"I" Road

I never understood the reasoning for my naming this blog the "I" road until a few nights ago.  I was sitting down trying to calm my mind in meditation after a long bout of not feeling, "seeing" or experiencing God.  I don't know what it was, but it felt like a pit of emptiness.  In hindsight, I see that it was exactly what I needed. Let me explain.

During the Mass a few months ago, I paid close attention to the reading of the Psalms, where the author is pleading with God for help.  When it suddenly dawned on me that many today still have this plea. And so, if the Messiah did indeed come, why does the world still plea? And so the big question came... Where is this Messiah that came and rose from the dead?

Where is Jesus? And so, my plea began... "Where are you? Why have you left us?"

With those thoughts came anger, and I maybe, for the first time understood how and maybe why so many kids who have been abandoned by their parents are angry at them?

"Where is this person that is supposed to protect me, nurture me and love me?"  Unlike animals, that usually die if they can't survive, many human beings lash out at their reality in an effort to make sense and stay "alive."

And so I made a plea to my friends, went through the motions, shut my mouth and returned to prayer... and a realization.

If God is infinite then how is there room for me?  There can't possibly be... so then where is God?

He's everywhere and not really "out there."  But yet, if he is indeed everywhere, then how do I appear to be separate?  This is what many mystics have referred to no self or true self. This is the "illusion." If God is everywhere then where are we?  It seems that we are not separated per se, but "In God." Reality itself is God an every single human being, all of creation is "in God", we are not God but our very existence, the existence of everything is in God. From the tiniest quark to the largest astronomical suns in the universe, God dwells.

Jesus is the manifestation of God, the fullness of humanity made incarnate.  A model, the original idea for humanity. And so, all aspects of life are "in God" and therefore sacred. All life, all of creation is in God. Many religions understanding this, refuse to eat meat, but in reality even plants are an expression of God, but the fullness of God is seen only in one person. Jesus.  This understanding came to me during a long drive after a morning prayer session.

And so death it seems, is in itself is a return to God in a form unseen, since all things, even particles of the smallest kind only exist in the reality of God itself.

It seems that our sense of what we assume as a self, is indeed an exile from the very Creator of all.  There is only one "I" road and we are all on it.

Advent: Day 3

Why do many of us procrastinate? Is it to exert control over what they can and can't do?

Waiting, however, is not procrastinating. In waiting, there is a measure of patience and an expectation that the wait, might be long. We are not delaying in what needs to be done, but instead waiting to do when it needs to be done or will be done to us.

As we wait for the coming of our Lord, we are told that we will be redeemed, when He comes. Redeemed from who? Those who persecute us? I don't think so. I believe we will be redeemed from our very flaws, flaws like procrastination.

We wait O Lord for you to redeem us from the things that we know we need to do, but won't.

A man had a neighbor who never had any visitors because he was always so angry and bitter. He looked like he was withering away.

His neighbor's home was old and grey. His grass was dead and his trees barren.

The withered man one day knocked on his door and asked "Neighbor, how is it that you and yours are always so happy? Why do people flock to your home? What is the secret? Help me to understand".

The man through the kindness of his heart told him "I have a trough in the back of my house, that supplies me with what I need. Come let me show you".

He led the withered man to the back of his house and there stood a door. He reached into his trousers and took out of it a silver key. He put the key in the door, turned it and a cool burst of air, smelling of flowers blew at them both.

What lay before them was a small trough 2 x 2 in dimension, made of silver. The trough glowed and the water seemed to sparkle. In just seeing the trough, the withered man felt relief. He turned back at his neighbor and for once in a long time, smiled.

"Here is the source from where I drink. When I drink from it, it brings me peace." said the good neighbor, "I can not make you drink, or make you walk through the door, but I offer it to you."

The withered man hesitantly and slowly moved to the trough, he stuck his hands in the sparkling water to test it, then slowly started to drink.

He suddenly saw his hands return to youth, his nails which were dirty cleansed. He was no longer hunched over by the burdens of his past.

He looked over at the neighbor and with tears in his eyes said, " Thank you kind sir. For your love, has allowed me to see with clarity and allowed me to forget my troubles, I am renewed".

The man led the neighbor out of his home, and at the door told him, "Come back if you ever need some more."

Every morning for the next few months, the man looked across to his neighbors house and no longer saw withered grass or barren trees. He saw life grow on every inch of his neighbors yard.

And every morning the once withered man, waved and smiled at his friend starting at him from the window. Through the many months, they talked and sometimes they shared each other's company.

