He writes, “While washing the dishes, you might be thinking about the tea afterwards, and so try to get them out of the way as quickly as possible in order to sit and drink tea.  But that means that you are incapable of living during the time you are washing the dishes.  When you are washing the dishes, washing the dishes must be the most important thing in your life.  Just as when you’re drinking tea, drinking tea must be the most important thing in your life.” (Miracle of Mindfulness, p. 24)

With such great beings as Brother Lawrence, and our own contemporaries, such as Thich Nhat Hanh, we are in good company in our search for the Truth.  It is through the glimpses of the Divine that philosophers, poets and saints have experienced and shared that we find assurance that such a search is not in vain.

From their yearning to know Truth, they seem to have attained great understanding and found their way Home.  It is our good fortune that they left many clues on the path.  The reverence with which they approached the moments of their lives, continue to inspire seekers today.

Such seekers seem (for who among us truly knows the experience of another)  to deliberately approach life with an appreciation of the uniqueness of each moment, each circumstance, each person.

We, too, can let each moment become a moment of deliberate, conscious living.  We, too, can learn, with practice, patience, and perseverance, to greet the Presence in the present and welcome that formless Presence regardless of the form.  We, too, can let each moment’s experience become a way of seeking out Presence and open to that experience whole-heartedly.  Even the joys and the sorrows, opening to what is present.

Not one of us escapes heart-ache and truly not one of us lives every single moment in that kind of pain.  It seems that in opening to be with what is as it is, ‘what is’ seems to change.  All this to say, say ‘hello’ to this moment with your whole heart.

1.  When is the best time to do each thing?

2.  Who are the most important people to work with?

3.  What is the most important thing to do at all times?

Many, many people tried and failed to answer these seemingly simple questions.  The emperor set off in search of the answers himself.  He was told of a holy man who lived as a hermit and decided to find the hermit.  Surely, such a man would be able to answer the questions.

When he finally reached the holy man, the emperor found him stooped, working in his garden.  The hermit listened attentively to his questions, patted the emperor on the shoulder, and continued digging.  The emperor, although perplexed by the hermit’s indifference to him, offered to help the old man.  The hermit rested while the emperor dug.  Many hours passed this way.

After some time, a wounded man approached.  The emperor helped him, and dressed his wounds.  In the morning, the wounded man regained consciousness and asked for water, which the emperor promptly fetched from the stream.

To the surprise of the emperor, the wounded man asked for the emperor’s forgiveness.  The wounded man explained that he was a sworn enemy of the emperor who had killed his brother and seized his property.  He had set off to kill the emperor but was caught by the emperor’s attendants who wounded him.  After hearing the wounded man’s story, the emperor and the wounded man reconciled and the emperor ordered his attendants to return the man safely to his home.

The emperor approached the hermit, again asked his questions.  The hermit smiled telling the emperor that his questions had already been answered.

The most important time was the time spent digging in the garden.  For had the emperor not stopped and helped the old man by digging in the garden, he would have been attacked.

The most important person was the hermit and the most important pursuit was to help the hermit.  Later, the most important time was the time spent helping the wounded man.

The most important person was of course the wounded man.

And the most important pursuit was dressing his wounds, for had he not done that the emperor would never have had the chance to reconcile with the man.

The old holy man told the emperor, “Remember that there is only one important time and that is now.  The present moment is the only time over which we have dominion.  The most important person is always the person you are with, who is right before you, for who knows if you will have dealings with any other person in the future.  The most important pursuit is making that person, the one standing at your side, happy, for that alone is the pursuit of life.” (From Leo Tolstoy’s short story The Three Questions)

It seems that in order to discover the wisdom hidden in such a story (as well as the stories of our own lives) and drink the nectarean wisdom infused throughout such tales, we must slow down and contemplate the story.

The obvious message for being present and giving oneself fully to each unfolding moment offers an enticing entry into such contemplation.  Yet, simply glancing at the notion that the “pursuit of life” is solely to bring happiness to the person at our side can raise the hackles of most of us who have been immersed in the pop psychology literature of the last couple of decades.

When I first read the story I felt myself bristle at the notion of trying to make another happy, after all, we are each responsible for ourselves, and our state of mind.  However, upon considering how I would be with the person at my side if I knew her to be God, if he revealed himself to me as the essence of Divine Consciousness.  Might then my pursuit indeed be to bring the Lord happiness?  Only with a quiet mind have I glimpse the purity of such a pursuit.  Again, I’m reminded of the value of a daily meditation practice.

