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Primitive religion is not believed, it is danced!

Arthur Darby Nock

Earth's crammed with heaven,
And every common bush afire with God;
And only he who sees takes off his shoes;
The rest sit round it and pluck blackberries.

Elizabeth Browning



Friday, November 9, 2018

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”
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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

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