The once withered man had many people visit him, flock to him to marvel at his beautiful home and enjoy his company.

Months passed and the once withered man kept inviting his rescuer neighbor over, but he stopped coming.

The very man who had once shared his trough, started boarding up his own home and would not allow anyone to enter.

The once withered man not understanding what was happening, could only wonder.

The withered man made several attempts to share even more of his fortunes, for he had found a gold trough of his own hidden behind a door in his home. He drank from it everyday, and always gave thanks to his neighbor for guiding him to it and for the one who put the trough there for him to drink.

But the man who was once his rescuer, no longer waved to him.

The man looking through his boarded up window said to himself bitterly, "Who does he think he is drinking so much from that trough! Why does he continue to drink from it everyday?"

Bitterness and uncertainty took over him. His home and porch grew barren and he himelf slowly started to wither.

He shut the curtains in his home, because he was completely consumed, and because of that consumption, he forgot, that he too had a key, to his own trough in his own pocket.

What happens to people? Why do they push away? They lead you to water, then when you drink from it, they tell you, "You are drinking too much."

One can only wonder.

I guess there's a reason......

I will wait, for my house has no door, it is open and leads right to my trough, free to those who come to drink from it.

Advent 2015 Journal: Day Two

Advent: Day two

"O come, O come, Emmanuel, and ransom captive Israel"

Nothing we achieve, nothing we do or how much we know, seems to bring us lasting satisfaction.
 I seem to want to know more and more. Why?

I long for God that much?

I have always wondered why God favors mankind?
Why us?
We are wretched, sinful, destroyers of most that is good.
Why does God have so much love for us?
Why does he bother with humanity?
Is humankind worth that much?

 Redeem me, O Lord! I can't do anything right!

To where....

On a train of what will be.

On a train, I stare out the window,

staring at creation,

Harmony, sustenance, without human interference,

in places without interruption.

Why does man interfere in Creation,

in the planned, of what must be?

Humanity driven like a river to its destination,

As if the one in the current had control of its’ own.

Why not just drift to where it leads,

instead of swimming upstream, of what will be.

Man and God... and the Millenial

If you watch the news today you can definitely understand why atheist's have their ideas.  The world seems to always be in turmoil and most times hides or advertises the turmoil through religion.

The future seems uncertain for many of our younger people. Many 20 something's that I talk to are very anxious about their future. It seems that growing up under the shadow of 911 has affected them. They question US policy and its' role in the rest of the world.

It is call to the neighborly aspect of the Gospel.  A call to the conscience of the United States.

For the most part, greed and power always brings back man to religion, and man, always misinterpreting religion, makes a mess out of the world.

World history always comes back to greed and power, of which no previous and current religious institution has ever held an immunity.  And so atheist and many young people pose a good question.

Where is this God of yours who allows homelessness, death and destruction?

In a sense, the atheists' unbelief might be a plead to God himself.

Many of the 30 something's now look for certainty and affirmation through the "proof" given to them through science. Anxious for what the future holds, feeling and seeing the the previous institutions fail them... I can't blame them.

They question their taught beliefs because the very institutions that were supposed to protect them, for the most part fail them.

Our children are smart, creative  and think in different ways. Their way of communication has changed. They push all the institutions to think of the human person. To think for those who have for the most part been ostracized from what seems conditional love.

I have had the opportunity to meet some of these young folks, like my nephew, my son and his friends and they surprise me with their openness.  Their relationships seem genuine, different from the relationships that I had when I was younger.

It's different. Is it good? I don't know, but it is who they are.

People call them Millenials, and maybe that's exactly where they will take the world... into the next Millenium and maybe, just maybe, God will reveal himself through them.

Run, Walk or Hike

I have recently started running to lose weight and have been reading lots books based on the lives of running athletes for motivation.  In all these books, of all these great runners there's an underlying theme: The authors ran away or ran to something in struggle.

The story of the greatest running athletes all seem to have a common struggle, the human condition. I myself have struggled with one thing all my life, that I must say, might just be the motivating factor for who I have become.  And so for the most part it "runs" my life.

As I read about the lives of all these runners, I totally "get it." From being bad fathers, to alcoholics, to their tragedies, I can totally identify.

I am starting to understand there's no condition at all. Instead it is just Life. I believe that the human condition is not so much a condition, but the standard.

It's not a condition at all.

I believe one key aspect to live is to learn how to stay motivated and minimize the damage.

Is that the point of religion?  In the major religions it is all about being free of this condition and to being better off, but is that part of being human?

