Spirituality: Bill Plotkin, from the Soulcraft Musings newsletter

Humanity—in fact, the entire Earth community—currently exists in such dire circumstances that the most significant, viable, and potent solutions will seem like impossible dreams to most everyone (at first). But this is apparently the way it has always been in our universe. At the greatest moments of transformations—what Thomas Berry calls "moments of grace"—the "impossible" happens....

If you consider the data on such things as current wars, environmental destruction, political-economic corruption, social/racial divisions, and widespread psychological breakdowns, there seems to be little hope for humanity and, by extension, most other members of the biosphere. But if, alternatively, you look at the fact of miracles—moments of grace—throughout the known history of the universe, it will dawn on you that there is and always has been an intelligence or imagination at work much greater than our conscious minds. Given that we cannot rule out moments of grace acting through us in this century and the next, we have no alternative but to proceed as if we ourselves, collectively, can in fact make the difference...

Photo: Red

 

Spirituality: from The Light Shall Set you Free by Norma Milanovich & Shirley McCune

Once a reporter asked Albert Einstein, "What is the most important question in the world?" He replied, "The most important question in the world is, do you want a peaceful, happy, abundant world in which to live, or do you want a foreboding, fearful, and scarce world?"

The reporter slightly puzzled, asked, "Why is this the most important question in the world?"

Einstein replied, "Because whatever you choose, you will create."

Photo: A Pond in Naples

 

Poem: D.H. Lawrence from The Hands of God

It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. 

But it is a much more fearful thing to fall out of them … 

Save me, O God, from falling into the ungodly knowledge of myself as I am without God. 

Let me never know, 

O God let me never know what I am or should be 

when I have fallen out of your hands, the hands of the living God … 

Save me from that, O God! 

Let me never know myself apart from the living God!

Photo: Boston Harbor

 

Prayer: Thomas Merton

Prayer is freedom and affirmation growing out of nothingness into love. Prayer is the flowering of our inmost freedom, in response to the Word of God.

Photo: Your Spirit Whispering

 

Spirituality: Byron Katie in A Thousand Names for Joy

 Life is simple. Everything happens for you, not to you. Everything happens at exactly the right moment, neither too soon nor too late. You don't have to like it – it's just easier if you do. If you have a problem, it can only be because of your unquestioned thinking. How do you react when you believe that the past should have been different? You scare yourself stuck because what you resist persists. You get to keep your stressful world, a world that doesn't exist except in your imagination; you get to stay in the nightmare. It hurts to oppose reality because in opposing reality, you are opposing your very self.

When inquiry is alive inside you, every thought you think ends with a question mark instead of a period ... I discovered that when I believed my thoughts, I suffered, but that when I didn't believe them, I didn't suffer, and that this is true for every human being. Freedom is as simple as that. I found that suffering is optional. I found a joy within me that has never disappeared, not for a single moment. That joy is in everyone, always.

Spirituality: Martin Shaw from "Navigating the Mysteries," in Emergence Magazine

What if we reframed "living with uncertainty" to "navigating mystery"? There's more energy in that phrase... But to navigate mystery is not the same thing as living with uncertainty ...Navigating mystery humbles us, reminds us with every step that we don't know everything, are not, in fact, the masters of all.

As humans we've long been forged on the anvil of mysteries: Why are we here? Why do we die? What is love? We are tuned like a cello to vibrate with such questions.

... one day we have to walk our questions, our yearnings, our longings. We have to set out into those mysteries, even with the uncertainty. Especially with the uncertainty. Make it magnificent. We take the adventure. Not naively but knowing this is what a grown-up does. We embark. Let your children see you do it. Set sail, take the wing, commit to the stomp. Evoke a playful boldness that makes even angels swoon. There's likely something tremendous waiting.