Who among as at some point has not felt ‘offended’? Someone says something rude to us, something to belittle us or make fun of the way we look – or does something just to make themselves feel superior by making us feel inferior. We’ve all been there, haven’t we? Think of the people in your life who must always be correct, have the last word, or elevate themselves by being seen as the wise teacher (even though everybody else just thinks they’re a fill-in-the-blank!).

Recently someone did this with me – it wasn’t as much what they were saying as much as it was something I felt they were projecting – giving me ‘credit’ (of sorts) for thinking something I wasn’t even thinking. And so the more I thought about what I wasn’t thinking about…well, the more offensive to me it became. And as this person has been a friend for some time, there was ample baggage I could heap on the issue. I wanted to tell this person, as a roommate of mine in college used to say, ‘Hey, don’t throw your muck in my backyard!’ I wanted to say ‘deal with your own stuff but leave me out of it.’ Continue reading…

I chuckle every time I think about an interview I once heard with Ray Charles. The interviewer asked Charles what the one question is that he most often is asked. Charles smiled and said, “People always ask me if I’ve been blind all my life.” The interviewer followed up by asking, “And your response?” With a wide grin Charles said, “I always tell them, ‘not yet’!”

I think that question is actually something that should be asked of everyone and often. Each of us is born blind, born into the false-self of egoic grasping and darkness. Along life’s way, if we’re fortunate, we come to learn the way of living with eyes wide open – we come to be ‘born again.’ The first birth is in blindness to the true self. The second birth is the day we come to own who we really have been created to be. And that day is the greatest day we will ever know. Continue reading…

In Christian tradition there is an idea known as ‘the fruit of the Spirit.’ We read of this in a letter that the apostle Paul wrote long ago to Gentile believers located in Asia Minor, specifically in a place known as Galatia.

The circumstances surrounding this letter are probably important to know before (or as) one addresses the qualities of such ‘fruit.’ So up front give me a moment to provide a little background regarding what was occurring in the Galatian situation that prompted the writing of this letter to begin with.

During the rise of Christianity in the first century, for a period of time there were a lot of Jewish people who followed Jesus but also demanded that new Gentile converts to this newfound Jesus-following also convert to Judaism. The main argument stemmed from the fact that the Jewish temple in Jerusalem still stood, that many Jewish Christian believers still attended its services and that, generally speaking, God still dwelt in the most holy place of this temple. For many believing Jews, you could follow Jesus but only on the condition that you continued to closely observe the religious law.

Paul, however, argued that a person was in relationship with God because of the faith of Christ, not law observance or other outward works a person had to ‘do.’ In the process of writing this letter to Gentile Christians, at one point he speaks to something that, in his mind, is apart from law – the ‘fruit’ of the Spirit.

For Paul such fruit is: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control, adding that against such things, ‘there is no law.’ I think it’s probably significant that Paul refers to all of these as a singular ‘fruit’ of the Spirit rather than as individual ‘fruits’ (plural) of the Spirit.

From Paul’s vantage point, they all proceed from our living out of the Spirit – the deepest (and simplest) disclosure of who we really are – the true self. It’s like saying that once you ‘get’ or ‘understand’ the story of how Jesus came so show us our unity with the Unnameable, these things tend to naturally flow from such an understanding.

I think the need to meditate on these things is because of how easily they sometimes come and go depending on outward circumstances. In other words, when life gets tough, if we’re not consciously living out of this sort of realization, such fruit will not carry the day – instead, the egoic false self will.

There is an old Tibetan metaphor that describes this process of fleeting attributes by saying that in such instances they prove to ‘consist of many small puddles that can evaporate easily rather than a deep, expansive, long-lasting reservoir.’

I like that metaphor. It helps reinforce for me the need to be constant in my guard against the ego and in the inherent weakness of simply living according to my code of ethic (law) or based upon my own (false) self-discipline.

There is a higher power. A higher Source of discipline and strength. And by intentionally living into this Source, the fruit is more likely to be there when it is most needed. As a result, our suffering and the suffering we cause others is most often averted.

So, is our practice and consciousness indicative of ‘puddles’ or ‘reservoirs’? I like the latter. Today, dig deep!

Blessings.

No doubt there are some who would read this series of posts and protest that I’m little more than a naïve U.S. citizen who was duped into becoming a mouth-piece for the Palestinian cause. People might claim that I only saw one side of the story, etc. But let me assure you that this was not the case.

This was no site-seeing tour. It was ten days of meetings with both Jewish and Palestinian citizens and government officials. One such group is simply known as ‘the Refuseniks’ – Israeli citizens who refused to serve in the military because of an unwillingness to contribute to the grievances and abuses occurring with regularity within the occupied territories. Their only agenda was peace and justice for all. Continue reading…

I believe that if you love for yourself, and from yourself, you will become a hater. It is inevitable.

The Jesus of history, the Jesus of the biblical narrative, entered the world at the exact time and place to accomplish the exact purposes for which he lived. He came not just into a world dominated by political empire, but one bent on constructing religious empire as well – a religious setting filled with angst and hatred and one with a rich story of persecution at the hands of others; specifically Egypt, Assyria, Babylon – and now Rome. Many of his day believed that though they physically returned from exile hundreds of years earlier, there remained a spiritual exile as long as they lived under the oppressive reach of the Romans. And they would remain in that exile until a Messiah arrived to lead them to victory. It is their preconception of what that victory would look like, that singular-egoic-retaliatory view, which would prove to be their greatest demise.

Continue reading…