looking for happiness

Today’s quote is from Inward/Outward. I love their daily quotes which you too can receive from their website. Enjoy!

Looking for Happiness

by

Thomas Keating

"Our spiritual journey does not start with a clean slate.

We carry with us a prepackaged set of values and preconceived ideas which,

unless confronted and redirected, will soon scuttle our journey,

or else turn it into pharisaism, the occupational hazard of religious and spiritual people.

 The developmental character of human life

has become much better known in the last hundred years,

and it has enormous implications for the spiritual journey.

Our personal histories are computerized, so to speak,

in the biocomputers of our brains and nervous systems.

Our memory banks have on file everything that occurred from the womb to the present,

especially memories with strong emotional charges....

 We may not remember the events of early childhood, but the emotions do.

When events occur later in life that resemble those once felt to be harmful,

dangerous, or rejecting, the same feelings surface....

The human heart is designed for unlimited happiness--for limitless truth

and for limitless love--and nothing less can satisfy.

We travel down various roads that promise happiness

 but can't provide it because they are only partial goods.

Since the emotional programs from early childhood are already in place,

our search for happiness in adult life tends to be programmed

by childish expectations that cannot possibly be realized....

 We come now to the heart of the problem of the human condition.

Jesus addressed this problem head-on in the gospel.

What was his first word when beginning his ministry?

"Repent."

To repent is not to take on afflictive penances like

fasting, vigils, flagellation or whatever else appeals.

It means to change the direction in which you are looking for happiness."

 Source: Invitation to Love

 Read more and add your thoughts at inward/outward

brooding over muck

"Rake the muck this way.  Rake the muck that way.

It will still be muck.  In the time you are brooding,

you could be on your way, stringing pearls

for the delight of heaven."

(Hasidic teaching)

 

Art: The Brooding Woman - Paul Gauguin (1848-1903)

 

brooding: preoccupied with depressing,

morbid, or painful memories or thoughts. 

 muck: soft, moist, farmward manure. 

or defamatory remarks.  (aren't those the same?)

 

 found myself brooding over my muck today.

the idea of raking it in one direction

and then another shows how absurd & pointless

 it is to try to move it around.  

put down the rake. pick up the pearls.

especially that one pearl of great price. 

magpie mind

"Suffering cleanses us of the falsities that have accumulated in our hearts.

So often our minds are like magpies.

We pick up and take on everthing that glitters,

even though it may have no substance. 

In a magpie's nest, one finds random collections of colourful but useless debris.

The fire of suffering cleanses completely the falsities

to which our longing has attached itself. 

This liberates us from the emptiness of false belonging and

 allows us to belong in a real and truthful way in our lives again."

 

from John O'Donohue's "Eternal Echoes - Exploring our Yearning to Belong"  p.162

do no harm

"Here is a guideline to practicing truthfulness.

Bear in mind that the truth is always beneficial,

but that a statement of fact may be either beneficial or harmful.

If there is a chance that a statement will do harm,

it must not be considered a truth in the highest sense.

If you cannot speak sincerely without the risk of inflicting harm,

the best alternative is to remain silent."

-Donald Waters

calligraphy from here

Ouch!

 

"If you are pierced by a thorn,

you can remove it forever with a needle,

but to get rid of an internal attitude,

you must see clearly

the mistaken beliefs

on which it is based."

 

- The Dalai Lama

 

poor little fella:(

we are the light bearers

"There's an old Sufi story about a man who dropped his keys

on the dark side of the street at night,

then crossed the street to the lamppost where it was bright to look for the keys.

When a friend asked why he was looking under the lamp

instead of where he dropped the keys,

he replied, "I'm looking here because there is more light."

That's what we do with our lives: the familiar framework is where we want to look.

If we have a problem, we follow a familiar framework: thinking, stewing, analyzing,

keeping the crazy business of our lives going because that's what we're used to doing.

Never mind that it doesn't work.

We just get more determined, and keep searching under the lamppost.

We're not interested in that life which is out of space and time,

constantly creating the world of space and time.

We're not interested in that; in fact, it's frightening to us.

 - Charlotte Joko Beck, Nothing Special

I like this story but I like the artwork even more.

The lamppost is just as lost as the man

who is looking for keys in the wrong place.

The lamppost is looking for the light,

not knowing it is the bearer of light!

And just as yesterday's post emphasized our blind spots.

Today I wonder what glorious gifts we refuse to recognize in ourselves?

photo: Lamppost, by Matt Irie and Dominick Talvacchio,

is situated in a park near the Metrotech Center in Brooklyn.

curtains for toto

"Over and over, my disappointments draw me deeper

into the mystery of God's being and doing.

