Thoughtful Thoughts

The more
I know
I know
I know
I know
I know
the less

I used to attribute the above quote to my father. He liked to write it that way, and he liked to say it.

It wasn’t until after he had died that I saw it written this way, and by somebody else! ... “All things I thought I knew; but now confess, the more I know I know, I know the less. (John Owen).

It seems my dad liked to “tweak” things like I do. :o)

My father and I didn’t have a perfect relationship, we argued a lot usually about what each of us thought we knew better than the other. He said it was because we were Irish - a passionate people.

I do believe that “Passion”, in all of its guises, is a part of any kind of “Love.”

It does seem we are always hardest on people we Love the most, maybe it is because we have faith that the Love will always be there. If we lose our heads from time to time - we always keep our hearts.

It also seems as our relationships mature, and as we mature… we become softer and easier on each other, more understanding and respectful of our experiences, more thoughtful, more sweet.

Even though he died 28 years ago (when I was 21), somehow our relationship continues to mature. I better understand, now that I am older, the things he knew and wanted to teach me. Every moment and memory is precious.

Peace
Keren

Love Remix

Pardon me while I engage in some "self promotion." But I just published an article called "1Corinthians 13: Greatest Gift Remix." It starts like this:

Y’all want to go viral with the next big thing. You’re uploading the monuments to yourself onto YouTube. You’re hoping that a publisher discovers the genius of your manuscript. You’ve been working on the best damn praise band in the land.

That’s all cool. You’re striving for great gifts. Yet I will show you a still more excellent way.

If my album goes platinum, but don’t have love, I’m an out of tune guitar or a clanging cymbal.

