July 2008

7-6-08


... the love with which we love should be so pure, so simple, so detached that it inclines neither to myself nor to my friend nor to anything else next to it. The teachers say that one can name no good work as a good work and no virtue as a virtue unless it has taken place in love. ... How has God loved us? He loved us when we did not yet exist and when we were his enemies. So great a need had God for our friendship that he could not wait until we asked him. … So unitary should our love be, for love will never be anywhere else than there where equality and unity are. Between a master and a servant there is no peace because there is no real equality. ... when God is in me and I am in God, then I am not less and God is not higher. –
Meister Eckhardt

Whatever dilutes, falsifies, or blocks this love is foreign to our heart. This purity of heart is not esoteric or a pie-in-the sky state of being. It is within the realm of possibility for all people, but it does require a discipline of life and prayer that is … humble and constant . . .
Gail Fitzpatrick, OCSO
There is a deep malaise in our society … Many of us are not healthy within, yet we continue to look for things that only harm us more. We come home from work exhausted, and we do not know how to relax. We feel a kind of vacuum in ourselves, so we turn on the television. We live in a society where we always feel we are lacking something, and we want to fill it. If we don’t turn on the TV, we eat, or read, or talk on the phone, [go on the internet]. We are always trying to fill the void with something. Some people even do social or political work this way. But doing this only makes us less satisfied, hungrier, and we want to consume more. We feel alienated from ourselves. There is so much anger and fear in us, and we want to suppress them, so we consume more and more things that only increase the toxicity in us. We watch films filled with screaming and violence. We read magazines and novels filled with hatred and confusion. We do not even have the courage to turn off our TV, because we are afraid to go back to ourselves.
Thich Nhat Hanh




Howard Thurman, African American Mystic who inspired MLK reminds us
We are prisoners of timetables. We become busy – note the words – not, ‘we are busy’. But ‘we become busy’. Within ourselves we develop an inner sense of rush, and haste. There is a kind of anxiety that is like the sense of impending doom that comes into life when the spirit is crowded by too much movement. … It takes time to cultivate the mind, it takes time to grow in wisdom, it takes time to savor the qualities of living, it takes time to feel one’s way into one’s self;
it takes time to walk with God.



I make the effort
to maintain a ground of oceanic silence out of which arises the multitude of phenomena of daily life.

I make the effort
to see and to passionately open in love to the spirit that infuses all things

I make the effort
to see the Beloved in everyone and to serve the Beloved though everyone (including the earth).

I often fail in these aspirations because I lose the balance between separateness and unity, get lost in my separateness. and feel afraid.

But I make the effort [again]
Ram Das




To guard one’s heart is to recognize that many things may be good in themselves, but they may not be conducive to growth in one’s heart of love, compassion, centeredness . . . and the ability to give oneself daily…
Guarding one’s heart means continually discerning God’s call to love so one can choose the good and exclude from one’s innermost heart the trivial, mere curiosities, and those animosities that destroy tranquillity and the reign of God’s peace within.
Gail Fitzpatrick, OCSO


"And now here is my secret, a very simple secret;
it is only with the heart that one can see rightly,
what is essential is invisible to the eye."Antoine de Saint-Exupery


It depends on You
If in your heart you make
a manger for his birth,
then God will once again
become a child on earth.
Angelius Selesius


7/13/08
Living Spirits of Earth
Mother and Father to us all
You who hold us in Your breath
You who bathe us in Your waters
who feed us with Your fruits
Guardian of where we are going
of who we are becoming
Cradle of our days
and coffin of our nights
You who carry us folded in Your arms
Sailing silently among the stars
Hear our prayers
The Terra Collective

Amen.



Great lions can find peace in a cage.
But we should only do that
as a last
resort.
So these bars I see that restrain your wings,
I guess you won’t mind
if I pry them
open.
Rumi


From the days of spring – the sky
is bright and blue the sun is huge and warm.
Everything’s turning green.
Carrying my monk bowl, I walk to the village
to beg for my daily meal.
The children spot me at the temple gates
and happily crowd around,
dragging at my arms till I stop,
I put my bowl on a white rock,
hang my bag on a branch.
First we braid grasses and play tug of war,
then we take turns singing and keeping a kick-ball in the air;
I kick the ball and they sing, they kick the ball and I sing.
Time is forgotten, the hours fly.
People passing by point and me and laugh:
“why are you acting like such a fool?”
I nod my head and don’t answer.
I could say something, but why?
Do you want to know what’s in my heart?
From the beginning of time: just this! just this!
RYOKAN (1758-1831)



Selections from The Alter of the Heart by Beverly Lanzetta



I was sad one day and went for a walk;
I sat in a field

A rabbit noticed my condition and
came near.
It often does not take more than that to help at times –

to just be close to creatures who
are so full of knowing,
so full of love that they don’t
– chat,
– they just gaze with
– their
– marvelous understanding.
St. John of the Cross



Make of your life an offering! Make of your life a prayer!
…be awake to the Life
that is loving you and
sing your prayer, laugh your prayer,
dance your prayer, run
and weep and sweat your prayer,
sleep your prayer, eat your prayer,
paint, sculpt, hammer and read your prayer,
sweep, dig, rake, dive, and hoe your prayer,
garden, farm and build and clean your prayer,
wash, iron, vacuum, sew, embroider and pickle your prayer
compute, touch, bend and fold but never delete
or mutilate your prayer.

