House of the Rising Sun: Amazing Grace

Blind Boys From Alabama. Amazing Grace to the tune of House of the Rising Sun.

Peace
Keren

What's it all about Alfie?

Sin. Sin does not keep us from right relationship with God, it keeps us from right relationship with each other - which results in keeping us from feeling our "rightness" with God.

Hearts. Our hearts are like babies. They need attention, they need nurturing. They cry when they need something. They are trusting, but cautious with anything unfamiliar. They need protection but they also need to be allowed to reach out and experiment and make mistakes as well as be successful in learning and doing new things. They are scared when they are all alone. They feel good when they feel loved. Their nature is sweet and fresh.

Change: True change occurs when something happens to us that strongly affects our hearts. This may not make sense to you, but this is what made the above thought occur to me....it sounds strange and uncomfortable for me to put this here, but I had a dream the other night about the Eucharist. It was so vivid and powerful that I can no longer wear lipstick. I have tried and I just cant do it for some reason. Not that it is wrong to wear lipstick - the dream just affected me in that way. It spoke something to my heart.

Perfection. I dont expect perfection out of my friends, if I did I wouldnt have any friends. I hope they dont expect perfection out of me either.

Peace
Keren

Painting is Alfie - Pit Bull Terrier Mix. Oiloncanvas

Peace comes dropping slow - in the deep heart's core

Last spring, Ekhart Tolle and Oprah teamed up on a multi-week webinar featuring his book, The New Earth. I signed up for it and was planning to attend until a friend asked me what the purpose was, and I said "Peace - how to live a peaceful life" She responded "Keren if you become any more peaceful, you will just be all mush"

She was joking, but I thought about it and she was right. I have a lot of peace. I cherish it and protect it and revel in it even. I can usually access it at will, particularly if everyone else around me is falling apart. "Calm in the storm" is my favorite role. So I blew Ekart and Oprah off.

My friend was right. I'd rather have my peace balanced with some healthy tension from time to time anyway. WHo wants to be a zombie. You cant grow without tension.

However...there are times like the last few weeks when I start to feel the hard pangs of angst, extreme frustration of life not going the way I want it to, when I want it to, winding its way inside me, slowly tying me in knots.. then, before I know it...wham - anxiety.

I went to my weekly Eucharistic Adoration hour last night. If you dont know what it is, just consider it as meditating in silence for an hour in the presence of Jesus.

I usually offer the hour for the intentions of someone who is sick or in trouble or something else, but last night I asked for me to be filled with peace. During the hour, it occured to me it wouldnt just wash over me this time, but for me to feel the tiniest bits and build on that. The same thing I "preach" about Love - nurture the little bit that is there and it will grow. I suppose the same thing would go for "truth"

I went home renewed. I am patiently watching for signs of more, feeling the drops of peace as I write...

Just some musings..

Peace and Love
Keren

Here is the Yeats poem where I got the title

THE LAKE ISLE OF INNISFREE
By William Butler Yeats
I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;
Nine bean rows will I have there, a hive for the honeybee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight's all a-glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet's wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear the water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements gray,
I hear it in the deep heart's core.

Prayer for Freedom

Dear Heavenly Love,

Help us to break free from the situations that keep us in one place, stymie our growth or hold us down.

Help us be free of the things that tie us up so we can help untie the knots of others.


Amen
Peace
Keren

This Just In From God: People are Good, I Love Them All

Love is for everyone. For the little bitty baby, for the corporate giant. For the fat cat, for the skinny paper boy. For the democrats, and for the republicans. For the homeless and those who live in mansions. There is a place for everyone.

What you do for the least bit of love you can recognise in another person or situation, you do for God. If you only see bad and no good..you may not be looking close enough.

There is some good in each of us.. Seek that, build your opinions on that.

Politics attempt to divide us. For as long as I can remember, during presidential election times, people say "If so and so wins, I am moving my family to Australia"

If you plan to move to Australia, do so because you want to be a responsible participating citizen there, not because you are running away from something somewhere else.

People are resourceful and pitch-in when jobs need to be done, in this country for sure. There is no reason to give in to fear tactics, we can handle whatever is put to us! Really.

Peace and Love
Keren

Happy Anniversary!

My Him and I celebrate our 14th wedding anniversary today. We lived together 7 years prior to that and dated 5 years prior to that, so all in all it has been over 25 years that we have been sharing our lives together.

