the next decade.
I only had four resolutions in
2009. Here is a brief summary, along with the results. 1. I will read 50 books this year. I am currently
at 68, so this was a success. 2. I will observe the fasting and dietary practices of
various holidays in several of the world’s religions. I failed during
Lent. 3. I will implement some sort of plan concerning my
educational goals. I am happily working on a Master’s Degree in
Holistic Health. 4. I will finally join my local Unitarian Universalist congregation. I was going to do this
and actually interviewed for a youth coordinator position in June. However,
this experience was negative and disappointing. This experience made me
realize I do not need to be in a congregation and it’s okay to be the spiritual and
religious person I am. I finally put to rest any lingering doubts and questions
regarding my own acceptance of my spirituality. Therefore, this was a failure
and a success. I don’t have any specific resolutions for next year. Instead, I
commit to these ten ideas. 1. Maintain a positive
and realistic worldview. 2. Embrace simplicity. 3. Live in the present
moment. 4. Learn from mistakes
and let them go to history. 5. Consider the future,
but don’t be controlled by it. 6. Remember that I am
influenced by my environment & circumstance, but I have the power to make
positive and productive choices despite this influence. 7. Live fearlessly by
knowing how fears are constructed and how to deal with them. 8. Consider the context
of a situation. 9. Be open to learning. 10. Remember these words:
balance, mindfulness, energy, forgiveness, critical thinking, wholeness, &
harmony.
I tweeted this link yesterday about the forgiveness of a
family that lost their daughter to a car accident. http://www.startribune.com/lifestyle/79698172.html?page=1&c=y Forgiveness is so crucial to healing, both for the person
wronged and the person that did the wronging. By holding on to the pain caused
by being wronged, illness is created throughout a person’s entire being—biological,
psychological, sociological, & spiritual realms. Negative energy is created
and emitted, causing further suffering and illness. As a future holistic health
practitioner and energy healer, I have learned about the necessity of positive
energy in creating and maintaining a healthy person. The only way to reverse the effects of this is to practice
radical & complete forgiveness.
However, one needs to learn how to do this. Forgiveness isn’t simply saying I
forgive you. It’s not just words. It is a process of letting go of one’s
attachment to the security of their pain. It is scary to radically and completely forgive someone
because it opens you up to be vulnerable. Many people are afraid of being hurt
again, and they believe holding on to the pain of being wronged acts as a
protective shield. However, the perceived shield only blocks healing love from
being both emitted and received. One needs to let go of their pain. One needs to let go of
their fear. One needs to learn how to do this, and there are many ways to figure
this out. I use two ways: the example of Jesus Christ as the forgiving healer
in the Gospels and mindfulness as practiced by Thich Nhat Hanh. These two have
helped me realize the healing power of forgiveness. The negative forces of
bitterness, resentment, and anger no longer bind me. If someone wrongs me, I
recall the healing power of forgiveness as explained and witnessed by Jesus. I
use mindfulness to be awake in the present, which helps me see the wronging for
what it is and the reasons for its existence. By seeing the causes and dealing
with them, I can let it all go to history, where it no longer emits negative
energy.
What's the worst book you've ever read?
I spent the last week or so reading Thomas Merton’s No Man is an Island. Surprisingly, this has been the first Christian theological work I have read in quite a long time. I think four-plus years of Christian education helped contribute to this much-deserved break. Now, I am well rested (in a Christian theological sense) and eager to dig right in to some good stuff. To appreciate Merton’s work, I had to understand the book was written in 1955. This means I had to realize both his male-centric writing (using the word man in place of humanity) and his negativity to other religions. Merton’s theological writing is Roman Catholic, though he does not write with a dogmatic style of a canon lawyer or apologetic theologian. This book reads more like religious philosophy than theology simply because of the questions and answers it raises. Here are some ideas I found interesting. ‘We must, therefore live by the commandments and the counsels and by the Sprit of Jesus. And in order to do this we much search the Scriptures and understand the Gospels, in order to find out what Jesus is like and what His commandments are” (59). This is Christ centered thinking, unlike the Pauline emphasis often found in Christian thought today. I believe this statement is the simple Christianity that can resurrect the faith today. “All men seek peace first of all with themselves. That is necessary, because we do not naturally find rest even in our own being. We have to learn to commune with ourselves before we can communicate with other men and with God. A man who is not at peace with himself necessarily projects his interior fighting into the society of those he lives with, and spreads a contagion of conflict all around him” (121). This means we can and should heal ourselves before even attempting to offer counsel to others. If we are hurt, how can we expect to heal others? By taking care of ourselves first, we can have enough energy and attention to devote to helping others without distraction. “The arguments of religious men are so often insincere, and their