There is family, and there are relatives. Sometimes they are the same people, but not always and not necessarily. When people cut you out of their lives, sometimes without caring enough to even tell you, that's them struggling with their insecurities, fears, self-loathing, or regrets. Don't take it on. If they love their politics, their money, their religion, or their bigotries more than you, that is their deficit, not yours.
And, if people are happy to keep you in their lives but mostly as an emotional punching bag, then don't take on guilt if you need to walk away. You can do it without bitterness and with an openness to future reconciliation, but love doesn't mean being anyone's doormat.
Love yourself and be thankful for those who love you (as you are, not as they insist you should be), but don't let yourself be too miserable if the ones who do love you aren't the ones you once thought were "supposed to."
In the end, the silly games, dramas, and petty conflicts won't matter to any of us, except for the time they caused us to waste.
Showing posts with label relationship. Show all posts
Showing posts with label relationship. Show all posts
Saturday, June 28, 2014
Thursday, May 26, 2011
The Jesus Way
The Jesus Way
Rev. Dr. Durrell Watkins
Ps 33.1-5; 1 Pt 2.2-3, 9-10; Jn 14.1-12
Preached May 22, 2011 at Sunshine Cathedral’s 10:30 AM service, the day after “Judgment Day”, so called by evangelical broadcaster Harold Camping. Camping predicted “the Rapture” would occur on May 22; he was apparently mistaken.
Well, I see I’m not the only one who got left behind. I hate to seem selfish, but I have to admit feeling a sense of relief yesterday that the pilot flying our plane wasn’t beamed to Glory in mid-flight. They can tell you about oxygen masks and life jackets, but mostly in the case of a crash, you’re just hosed.
Of course it’s easy to make fun of the doomsday predictions, especially since they are always wrong; but there is also a sadness to them. One wonders what pathology is at work to make people long for an apocalypse, and to have such delusions of grandeur that they think they can both predict and escape it.
I suspect that what gives life to these apocalyptic fantasies is the fear of change. Fear of losing privilege, fear of losing dominance. As gay marriage gains steam, as immigration changes the demographics of our communities, as Islam grows at a faster pace than Christianity, as women now hold high office in church and state, and in a country that has often been torn apart by racism an African American president now sits in the White House. I suspect that for many people they aren’t really hoping for the end of the world, they are just mourning that the world where they felt they were in charge has already ended, and so they want the new world to be punished, and they want to be whisked away to a place where they will once again be part of the ruling class. Rather than embracing change and celebrating progress, they mourn the loss of power and privilege and they dream of magical ways they might be restored to an elite status.
Well, the world has ended many times…the world that was thought to be flat, the world where Christians thought they could hold slaves, the world where flight and organ transplants and space travel were only the wild ideas of the most creative of imaginations…yes, the world has retired and given way to new worlds many times, and will many more times. So, let’s not ever get too upset about the misguided prophets of doom; let’s just do what we can to make our world the best that it can be now and always.
Psalm 33 tells us that Justice and Love are what God is about.
The psalmist also mentions the harp and lyre…stringed instruments that are to be accompanied by shouts of joy.
Working for justice, sharing love, and celebrating our lives with great enthusiasm is the divine way, or path.
The writer of 1 Peter, quoting two verses from Exodus 19, tells us that we have sacred value and enormous potential.
And the gospel shows us the way to acknowledge and embrace our sacred value, to celebrate and share the divine power within us.
In the gospel lesson, the writer imagines Jesus saying, “Where I Am, there YOU MAY BE ALSO!” Thomas needs some kind of GPS system. He says, “How can we know the way?” And Jesus answers, “I AM the way!”
I think what John is having Jesus say to us is: Where I AM in my understanding of God you can be also, and you can have that by following the way I have followed, the way of fearless exploration, trust, hope, and intimacy with the divine.
First of all, remember that Jesus is executed in the year 29; John is being written about the year 96, almost 70 years later. This is being written long after Jesus ever said anything. Also, this passage saying, “I Am the way” only occurs in this late gospel. An isolated verse in a late gospel has been given far too much weight in the way it has been used to exclude and insult people of other faith traditions. God forgive us.
