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Archive for the ‘Endurance’ Category

My Father’s Meditation on Work

Posted in Endurance, Spiritual Lessons from My Father on March 6, 2012| Leave a Comment »

I have fond memories of sitting at the dinner table with my parents and brothers at precisely 6 pm every night but Sunday. Dad would have arrived home from the hard physical labor of his job as a residential electrician and foreman. He would have finished his ritual wash-up with “Goop” (I wonder if they still make that?) at the kitchen sink, washed out his thermos and set it out to soak clean, showered and changed into some atrocious looking but comfortable outfit. Looking back on it, I imagine he was totally exhausted. Most nights my brothers would kick each other under the table or try to tease me to make me cry (which I faked doing quite effectively). Mom would try to get us to talk about our days without much success but we are all better for her efforts. At some point in the meal, Dad would be “out of the loop” of our conversations and Tom foolery. He would be staring off into space, probably thinking through some problem at work, figuring out how to get something done faster and better, or how to save the company some money, how to beat his time on the previous job or how to motivate a younger worker without telling them off. Or perhaps he was thinking about side jobs to supplement the family income. “Dick! Dick? ” Mom would say as Dad apparently didn’t hear a word any of us were saying. Then one of us kids would wave our hand in front of his eyes and he would slowly turn and relax his lips into an ” O” like a zombie, stare blankly then shake his head in such a way that his lips would sake back and forth and we would all collapse on hysterics.

After dinner while we all cleaned up, Dad would retreat to his olive green lazy boy and cogitate some more. His work was his pride if not always his joy. He raised us all, children and grandchildren alike, to be hard workers, honest and proud of whatever work we did. One of the many things that bugged him in life were people who did not understand that their work was a reflection of their faith. Until the day he died, Dad’s work was the same for him as worship. What a great way to live!

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Wise choices

Posted in Endurance on March 3, 2012| Leave a Comment »

“Do not do what you want, and then you may do what you like”

Sadasiva

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As the mind goes….

Posted in Endurance on February 22, 2012| Leave a Comment »

Have you ever tried to count the number of things that are on your mind at any one time? I used to make a game of that when I was a kid trying to fall asleep at night. In later years I came to observe that the more I thought about something, the greater it became. And the more thoughts, the greater my anxiety. Like when I try not to think about chocolate, I can’t think of anything else. But when I choose to think intentionally rather than worry or fret, the good things become more apparent and more powerfully present.

“Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. Keep on doing the things that you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, and the God of peace will be with you.”

– Philippians 4:4-9

On this Ash Wednesday, may the thoughts that steer us away from the peace of Christ that passes all understanding be turned to ashes and the thoughts that center us in Our birthright of peace as sons and daughters of God flourish

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Practicing the Presence of Peace

Posted in Endurance on February 17, 2012| 1 Comment »

I am reading Practicing the Presence of Peace by Bear Gebhardt

He uses the term peace in a way that I would use the term Christ or the Holy Spirit but the meaning is the same. Here is a quote to illustrate:

I’ve learned that living in peace is the most practical and most natural and most generous thing we can do for ourselves and for everybody around us,” he said. “I’m convinced that some day everybody will come to understand and practice this simple truth”

The book is a very practical guide to practicing the awareness that all of life is lived within God’s presence. I have experienced this in my life as I continue to learn to live with chronic pain. When I am able to remember, or rather to access the peace that I easily access in meditation, the pain becomes less personal. I even have a sense of somehow bearing this pain as a spiritual practice that somehow is useful to life beyond me.

I’m not sure if I am able to express this very clearly. It isn’t like being a martyr. It is an awareness that whatever the particular pain is, it isn’t about me. It’s about the suffering that we all share just by being human in a fallen world. The pain I experience is from a genetic disorder that cannot be fixed. I have found that merely accepting that pain doesn’t mean that I’ve done something wrong brings a peace in and of itself. But taking it step farther, I see the pain as an invitation to just be in God’s presence. Well, truthfully, that’s on my good days. In the worst of it, my mind just goes numb and I am more like a little child in her fathers arms being rocked and comforted. And my words aren’t so peacable.

