The Secret....

....to always being at the right place, at the right time is
knowing you always are.

Like today.
Like now.
Because you are,
And all is well.

Have I ever told you about....

"The Law of Relevance"?

It goes like this, "No matter how scared, or tired, or ill you are.... no matter how lost, or confused, or desperate you become.... no matter how lonely, depressed, or cranky you feel: If you just do what you can, with what you have, from right where you are, IT WILL ALWAYS BE ENOUGH.

Pretty good odds, huh?
Your friend,
God

Thought For Today....

I am cleverly disguised as a responsible adult.

Poems....

I got to read these three poems Sunday at Church of the Covenant. My first public reading in quite a long while going back to my days with the Writers Group of the Triad. It was an experience, though well received I believe. I'll post them here for your perusal and hopefully, enjoyment.

This one is a kind of monologue. I always thought of it as God speaking to me. Or perhaps any lover to the beloved. I think it speaks to the universal quest for love. What do you think?

Walking The Sky

If you say you are the center of the earth
and as hot,
will my wistful blowing not cool
the smoldering flame,
and the sun that birthed your center?

If I set the sky in its light
And you cross its bridge,
will I find you there in the cool
of the rainbow
or in the spark of stars blinking your reproach?

And when the glow of this earth dims
will I see you walking
the path of clay on hind's feet
and laughing on the peaks of my mountains?

Or will my waters flow to the
earth's floor to
make streams to quench
your unquenchable thirst?

I think if I search the clouds for that coming
in the day when my mouth eats the sun
I will see you there among the waters,
asking once again
for love's glad drowning.

copyright 2003, Ron Russo


This is another love poem of sorts....mostly of the lost kind.

Of Perhaps Armageddon

It was not the time of morning
for chashing dreams
like slippery fish tails
or shaking the shadow of her,forever enshrined
in perfection.

The wheels crackle the gravel
as she pulls away and
Summer gels into autumn
slowly
like an artery hardening.

Though it is the morning
of the evening
of perhaps armageddon,
I still bother
to straighten the sheets,
fluff the impression of her headfrom the pillow,
and mask our encounter
under the soft comfort
of quilted down.

copyright 2003 Ron Russo


This is where I go after I've experienced a personal "Armegeddon".

Reverie

On flights of fancy I fly.
On spurs of moments
I take vacations
of mind
and spirit to places
aloft and places below, because
there are no curtains
to hide the worlds flagrant night.

And if I find relief
in that far reverie
would you like a jarful
like fireflies caught
in dusk's bare light?

copyright 2003, Ron Russo
  

 

From the wonderful musing of David Ziegler....

In case you don't get over there much, here's something from David that I enjoyed and thought you might too.

A clean blackboard has been left for me this morning.    
So clean, so empty—I don't know what to say.    
I'm used to scribbles from past instructions                   
faded but still visible                   
something I can erase or write over.    
But to write on the empty cold slate.                   
is not what I had expected                   
is more than I have in me.

David Ziegler

This is a great tome for bloggers as well as for life! Everyday we have a clean empty cold slate on which to write the next chapter of the story of our lives and sometimes it can be so overwhelming that we resort to past instructions, those mental scripts that tend to define us for good or ill, usually the latter. The good news is this: we can erase and write over the old negative scripts and drama's we all carry around. It least it's worth a shot. At least that's my take on it. Thanks David.
Ron

Eternity?....

To clarify "eternal" just a smidge....

Once the river of time has rounded her final bend,
and the last star in the sky has brightened its last night,
and once every child who may ever be conceived
has been given ten thousand names...

we will have just begun.

Got time?

Quit? Who me?

How can you know that something hasn't worked out........unless you've quit.

(Guess what? It is working out, you're getting closer, it's getting easier. Trust Me.)

Visit with Thad....