One of the best parts about our relationship is that we really want the other to be happy. We take care of eachother.
Early in the relationship it was more "my way or no way" on both our parts. Now we pretty much find a way to give in to eachother on most matters. Why not? Life can be hard enough without us being hard on eachother.

Fortunately neither of us want too much from the other. Just love.

Have a great week.
Peace and Love
Keren

Love spreads through our touch and the touch of other people

Why don’t people ask when they need help? To me, one of the most important skills one can have in the work world is knowing when to ask for help - before you start drowning is usually a good time.

Maybe people are afraid of being turned down, or thought of as incapable themselves if they ask for help.

I wouldn’t be posting here if Jim and Anne hadn’t asked me to. My posts don’t seem to generate much in the way of comments anymore, but from time to time people let me know that Love/God spoke to them through something they read here.

People in charge of ministries at churches that need help, should do like Jim and Anne did over a year ago, and just email and personally invite a person to serve, simply say “will you serve in our ministry” …that will get the ball rolling.

Frankly I am overwhelmed with all the choices – there are so many I couldn’t possibly help them all…sort of like a priest or minister who has so many people in their community he/she doesn’t have time to personally get to them all.

I have asked for help in this regard before. Twice I think. The Jewish custom of asking three times before an answer comes may be in order here...

The Spirit of Love can and does work spontaneously, but Love/Spirt really wants people who are open-hearted so It can work through them to heal and love and spread itself. Peter didnt heal on his own. The Spirit that made the healings didnt just make it happen (even tho It could have) the Spirit used Peter to get the job done. Peter had received a personal appointment from Love.

It Takes A Thief to Catch A Thief

It takes a dream to grasp your Imagination. It takes a Lover to capture your heart. It takes a moment to seize your attention. It takes an understanding to take hold of your awareness.

Friday morning free-associatings in anticipation of weekend freedom!

Peace
Keren

Love...take me with you everywhere you go.

Don't go anywhere without me. Let nothing happen in the sky apart from me, or on the ground, in this world or that world,without my being in its happening. Vision, see nothing I don't see. Language, say nothing. The way the night knows itself with the moon, be that with me. Be the rose nearest to the thorn that I am.

I want to feel myself in you when you taste food, in the arc of your mallet when you work, when you visit friends, when you go up on the roof by yourself at night.

There's nothing worse than to walk out along the street without you. I don't know where I'm going. You're the road, and the knower of roads, more than maps, more than love.

******
"The Essential Rumi" Coleman Barks

Peace
Keren

The Heart is All That Matters In the End

Peace and Love
Keren


Lyrics:

Jesus was a Capricorn
He ate organic food
He believed in love and peace
And never wore no shoes
Long hair, beard and sandles
And a funky bunch of friends
Reckon we'd just nail him up
If he came down again
Chorus:
'Cause everybody's gotta have somebody to look down on
Who they can feel better than at any time they please
Someone doin' somethin' dirty decent folks can frown on
If you can't find nobody else, then help yourself to me
Eggheads cussing rednecks cussing
Hippies for their hair
Others laugh at straights who laugh at
Freaks who laugh at squares
Some folks hate the Whites
Who hate the Blacks who hate the Klan
Most of us hate anything that
We don't understand
Chorus

Growing Pains

I learned something about myself this weekend. I don’t allow myself to be too happy. I sabotage myself every time I think I am moving forward in growth with regard to my artwork, or relationships, or goals of any kind. At 49 years old I am starting to wonder if I will ever get over the hurts of childhood. Will I always be the little girl who was told not to sing because it made somebody in the house uncomfortable?…

This morning I remembered this from Marianne Williamson – A Return to Love.

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

Happy Week!

Peace
Keren

On with the dance! let joy be unconfined!

This is a popoular youtube so you may have seen it. "Where the Hell is Matt? 2008"

It makes me happy! I hope it makes you happy too.

Apparently it took 14 months, and he danced in 42 countries, including Austin Texas, my home town.

On with the dance! let joy be unconfined;
No sleep till morn, when Youth and Pleasure meet
To chase the glowing hours with flying feet.
~George Gordon, Lord Byron, Childe Harold's Pilgrimage

Happy weekend
Peace
Keren

Something About Mary: Never Underestimate the Power of Love

Sometimes when I am tired and sore, hurt, empty, scared …I wish to be somebody’s baby again… …she comes to me.

She was chosen by God to be the Mother of Jesus, and she was assumed into heaven and all of creation for us to behold as our Mother too.