We must remember “the way” doesn’t mean a belief; the way is a path, and a path is traveled on during a journey. The Way isn’t a narrow, myopic, self-serving dogma; the Way is an on-going path of exploration and discovery. It isn’t exclusive, it is infinitely inclusive. And before the words “the Way” are the powerful sacred words, “I AM.”
In Exodus 3.14 the story says that Moses comes to understand God in a new way. Moses’ new discovery is that God is “I AM.” Yahweh is more a verb than a noun, more precisely a “to be” verb.
The divine name means “I Am” or “I Am Who I Will Be” or “I Will Be What I will be” or “ I Am the One that causes things to be”…in any case, God is Pure Being and the source and substance of all being and becoming. “This is what you are to tell the people” (Moses hears), “I AM has sent me to you.”
I AM sends…The Infinite To Be Verb sets in motion Action Verbs…Theologian Paul Tillich called God “the Ground of Being”…This Ground or Substance of All Being calls us To Be our best and sends us out to do our best…I AM calls us to action, to movement, to journeys…the path, the way is one of forward movement, not freezing time nor going back, not even of all pretending to believe the same things, but daring to move forward.
I AM the way…The name of God is a path we follow, a path of exploration and growth and evolution and change. This way is the life-giving truth: the way, the truth and the life.
Notice that there are in John, 7 “I Am” statements attributed to Jesus: I Am Bread of Life (Jn 6), I Am Light (Jn 8 & 9), I Am the Gate (Jn 10), I Am the good shepherd (Jn 10), I Am Resurrection & Life (Jn 11), I Am the Way, Truth, and Life (Jn 14), and I Am the true vine (Jn 15).
I AM is always used in a positive way. To say I Am is to invoke God’s name, and to follow God’s name with something positive is the word of truth, the word of hope, the word of healing, while to follow God’s name with something negative is to take God’s name in vain. John isn’t having Jesus arrogantly sing his own praises; he’s showing that Jesus so related to the God of the universe that he felt at one with God, and he affirmed that unity. And as followers of Jesus, we too are to recognize our unity with the divine and affirm the truth of that unity in our speech, in our prayers, and in our daily living.
Even if we don’t feel that those statements accurately portray what we know of ourselves so far, we can at least trust that those statements are true of God. And so when we say I AM something good, we are affirming the Goodness of God, and as we trust that goodness more and more we will trust our relationship to and with God more and more and those I AM statements will become increasingly accurate portrayals of how we know ourselves to be in this world. John’s Jesus is showing us the power of a positive I AM statement held in mind and repeated with conviction.
I don’t have to fear the future, I don’t have to fear change if I know that I AM something good, something divine, someone of eternal significance. The person who can say, I AM something good can say with complete integrity, “Let not your hearts be troubled.” In God, all is well.
John intended his audience to identify with Jesus. John’s community is meant to do what Jesus does, follow in his footsteps, say what he says, and be in the world what he had been in the world. So, when Jesus says, “I Am”, each member of John’s community was meant to say, “And I Am too.”
That hypothesis is in agreement with what we notice by comparing Jesus’ statement in John’s Gospel, “I AM the light of the world” with Jesus’ statement in the Sermon on the Mount found in Matthew’s gospel, saying, “You are the light of the world.” Matthew has Jesus say, “you are.” John has Jesus say, “I am.” They are both saying the same thing. They are saying Jesus is divine light, and so are we.
We see in Jesus a person so filled with the presence and power of God that people felt closer to God because of their encounter with him. But then we remember that God breathed the breath of life into ‘adam, the earth-being; that God has breathed Her spirit into all human-beings. We are all God-filled persons; Jesus isn’t the only one. Jesus is the model, the example reminding us what is most deeply true about each of us, about all people.
So, what is the way of Jesus that is true and life-giving, the path that is the way we can best experience the power and presence of God in our lives? Well, rather than literalizing a statement that is made only in John’s gospel some 67 years after Jesus’ lifetime, let’s look at the way Jesus demonstrated time and again throughout scripture:
We see Jesus engaging with respect the Samaritan Woman at the well…The Way of Equality (Jn 4).
We see Jesus responding kindly when the rebel being crucified with him said, “Remember me”…The Way of Compassion (Lk 23).