....last night about 7 o:clock. He dropped by to pick up his guitar left from the cookout we had last Sunday at our house. It was a nice time with Jennifer's youngest son, husband of Beth and father of Christian.
Not surprisingly, we got to talking about spiritual matters, the church, friends in the church, etc. We discussed literalism and its corollary legalism and the resulting judgmentalism we have all encountered from time to time, and perhaps we too were a part of at some point in our lives which I will always look upon with sadness and regret and hope that such tendancies will be expunged from my life along with all the other negative patterns and behaviors and become the ultimate perfect person in all the universe! : )  heh heh. Sorry. Got carried away for a moment.
I was impressed with the maturity I witnessed in Thad and it is a pleasure to see this young man grow since I knew him as a little boy and I'm proud to be his step-father, an unfortunate term I tend to dislike since I think of all of Jennifer's children as if they were my own and love them all just as much as my own (biological) children.
I hope, Thad, that I didn't get too preachey for you. I do tend to go on a bit given half a chance. I appreciate your thoughts and insite and look forward to see you again soon.
As for the cookout, we all had a great time. I especially appreciate Rik for fixing our grill without which we would not have had a cookout, but a cook-in. And all the good eats everyone brought to share and the weather for cooperating. I am loving family gatherings more and more and revel in all the interesting family dynamics and the joy in observing and participating in the loving (and sometimes not so loving) interactions and conversations and watching and refereeing and generally trying to keep the children from killing each other.
Thanks to all. Hope you had as much fun as I did. Hope to do it again soon.
Love ya

Life is Enough....

'To be alive is the miracle'. I quote from Jim Dollar, the Pastor at Church of the Covenant. He writes a little something almost every day that I get in my email.
How we so soon forget if we ever even knew that lfe itself is the miracle and we don't need a whole lot more. Life is it!. We got the biggie, as Jim would say.
Yes, we have suffering. And that too is a miracle. 'Even dying is a place of reverence and awe!' (When you see something in quote marks it's from Jim's message). The bad does not cancel out the goodness.
In fact, because we die we had better take advantage and live with all the awareness, focus, gratitude and generosity while we can and 'toast the wonder of it with a beer raised in tribute'. 'Did I say BEER? Wow! Where did BEER come from? How can you drink a beer and not be stunned into silence with gratitude and amazement?
Just think what they would have given for a beer 3.5 billion years ago!'

We had an amazing time with Jenni and her kids here for the last few weeks. (No, they didn't stay with us the whole time). As the grandparents of 20 (one more on the way) we are acutely aware of the brief time we have to be a positive influence for their lives and we try to relish every moment.
On Monday, I was going to work and realizing that I would not see these particular children for who knows how long I didn't hesitate when they all wanted to jump into the back of the pickup for a ride. I just drove slowly around the yard, down the driveway, across the front to the other driveway and back around again. I would not give anything for the joy of watching and hearing their squeals of laughter and seeing their joy at such a simple activity. Something I hope they will remember all their lives.
This is the miracle of life and I'm loving it!

Richard Rohr on "The Passion"

Since I quoted Richard Rohr previously I thought some might be interested in his take on the movie which I myself have yet to see.
 
