Connection

When two people relate to each other authentically and humanly,

God is the electricity that surges between them

                                                            Martin Buber

_____________________________________________

Who are you?

I am not sure I know, but I’d like to!

I’d like to know what makes you tick

How you think, what you feel

What you a passionate about,

What gets you up in the morning

Who am I?

I’d like you to know!

At least I think I do.

I’d like you to know what I love

What is going on in my monkey brain

What I fear

What hurts

I am not talking about playing it safe here

Being real is never safe

And when two people actually make a connect

That is authentic and vulnerable

It can be rather shocking!

Bzzzzzzt!

Sometimes it stings

Sometimes it hurts

But when the current flows

Something happens

Call it electricity

Call it love

Call it God

And we are transformed

Individually

Together

We are changed from encapsulated egos

Fearful and striving

Into beings bound together by something big

Bigger

That which is immanent and transcendent

Becomes intimate and finite

Incarnate

I and It

Becomes I and Thou

“I” and “me”

Becomes “us”

And Sacred becomes real

In our connection with one another

We don’t need theology

Or ideology

We don’t need earthly power

Or wealth

We don’t need border walls

We don’t need a booming stock market

We need each other

For it is in love of other another

That the kingdom comes

transforming our pain

All of us experience the absurd, the tragic, the nonsensical, the unjust… if we cannot find some way to transmute our wounds into sacred wounds, we invariably become cynical, negative or bitter… if we do not transform this pain we will most assuredly transmit it, usually to those closest to us…

                                                                        Richard Rohr

__________________________________________________-

Sometimes

In those quiet moments

As the wind blows in the firs

And the snow falls

Sometimes when the monkey brain quiets

And in the relative calmness thoughts emerge from their hiding places

Deep within my soul

I realize just how much life has touched me

for good and for ill

I realize that I have been shaped and molded

By all that has transpired

There have been victories that have built me up,

given me reason for pride

And there have been failures and fears that placed me

Among the walking wounded

And what I have come to understand

that it is absolutely critical, for me to be aware

of that which I carry with me

for what I carry I share

knowingly or not

If I carry pain, I share pain

If I carry hate, I share hate

If I carry fear, I share fear

What I carry I pass on, to those around me

That is not all bad

For if I carry love, that is what I pass on

If I carry hope, or joy, or peace, that too

It is all contagious!

There is nothing wrong with any of it

Life happens, and we are always moving from joy to anger

From peace to fear, from love to hate

But we must choose what we carry

And that we do not want to pass along, we must allow to be transformed

We must hold it, accept it,

We must release it, and allow it thus to be changed

Just as Jesus held on to his pain, his fear, his anguish

And allowed it to become resurrection

What is it I hang on to?

You can see it in what I pass on!

What is it you hang on to?

You can see it in what you pass on!

This is why I feel so much compassion these days

For the fearful hoarders

And the angry haters

For they are merely passing on their own misery

I will always be a mixed bag

There will always be times when what I pass on, is my wounds

But there will also be times when what I pass on is love, and healing, hope and peace

When my wounds become sacred

And an instrument for not only my own healing

But for the healing of those around me

white knuckle righteousness

Authentic spirituality is always seeking “daily bread’ to feed the starving parts of our soul, and fresh and “living water” to fill our reservoir instead of allowing the dark waters to develop toxins and poisonous algae – which largely happens at a slow, certain, and unconscious level.  Thus both Jesus and Buddha say the same thing:  “Stay awake!”

                                                            Richard Rohr, “Just This”

______________________________________________

I have to admit

I have a hungry soul

I want love

I want hope

I want peace

I want joy

I want it all!

And yet I often remain hungry

Which is not all bad

For being hungry I seek

And seeking is a good thing

For it is all to easy to settle into the dark waters

of legalism, and dogma

it is all too easy to

to stop seeking

stop being open

to let the living water become a stale pond

of cultural norms

and ideology

to seek safety and power

not in the fresh infusion of grace

but in rituals and rules

white knuckling righteousness

seeking to impose morality on those around us

rather than seeking true transformation

within ourselves

rather than being, through our living, catalysts for transformation in others.

Talk about a swamp!

Sometimes we are up to our necks

Sometimes we are over our heads in toxic religiosity

The good news is this

We do not have to go far to find the mystery

For that in which we live and move and have our being.

Is as near as our breath

We already have the mystery in us

And all we have to do, is wake upwhit

Become aware

Accept the presence

Then we will be fed

Then we will have streams of living water

Bubbling out of our souls

Then we will truly live

Then we will be who and what we were created to be