We see Jesus telling his followers to get to work, saying the harvest is ready but the workers are too few…The Way of Challenge (Mk 9).
We see Jesus saying that the greatest commandments are simply to love God and love people (Matt 22), in fact, we see him saying that to treat others the way you’d like to be treated is the whole message of scripture (Matt 7)…The Way of Love.
We see Jesus praising the poor widow who gives her best gift. She gives absolutely all she can. Others give more, but this woman gives her all and does so not to get anything in return but simply for the joy of doing all she can…the Widow’s Mite remains the ideal image of faithful stewardship and spiritual commitment…The Way of Generosity (Mk 12).
We see Jesus praying in a very affirmative way at Lazarus’ tomb: Abba I thank you for hearing me, I know that you always hear me!...The Way of Affirmation and Positive Thinking (Jn 11).
The way of Jesus isn’t to make him into an idol, or an afterlife insurance policy, or a bouncer to keep people out whose faith experiences have led them in a variety of directions. After all, in God’s house there are many rooms…we are each bound to find the one that is right for us.
The way of Jesus is the way of living in relationship with God, of trusting God’s presence within us, of sharing hope and goodwill with others, of learning to love more, of forgiving ourselves and others when we have failed to love deeply enough, of allowing ourselves to experience and express more and more light as we grow and learn and move forward on our journeys of faith. This is the way of Jesus, the truth he demonstrated, the life he lived, this is the way that will help us live truly in communion with God. Few of us are there yet, but we can grow toward the goal, empowered by grace every step of the way…the way, the truth and the life of constantly growing and evolving faith. And this is the good news. Amen.
Rev. Dr. Durrell Watkins
Ps 33.1-5; 1 Pt 2.2-3, 9-10; Jn 14.1-12
Preached May 22, 2011 at Sunshine Cathedral’s 10:30 AM service, the day after “Judgment Day”, so called by evangelical broadcaster Harold Camping. Camping predicted “the Rapture” would occur on May 22; he was apparently mistaken.
Well, I see I’m not the only one who got left behind. I hate to seem selfish, but I have to admit feeling a sense of relief yesterday that the pilot flying our plane wasn’t beamed to Glory in mid-flight. They can tell you about oxygen masks and life jackets, but mostly in the case of a crash, you’re just hosed.
Of course it’s easy to make fun of the doomsday predictions, especially since they are always wrong; but there is also a sadness to them. One wonders what pathology is at work to make people long for an apocalypse, and to have such delusions of grandeur that they think they can both predict and escape it.
I suspect that what gives life to these apocalyptic fantasies is the fear of change. Fear of losing privilege, fear of losing dominance. As gay marriage gains steam, as immigration changes the demographics of our communities, as Islam grows at a faster pace than Christianity, as women now hold high office in church and state, and in a country that has often been torn apart by racism an African American president now sits in the White House. I suspect that for many people they aren’t really hoping for the end of the world, they are just mourning that the world where they felt they were in charge has already ended, and so they want the new world to be punished, and they want to be whisked away to a place where they will once again be part of the ruling class. Rather than embracing change and celebrating progress, they mourn the loss of power and privilege and they dream of magical ways they might be restored to an elite status.
Well, the world has ended many times…the world that was thought to be flat, the world where Christians thought they could hold slaves, the world where flight and organ transplants and space travel were only the wild ideas of the most creative of imaginations…yes, the world has retired and given way to new worlds many times, and will many more times. So, let’s not ever get too upset about the misguided prophets of doom; let’s just do what we can to make our world the best that it can be now and always.
Psalm 33 tells us that Justice and Love are what God is about.
The psalmist also mentions the harp and lyre…stringed instruments that are to be accompanied by shouts of joy.
Working for justice, sharing love, and celebrating our lives with great enthusiasm is the divine way, or path.
The writer of 1 Peter, quoting two verses from Exodus 19, tells us that we have sacred value and enormous potential.
And the gospel shows us the way to acknowledge and embrace our sacred value, to celebrate and share the divine power within us.
In the gospel lesson, the writer imagines Jesus saying, “Where I Am, there YOU MAY BE ALSO!” Thomas needs some kind of GPS system. He says, “How can we know the way?” And Jesus answers, “I AM the way!”