Each one of us is faced with the challenge to slow down the rushing activity of the mind and the body and taste the nectar of the moments that make up daily life.  For only in the present moment does Love, does the Greatest Mystery, reveal Itself.  Only in the present can we glimpse Grace sneaking in.

As I mentioned in a previous Sacred Threads post, I sometimes feel as though I am playing a great game of hide and seek with God.  If I let myself be still enough even in the midst of activity, I spot God and find mySelf at Home, in Heaven, in my heart.  Enough of these moments strung together are like perfect pearls joining to form an exquisitely simple yet beautifully elegant strand of jeweled moments that make up the garland of my life.

you must look upon everything as Brahman, and Brahman alone.”

~ Crest Jewel of Discrimination

Brother Lawrence mastered this teaching as he made it his practice to behave in each moment “as if there were no one but Thee and Me.”  When I offer the present moment my one pointed attention and greet the present moment with ultimate abandon, free from the gnarled cage of expectation, that is the moment I find God being God in myriad shapes and forms.  That is the moment I feel the peace of the Presence in the present.

Greeting the Beloved in the present moment with respect is a doorway through which we can all “practice the Presence of God.”  Within this sublime practice of mindfulness, any one of us can begin living as if there were none but “Thee and Me” in the world.  With this kind of awareness, we cannot help but welcome God in His all-pervasive form with myriad faces and varied costumes.  Each moment weaves the sacred tapestry of holiness.

Yet, I sure tend to get distracted with a single thread of thought, activity, or sense pleasure and mistake the thought, activity or sense pleasure for the “Real Truth” rather than our experience of Being as Truth.  Similarly, I can get carried away by my ideas about God and Truth rather than absorbing myself in the experience of Being as a portal to the Truth, a portal to LOVE.

Dostoevsky, in his book The Brothers Karamazov, knew the blessing of beckoning love in the present moment.  He wrote, “Love all God’s creation, both the whole and every grain of sand.  Love every leaf, every ray of light.  Love the animals, love the plants, love each separate thing.  If thou love each thing thou wilt perceive the mystery of God in all.”

These days, we have access to great teachers on practicing presence.  Among my favorites is Thich Nhat Hanh.

If you are interested in playing more in this field of mindfulness, consider joining me in Provence.  Or if you want to give the gift of a lifetime to your mother, wife, sister or friend, invite her to join me.

On this cold, wintry day, I’m reminded of a very different day.   After a long weekend of tiring work, a friend of mine and I took a day of rest on the beach.  After a long walk, we lay side by side gazing at the sky.  My body felt still and my mind quiet as I lay on the beach with the sun penetrating my skin and warming me to the center of my bones.

I remember breathing  deeply and taking in the great expanse above us.  After some time, I asked her if she could see thousands of tiny dots of light.  They seemed to dance before the eyes.  She saw them too.

Together, we gazed at the sky in wonder.  I felt myself as made of the same particles of light that danced before me.  I experienced a dissolving of the illusion that my friend and I were somehow different than the sand, the ocean, and the sky.  I was filled with a sense of quiet wonder and complete love, a kind of love that seemed to pour itself over me like warm honey.

This kind of gazing is in fact a centering technique drawn from an ancient Hindu text, The Vijnana Bhairava.

Many texts of ancient India have been translated in the last hundred years or so from Sanskrit to English, providing yet more doorways through which we can enter the Garden.  The Vijnana Bhairava is a collection of dharanas, centering techniques.

These techniques not only center a seeker, but open her to experiencing the wonder of the Divine Presence.  The English Translation of this text has a captivating title, “The Yoga of Delight, Wonder, and Astonishment.”

One of my favorite centering techniques from this text is the practice of gazing, without blinking as much as possible, at the sky.  “If one makes himself thoroughly immobile beholds the pure (cloudless) sky, at that very moment, O goddess, he will acquire the nature of Bhairava (Supreme Consciousness).” (The Yoga of Delight, Wonder and Astonishment, p. 78).

As each object of Nature carries the energy of God, the Presence of Divine Consciousness, it follows that each object of Nature can then carry the wisdom of the Divine.  However, to experience that recognition we must stop, but for a moment, to consider Nature to be a manifestation of God.