If I’m the smartest guy in the room, and understand all mysteries and have all knowledge, but don’t have love, I’m a big zero.

~~~
You can read the rest on the Presence site.

Undoing Criticism

Criticism of others is, essentially, self-criticism turned toward someone else. That's been know for a long time. Knowing it, ans recognizing it, though, are two different things. A lot of people who have been steeped in religious traditions of one type or another have a deep sense of self-criticism. It stems from pure motives. An attempt to improve, to grow, to strengthen oneself. An attempt to purify thoughts and actions. To repent. To climb Jacob's ladder.

So much of that is based on a belief that we're not as perfect as we should be. That sort of self-loathing is a reflection of a belief (often) that God is not happy with us unless we're doing, thinking, being something other than what we are right now.

But how can we possibly be any different than we are at the moment? We can only be what we are. "Just as I am" the old hymn tells us. Just as I am. That's enough becuase that's all. Tomorrow will surely be different becuase tomorrow is not today. We're bound to change, and that will be enough for that moment.

But worrying about it, stressing over it, forcing it to happen brings only anxiety. Be at peace with your self. God is. And when you know that in your innermost self, you'll turn that love inside out and be at peace with others. The criticism will end. The confusion will cease. And love will remain.

Plus, when you see others criticizing you, you'll know that they are really speaking of yourself. Having that little insight can really lighten your load.

Kenosis Happens

In Christian theology Kenosis is the concept of the 'self-emptying' of one's own will and becoming entirely receptive to God and his perfect will.

In literature it describes a feeling of being swept away by lyrical poetry or something that takes you to higher places, as opposed to catharsis which is more a feeling or release from reading something like drama.

To me, the following passage from Byron’s Childe Harold seems to describe a kenotic experience he had and also his poem evokes one in me.

THERE is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society, where none intrudes,
By the deep sea, and music in its roar:
I love not man the less, but Nature more,
From these our interviews, in which I steal
From all I may be, or have been before,
To mingle with the Universe, and feel
What I can ne'er express, yet cannot all conceal.
Lord Byron, (George Gordon)
from Childe Harold, Canto iv, Verse 178

Perhaps Kenosis happens when you sneak away from your ego (all you may be or have been before) become exposed/empty enough to be taken away by an Awesome Wonder which holds you as if in a state of mingling with the universe, and it cannot ever be adequately explained nor can it ever be adequately concealed once you have experienced it.

In Christianity, Philipians 2 1-11, verse 7 is the key verse, pointed to as the Kenosis verse. To me it seems that Jesus’s time spent in the dessert is also an example of an emptying experience, or maybe that was when he “emptied himself in the first place.

Monday morning ponderings.

Have a Great Week
Peace
Keren

Prayer of Love

Dear Heavenly Father,

Please continue to hold us, ALL of your children, in your embrace. Help us recognize your embrace through ALL of the examples shown to us by your only Son, Jesus.

Please touch and bless the Humans who care for us. Those who name themselves, and/or are named by other humans, as “shepherds”, “physicians” "parents" and “someone who is Love”

Please bless them (us/me) as “YOUR professional servants”. Let them (us/me) desire more for their sheep to not be hurt, uncomfortable or disappointed more than they desire that they not be disappointed, uncomfortable or hurt themselves.

PS - this prayer was given to me by Jesus after a visit with a beautiful friend who is my age and is battling major cancer and not really happy about it....who would be?....However... she is still somehow "loving" her life and most definitely loving the people around her.

Peace, Much Love, Many Prayers
Keren

Where there is Love there is a way

God is Love. On our part, if we are connected to the "Love" in any situation, even in the tiniest bit in our hearts, the situation will work out for the best, for Love, for all involved.

Do you ever feel like the whole universe is involved in lovingly taking care of you? I do now. Once you start paying attention, it is all there waiting to take you in. Sometimes we dont recognize or understand it, but it is there.

The bottom photo is of our rosemary bush when it snowed here a few years ago. Can you see the tall rose bush behind the rosemary? THere are even little pink roses on it, and it was a week before Christmas.

Anyway, while it was blooming where it was, it was leggy and it was mainly hidden. So, I decided that the rose bush was not in a good place for it to really produce "good fruit". I thought it needed more sun. So, I carefully dug it up from a place where it had been for probably 20 years. It was a struggle of woman vs rose, the thorns cut me pretty bad as much as I tried to protect myself. I finally prevailed and replanted it next to the rosemary bush.

Well it died.
I threw it in the trash - root and all.
Instead of a thriving but leggy rose bush in a place I didnt think it should be, I had none. I really felt bad for it and for me.

However.. A year later I thought I saw something growing there that had leaves similar to rose leaves. This year it is obvious. Not only is there a baby rose bush with actual buds on it in the new place (top photo), also...in the original place behind the rosemary bush with almost no sun, there is also a baby rose bush growing (middle photo) hard to see but it is there. My milagros!

There must have been enough "essence" of the rose remaining in its original place and in the new place, given just a little time, it regenerated or resurrected in both places.

What I learned...It took the (brutal) digging up of the rose and its seeming death, to produce two new rose bushes. All in all...God/Love will be and is handling things, as much as we try to help, but on our part, if Love is the intention of our hearts to begin with, Love will be the outcome.

What I really gained from this though was the opportunity to witness the miracle of the passion of Christ, as it directly relates to me. Not in only in my garden but also in my earthly/spiritual life.

*A wonderful heart-friend of mmine may also know the significance of this as it relates to us. Not going into any detail here but... with totally good intentions and for good reason, I was sort of “tossed out” of a situation and this was painful and at first seemed to result in destruction, but instead it resulted in spiritual deepening and abundant "life" i.e, sort of an enhanced "connection" with Love/God in more ways than just one and probably for more people than just me. I am very grateful.

