spiritual growth

It should come as no surprise that much of what you read here has already been written elsewhere, for there really is “nothing new under the sun.” Thank you to the mystics and wonderers who go before me. What is new for each of us is the aha moment when we see a truth for the first time or when we peel away another layer so as to understand at greater depth.

For a few years I have used this mantra to stop the human flow of judgment and criticism,”God alive and we thrive.” If god is alive in the conversation, we thrive instead of being dragged down in a cloud of negative energy. I have found the mantra quite helpful until the other day when I had to deal with the incessant noise that accompanies city living and was given a new layer of meaning. I recalled a video of a Buddhist nun who used a bell to call her to mindfulness. She alluded to feeling so frustrated and impatient with the noise that kept her from mindfulness, and substituted the noise itself as the bell calling her to mindfulness. I began to consider the noise outside as a call to mindfulness and a different word came up, the word “presence.” My mantra became “Breathing in presence I release irritation. Breathing in presence I release unrest.” After a while the noise slipped away and I was gifted with a few moments of connection with the divine…much more satisfying than fixating on the noise of garbage trucks uploading!

Subsequently, other uses of the mantra have presented themselves to me. One day I fixated on the possibility of someone’s interference in my life. That negative energy did me no good at all, but this mantra transported me out of it, “Breathing in presence I release mistrust. Breathing in presence I release fear.” When we live in divine presence there is simply no space for negative energy. When we invite presence we are inviting the divine presence that lives in the other person to share space in our being. It is like greeting someone with “Namaste, I greet the god in you.”

I invite you to try this mantra and share in a comment that will give all of us tools for our spiritual growth. Blessings be yours.

Photo Credit: http://www.clipartpanda.com/clipart_images/garbage-truck-clip-art-10415641

I bare
my nakedness
to the world
that the world may see
who I am;
not the mask that hides my flaws
not the mask that hides my beauty.
I bask in the light and
I take off the mask.

– Jocelyn Soriano

Do you see what I see? Retired, and contemplative by nature, I have the time to dedicate an hour each morning to read posts relating to spirituality, poetry, justice, psychology, and LGBTQ concerns. I try to be present to bloggers’ experiences and expression. Often their stories stay with me throughout the day, and as I recall them I am in solidarity. A pattern has emerged which gives me hope in the midst of the incessant ego-driven political chatter and gratuitous violence our world continues to spew out.

This is the hope I see: a longing and a commitment to be real. Where my baby boomer generation learned to wear masks, the millennium, (generation “Y”) and generation “X” bloggers, are unafraid to show their mistakes, even their deepest wounds. I am not talking Dr. Phil Show here…What I read is not for show; rather, the sharing seems to come from an authentic desire to grow. They face the truth with courage. They do not wait for a guru to tell them their “truth.” They strip down until they find it themselves and they bask in their humanness instead of cowling in shame. When I was their age the false humility I was taught made me ashamed of being human and kept me from growing. The masks I wore became very heavy.

I put my hope here. Do you see what I see?