August 15, we celebrate “The Feast of the Assumption”

*********
Let It Be: The Beatles

When I find myself in times of trouble, mother Mary comes to me,
speaking words of wisdom, let it be.
And in my hour of darkness she is standing right in front of me,
speaking words of wisdom, let it be.

Let it be, let it be, let it be, let it be.
Whisper words of wisdom, let it be.

And when the broken hearted people living in the world agree,
there will be an answer, let it be.
For though they may be parted there is still a chance that they will see,
there will be an answer. let it be.

Let it be, let it be, .....

And when the night is cloudy, there is still a light, that shines on me,
shine until tomorrow, let it be.
I wake up to the sound of music, mother Mary comes to me,
speaking words of wisdom, let it be.

Let it be, let it be, .....


Peace and Love
Keren

Intimacy: The Fruit of Cultivating and Maintaining Loneliness

The word "intimacy" is similar to the word Love. It scares some people probably because of prejudices based on limited experiences of the heart.

I can see how it is a scary word, but to me it just means something like "ultimate compassion".

I could also have titled this post:

“Empathy: the Fruit of Cultivating and Maintaining Emptiness"
or
“Enlightenment: the Fruit of Cultivating and Maintaining Kenosis”

Have you ever known a truly empathetic person? Someone with such an understanding of what is going on with you that he or she seems to readily comprehend your deepest feelings, thoughts, or motives. That is an intimate understanding of your heart.

Have you ever known, or heard of someone, who seems to have intimate knowledge of a person or subject or circumstance without having any logical way possible of having attained such knowledge? And, in wonder and awe you ask…how do you know that?….he or she says I don’t know, it just came to me. He/she doesn’t seem to have anything to back it up with but they know it nonetheless.

Or someone who seems to be able to read your mind, and you ask incredulously...how did you know I was just thinking that? and he or she says “I didn’t do anything, I was just talking”

To me these sort of things are not certainly not necessarily miracles or magic, but are indeed similar to how God/Love/Spirit works through us ... in ways we do not, and probably will not, ever understand or maybe not even know that is happening. (that is kinda scary to me)

Look at Jesus. Jesus so emptied himself, and was so filled with the perfect will of God it was available to him to use at his own discretion – so he could heal, and do wondrous things when he deemed necessary to spread/extend His heavenly purpose which, of course, was indeed His Father's perfect will.

Most of us, at best, will only be vehicles of God’s will and not have it to use at our discretion. Cultivating emptiness does seem to be a way to emulate Jesus and a beginning to the fruits of deeper compassion/empathy/intimacy/Love.

Just some thoughts…more later
Peace and Love

Keren

It's not over until the plump lady sings.

Most people who know me, would say that I am a friendly, happy-go-lucky, yet caring and sensitive person who operates pretty much on an even keel. People who really know me would say the same, but they also know I can be a real prima donna at times – just ask my Him, or my friend and ex-boss John, certain family members and probably my friend MM too.

Most of those people mentioned above I am very close to in one way or another and they forgive me for my occasional episodes of “high-drama” just as I would forgive them.

Here is part of the definition of Prima donna I took from wikipedia….”[re: Opera stars] Legendarily, these "prima donnas" (prime donne in Italian) were often regarded as egotistical, unreasonable and irritable, with a rather high opinion of themselves not shared by others. Although whether they are truly more vain or more hot-tempered than other singers (or than any other people in the opera houses) is not substantiated, the term often signifies a vain, obnoxious and temperamental person who, although irritating, cannot be done without."

There are people in our lives who would just walk away from us when we fail to meet expectations of consistency or when we become upset or irritating or have temper tantrums…but the people who Love us/Care about us are with us through thick and thin – usually because they need us as much as we need them ..and I mean this in a positive-good way not a needy-dependent way. Love is reciprocal and eternal.

Speaking of thick and thin and plump ladies … This plump lady sings all the time, and is starting a healthy living plan today – take in less for me, give out more of me...(aka eat less exercise more)!

Peace and Love
Keren

Prayer of Surrender v2

Dear Heavenly Love:

Please help me surrender to your will. Thank you for all the people you have put in my life to help me in my spiritual growth. Thank you for my spiritual relationships.

If it be your will, please also continue to give me people whose hands I can hold, and who will hold my hands, whose eyes I can look into, and who will look into my eyes.

So through our physical beings, the spritual presence of love can be shared and passed on to others, by the least and smallest of actions - a touch of our hands or the twinkle of our eyes.

