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