Dear Friends,
Since a number of people have asked for my take on Mel Gibson's movie, The Passion of the Christ, let me give just a few thoughts that might be helpful to some of you. Take them for what they are worth.
I must admit that I went to the movie with strong prejudice, largely because of Gibson's Neanderthal version of Catholic Christianity, and his similar politics. I figured it would have no redeeming insight or quality. I attended with a group of fellow friars, and came away touched by some scenes, and even awestruck by others, although I think it largely came from a lifetime of meditation on Jesus and personal love of Jesus. I was prepared to fill in the gaps. How could a movie about him not prompt deep response and sentiment?
Specifically, I have hopes that the movie can give images of unconditional love and a redemptive quality to suffering that our world barely understands anymore, and deeply desires. It also has that "whomp on the side of the head" quality that it takes to get young peoples' attention, and particularly to get male attention. It could well start some people on a serious Jesus journey or spiritual search, even by some of the confusing questions that it raises. This is excellent, and the Spirit will surely use the movie for good.
Negatively, I agree with those who say the movie is almost entirely one-dimensional. It is about suffering pure and simple, as if Jesus was just born to suffer. He has no other message. There is no plausible "why?" to his suffering, and no connection with his teaching, his social or religious critique, his prophetic vision. Any true drama needs character development and not just spectacle. Aristotle said that spectacle was a cheap substitute for true drama, and it would drown out any in-depth message. I believe that is what happens here.
It ends up being a message of Divine will power instead of the much more needed messages of human vulnerability, human solidarity, and human compassion. Jesus for me is the quintessential human, a God given prototype of the human problem and solution, more than a religious version of Atlas or Prometheus. Gibson's version of Jesus is closer to a Hollywood superhero or Greek god than to the Biblical version of the "son of man." Although again, I admit, it can still lead people to the human Jesus, but I am just afraid that the Divine heroics will cancel out the human.
As many of you know, I am a strong proponent of the Franciscan understanding of the redemption, based on the teaching of Blessed John Duns Scotus in the 13th century. He did not believe in any "substitutionary atonement theory" of the cross: Jesus did not have to die to make God love us, he was paying no debt, he was changing no Divine mind. Jesus was only given to change our mind about the nature of God! (Imagine what we are saying about the Father, if he needed blood from his son to decide to love us! It is an incoherent world with no organic union between Creator and creature. No wonder so few Christians have gone on the mystical path of love, since God is basically untrustworthy and more than a little dangerous.)
For Duns Scotus, Jesus was the "image of the invisible God" who revealed to us a God's eternal suffering love for humanity, in an iconic form that we could not forget. He was not "necessary," but a pure gift. The suffering was simply to open our hearts, not to open God's - which was always open. Unfortunately, the movie is entirely based on the old atonement theory that suffering was needed, the more suffering the better, and the most suffering the best of all. Unfortunately, it has been the mainline tradition, and has been made into dogma by evangelical Christians. It creates a mercantile Christianity with God as the major debt collector, when what Jesus came to offer was a mystical Christianity with God as the "bridegroom." It might take these graphic images of suffering love to break through some peoples' consciousness, but I am afraid it will largely be true for people who do not think too much. Because once you start thinking, the whole thing falls apart. The movie does not appeal to the whole person. Emotions are not bad, however, and can serve as a catharsis and an opening. They might be God's way into the soul - and our way out of ourselves. But eventually, the message must compel head, heart, and gut, and lead to an honest image of God, the world, and ourselves.
Maybe the success of the movie reveals our own lack of wholeness, or even any desire for the whole picture. Maybe we don't want to put religion and life together. Maybe we don't want our spirituality to have any social or political implications. Maybe we like parts more than wholes. And surely good parts are very good, as long as we do not allow them to become substitutes for and deflections from the whole picture, which is the very definition of the Holy.
Richard Rohr, OFM

Becoming Human....

We are not human beings trying to become spiritual.  That task has already been done for us by our initial creation as “images of God” (Genesis 1:26).  We are already spiritual beings.  That is God's gift.  Our desperate and needed task, the one we have not succeeded at very well after all these centuries, is how to become human!”from 'Soul Brothers' by Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM

Nothings weird....

The original version of the movie Insomnia has this line in it:"When you've been a policeman long enough, nothing's weird."It's a good line, but outside of the immediate context, it's unnecessarily specific. Substitute "alive" for "a policeman."
From David Ziegler's blog

What is another example of sin?....

Another example of sin is to see ourselves as separate from God. Actually, this separation mentality is the most basic ‘sin’ from which all others derive. We do this when we attempt to ‘invoke’ God’s presence as if He were not already there.

We also do this when we see ourselves as separate from others.
The next time the temptation to see or treat another person as separate from ourselves, we could say… “If I see myself as one with this person I will heal the tiny thought in my mind that I am separate from God”.

This tiny thought of separation is the cause of most of the relational problems in our lives, as well as the root of violence and war in the world. If you actually knew (experientially) of your essential oneness do you think you could pull that trigger?

‘What you do to the least of these, you do to me’. That’s ‘oneness’, and that is why it is of the utmost importance to heal this erroneous perception in our minds.

On writing....

"We transition from the clean page to the dizzying rush of word
upon word to the saying said and the calm point that comes
after the spirit has manifested itself in language. The paper
holds the words; they are secure and steady there. We become
steady as well. For the time being, mystery has unveiled
itself."

"To write spiritually is to engage in a search for authentic
language. You’ll find your truth by writing your way to it."

Patrice Vecchione

Every voice deserves to be heard....

"Someone to tell it to is one of the fundamental needs of human
beings." -- Miles Franklin

The rich losing of love,

through our wounds the light pours in.

On Doing Nothing....

Not-doing, lounging, loafing at ease
A kind of falling out of our lives
As when the aorta split and he fell
Through and beyond habits.

Hands reach out and we are supported
By the unknown, beyond our plans
Like Alice, surprised by un-control
Dropping down the rabbit hole

Finding marmalade on the shelf
Meeting common things in a field of wonder;
In the orderly progress of breakfast
Lunch and dinner we are caught and

There is beauty in the work, tea, jam
On toast, the body’s many pains
The quick feet of rain scratching
Toward us over dry leaves.

Ron Russo
(Adapted from ‘The Light Inside the Dark’

Want to know....

