Jagged; Irregular; Spent

During our Meditation Sunday at church, we have these lovely candles burning up front that help create a serene mood. The candles that happened to be burning this Sunday were less than perfect. In fact, they looked like they had seen a lot of "life". (And they had.) They were "misshapen" to say the least.

 As I was looking at the cluster of "spent" candles, I grew charmed by the interesting shadows and jagged lines and irregular cavities that framed the flames within. I thought, "What a metaphor that is of us as a church. We are spent. We look it. But we have this flame within. Together, we are lovely. Together, we are interesting. Together, we are far more than we are apart. "

Hmmmmmm

I love it when Reality challenges my reality.

So I have this relative in my life that is really bad. The world of psychology would say, "He/She is a really Bad Person". The world of religion would say, "He/She is a really Bad Person." The social world would say, "He/She is a really Bad Person." My world would say, "He/She is a really Bad Person."

Recently, this really Bad Person actually asked me a perceptive, sensitive question and my visceral/thought (and you will be glad to know . . . unspoken) response was, "You are a Bad Person. Why are you asking a perceptive, sensitive question?"

In other words, I hope you are not changing. I am very comfortable with you being bad and me being good!

Like I said, Reality challenged me by asking, "Now tell me again . . . exactly who is the Bad Person and who is the Good Person?"

I Am, Therefore . . .

One of my goals is to be consistent at Centering Prayer. Centering Prayer is like an artist sitting down for 20 minutes for the sole purpose of not painting a picture. It is really hard to keep that activity up because there is nothing to show as a result of being faithful. At least if your goal is to read through the Bible, your book mark moves!

In fact, the "better" I become, the "worse" I become. When you first begin, you position yourself to stop your thoughts. But you are so bad at this, that you end up stopping your thoughts maybe 3 times the whole 20 minutes because you become so engrossed in your thoughts.

Then, as you get "better", you stop your thoughts 100 times in 20  minutes because you are "better" at not letting your thoughts go so far.

So the whole thing is very odd and very good because no matter how "good" or "bad" I am, the brain is reluctantly getting the message that "I (do not) think, therefore I am".

Fair Trade?

I have grown just far enough to be able to exit my thoughts occasionally. And because I can do this, I am also more aware of when my thoughts "list" towards "unreality". I was lamenting my "listing" today, wishing I could be like the Great Wonderful People Out There Who Have It Together, when I had an epiphany.

Every one's thoughts "list" towards "unreality". It might not be my "unreality", but it is "unreality" nonetheless. There is only one place of non-unreality and that is a place of Non Judgment. Other than that, why would I trade my "unreality" for your "unreality"?

Kingdom of God?

So I'm in a very poor section of Raleigh (yes, Raleigh has some very poor sections) and while I'm waiting for my client to come home, I'm watching this bird scratch and peck in front of a run down building with broken blinds and broken doors and broken windows and cracked cement and I'm thinking, "Wonder why this bird doesn't leave this crappy place and go to some place beautiful? After all, birds can fly! He could fly to any beautiful spot he wanted and live there for the rest of his short life!"

And one of the reasons is because this bird has a non dual mind - his little bird thoughts don't go to right and wrong and good and bad and ugly and beautiful. He has no judgment over the state of his surroundings.

I'm thinking we are never in danger of going too far in the direction of "bird thoughts"! No matter how far we go, it will never be to a state of complete non-judgment. But there is a possibility that that is exactly what Jesus was referring to when He said, the Kingdom of God.

Unedited

When I listen to my thoughts without editing them, they tell me more than I want to know about myself.
For instance, the other day, I listened to myself (internally) comment about an owner and their pet. The (embarrassing) thought was ... "Dear Pet, if you only knew what a loser your owner was, you wouldn't be so carefree and so happy!" (Yes, it took a lot of courage to admit that I actually had that thought and even more to let others know that that thought actually went through my (not so?) lovely mind!)

But oh how helpful it was. All animals have what is called a "non-dual" mind. One characteristic of a non dual mind is that they accept life without judgment. The pet doesn't judge the owner as ugly or fat or poor or stupid etc. The pet just adores the owner (especially if he feeds him) and accepts him as he is.

I am walking towards training my mind to be "non dual". I love watching all the pets in this world who are teaching me this lovely paradigm shift.