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we need to be in right relationship with people,
music, art, dance, nature, fasting, poetry, games, life-affirming sexuality, and, of course, the art of relationship itself.
ruminate
retreat to their head and their e...
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When you can let others actually influence you and change you, your heart space is open.
your heart needs to be broken, and broken open, at least once to have a heart at all or to have a heart for others.
To keep our bodies less defended, to live in our body right now, to be present to others in a cellular way, is also the work of healing of past hurts and the many memories that seem to store themselves in the body. The body seems to never stop offering its messages; but fortunately, the body never lies, even though the mind will deceive you constantly.
seems to me that Western Christianity has been much more formed by Plato (body and soul are at war) than by Jesus (body and soul are already one).
So the work of spirituality is the ongoing liberation of head, heart, and body, toward full luminous seeing and living, and not a mere mental “decision for Jesus” or the one-time insurance policy of sacraments received.
developing the capacity for a simple, clear, and uncluttered presence. Those
All we can do is keep out of the way, note, and weep over our defensive behaviors, keep our various centers from closing down—and the Presence that is surely the Highest Power is then obvious,
The immediate embrace is from God’s side, the ineffectiveness is whatever time it takes for us to “come to believe,”
St. Paul
his very first letter:
How long it takes each of us to just accept—to
accept what is, to accept ourselves, others, the past, our own mistakes, and the imperfection and idiosyncrasies of almost everything.
“our endless capacity for self loathing.”
true acceptance and peaceful surrender.
surrender is not “giving up,” as we tend to think, nearly as much as it is a “giving to” the moment, the event, the person, and the situation.
Dualistic minds tend to miss spiritual points,
the will itself, our stubborn and self-defeating willfulness
must be first converted and handed over.
We each have our inner program for happiness, our plans by which we can be secure, esteemed, and in control, and are blissfully unaware that these cannot work for us for the long haul—without our becoming more and more control freaks ourselves.
primary addiction,
our own power and our false programs ...
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I will always be right”
I have been in religious circles all my life and usually find willfulness run rampant in monasteries, convents, chancery offices, and among priests and prelates, ordinary laity, and at church meetings.
looks so generous and loving, and sometimes it is. But usually it is still all about me.
most resentful people are very sacrificial at one or another level,
Codependents end up being just as unhealthy as the addict, while thinking of themselves as strong, generous, and loving. The martyr complex reveals this false side of love and, yes, I think it even applies to some of the martyrs in the church.
only made them more self-preoccupied, and in a negative way besides.
We are now our own problem.
People only come to deeper consciousness by intentional struggles with contradictions, conflicts, inconsistencies, inner confusions, and what the biblical tradition calls “sin” or moral failure.
St. Thérèse of Lisieux
“Whoever is a little one, let him come to me” (Proverbs 9:4) became her mantra and her message.
Not perfect moral victory,
not moral superiority,
luminosity of awareness and compassion ...
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“We must try to make it easier for others to love us.”
People who are more transparent and admitting of their blind spots and personality flaws are actually quite easy to love and be with.
what God appears to want too: Simple honesty and humility.
ego wants to think well
Your shadow self is not your evil self.
your unacceptable self
we all have a well-denied shadow self.
cannot see,
will no...
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dare no...
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So
we absolutely need conflicts, relationship difficulties, moral failures, defeats to our grandiosity, even seeming enemies,