I hope this is helpful to someone! I’d love to know of others who have found deeper meaning in their own suffering. Please write. I’d love to hear from you.

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Practicing Peace

Posted in Endurance, Spiritual Lessons from My Father on February 11, 2012| Leave a Comment »

My father was passionate about economic justice, and the belief that all people are worthly. His two political heros were Tommy Dougas (the greatest Canadian other than my husband in his eyes) and Harry Truman. About 6 months before he died, he was on one of his many expositions about Harry Truman. At one point I turned to Mom and said “I suppose we will miss these lectures when he is gone.” She rolled her eyes as only she can do and said “I suppose we will.” Yes, we do.

On the other hand, over the years Dad would have coffee or breakfast on a weekly basis at The Seven Dwarfs with many men with whom he disagreed. He didn’t give up on them. He volunteered at the hospital in transport and always sought to treat each patient with love and respect, and to go the extra mile for their benefit.

It seems that when he wasn’t lecturing “the choir” about his viewpoints, he was actually practicing peace with those with whom he disagreed. Perhaps it was his humility that empowered him to do this, or perhaps it was his way of showing compassion to those he thought had trouble being compassionate. Certainly he was practicing being Christ to them. Or maybe he just liked teasing them and joking around with the owner of Seven Dwarfs! I know for certain he engendered their love and respect. What a peaceful world this would be if we could all do the same.

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The Spiritual Practice of Caring

Posted in Endurance, Spiritual Lessons from My Father on February 8, 2012| 2 Comments »

About 10 years ago, my parents noticed that their friends were getting older, many of them disabled or recently widowed and isolated. So they took it upon themselves to reach out to someone nearly everyday by either a visit or a phone call or a card. When Dad passed on last May, one might think that Mom would rightfully think of herself as one of those people. But no, within a few weeks she was back at it with cards she makes herself or phone calls made or rides given. Now she is 85 but it doesn’t often occur to her that she is older too. Although she is occasionally the recipient of other’s calling her, she still has a daily discipline of reaching out even when she doesn’t feel like it. It helps that Mom has never met a stranger. I well remember a phone call she got when I was about 8 years old, back in the day of one household phone with an extremely long cord on it. As she talked, she cleaned and talked and listened. Half an hour later, the caller realized she didn’t know my mother and had thought she had called her sisiter! Mom has made freinds everywhere she has gone and made many more over the internet. I don’t think she thinks of her caring as a discipline. It’s just who she is. But people notice. This past All Saint’s Day she was nominated by her Baptist church as a saint. And so she is and so we all can be.

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Accepting Our Brokeness

Posted in Endurance on February 7, 2012| Leave a Comment »

I’m not sure where I came across this quote but touches me in the spaces of myself that I find most embarrassing.

“Wounding and healing are not opposites. They’re part of the same thing. It is our wounds that enable us to be compassionate with the wounds of others. It is our limitations that make us kind to the limitations of other people. It is our loneliness that helps us to to find other people or to even know they’re alone with an illness. I think I have served people perfectly with parts of myself I used to be ashamed of. ”

– Rachel Naomi Remen

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Returning to Life

Posted in Endurance on February 6, 2012| 2 Comments »

It has been 3 1/2 years since I posted here. Those years were spent figuring out health problems, better treatments and not-so-great treatments. That’s on the outside. Inside, it has been a time of falling more deeply in love with the Divine One. Much of this is beyond words, or at least beyond words that I know! Some of the time I was on a medication that impaired my personality in ways that caused my loved one’s much pain. And thus I learned a level of humility and the knowledge that one’s personality and it’s imperfections do not have anything to do with the experience of God’s love within. This is very good news, indeed!

Did you know that it is possible to be deeply and entirely at peace in the core of your being regardless of what is going on in your life? And furthermore, that perfecting one’s self is not at all what God asks of us? This was good news to me and I hope by sharing little lessons or stories as often as I am able that you will find these truths to be self-evident for you as well. My first entry will be in honor of my Dad, Richard Gathman, who died in May of last year. I miss him terribly but all my memories of him make me smile. I hope those memories will make you smile as well. It is good to be back and my Dad would say: “It’s about time!”