Peace
Keren

Love / Hanging In There!

Following is from Richard Rohr's daily meditation today.....
"You could say that the greater opposites you can hold together, the greater soul you usually have.

By temperament, most of us prefer one side to the other. Only a few dare to hold the irresolvable tension in the middle.

It is the "folly" of the cross, where you cannot "prove" you are right, but only "hang" between the good and the bad thieves of every issue, paying the price for their reconciliation (see Luke 23:39 ff.). from Hope Against Darkness

(Keren's side note) Not saying I have a great soul, but the above so describes something I just went through this past couple of months. I paid the price for reconcilliation of an issue by hanging powerless between the two thieves inside of myself (fear and self-righteousness). It all began with a needed kick in the seat of the pants! I much better understand our redemption!

With regard to tension: I believe that tension is necessary for growth. A little tension can prevent stagnation may be another way to look at it.

I dont believe in irresolvable or unresolvable tension if there is even a speck of Love hanging in there with it.

I heard Richard Rohr at my wonderful church a few years ago, great speaker, even my Him was inspired.

Peace Keren

Lead Me

I read that people of many different faiths say this prayer at noon each day. Beautiful, isn't it? Especially to think of a tapestry of people all saying this all over the world.

"Lead me from death to life,
from falsehood to truth.
Lead me from despair to hope,
from fear to trust.
Lead me from hate to love,
from war to peace.
Let peace fill
our hearts,
our world,
our universe."

What is to give light must endure burning

I am re-reading “Man’s Search for Meaning” by Victor Frankl. I liked the above quote. Another quote from Frankl.
“Love is the only way to grasp another human being in the innermost core of his personality.”

Peace and Love
Keren

I like quirkyness.

idiosyncrasy

is not the same as idiocy. Being yourself allows you to live with integrity and this empowers you to turn outwards. To accept others in their idiosyncrasy. It causes judgmentalism to simply fall apart. Wwen it does, we can see that love remains.

Precious Moments

If you can learn how to receive the perfect gaze of the Other, to be mirrored by the Other, then the voices of the human crowd, even negative ones, have little power to hurt you.
Best of all, as Meister Eckhart has been quoted, "the eyes with which you will look back at God will be the same eyes with which God first looked at you."

Standing before one, accepting God literally allows you to be composed and gathered into one place. You can be in one place; you can be here, now.

from Richard Rohr's Things Hidden: Scripture as Spirituality

Hope - Looking for the Promised Land

I'm an idealist. I don't know where I'm going but I'm on the way. ~ Carl Sandburg

Im looking for a service ministry to join. One thing I like about being Catholic is there are many opportunities to be part of ministries at least in the churches I am familiar with. Sometimes it is hard for people who work full time to fit it in, I suppose this is why most people in ministries at church are retired.

I like being a part of a team. I like working together with people towards a common goal. I recently resigned from a ministry I participated in for the past 3-4 years in one way or another. I miss it. I know it sounds wishywashy, but I wish they would have asked me to stay and I probably would have even if only in a smaller role. It hurts to feel like you are not needed or not wanted - easily dismissed and forgotten.

I'm ready to be called to another ministry God. Please heavenly Father, send somebody to help me find a good place for me to be - maybe somebody will just ask me to join a particular ministry...I can always hope. Maybe I will have to just go visit several groups before I click with one.

I dunno, I may join something outside of the church. I havent decided. I am considering all options.

I consider this Love site a ministry. It is a priviledge to participate in spreading the Love even in small ways, in every way we can.

Also - today is the 40th anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. His ministry continues in the good he did, and the lives he changed, in his books and speaches and in our memories of him. His work for peace and justice continues.

Happy Friday!
Peace
Keren

The Question Holds the Lantern

"If you could imagine the most incredible story ever, it would be less incredible than the story of being here. And the ironic thing is that story is not a story, it is true.

It takes us so long to see where we are. It takes us even longer to see who we are. This is why the greatest gift you could ever dream is a gift that you can only receive from one person. And that person is you yourself. Therefore, the most subversive invitation you could ever accept is the invitation to awaken to who you are and where you have landed.

Plato said in The Symposium that one of the greatest privileges of a human life is to become midwife to the birth of the soul in another. When your soul awakens, you begin to truly inherit your life. You leave the kingdom of fake surfaces, repetitive talk and weary roles and slip deeper into the true adventure of who you are and who you are called to become.

The greatest friend of the soul is the unknown. Yet we are afraid of the unknown because it lies outside our vision and our control. We avoid it or quell it by filtering it through our protective barriers of domestication and control. The normal way never leads home."

John O'Donohue
Here is the entire relection...
http://www.johnodonohue.com/reflections/">

I went to his site for some inspiration the other day and was suprised to find this news...

John O'Donohue passed away unexpectedly and peacefully in his sleep in the night of January 3, 2008. He was 52 years old.

Rest in peace John and thank you for all the ways you inspired me through what I have read of your writings, and particularly through this one reflection.

Peace
Keren

Love Means Never Having to Say You Are Sorry

True love allows anger, irritability, crankiness, bad moods, fear, judgementalness, etc. and still remains Love. True Love, and I am not talking about romantic love, even though romantic love when treated with care and patience can morph into true love. True Love like Shakespeare said, "does not bend with the remover to remove, no it is an ever fixed mark". True love is love and nothing can change that, even poor behavior from time to time.

I have more to say on this,but need to get to work but I heard on the radio that Ali McGraw's birthday is today - she is 69, and also.. today is the anniversary of my first date with Him - 25 years ago.

Here is the Shakespeare sonnet:

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken

Peace and Love
Keren
cc: MM via heart space