Please help me not judge when someone turns away from me or another fellow human, they may be turning away from some truth inside his or her-self, or they may just not want you to see they have been crying, or maybe even something else... :o)
Amen

Peace
Keren
Amen

This Just In From Rumi "This Longing"

Moses and the Shepherd
Jelaluddin Rumi (Persia, 1207-1273)
from This Longing, translation by C. Barks and J. Moyne

Moses heard a shepherd on
the road praying,

"God, where are you? I want to help You,
to fix Your shoes and comb Your hair.
I want to wash Your clothes
and pick the lice off. I want to bring You milk,
to kiss Your little hands and feet when it's time
for You to go to bed. I want to sweep Your room
and keep it neat. God, my sheep and goats
are Yours. All I can say, remembering You,
is ayyyy and ahhhhhhhhh."

Moses could stand it no longer.
"Who are you talking to?"

"The One who made us,
and made the earth and sky."

"Don't talk about shoes and socks with God!
And what's this with Your little hands
and feet? Such blasphemous familiarity sounds
like you are chatting with your uncles.

Only something that grows
needs milk. Only someone with feet needs shoes. Not God!
Even if you meant God's human representatives,
as when God said, 'I was sick and you did not
visit me," even then this tone would be foolish
and irreverent.

Use appropriate terms. Fatima is a fine name
for a woman, but if you call a man Fatima
it is an insult. Body-and-birth language
are right for us on this side of the river,
but not for addressing the Origin,
not for Allah."

The shepherd repented and tore his clothes and
sighed and wandered out into the desert.

A sudden revelation came then to Moses.
God's Voice:

You have separated Me from one of My own.
Did you come as a Prophet to unite,
or to sever?

I have given such a being a separate and unique way
of seeing and knowing and saying that knowledge.

What seems wrong to you is right for him.
What is poison to one is honey to someone else.

Purity and impurity, sloth and diligence in worship,
these mean nothing to Me.

I am apart from all that.
Ways of worshipping are not to be ranked as better
or worse than one another.

Hindus do Hindu things.
The Dravidian Muslims in India do what they do.
It's all praise, and it's all right.

It's not Me that's glorified in acts of worship.
It's the worshipers! I don't hear the words
they say. I look inside humility.

That broken-open lowliness is the Reality, not the language? Forget phraseology. I want burning, burning.

Be Friends
with your burning, burn up your thinking and your forms of expression.

Moses,
those who pay attention to ways of behaving
and speaking are one sort.

Lovers who burn are another."

Don't impose a property tax on a burned-out
village. Don't scold the Lover.
The "wrong" way he talks is better than
a hundred "right" ways of others.

Inside the Ka'aba it doesn't matter which direction
you point your prayer rug!

The ocean diver doesn't need snowshoes!
The Love-Religion has no code or doctrine.
Only God.

So the ruby has nothing engraved on it!
It doesn't need markings.

God began speaking deeper mysteries to Moses.
Vision and words, which cannot be recorded here,
were poured into and through him. He left himself
and came back. He went to Eternity and came back
here. This happened many times.

It's foolish of me to try and say this. If I did say it,
it would uproot our human intelligences.
It would shatter any writing pen.

Moses ran after the shepherd.
He followed the bewildering footprints,
in one place moving straight like a castle
across a chessboard. In another, sideways,
like a bishop.

Now surging like a wave cresting,
now sliding down like a fish, with always his feet
making geomancy symbols in the sand,
recording his wandering state.

Finally Moses caught up with him.
"I was wrong. God has revealed to me
that there are no rules for worship. Say whatever
and however your Loving tells you.
Your sweet blasphemy is the truest devotion.
Through you a whole world is freed.

Loosed your tongue and don't worry what
comes out. It's all the Light of the Spirit."

The shepherd replied, "Moses, Moses,
I've gone beyond even that. You applied the whip
and my horse shied and jumped out of itself.
The Divine Nature and my human nature
came together.

Bless your scolding hand and your arm.
I can't say what has happened. What I am saying
now is not my real condition. It can't be said."

The shepherd grew quiet.

When you look in a mirror, you see yourself,
not the state of the mirror. The flute player puts
breath into a flute, and who makes the music?
Not the flute. The Fluteplayer!

Whenever you speak praise or thanksgiving
to God, it's always like this dear shepherd's simplicity.

When you eventually see through the veils to
how things really are, you will keep saying
again and again, "This is certainly not like
we thought it was!"

Peace
Keren

How Can Any Version of a Miracle Be Wrong?