I think what John is having Jesus say to us is: Where I AM in my understanding of God you can be also, and you can have that by following the way I have followed, the way of fearless exploration, trust, hope, and intimacy with the divine.
First of all, remember that Jesus is executed in the year 29; John is being written about the year 96, almost 70 years later. This is being written long after Jesus ever said anything. Also, this passage saying, “I Am the way” only occurs in this late gospel. An isolated verse in a late gospel has been given far too much weight in the way it has been used to exclude and insult people of other faith traditions. God forgive us.
We must remember “the way” doesn’t mean a belief; the way is a path, and a path is traveled on during a journey. The Way isn’t a narrow, myopic, self-serving dogma; the Way is an on-going path of exploration and discovery. It isn’t exclusive, it is infinitely inclusive. And before the words “the Way” are the powerful sacred words, “I AM.”
In Exodus 3.14 the story says that Moses comes to understand God in a new way. Moses’ new discovery is that God is “I AM.” Yahweh is more a verb than a noun, more precisely a “to be” verb.
The divine name means “I Am” or “I Am Who I Will Be” or “I Will Be What I will be” or “ I Am the One that causes things to be”…in any case, God is Pure Being and the source and substance of all being and becoming. “This is what you are to tell the people” (Moses hears), “I AM has sent me to you.”
I AM sends…The Infinite To Be Verb sets in motion Action Verbs…Theologian Paul Tillich called God “the Ground of Being”…This Ground or Substance of All Being calls us To Be our best and sends us out to do our best…I AM calls us to action, to movement, to journeys…the path, the way is one of forward movement, not freezing time nor going back, not even of all pretending to believe the same things, but daring to move forward.
I AM the way…The name of God is a path we follow, a path of exploration and growth and evolution and change. This way is the life-giving truth: the way, the truth and the life.
Notice that there are in John, 7 “I Am” statements attributed to Jesus: I Am Bread of Life (Jn 6), I Am Light (Jn 8 & 9), I Am the Gate (Jn 10), I Am the good shepherd (Jn 10), I Am Resurrection & Life (Jn 11), I Am the Way, Truth, and Life (Jn 14), and I Am the true vine (Jn 15).
I AM is always used in a positive way. To say I Am is to invoke God’s name, and to follow God’s name with something positive is the word of truth, the word of hope, the word of healing, while to follow God’s name with something negative is to take God’s name in vain. John isn’t having Jesus arrogantly sing his own praises; he’s showing that Jesus so related to the God of the universe that he felt at one with God, and he affirmed that unity. And as followers of Jesus, we too are to recognize our unity with the divine and affirm the truth of that unity in our speech, in our prayers, and in our daily living.
Even if we don’t feel that those statements accurately portray what we know of ourselves so far, we can at least trust that those statements are true of God. And so when we say I AM something good, we are affirming the Goodness of God, and as we trust that goodness more and more we will trust our relationship to and with God more and more and those I AM statements will become increasingly accurate portrayals of how we know ourselves to be in this world. John’s Jesus is showing us the power of a positive I AM statement held in mind and repeated with conviction.
I don’t have to fear the future, I don’t have to fear change if I know that I AM something good, something divine, someone of eternal significance. The person who can say, I AM something good can say with complete integrity, “Let not your hearts be troubled.” In God, all is well.
John intended his audience to identify with Jesus. John’s community is meant to do what Jesus does, follow in his footsteps, say what he says, and be in the world what he had been in the world. So, when Jesus says, “I Am”, each member of John’s community was meant to say, “And I Am too.”
That hypothesis is in agreement with what we notice by comparing Jesus’ statement in John’s Gospel, “I AM the light of the world” with Jesus’ statement in the Sermon on the Mount found in Matthew’s gospel, saying, “You are the light of the world.” Matthew has Jesus say, “you are.” John has Jesus say, “I am.” They are both saying the same thing. They are saying Jesus is divine light, and so are we.
We see in Jesus a person so filled with the presence and power of God that people felt closer to God because of their encounter with him. But then we remember that God breathed the breath of life into ‘adam, the earth-being; that God has breathed Her spirit into all human-beings. We are all God-filled persons; Jesus isn’t the only one. Jesus is the model, the example reminding us what is most deeply true about each of us, about all people.