Learn to play your prayer
work and rest your prayer,
fast and feast your prayer,
argue, talk, whisper, listen, and shout your prayer,
groan, moan and spit and sneeze your prayer,
swim and hunt and cook your prayer,
digest and become your prayer,
release and recover your prayer,
breathe your prayer,
be your prayer

Alla Renee Bozarth



Offer only lovely things on my altars –
the bread of life, and jewels, and feathers and flowers.
Let the streams of life flow in peace
Turn from violence,
Learn to think for a long time how to change the world,
how to make it better to live in.
All the people in the world ought to talk about it
and speak well of it always.
Then it will last forever,
and the flowers will bloom forever
and I will come to you again
Quetzalcoatl



Learn to play your prayer
work and rest your prayer,
fast and feast your prayer,
argue, talk, whisper, listen, and shout your prayer,
groan, moan and spit and sneeze your prayer,
swim and hunt and cook your prayer,
digest and become your prayer,
release and recover your prayer,
breathe your prayer,
be your prayer

Alla Renee Bozarth


7/20/08
Holy Mystery
As we join together this morning in the light of your presence,
we are reminded that we are all one in the divine heart.
May this longing for oneness transform our world.
May our hearts be opened, in the very depths where we find you, God,
May our hearts be open to the glorious expression of your love found in all our religions and spiritual traditions.
You speak to us, Holy Mystery, in this diversity, and we are enriched and humbled by the breadth and depth of your Words.
May our gathering together this morning signify our hopes for the harmony of our planet, the alleviation of suffering, food for the hungry, shelter for the homeless, and respect for the poor. May this flame be a testimony of our willingness to struggle together toward the peace of inclusiveness, loving all and embracing all in the family of creation.
Amen.
Beverly Lanzetta



SONG


In the house made of dawn.
In the story made of dawn.
On the trail of dawn.
O, Talking God!
His feet, my feet restore.
His limbs, my limbs restore.
His body, my body, restore.
His mind, my mind, restore.
His voice, my voice, restore.
His plumes, my plumes restore.
With beauty before him, with beauty before me.
With beauty behind him, with beauty behind me.
With beauty above him with beauty above me.
With beauty below him, with beauty below me.
With beauty around him, with beauty around me.
With pollen beautiful in his voice, with pollen beautiful in my voice.
Navajo Prayer

I could not lie anymore so I started to call my dog – “God”
First he looked
confused,

then he started smiling, then he even
danced.

I kept at it: now he doesn’t even
bite.

I am wondering if this
might work on
people.
Tukaram



Selections from the Altar of the Heart by Beverly Lanzetta



All day long a little burro labors, sometimes,
with heavy loads on her back and sometimes just with worries
about things that bother only
burros.

And worries, as we know, can be more exhausting
than physical labor.
Once in a while a kind monk comes
to her stable and brings
a pear, but more
than that,

he looks into the burro’s eyes and touches her ears

and for a few seconds the burro is free
and even seems to laugh,

because love does
that.

Love frees.
Meister Eckhardt


Speak out the paralyzing secret
and begin to come back to yourself.
Cry it out to compassionate ears
and be in the hearts of your witnesses.
The truth shall make you free
but first it will shatter you.
What was broken can be mended,
what was lost, restored.
Find yourself, then,
pure and whole, a child of God.
Look back long enough to let it go.
Alla Renee Bozarth


Silence.
With beauty before him, with beauty before me.
With beauty behind him, with beauty behind me.
With beauty above him with beauty above me.
With beauty below him, with beauty below me.
With beauty around him, with beauty around me.
With pollen beautiful in his voice, with pollen beautiful in my voice.
It is finished in beauty.
It is finished in beauty.
In the house of evening light,
From the story made of evening light
On the trail of evening light.
Navajo Prayer
7/27/08


The grass beneath a tree is content
and silent.
A squirrel holds an acorn in its praying hands,
offering thanks, it looks like.
The nut tastes sweet: I bet the prayer spiced
it up somehow.
The broken shell falls on the grass,
and the grass looks up
and says
“Hey”.
And the squirrel looks down
and says
“Hey”.
I have been saying “Hey” lately too
to God.
Formalities just weren’t
working.
Rumi



This is the sanctuary of heart and mind where the normal laws of physics do not apply. You will not discover it all at once because this sanctuary is infinite . . . . In the sacred [heart] God gives you the plan [of the sanctuary] and he shows you how to build it. Nobody can do it for you – each sanctuary is a part of the same divine plan and yet each is different, personal to the one who dwells in it. It is unique because the sanctuary dweller is the sanctuary builder. So, I invite you to go through the door and take your first step inside. The floor under your feet is the material that underlies the whole of life, of the sanctuary. It comprises something that so many say they are craving: silence.
Abbot Christopher Jamison



Selections from The Altar of the Heart by Beverly Lanzetta


I stood before a silk worm one day.
And that night my heart said to me,

“I can do things like that, I can spin skies,
I can be woven into love that can bring warmth to people;
I can be soft against a crying face,
I can be wings that lift, and I can travel on my thousand feet
throughout the earth,
my sacks filled
with the
sacred.

And I replied to my heart,
“Dear, can you really do all those things?”

And it just nodded, “Yes”
in silence.

So we began and will never
cease.
Rumi


Have no fear of human sin. Love people living in their sin, for that is the semblance of Divine love and is the highest love on earth. Love all God’s creation – the whole – and every grain of sand of it. Love every leaf, every ray of God’s light. Love the animals, love the plants, love everything. If you love everything you will perceive the Divine Mystery in things. Once you perceive it you will begin to comprehend it better every day. And you will come at last to love the whole world with an all-embracing love.
Fyodor Dostoyesky


Even
after
all this time
the sun never says to the earth,
“You owe me.”
Look
what happens
with a love like that –
It lights the whole
world.

Hafi