+ I wonder what I will offer here in this post as I write this on April 5, 2022 at 3:19pm ESDT.
+ I think I will begin where I left off in JW -- 76. Baseball. The 2022 season was delayed by a week due to a strike which got resolved. The season will begin on April 7 and the Red Sox will meet the Yankees at Yankee Stadium. So, right off, the great rivalry between these 2 teams is re-ignited.
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+ My other 2 blogs are somewhat organized. This one is definitely not. Enjoy!
But if you want the more organized ones, here are the links:
- Heart Sutra sung by Julia Elena
- The Angels are Listening (Suni-ai) sung by Snatam Kaur
- Om Mani Padme Hum sung by Imee Ooi
- Water of Your Love sung by Snatam Kaur
- River by GuruGanesha Singh
+ I have been a blogger for 2 decades. From 2002 to 2007 I offered MESSAGES FOR THE TREK. Here is the one I posted on January 19, 2005, my 58th birthday:
+ Do you often experience life as a feast? I do. I didn’t always but now I do. It takes fasting and other kinds of purification. It takes meditation and contemplation and prayer. It takes all kinds of experiences and relationships. I got to this point through many years of spiritual effort. Now I am writing about the abundance and joy I am experiencing. Possibly this will be helpful to you. My growing awareness that life is a perpetual feast is based profoundly on the practice of stillness. Over and over again, I need to be still and allow my body, mind and soul to become centered and grounded again. I have resisted mightily and I still resist but I have gotten past many of the blocks and I’m getting past a few more as I continue to be on this journey of discovery and delight.
In stillness I come into contact with everything there is. It’s awesome. It’s amazing. It’s fantastic. It’s delightful. It’s heaven. Yes, it’s heaven. I’m in heaven and I’m enjoying being here in heaven a lot. Are you?
In no particular order the practice of stillness opens the door to the glorious experiences of silence, solitude, simplicity, detachment, discernment, devotion, delight, humility, healing, holiness and, finally, heaven. Heaven is the experience of abundance, joy, wisdom, beauty, love, truth, peace, justice and freedom. These are the nine characteristics of heaven. Everyone of them could be called love. God is love.
“Be still and know that I am God.” (Psalm 46:10a)
Know that I am love! Know that I am beauty and truth. Know that I am abundance, joy and wisdom. Know that I am peace, justice and freedom. What a feast God has made for us. We’re all invited. We’re all wanted. We’re all cherished. It’s a happening. It’s happening now here. Do you experience it?
Begin. Be still. Breathe deeply. Breathe fully. Be glad all over. Celebrate. Enjoy. Lighten up. Loosen up. Be centered. Be grounded. Be yourself. Begin again. Be still. Breathe deeply. Breathe fully. Be ... and the wheel of life keeps turning, turning, turning. It’s a delightful journey and it’s simple, too. Very simple. Very simple and very good.
There are many tools and techniques out there for becoming still, becoming you. I have benefitted and continue to benefit from: Chi Lel Chi Gong (easy to learn from a videotape and workbook), Centering Prayer (quite easy to learn), Yoga (Erich Schiffman’s book and website and video makes this pretty easy, too), the twelve pathways to higher consciousness, chakra or energy work, working with archetypes and many others which I will cover in future messages or elsewhere at Abundancetrek.com. Perhaps you already have an effective practice going. Please share.
I am convinced that we can never get very far on our spiritual journey in isolation. We are meant to be one unit which we might call a family or a community or a village or a tribe or a nation or a church. These terms are not that important. The main thing is to realize that we are intimately and intricately connected to each other and to the source. There is really no separation at all. In the practice of stillness this becomes totally clear. But there are no words which can even come close to describing this mystery, this truth, this abundance, this joy, this love, this beauty, this freedom, this peace. I believe this mysterious and wonderful oneness extends beyond earth to the whole universe. I believe that the biblical event which possibly brings the most light to this mystery is the encounter of Moses with the burning bush during which God says: I AM has sent you. I AM! Moses possibly experienced this as a voice coming from beyond himself but it is never really beyond us. It IS us. I AM! This is the holy name of God. It’s God’s name and it is your name and my name. Practice stillness faithfully and see for yourself.
God is everywhere and God is complete wherever God is. So, my experience of God is not an incomplete thing. It is complete. I’m not asserting here that I am God when I am living my life as this particular human being. My particular life lacks all kinds of experiences and relationships which God encompasses. When I practice stillness, though, I get in touch with the wholeness, the holiness, in a mysterious and wonderful and indescribable way.
I believe that God is now creating the new church for the new age here on earth. We have become a planet best described as a global village. We can no longer hide from each other the way we once could hide behind mountains and oceans and jungles and deserts. We thought and unfortunately continue to think that violence is necessary for our protection and security. We have convinced ourselves and continue to convince ourselves that there is not enough to go around, that it is necessary to divide us into haves and have nots. We have erected huge barriers which are looking pretty ugly in our global village. There is the barrier between the rich and the poor, between the various races and religions and nations and cultures, between the healthy and the sick, the popular and the unpopular, the powerful and the powerless. These barriers need to come down and that’s what God is doing by creating the new church for the new age. The new church for the new age is Christian and Jewish and Islamic and Hindu and Buddhist and Taoist and lots of other wisdom traditions. This is the church Jesus really wants, not an exclusive dining club but an inclusive one.
+ This is a link to all of the MESSAGES FOR THE TREK.
+ Thanks to the virtual Silent Retreat I was at today, April 9, I discovered a wonderful song to encourage us to get up and move > https://youtu.be/fCZVL_8D048. It was good to get my body fully into this wonderful contemplative time.
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