To me a smile in a dark place is a miracle. Who is to define what makes a miracle? Who says that if a person tries to understand a miracle, and how it may have happened, is less (or more) than a person who makes magic out of every miracle?

If the miracle of the bread and fish is contingent on it being only one person's version of a miracle, the miracle then becomes exclusive. If the miracle of walking on water, or healing by touch, has only one meaning - it is probably not a miracle.

Miracles happen constantly, at a minimum, in each and every one of us every time a cell multiplies or divides within us, on its own.

An inclusive miracle seems to be one that everybody can HOLD whereever they (we) feel it the most. Where it makes sense to us.

Mitosis? meiosis?, butterflies, babies, tadpoles, suffering, death, life. Miracles are in the eye-of the beholder. How can any version of a miracle be wrong?

Peace and Love
Keren

PS. Jesus had major AFFIRMATION from the spiritual world AND the human world. Who has ever had God affirm, in a very public way, as when Jesus was baptised and in his transfiguration (this is my Son with whom I am pleased)

Who other than perhaps a "mega star" has had mere humans tell them, this one single person, that he or she is God / the Christ, or have someone wash their feet with their hair...
hmmm

Everybody has some Love, Everybody Needs some Love

I love this Pogo cartoon published in 1971 in honor of Earth Day.

"We have met the enemy and he is us", has popped in my mind many times over the years and not with regard to environmentalism, but typically with regard to self righteous people.

My Him's best friend, mentor, employer was the CEO of a large company, he died of cancer - renal cell carcinoma - ugly stuff, in 1991. Anyway, about a year after he was made President of the company he had helped build, I asked what he liked most and least about being the CEO - he said there were a lot of things he liked about it but what he really missed however was people telling him he was doing a good job, people patting him on the back. When you are at the top, people expect you to affirm them, not vice versa.

Him's friend by the way built a company that provided jobs for thousands of people, he inspired great loyalty from the people who worked for him because he had a great respect and love for all of the people at all levels, and a detailed understanding of each person's position and their contribution to the team. He remembered people's names too. There are alot of wonderful things to be said about this guy - not enough space here.

With regard to environmentalists, sometimes some activists (not all) remind me of fundamentalist preachers - they use fear tactics, tell me what I am doing wrong, and ask me to give them money to support their cause.

The hard part about being a worthy person is identifying when we ourselves are being self righteous.

It is very easy for me to identify self righteousness in other people, it always surprising to find out that in the very act of seeing it in someone else, I catch a glimpse of it in my own self.

Peace and Love
Keren

Happiness

"The secret to happiness is a Good Sense of Humor and a Bad Memory."

This was on the bottom of an email I just received. So true so true. It is also the secret to a great marriage, great relationships of all kinds.

Peace and Love
Keren

Precious Time

My vacation week is over. Monday I will be back at work. I have enjoyed my almost-silent-retreat of a week at home. I did everything I wanted to when I wanted to do it --- bliss! I went to daily Mass every day. I walked the labyrinth, and sat in Eucharistic adoration a couple of times. I painted and worked on getting a new webhosting service (not over yet), got a little sun-burned - to me it is not a vacation without a little sun-burn. It was nice.

My lovely friend, who I have mentioned before, who had been battling cancer for this past year and half, died on Thursday. She was my age, a little younger, not quite 49. A beautiful sweet gentle spirit joining the heavenly hosts.

Peace and Love
Keren

I Love You This Much

Love connects souls and that is forever...

You cannot make yourself fall out of love with a person any more than you can make yourself fall in love with a person. Love takes you and then has you forever. Something happens that cannot be changed. The love is always there - no matter where the people involved are, no matter how fragmented a relationship seems to be.

It seems, when you may not be totally feeling the love due to circumstances, arguments, changes of whatever kind, .. you can be sustained by any morsel or remnant of the love.... such as a sweet memory or a brief moment when eyes lock (sigh) or a shared laugh or a smile, or inspiration...that morsel has enough to sustain the entire love for you. This is where we get the sustanance to keep our hearts open.

Love, once it takes you, always remains (we cannot change that), and there is always enough to go around - whether you are two people, a family, a community, etc. Love just needs to be recognized in the bits and pieces, particulary when it doesn't seem present.

This is how relationships mature and last. This is why some people who have been married or together for a long time have such ease in being with each other. Despite all the ups and downs they have been through - they have been able to recognize love through, with, and in the fractures and fragments...the tender morsels of their lives. This is also true in a marriage of souls....not necessarily a physical relationship I mean....love connects souls for eternity.

Peace
Keren