So, what is the way of Jesus that is true and life-giving, the path that is the way we can best experience the power and presence of God in our lives? Well, rather than literalizing a statement that is made only in John’s gospel some 67 years after Jesus’ lifetime, let’s look at the way Jesus demonstrated time and again throughout scripture:
We see Jesus engaging with respect the Samaritan Woman at the well…The Way of Equality (Jn 4).
We see Jesus responding kindly when the rebel being crucified with him said, “Remember me”…The Way of Compassion (Lk 23).
We see Jesus telling his followers to get to work, saying the harvest is ready but the workers are too few…The Way of Challenge (Mk 9).
We see Jesus saying that the greatest commandments are simply to love God and love people (Matt 22), in fact, we see him saying that to treat others the way you’d like to be treated is the whole message of scripture (Matt 7)…The Way of Love.
We see Jesus praising the poor widow who gives her best gift. She gives absolutely all she can. Others give more, but this woman gives her all and does so not to get anything in return but simply for the joy of doing all she can…the Widow’s Mite remains the ideal image of faithful stewardship and spiritual commitment…The Way of Generosity (Mk 12).
We see Jesus praying in a very affirmative way at Lazarus’ tomb: Abba I thank you for hearing me, I know that you always hear me!...The Way of Affirmation and Positive Thinking (Jn 11).
The way of Jesus isn’t to make him into an idol, or an afterlife insurance policy, or a bouncer to keep people out whose faith experiences have led them in a variety of directions. After all, in God’s house there are many rooms…we are each bound to find the one that is right for us.
The way of Jesus is the way of living in relationship with God, of trusting God’s presence within us, of sharing hope and goodwill with others, of learning to love more, of forgiving ourselves and others when we have failed to love deeply enough, of allowing ourselves to experience and express more and more light as we grow and learn and move forward on our journeys of faith. This is the way of Jesus, the truth he demonstrated, the life he lived, this is the way that will help us live truly in communion with God. Few of us are there yet, but we can grow toward the goal, empowered by grace every step of the way…the way, the truth and the life of constantly growing and evolving faith. And this is the good news. Amen.
© Durrell Watkins 2011
"The Way is not in the sky; the Way is in the heart.” Buddha
Affirmations:
I Am a child of God.
I Am a person of conscience and character.
I Am a person of generosity and goodwill.
I Am a person of peace and purpose.
I Am a miracle worker.
I Am God’s Word made flesh.
Alleluia!
Amen.
I Am a child of God.
I Am a person of conscience and character.
I Am a person of generosity and goodwill.
I Am a person of peace and purpose.
I Am a miracle worker.
I Am God’s Word made flesh.
Alleluia!
Amen.
Thursday, June 04, 2009
Sad? Silly? Crazy? Cruel? The Pope's Attitude Is Anything But Good
According the AP, "marital fidelity and a 'moral view' of sexuality are the best strategies to stop the spread of AIDS," said Pope Benedict while welcoming Namibia's and South Africa's new ambassadors to Vatican City. “Only a strategy based on education to individual responsibility in the framework of a moral view of human sexuality, especially through conjugal fidelity, can have a real impact on the prevention of this disease,” Benedict said. Apparently the moral view, for the pope, doesn't include the use of life-saving condoms.
Maybe it's just me, but i'm a little annoyed with someone who takes a life-long vow of celibacy presenting himself as the authority on human sexuality. And I'm furious that decades into the AIDS crisis, "conjugal fidelity" is the best response a major religious leader can offer. The Pope's advice is flawed for AT LEAST three reasons:
1. Covenantal fidelity is just that...faithfulness to a covenant. The covenant two people make may exclusive..."You and me and no others will we see." But a covenant can also exist between three persons..."We three are all it will be" or even between four persons, "Us four and no more." You see, covenants are negotiated and honored by the people living with them.
I'm a little conservative about this personally, and prefer the two person model, but other relationships are built on different values and seem to do fine. Fidelity isn't about how many people make up the relationship. Fidelity is about keeping your promises. Such fidelity will provide emotional safety within a relationship, but will not magically protect one from AIDS. If the covenant allows for "extra curricular" sexual activity, or if someone within the covenantal relationship is HIV positive, fidelity to the promises made will not prove to be an anti-viral strategy.