Even the path of the sun in the sky, lends itself to revealing the mysterious Presence of God in its very predictability.  Further contemplating the sun, I have experienced its generosity in the sensation of warmth on my skin, or in the taste of fruit in remembrance of the sun’s rays.

The ways in which we can contemplate Nature and find solace in it is endless.  In fact, images of Nature, simply gazing at Nature, can naturally return us to a state of peace.  Such images are abundant, infinite and easily accessible. Walking outside and gazing up at the sky, or simply sitting where you are and remembering the vastness of the sky can lure you to the experience of knowing you are in the Presence.

The Native American reverence for Nature is well known and continues to gain respect as many look to deepen their understanding and challenge previously held beliefs and assumptions.

Consider the wisdom in this statement from the Mohawk Nation, “We are shown that our life exists with the tree life, that our well being depends on the well-being of the vegetable life, that we are close relatives of the four-legged beings.  In our ways, spiritual consciousness is the highest form of politics . . . We believe that all living things are spiritual beings.  Spirits can be expressed as energy forms manifested in matter.  A blade of grass is an energy form manifested in matter – grass matter.  The spirit of the grass is that unseen force which produces the species of grass, and it is manifest to us in the form of real grass.”(15)

Any aspect of Nature, from a single acorn, to the changing seasons can teach us more of the Truth of who we are.  What if we were to listen, and let God be God in any and all manifestations before us?  Might then we glimpse the beauty and peace of the Eternal in the Present moment?

P.S.  If you are interested in learning and experience moments of Divinity in Nature, consider joining my Women’s Retreat in Provence, June 2010.  Only 3 spots left!

First, let’s hear from Webster.

1 : the self especially as contrasted with another self or the world
2 a : egotism 2 b : self-esteem 1
3 : the one of the three divisions of the psyche in psychoanalytic theory that serves as the organized conscious mediator between the person and reality especially by functioning both in the perception of and adaptation to reality — compare id, superego

— ego·less adjective

My turn.

I think the ego is that part of you and me that feels afraid, like somehow we are different and alone.

And it’s that feeling many of us get when we think we something prove or we have to prove something (are those two different things?)

Ego, sweet ego.

It’s all the ways we find to feel separate, like we aren’t the same as everyone else.

It’s that part of us that budgets our capacity to Love, to love what is unfolding before us and within us in each unfolding moment.

It’s moment that you and I fold and scootch away from acknowledging to ourselves or someone else some small, or medium-sized or some large perceived failure.  For such failure becomes a less than in our eyes, separating us from others and our own true brilliance.

It’s all the wondering, “what would they think if they really knew?”  Or more simply, “what do they think of me?

Dear, sweet ego.

It’s when we sit as judge and jury, condemning ourselves and others for various misdemeanors.

It’s that part of us that finds elaborately unique and creative ways of stepping out of the stream of pure Love a thousand or more times each and everyday.

It’s the giving in to the pull to withhold an experience or expression of the truth, pure love, understanding, joy.

It’s all that clinging and holding on to this or that hurt, perception, belief, want, idea, anger or any of the other myriad ways we hold on.  That. That’s ego.

Your turn.

Here’s a little secret, we are NOT our egos.

Oh.  And, how about a little less ego and a little more love this holiday?

Charleston on the Battery

If’ you’ve been reading for a while, you know by now that I find comfort in exploring my spirituality from multiple vantage points including diving into esoteric spiritual texts from a variety of cultures and human experience.  One of these texts is the Vijnana Bhairava. This book is a collection of dharanas, centering techniques.  These techniques not only center a seeker, but open her to experiencing the wonder of the Divine Presence.  The English Translation of this text has a captivating title, “The Yoga of Delight, Wonder, and Astonishment.”

One of my favorite centering techniques from this text is the practice of gazing, without blinking, at the sky.  “If one makes himself thoroughly immobile beholds the pure (cloudless) sky with fixed eyes, at that very moment, O goddess, he will acquire the nature of Bhairava (Supreme Consciousness).”

One day, after a long weekend of tiring work, a friend of mine and I took a day of rest on the beach.  After a long walk, we lay side by side gazing at the sky, our bodies still and minds quiet.  We breathed deeply and took in the great expanse above us.  After some time, I asked her if she could see the thousands of tiny dots of light that seemed to be dancing before my eyes.  She did.  Together, we gazed at the sky in wonder.  I felt myself as made of the same particles of light that danced before me.  I experienced a dissolving of the illusion that my friend and I were somehow different than the sand, the ocean, and the sky.  I was filled with a sense of quiet wonder and complete love.