insincerity is proportionate to their anger. Why do we get angry about what we believe? Because we do not really believe it. Or else what we pretend to be defending as the “truth” is really our own self-esteem. A man of sincerity is less interested in defending the truth than in stating it clearly, for he thinks that if the truth be clearly seen it can very well take care of itself” (195). This is good reading for the fundamentalist evangelicals who push their brand of Christianity as absolute truth. Many of these same people will become notably angry when pressed about their beliefs. If one believes they know the truth, they can rest easy in confidence. If you know the truth, there is no need to defend it. “Anxiety is fatal to recollection because recollection depends ultimately on faith, and anxiety eats into the heart of faith. Anxiety usually comes from strain, and strain is caused by too complete a dependence on ourselves, on our own devices, our own plans, our own idea of what we are able to do” (224). Merton talked about recollection as a “change of spiritual focus and an attuning of our whole soul to what is beyond and above us.” It is like becoming awake and practicing mindfulness, which allows us to see things as they are. A thorough understanding of Jesus’ life and teachings gives us confidence to not only shed anxiety, it allows us the peace of mind to become awake & mindful. Christians become anxious when they doubt Jesus’ life and teachings and instead turn toward the abilities of human beings (Paul, other people, or themselves) to help them.
I was tagged by arulba. She was tagged by tagged by Kay. Thanks! Summarize the Bible in five statements (fifteen words). The first statement – one word long, the second two, the third three, the fourth four and the last five words long. Or possibly you could do this in descending order. Tag five people. Comprehensive (The book is comprehensive in content and form. There are so many nooks and crannies full of meaning. Most of the literary forms are represented in the Bible.) Human made. (This cannot be emphasized enough. Despite what many have said about Divine inspiration, the Bible was written and assembled by humans, specifically men. Imperfect human beings make imperfect writings and books, and the Bible is no exception.) Remember the metaphor. (The Bible is an imperfect book written in many literary forms for many different audiences. To read it as literal truth is to ignore these realities, which is dishonest to both the book and to the person reading it. Metaphor can help us make the book relevant for our particular time, though this requires work and thought. And whenever one interprets a dream [think Revelation], metaphor is the best tool one can use to pull meaning.) Read the Gospels first. (This helps set one’s mind in a Christian sense, providing one is reading the book in that framework. Then, read the entire Old Testament straight through before reading the rest of the New Testament, starting with the book of Acts.) Paul writes letters to others. (What many Bible readers and believers should to realize is that Paul’s letters are written to a particular group of people in a particular time and place. It is important to not take these letters out of context. Many Christians believe Paul provides a practical application of the Gospel. However, Paul is actually providing his own interpretation and application of the Gospel for groups like the Romans, Corinthians, Galatians, etc. One is actually reading a one-sided conversation. For a universal message, turn back to the Gospels. Jesus’ message is simple and universal enough for one to apply without clinging to Paul’s [or anyone else's] ancient interpretation.)
I follow the Christian Post on Twitter because I like to keep up with the ideas and thinking of many Christians. Today they tweeted the following:
The amount of work in graduate school is shocking. I fancied myself as a seasoned academician and the shear volume of reading and writing has taken me by surprise. My blogging and extracurricular reading life ground to a halt. My classes end in early December and I do not have to return until February, so I’ll have plenty of time to catch up. I also learned about the Upaya Institute, a place in New Mexico that teaches caregivers and healers how to deal with death and dying. I have a belief that many people suffer from a fear of death, which then causes great suffering in their lives. I feel that some of my life’s work will be helping people work through their fear of death. I have an assignment for a foundations course that is asking me to come up with ten ways that I am going to integrate the course themes into my practice.
If you were going to write a book, what would you write about?
I would write about how viewing religions as divine languages can be helpful for people without developed spiritual frameworks. It would be an attempt to show people that it is okay to speak multiple religious languages while maintaining their unique perspective of not having a native religious language.
Why do we use our beliefs to excuse bad behavior instead of as inspiration to do better?
Not all people make this choice. For those that do, I believe it has a lot to do with fear of what is within their own being. Rather than look inward and take responsibility for what they have done, many instead look for an external scapegoat to avoid responsibility for their actions. While there are certain environmental and external factors that contribute to scapegoating, it is ultimately one's own decision in succumbing to bad behavior and then deflecting responsibility externally. The belief system is inconsequential because it is just a guise to cover up responsibility.
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