2. That leads to the second reason this out-dated, hopelessly irrelevant papal point of view just doesn't work. Even in the most conservative, old-fashioned (by Western Christian standards), narrow way of thinking, monogamy is not a magic barrier against a virus. If there are two people in a relationship, and they choose (and I insist that it is their choice to make, not the pope's) to be monogamous, but one of them is HIV positive, monogamy will not keep the virus in one body while preventing it from spreading to the other. Condoms, by way of contrast, will.
3. Finally, I do agree that a "moral view of human sexuality" is needed. And the moral view would suggest that we should not value dogma over human lives. Condoms save lives. Let's use it as a mantra: Condoms save lives! Condoms save lives! Condoms save lives!
It's the 21st century and time to acknowledge that human sexuality is good, human-beings are capable of negotiating their own relationships and the terms of those relationships, and people shouldn't have to die because a celebate man nearing the end of his life doesn't understand that.
Now, let me be clear...celibacy is a perfectly valid life-style choice (as long as it is freely chosen and not demanded).
Monogamay is a valid choice...if that is what both parties in the relationship mutually agree to.
Open relationships can be moral, again, if the parties agree that is what they want and they are faithful to whatever rules they agree on in order to keep them emotionally safe in the relationship.
And, loving relationships that invovle more than two people (such as a three person relationship), if the relationship is mutual and life-giving, can also be healthy, moral, and holy.
Life and love and human sexuality are more complex than the pope's antiquated rule book from patriarchy's hey-day seems to allow. Yes, people in relationships should keep their promises, and we should trust them to make promises they can keep, but my relationship (or yours) is really not the pope's business. And regardless of the promises people make to each other, condoms must be available for their physical safety. I'm just not willing to risk human lives to protect the rules that give the pope his power.
Maybe it's just me, but i'm a little annoyed with someone who takes a life-long vow of celibacy presenting himself as the authority on human sexuality. And I'm furious that decades into the AIDS crisis, "conjugal fidelity" is the best response a major religious leader can offer. The Pope's advice is flawed for AT LEAST three reasons:
1. Covenantal fidelity is just that...faithfulness to a covenant. The covenant two people make may exclusive..."You and me and no others will we see." But a covenant can also exist between three persons..."We three are all it will be" or even between four persons, "Us four and no more." You see, covenants are negotiated and honored by the people living with them.
I'm a little conservative about this personally, and prefer the two person model, but other relationships are built on different values and seem to do fine. Fidelity isn't about how many people make up the relationship. Fidelity is about keeping your promises. Such fidelity will provide emotional safety within a relationship, but will not magically protect one from AIDS. If the covenant allows for "extra curricular" sexual activity, or if someone within the covenantal relationship is HIV positive, fidelity to the promises made will not prove to be an anti-viral strategy.
2. That leads to the second reason this out-dated, hopelessly irrelevant papal point of view just doesn't work. Even in the most conservative, old-fashioned (by Western Christian standards), narrow way of thinking, monogamy is not a magic barrier against a virus. If there are two people in a relationship, and they choose (and I insist that it is their choice to make, not the pope's) to be monogamous, but one of them is HIV positive, monogamy will not keep the virus in one body while preventing it from spreading to the other. Condoms, by way of contrast, will.
3. Finally, I do agree that a "moral view of human sexuality" is needed. And the moral view would suggest that we should not value dogma over human lives. Condoms save lives. Let's use it as a mantra: Condoms save lives! Condoms save lives! Condoms save lives!
It's the 21st century and time to acknowledge that human sexuality is good, human-beings are capable of negotiating their own relationships and the terms of those relationships, and people shouldn't have to die because a celebate man nearing the end of his life doesn't understand that.
Now, let me be clear...celibacy is a perfectly valid life-style choice (as long as it is freely chosen and not demanded).
Monogamay is a valid choice...if that is what both parties in the relationship mutually agree to.
Open relationships can be moral, again, if the parties agree that is what they want and they are faithful to whatever rules they agree on in order to keep them emotionally safe in the relationship.
And, loving relationships that invovle more than two people (such as a three person relationship), if the relationship is mutual and life-giving, can also be healthy, moral, and holy.