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God Doesn’t Waste a Hurt

Posted in Endurance, Questions from the Journey, Silver Linings on January 24, 2008| Leave a Comment »

This is a quote from a man who started New Hope Ministry in a little baptist church here in the Southern Tier of NY state. “I believe God doesn’t waste a hurt” says Ray Kuhr. His program is an expansion of 12-step programs and is aimed at all addictions. I have long thought that the modern term for sin is addiction and that the remedy is the same.
I continue to slowly read the Bhagavad Gita by Paramahansa Yogananda. I spent a week pondering this segment beginning on page 256

Ignorance (born of cosmic delusion) is the greatest sin because it eclipses that divine Self and produces the limitation of ego or body conciousness, the root cause of the three-fold sorrow of man – physcial, mental and spiritual. “The wages of sin is death.” (Romans 6:23) The unspiritual man living in the sin of ignorance experiences a living death – denied the life-breath of truth realization, he is a dream puppet dancing on the strings of illusion. … The devotee must rather demonstrate to the glory and honor of his true Self – the “son of God,” the image of God dwelling in the flesh – his immortal kinship with the beloved Father-God…..he who dishonourably relinquishes the fight against temptations experiences a living death.

God doesnt’ waste a hurt….I do believe that absolutely everything that happens in this mortal world is a part of God’s redemptive plan. If we could see from the perspective of eternity, we might find the sorrows of this life a noble participation in the divine cosmic plan. We bear these things for God’s sake, for the sake of that divine image for which our bodies have been made. If we bear our sorrows as God’s sorrows rather than as some personal divine “gotcha”, perhaps the hurt we so dearly feel will be for a much higher purpose. Rather than seeing our selves as worthless sinners, if we see ourselves as divine souls living this particular human experience for God’s sake, than each hurt will be redeemed.

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Insomnia Redeemed – Hope in the second week of Advent 2007

Posted in Endurance, Grace in Unanswered Prayer, Silver Linings on December 13, 2007| Leave a Comment »

I haven’t been able to post much the past few days. Travelling does me in. Insomnia and other sleep disorders are par for the course with Fibromyalgia. I have developed an adverse reaction to Ambien and Lunesta – I sleep walk and sleep eat to the tune of a 30 pound weight gain…and I needed to lose more than 30 pounds before this all started. So no medications, just giving the herbal remedies a try. This means I am unable to get to sleep until 5 or 6 am and then only for a few hours. Which means the pain I have raises to the level of tranisiton labor pains. Fortunely these pains move around from one muscle insertion point to another so I don’t get bored and I have relief in the area the pain has left.
If you are still reading this and are not totally bored with this list of complaints, I have found a way to redeem this experience. About five years ago, I learned several chants – Hebrew, Latin and Sanskrit. They are all prayers to God for clarity or mercy or disolution of delusions. Because I have practiced them so many times, they come to my mind automatically. So when the sleeplessness persists, my mind automatically goes to the Jesus Prayer “Om Jesu Christ” and then a few hours later to the Gayatri mantra (the most ancient prayer known to us) or to the Shema (the ancient prayer of the Hebrew people). As these prayers sing through my mind, I am lifted out of myself and into the presence of God. There I remember all the people who have asked me to pray for them. And I bring the battlefields of our earth to God’s attention. I remember the terribly disfigured and emotionally racked veterans of these most recent wars and I imagine their spirits to be healed. By the time the sun comes up, I am usually very relaxed and able to rest deeply with a sense of peace that is so full and abiding that it brings tears of joy to my eyes. I have no words to describe this. I can only say that I will gladly, fearlessly, welcome the sleeplessness and pain to reach this place of heaven on earth.
I offer you this prayer that has helped me re-imagine my own burdens: “O Lord, sculpt thou me according to thy desires.”

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