I will continue to run, not so much for the weight loss, but because I believe that running might reflect how life can be, sometimes enjoyable and sometimes not.

The human condition is somehow reflected in the very terrain of our hikes and our runs, and it is in the struggle to conquer the next hill, to reach the next peak, or our own peaks, that we can sometimes prepare for the run..... Life.

The Badger

They say that a Badger digs really deep to make it's home, and to a certain extent human beings tend to do the same.  We seem to dig really deep to figure out who we are, why we are and why we do the things we do, but, eventually we all have to make a home.

I have been "badgering" for quite a while and still can't seem to find my home. The song, "I still haven't found what I am looking for" by U2 is where I continually "find" myself and says it best.

The saints, guru's and mystics say that what we all really long for is Love, God and compassion.  Is that the home we all search for?

Is that all I need? If so, can you please tell me how or where I can get such things?

I am told that Truth is a person, but this Truth seems so distant to me. This Truth seems so irrelevant in my life at the moment.

And so, I search and dig.

I was recently told by my doctor that I have to lose weight. That I can do!  Because through experience, I have made that home before, so I know exactly how much to dig to get to it. But these other aspects of life like work, relationships, God, the universe, religion are all places that this Badger fails to find.

It seems that once you think you have it, you learn that there's something else that shifts the dirt or fills the "whole."

I don't think that we are meant to live like badgers that continuously dig and dig because it doesn't seem to be working.

I guess the saying, "Where you go, there you are" is where I am and it sure feels lonely here.

Thick and Thin

On a recent hike on the Appalachian trail we came to a section of the trail that goes through the Great Swamp.

I have been thinking about this picture for a while and have thought about just how much it can reflect our own life journey.

No matter how high and dense life can become we must keep going. But what path do we choose?

Sometimes those who came before us lay out the path for us, but still many head into the thicket.

They try to make their own way in the thicket, not realizing that the thicket just brings suffering and hardship.

The road to Truth has been laid out before us.

The thickets surround the Truth and leads nowhere.

Above all we still have to carry on.

Yes, there might be a load on your back, created by your very own thicket adventure, but you still have to carry on.

Experiment

Have you ever analyzed your life and wondered if it was all meant to be?

Sometimes our hardships make us question just what it all means.  It is so easy to lose focus especially when although you are doing everything "right", things don't seem to go right for you.  The story of Job is a perfect example of that. 

This has happened to me several times in my life and I have been quickly to blame, but now I know better, and just wait.

In an experiment, there are dependent and independent variables to determine cause and effect.

The independent variables are the variables that are changed by the experimenter. The experimenter then checks the effects the independent variable has on the dependent variable.

We have a few known variables that will cause some known effects in our lives like drugs, alcohol etc... but those are not in everyone's lives.

How will the dependent variable, which is you, be affected and in the end measured?

This is the ultimate question that many ask themselves, "What is the end result of my life? What is the purpose of my life?"

Although there are variables that can not be controlled, there are a few that can.

This is the importance of Faith.  With faith you have an understanding that God has a plan for us.

An example of people who don't have faith in the plan, are of people who have no stability in their life due to their own actions.

The inconsistencies of the self imposed variables in their lives coupled with the always unknowing and ever changing variables that life itself has a way of giving them, leads to a very unstable life.

? + ? =  more ???

This also applies to the person or persons who know that certain variables in their lives will always have undesirable causes and effects in their lives.  Should these people complain? Probably not.  Do some people get used the effects the variables in their lives brings them?  Is that their way of getting some type of hold on the uncertainty?

( Drama + ? ) + Drama = Drama 

What about the variables that people consider "normal?"  This is another problem.  What is normal?

I think that normal has been identified by the wisdom of those that came before us, but that the interpretation of that "normal" has twisted some of its normalcy.

Sometimes the variables given to us at birth are not the one's we want, and so throughout our life we fight them, or use them in a way that is not "normal."  And so, the non-acceptance of those variables and how they fit the plan, continues our hardships.

Do you have Faith in the plan?

I think that part of the plan is to have one variable, which is constant.  Faith.

Let go, of letting it go

I had a dream that you and I were hiking up a mountain.

Our packs were heavy because we picked up so many things we thought we would need for this trip.

I decided to slowly let stuff out of my pack and I made progress, but when I looked to my side you were not there.

I noticed that you were still struggling.  I yelled to you, "Let some stuff out of your pack, we are almost there!"

But you refused.

I came back to you to help you, but the load was too heavy for both of us.

I begged and pleaded with you to drop some of your stuff, but you refused.