Life and love and human sexuality are more complex than the pope's antiquated rule book from patriarchy's hey-day seems to allow. Yes, people in relationships should keep their promises, and we should trust them to make promises they can keep, but my relationship (or yours) is really not the pope's business. And regardless of the promises people make to each other, condoms must be available for their physical safety. I'm just not willing to risk human lives to protect the rules that give the pope his power.
Tuesday, April 03, 2007
A Prayer for Well-Being
There is one Universal and Divine Life and this Life is expressing in, through, and as me now. Within this Divine Life is all I need to be healthy, happy, successful, prosperous, and wise. And so it is that I feel good about my life, knowing that unlimited possibilities for great Good exist for me, now and always. I am blessed and my future is bright. I expect happiness, opportunity, good health and abundance to be made manifest in my experience now and always. I call forth my good, I allow it to show up for me. I expect it. I give thanks for it. I live the good life that a child of the Universe deserves. I am filled now with gladness, gratitude, and joyful expectation. All is well. Amen.
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
My 100th Blog Post!
"When people ask me about their personal relationships, I can read the future simply by the attitude of the question. If they talk about what the other person is not doing for them, I know the relationship is probably doomed...[Neediness is a symptom] of desperation...To create a lasting relationship...means thinking about what we are willing to give before looking at how much we are going to get." - Sakyong Mipham
The Sakyong reminds us of exactly what Jesus is remembered to have taught, "It is more blessed to give than to receive." Sometimes we make the mistake of wanting church or a lover or a friend or a job to make us feel good enough, important, special. But we don't get our needs met by demanding, begging, complaining, or expecting others to give us what we think we need.
Religion is a relationship. Romance is a relationship. Work is a relationship (or several). Even being on a diet is to redefine our relationship with food.
Relationships aren't one-sided. Relationships aren't about getting what we want, when and how we want it, and punishing the other by vilifying or abandoning him or her if what we want or think we need isn't handed to us. Relationships are mutual. Yes, we receive. We even have specific desires and expectations, but we also have responsibility. We need to offer something. Giving and receiving become the exchange of energy that provides health and well-being to a system, a relationship.
A body of water that has no outlet will stagnate. There must be give and take in order for the body to be fully alive, fresh, and life-giving. When we aren't getting all that we need, sometimes the question to ask is, "Am I giving all that I can give?" If we aren't doing our part, the other will never be able to fill the void.
Whether in a friendship, a religious community, a career endeavor, or any other sort of relationship, we must remember that relationships aren't one sided. If we aren't getting what we need from them it is often because we aren't giving enough to them. Before blaming the other, let's honestly look at how much responsibility is ours. The good news is that whatever is ours we can change, and the ability to change is the power to achieve. As we learn to give what we can, we may find that we receive much more than when we simply complained about what we didn't have.
The Sakyong reminds us of exactly what Jesus is remembered to have taught, "It is more blessed to give than to receive." Sometimes we make the mistake of wanting church or a lover or a friend or a job to make us feel good enough, important, special. But we don't get our needs met by demanding, begging, complaining, or expecting others to give us what we think we need.
Religion is a relationship. Romance is a relationship. Work is a relationship (or several). Even being on a diet is to redefine our relationship with food.
Relationships aren't one-sided. Relationships aren't about getting what we want, when and how we want it, and punishing the other by vilifying or abandoning him or her if what we want or think we need isn't handed to us. Relationships are mutual. Yes, we receive. We even have specific desires and expectations, but we also have responsibility. We need to offer something. Giving and receiving become the exchange of energy that provides health and well-being to a system, a relationship.
A body of water that has no outlet will stagnate. There must be give and take in order for the body to be fully alive, fresh, and life-giving. When we aren't getting all that we need, sometimes the question to ask is, "Am I giving all that I can give?" If we aren't doing our part, the other will never be able to fill the void.
Whether in a friendship, a religious community, a career endeavor, or any other sort of relationship, we must remember that relationships aren't one sided. If we aren't getting what we need from them it is often because we aren't giving enough to them. Before blaming the other, let's honestly look at how much responsibility is ours. The good news is that whatever is ours we can change, and the ability to change is the power to achieve. As we learn to give what we can, we may find that we receive much more than when we simply complained about what we didn't have.
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