As each object of Nature carries the energy of God, the Presence of the Divine, it follows that each object of Nature can then carry the wisdom of the Divine.  However, to experience that recognition I must stop, but for a moment, to consider it to be a manifestation of God.  I pause.  And, in that pause, Nature seems to open a doorway to reveal some Truth.

Even the path of the sun in the sky, lends itself to revealing the mysterious Presence of God in its very predictability.  Further contemplating the sun, I experience its generosity in the sensation of warmth on my skin or taste a bite of fruit in remembrance of its rays.  The ways in which I can contemplate Nature and find solace in it is truly endless.

In fact, images of Nature, simply gazing at Nature can naturally return me to a state of peace.  Such images are abundant, infinite and easily accessible.  For instance, walking outside and gazing up at the sky, or simply sitting where I am and remembering the vastness of the sky can lure me to the experience of knowing I am in the Presence of God.

It’s comforting to me to know I’m not alone in my quest to deepen my relationship to Spirit and to use any doorway that takes me there.  Nature is a broad doorway.  The Native American reverence for Nature is well known and continues to gain respect as many look to deepen their understanding of and appreciation of Nature as well as challenge previously held beliefs and assumptions.

Consider the wisdom in this statement from the Mohawk Nation (This quote is from an old journal and I can’t find the source.  If anyone knows the source, please share), “We are shown that our life exists with the tree life, that our well being depends on the well-being of the vegetable life, that we are close relatives of the four-legged beings.  In our ways, spiritual consciousness is the highest form of politics . . . We believe that all living things are spiritual beings.  Spirits can be expressed as energy forms manifested in matter.  A blade of grass is an energy form manifested in matter – grass matter.  The spirit of the grass is that unseen force which produces the species of grass, and it is manifest to us in the form of real grass.”

Any aspect of Nature, from a single acorn, to the changing seasons can teach me more of the Truth of who I am.  What if I listen more deeply, and let God be God in any and all manifestations before me?  Might then I glimpse the beauty and peace of the Eternal in the Present moment?

“The trees and rocks will teach you that which you cannot hear from masters.”

~ St. Bernard of Clairvaux

For many seekers, contemplating Nature opens the door to a mystical life of untold beauty and spiritual bounty. What secrets might we learn in the contemplation of Nature?  What comfort might we find in its embrace?  Across traditions spiritual aspirants are encouraged to have faith in God’s love and grace.  Yet, in my life there are times when practical faith continues to elude me.  I suspect I’m not alone.  And if I take St. Bernard’s statement literally and look to nature as one of God’s teachers, I can contemplate its teaching and deepen my experience of faith.

For a moment today,  I gazed at a tree and considered how its roots reach deep into the dark rich earth.  I reflected on how the earth so generously provides a steady flow of nutrients and minerals so that the tree may continue to grow, reaching towards the sun.  All the while, the sun provides needed rays of light for growth.  And the sky opens itself to rain on the tree, giving it precious water.

Then I imagined myself as a tree with roots growing from my tailbone and feet.  I imagined the roots reaching through the floor beneath me and carving their way through concrete obstacles to reach the rich dark earth.  I imagined feeling the steady flow of the earth’s abundant strength and energy flowing into me and mingling with ‘my’ energy.

I then imagined a spinning orb of light blazing with the light of the sun, shining on me and through me, mingling with the energy of the earth, giving me everything that I need.  Faith.  From such a vantage point, might you too develop the faith of a tree, the confidence of its faith in the earth and the sun?  Recognizing the pure beauty of a tree’s simple faith, what else might the tree teach you and me?

What a sublime practice faith can become, if I remember to continually reminding myself, this too is God.  This too is God!  This too is God!  The teaching then comes alive and joy becomes mine for I can never be separate from God.  No matter what happens, no matter where I am, no matter who I’m with, I’m never without God, the God of my understanding.

Then the play continues.  My ego captures my attention with the pulls of attraction and aversion, and I swirl in the belief that I am separate.  I find myself gravitating towards a particular experience while avoiding another.  When I can’t avoid a circumstance that I would like very much to avoid, when I get caught up in how I would prefer things to be different, therein lies an invitation.

There, right there, is the invitation to loosen my grip on my ego and reach for Truth.  Instead, more often than I would like, I let myself get caught in the throes of the ego and I lose my equanimity, my sublime understanding that indeed I can never be separate from my Lord.