As night approached, I realized that we would both succumb to the weight of your pack. I had to leave if we wanted a chance for either of us to survive.

I left you there on your knees, and as I approached the summit I too fell, but because my pack was lighter and there were other people with lighter packs on the same trail who helped me, I could continue.

As I climbed, I looked back. I saw you finally decide to remove some of your baggage and made some progress, but when I looked back again later I saw you had picked up some more things, basically the same things, but in a different color.

When I finally saw the summit, I knew I could probably make it to the top by the time the cold night consumed me.  I looked back to you and once again asked you to relieve your burden so you could climb.  I pleaded with you. But you still refused. You fell again under the crushing weight you still chose to carry.  But it seems that the old conveniences you think you need are the very things that keep you on your knees.

I have to go on my friend, I am being called from the top.

You are the only one that can let go of those things you think you need.

Others who say they are helping are just adding more stuff to your pack.

Good luck my friend. I have to move on.

Dark Nights

On the surface and in the daylight, I look fine,

But at night the old memories still haunt me,

The constant battle to get back what I can no longer have keeps me in the past.

Even with the mask I wear and protection I surround myself with, I can't let go.

My darkest fears keep my aliveness and light away like a ScareCrow.

The biggest Joke is that I am my own worst enemy, the Joke will never die until I let go.

The love I find can never tame me, for I do not know I am out of control.

Why do I live in the darkness of my past, fighting a battle I will never win? This Riddle eludes me.

The enemies keep appearing again and again, even though I try to lock them up deep in my asylum.

I feel I need to save others from what happened to me, but who in the end saves me?

I am Batman.

The psychology of the Dark Knight character is a reflection of our own human condition.

To live in the past is to suffer.

People live their life and completely identify their lives with the burdens and negative emotions of the past. They act out every day with this pain, anger, resentment etc..

A Living Pain Body.

To live in that way is to live in darkness. Never seeing the light. Gotham keeps getting worse.

It never seems to get better.

The Joker never dies and keeps coming back to haunt Batman because the Joker is Batman.

The Joker being in Batman's reality, comes through Batman.

Once the awareness of the Joker enters Batman's mind, the Joker is now Batman. It is the connectedness we share.

Look up at the night sky. There are 2 things there. First things are objects, known as stars, planets, galaxies etc..

The other is Space. The vastness that is incomprehensible. You can't destroy space or grab it.

That's basically what the world consists of....Objects and Space.

These same two dimensions exists in you, but humans have been lost in one.

Physical objects, events, situations, thoughts, etc.. This is called object consciousness.

The 2nd is space consciousness. The true you, where your essence resides.

You will never have anything from object consciousness complete you if your identity is completely identified with things based in object consciousness.

People die, objects break, etc... all things of object consciousness.

Good times pass. Bad times pass. Accept them for what they are.

Everything whether good or bad in the object consciousness eventually dissolves.

You have to live in the space given to you.

How do you find this space? You live in the Now.

Acceptance of what is Now.

With no preconditions, baggage, negative pain. No baggage. No Pain Body living.

No mind movement.

Look at the sentence below:

I think that ________________________________________ you are a great person.

In the intentional space I put between the words THAT and YOU, that momentary space of no thought, is where you find space consciousness.

When people speak, pay attention to not only the words, but the spaces in between them.

It will raise your awareness. Helping you live in the Now.

Don't live like Batman, on the borderline of madness.

Do not live in the dysfunctional mind.

To simply become aware of the stillness or silence within you is to have space consciousness.

Don't try to look for it, because the minute you start looking is a hope for the future. Hope is a thought based in object consciousness. Just be aware. Allow.

Four O

What am I lacking in you?

Why the need to be one way or the other?

Why not be both or neither?

When did the you get lost in you?

Things are not to fill your void, only to keep you void.

Be you, not your thoughts.

Your escape, is my sadness. Don't bind me too.

Come back before you are caught.

Freedom is now.

I can't be your life, but I love that you are in mine.

The projection I saw was not the one I know.

Will we be the same?

When do we realize something has changed? And really, ask yourself, what has changed?

Well the answer is easy! Your mind has changed.

I don't understand what happened to me tonight, but my mind has changed, or, the Ego has latched on to another "mental issue".

What causes insecurity? Fear.

Fear of losing. Attachment to something that can't be held, only experienced.

Awareness leads to the answers within, but those answers can only be found if you can be still enough to hear them.

Although I know that this too shall pass, I can't wait, and waiting can cause suffering.

Waiting, now observed, will also pass.