Every time God declines to meet my expectations, another of my idols is exposed.

Another curtain is drawn back so I can see what I have propped up in God's place -

no, that is not God, so who is God?

It is the question of a lifetime, and the answers are never big enough or finished.

Pushing past curtain after curtain,

it becomes clear that the failure is not God's but my own,

for having such a poor and stingy imagination. God is greater than my imagination,

wiser than my wisdom, more dazzling than the universe, as present as the air I breathe,

and utterly beyond my control."  - Barbara Brown Taylor - The Preaching Life, p.10

not sure if you can see it, but it's Toto who actually pulls back the curtain on the "wizard."

Dogs are so smart:)

anticipatory silence

"There are many kinds of silence to encounter in life,

but there is a particular and delicious terror

to the anticipatory silence that we create

from actually following our heart's desire."

- David Whyte

convinced & despised

Tomorrow's Gospel reading is from Luke 18 -

The Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector -

Here is the first verse (NAB):

"Jesus addressed this parable to those

who were convinced of their own righteousness

and despised everyone else."

Being convinced of being right,

can lead to setting myself above others,

which can lead to despising others?

Whoa....

I can't even begin to count the areas in which

I'm convinced I'm right!



Hints and Glimpses

"All we have

are hints and glimpses,

something seen fleetingly

as in peripheral vision,

a shadowy shape

beyond the drape,

the voice that whispers

behind the grill,

the merest murmur

of Elysian melody,

a prickling of the skin

which might be

but a draft

from an open window.

But it is the window

opening on eternity,

seen now darkly,

but then

face to face."

Bonnie Thurston

artwork:

A Corner of the Artist’s Room in Paris (with Open Window), Gwen John.

Life is filled with such moments of almost seeing something, almost touching something,

not knowing with certainty, but comforted by the experience.



whereabouts

"When they discover

the center of the universe,

a lot of people will be disappointed

to discover

they are not it."

-Bernard Bailey

yep, sometimes the truth hurts.

seek the kernel

"For money you can have everything it is said.

No, that is not true.

You can buy food, but not appetite;

medicine, but not health;

soft beds, but not sleep;

knowledge but not intelligence;

glitter, but not comfort;

fun, but not pleasure;

acquaintances, but not friendship;

servants, but not faithfulness;

grey hair, but not honor;

quiet days, but not peace.

The shell of all things you can get for money.

But not the kernel.

That cannot be had for money."

-Arne Garborg, writer (1851-1924)

snitched from

www.wisdomcommons.org

people's stories

"If there's anything worth calling theology,

it is listening to people's stories,

listening to them and cherishing them."

- Mary Pellaur

Dogma Day Parade

"Dogma is meant to be the wrapping of the process
for purposes of transmission —

an encapsulating membrane that enables the activity of the Spirit to be
passed on, picked up and personalised in future.

It is not an absolute in itself, however,

and it’s a poor substitute for the Holy Spirit."

Bishop Alan Wilson

who wrote a glorious piece on dogma and the Holy Spirit.

so please click here to check out the rest of his non-dogmatic post!

Trinity Sunday

"Each member of the human family

is equal in dignity and has equal rights

because

we are all children of the one God.

We are sisters and brothers to each other.

We understand God to be a trinity of persons

and so we see the image of God reflected

not only in individuals,

but also in communities.

Together in community

we bear the image of our God

whose very nature is communal."

- Sandie Cornish

remind me again?

Our job is to

follow and serve in

Love.

*

Everything else,

is God's job.

*

Everything.

                                                      

This is a card that sits on my desk.

I read it several times a day.

Sometimes several times an hour.

Greed

"The store was closed

so I went home and hugged what I own."

Brooks Palmer

OK, so this little girl isn't exactly embracing this concept,

but perhaps, like the rest of us,

 she can learn to at least loosen her grasp

on her excess of material gods (oops, I meant goods.)

who belongs to the truth?

Today was Christ the King Sunday - the last Sunday of the liturgical calendar. Today's Gospel reading was John 18:33-37. This is the story of Jesus appearing before Pilate, the one in which Jesus is asked if he's the king of the Jews. The dialogue goes back and forth and then Jesus has the last word: "Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice." This verse undid me today. I kept repeating it and then flipped it to read, "Everyone who listens to my voice belongs to the truth."  That appeared to make more sense, but did it really? hmmm...

I love this artwork by Nikolai Nikolaevich Ge (1831-94). Here we see Pilate, with the light shining on him, asking Jesus, in the shadows,  about truth.  Who is really in the dark here?