All this because I deny the Presence of the Lord, hidden in the fabric of the present moment.  What a game of Hide and Seek!  Fortunately, I can always begin again and remember this ‘too is God.’  Fortunately, my soul continues to yearn for the Truth and God hears my call.  The wind blows.  A leaf falls and my attention rests on a tree.

In challenging my limiting beliefs about God, I find a Magnificence that cannot be captured in words…at least my words.  I understand the Truth of the Tao Te Ching teaching, “The Tao that can be spoken is not the true Tao.”  Yet, still I wander through this garden of words to play hide and seek with God.

In one moment, the devotional seeker in me listens for and attempts to follow the quiet impulses of  my heart that encourage me to see  the face of the Lord, where ever I turn, in what ever circumstance I find myself.  I seek and sometimes find the true contentment of the Presence of God in myself, in the person I’m with or even the clickety clacking of my fingers on the keyboard.  With or without devotion, it’s THAT that I seek, THAT single Consciousness that playfully hides in some infinite number of creative manifestations.

In this Game, I find the humble wisdom of Brother Lawrence to be a signpost guiding my Way.

In the early sixteen hundreds, a humble footman gazed at a simple tree, its outline stark against the winter sky.  The tree stood barren of leaves with only the promise of its summer bounty hidden within.  As Nicholas Herman of Lorraine lost himself in the contemplation of this simple tree, he found himself overcome and forever changed by Grace.  He was given a “high view of the providence and power of God.”

The sight of a dry, barren tree and the vision of its full beauty bursting forth in Spring was the catalyst of his conversion.  At the age of eighteen, he began his walk to God, throughout the rest of his life seeking only the Presence of God.  Soon following this vision, Nicholas Herman became a Carmelite monk and took the name Brother Lawrence.

Brother Lawrence was not a prolific writer, nor was he a scholar.  His was a simple Way.  His gift to us was his compassionate and concise wisdom collected in a slender book entitled, “The Practice of the Presence of God.”

Throughout the centuries his simple Way has attracted and consoled seekers from many traditions who aspire to know God.  Even today he continues to be an inspiring model for living in the awareness of the Presence of God.  He wrote, “I renounced for the love of Him everything that was not He, and I began to live as if there was none but He and I in the world.”

How completely simple, yet how completely profound was his unassuming wisdom.  Such is the way that he approached his life, from his humble work of fifty years in the monastery kitchen to his relationships with his contemporaries.  He walked through his days making room for the Presence of God in each unfolding moment.

He performed all the ordinary tasks of his daily life in the continual remembrance of the Presence of God, always “pleasing myself by doing things to please God.”  As he cooked, he cooked with an awareness that he was cooking for the Lord.  As he washed dishes, he washed dishes with the awareness that he was washing dishes for God.  As he ate, he ate with the awareness that it was God that he was feeding.

Although he lived a seemingly uncomplicated life in a remote monastery, he wrote with clarity and honesty of his sufferings and failings.  With his own body being “lame” and the difficulties accompanying such a handicap, not to mention the trials of daily life, he encouraged aspirants to persevere in the discipline of seeking out the Presence of God.

He wrote, “Think often on God, by day, by night, in your business, and even in your diversions.  Lift up your heart to Him, sometimes even at your meals, and when you are in company . . . It is not necessary for being with God to be always at church.  We may make an oratory of our heart.”

What an inspired understanding, in continually making room for the Presence of God in the present moment, I can make a temple, a house of worship, in my own heart!   The power of such simple practices; continually making room for the Presence of God in all things, all activities, all people, all circumstances, and doing all things for the love of God filled Brother Lawrence with perfect faith and unwavering devotion to God.

Free from the distractions of the world that might lead him astray in his love of the Presence of God, he revealed a clear and simple path through the maze of daily life.  Although I live the life of a householder, rather than a monk, I can still learn from his sublime example and perhaps gradually free myself from the distractions that lead me away from recognizing and welcoming the all-pervasive Presence in ordinary circumstances.

In welcoming this Presence in each moment, in making room for this Presence in each moment, I experience a stream of Love flowing steadily from my heart.  It is that same Love that is the Presence.  What a mysterious paradox is this play!  Looking into the lives of great beings such as Brother Lawrence, I stumble across practices and wisdom that lead me to the experience of the all-pervasive Presence of God.

Quietly listening to my heart and continuing the adventure of Self-discovery . . .Who is God to me?  How do I experience Divinity?  Sitting quietly, you may even want to take a few deep breaths right now and allow the memory of your own personal experiences of God, of the Sacred, to unfold before you like gentle waves rolling onto a quiet beach.

I enjoy taking moments like this, moments to re-member God to me.  With deep controlled breaths, I remember.  After a bit, I let my breath to return to its own perfect rhythm and my body relaxes a little more with each breath, my mind relaxes its thoughts.

I invite you into this contemplation.  Contemplate with the playful freedom of a leaf floating on the wind, with the magical and innocent understanding of a child . . . “How have I experienced God?  When have I touched the Sacred?  Who is God?”

Sometimes I record these contemplations in my journal or a coloring book   Giving a space for these reflections in a journal gives me a tangible something to which I can return again and again for comfort, for remembrance, for the cultivation of unwavering faith.

If we were all to gather and share our experiences of the Divine, we would undoubtedly discover that our experiences are as varied, vast and elaborately unique as each of us.

Yet, if we look deeply into these experiences, we would find that the experience itself is remarkably similar, characterized by feelings of love, peace, and joy.  Only the circumstances surrounding the experiences differ.

What elaborate creativity this Great Consciousness uses for its Play!

“I” consisted of all Existence; pervading all time and all space; permeating the fabric of all existence.  I experienced myself as being complete bliss and pure love.  This experience of myself lasted only a glancing moment.  Yet, this glancing moment changed me forever.  It seemed that I was given a glimpse of the answer to my burning question, “Who is God?”

My glimpse into the answer grounded me in faith that there is an answer.  What a sublime practice faith has become, reminding me as I move through daily life, “this too is God.” This too is God!  This too is God!  This practice of this understanding brings the teaching that God is ALL pervasive to life in my life.

Joy becomes mine as I more consistently recognize that I can never be separate from the Lord, whoever I conceive Her to be! No matter what happens, no matter where I am, no matter I’m with, I am never without God.

So, who is God?

“Who is God?”  Indeed, perhaps the most profound answer to this question lies in our own experiences.  For it is to those experiences that we turn and through which we ultimately find personal understanding.  Contemplating the question, “Who is God to me?” lead me to the remembrance of when I have experienced the Divine.  These experiences encompass both the profound life changing experiences such as the one I shared above and the more “mundane” experiences of daily life when the light and love of God pierces my routines.

The luscious fruit of these contemplations, these remembrances, are both scrumptious and enchanting.  Yet, for some mysterious reason, I didn’t really give myself full permission to contemplate this question.  I relegated this kind of knowing to scholars or saints, ministers or priests.

For the longest time, I presumed that intimate knowledge of God is obtainable only after death or in some future life. It is certainly not obtainable in this life, certainly not in this moment, and most certainly not by ordinary people, like me.
Yet, saints throughout history have offered all of us the treasure of their own great understanding of the Truth; “the Kingdom of God lies within.”

Still, I didn’t fully believe that. I think now, because I never asked the question, “Who is God to me? How can I experience the fullness of Consciousness in my daily life.  I resisted completely accepting that the Knowledge I seek is closer than the air I breathe.  The divinity I long for is closer than my own breath.

William Wordsworth, the great poet of the 19th Century captured his own experience of God in this poem,
“And I have felt
A presence that disturbs me with the joy
Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean, and the living air,
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man,
A motion and a spirit, that impels
All thinking things, all objects of all
thought,
And rolls through all things.

I, like so many others, have felt that disturbing presence, that sublime joy which stops time and dissolves the illusion of separation from God.  Returning to the memory of those moments become golden threads that together weave a holy shawl for me. I can enfold myself in this shawl, protecting my faith from the howling winds of doubt.  And, I can use any number of tools, such as Z Point to clear all the ways I feel the cold fingers of doubt.

With my mind’s natural tendency to lay claim to the region of knowledge and truth, I sometimes listen only to the mind and ignore the quiet murmurs and reflections of my heart.  I know I’m not alone in this.

When I adopt the innocent vision and curiosity of a child, I’m back in the current of LIFE, enjoying the bubbling energy of faith, knowing everything is all right.  Everything is unfolding as it should.  How easily children seem to see and embrace the magic and mystery of life.  Their lives pulsate with awareness, albeit unconscious, of the Presence of Great Mystery.  Might we discover the mystical magic of daily life if we approach each day, each moment with humble and innocent curiosity?