...who you really meet in heaven?

No, after the parade.

No, after the break dancing and hula-hoop'ing.

No, after you meet the good souls who invented rainy nights and "sleeping in".

Right, the other elements of yourself that were far too afraid of getting lost in the jungles of time and space; of forgetting their divinity, power, and reach; and that shuddered at the thought of even momentarily believing in goodbye's, loss, and loneliness ... and they will be made whole.

You can quote me....

I am about to attempt writing again in the blog as opposed to simply posting quotes from others, although I will continue to do that from time to time as appropriate. I will also do my best to write whatever I feel is best and true about who I am without fear and intimidation. This is sometimes difficult when you know that some things you say will be misunderstood or strongly disagreed with by some.
I have had that experience on numerous occasions recently on different subjects but mainly when I drift into areas that are perceived as something other than the ‘party line’. That could mean differences of opinion primarily in the areas of religion and politics, of course! And perhaps others as well. The ‘party line’ usually tends toward a rightward drift if you get my drift.
I dislike being categorized in that way. I do not think of myself as either ‘conservative’ or ‘liberal’. I want to be as balanced as possible in all areas of my life and thus refuse to turn a deaf ear to truth wherever it may come from.
My own life experience has proven, to me at least, that the truth is not locked up in any one groups ideas, dogma, doctrine, principles or particular set of writings. I have always said that literalism will be the downfall of the church since by its very nature leads inexorably to legalism and hence, to bondage. And most people will not be comfortable in bondage in any form for very long except where the bondage is not recognized for what it is and is misinterpreted and misunderstood to somehow be a type of freedom.
Well, I guess I’ve gotten myself into enough trouble for one day. ‘Till next time.

Dreams....

What are your deepest heart-felt desires, dreams and visions?

Our deepest desires and dreams align with the Spirit within us which defines who we are. The more we align with that Spirit, the more our life holds meaning, purpose and fulfilment.
Do you have a sense of your destiny?

Peace?....

"For peace of mind, we need to resign as general manager of the universe."

-- Larry Eisenberg

Jim Dollar writes....

(The Pastor of Presbyterian Church of the Covenant)

07/02/04

Carol Steger pointed out that when AA says "Acceptance is the solution to all of my problems today," they mean "Accepting that What IS is, is the solution to all of my problems today." We have to start somewhere. Starting with What IS-this is it, this is how things are, this is what can be done about it, and that's that-is the foundation for living our lives as well as they can be lived. When we deny the fundamental truth: What IS is, and refuse to "face the music," we step into an unreal world of our own making, wrap the fantasies about us, and tell ourselves whatever we want to hear to get through the day-and make things worse by pretending that things are not what they are.

What IS? That's the question. What ARE we dealing with? What exactly DO we face, and how exactly does our behavior contribute to that? What are WE doing to create, sustain, maintain, produce, cultivate, encourage the problems that are waiting for us when we wake up? What could we do to reduce, diminish, restrict, restrain, remove those problems? How does what we tell ourselves about our problems-how we think about our problems-contribute to our problems and keep them neatly in place?

Awareness opens doors we don't know are there. People with problems they cannot begin to manage are overlooking doors that are "right in front of them." They operate under assumptions they never think to test. They are consumed by fear, or by certainty, they never question, examine, face. They cannot look at the things that keep their problems in place. But, they are never more than a realization or two away from "a new lease on life." Yet, they have so much invested in their old way of thinking about their lives that they will probably never open themselves to the necessary revisions, and step through the door into the world of redrawn conclusions, where all things are new, or, at least, where everything is transformed, if unchanged.

Awareness transforms! It's the only thing that does. That could be a bumper sticker. Yet, the barriers to awareness are everywhere. We seem to be much more comfortable questioning nothing, assuming everything, living lives we think will save us, while giving ourselves double doses of toxic poisoning every day. Because. What? Because it's so hard to change? Because we are afraid changing anything will require us to change everything, and we don't want things to be that different, only better? Because it's so hard to say, "Wait a minute! This isn't working!"? Because we don't know what we would do instead? Because we don't have anyone to talk with about these things?

Well, there are books to read. Aaron Beck, Murray Bowman, Albert Ellis, Martin Seligman, Edwin Friedman, Wendell Johnson, Robert Johnson, Rachel Remen, Harriet Lerner, M.C. Richards, to mention a few, offer instruction and direction to those who can receive instruction and direction. We don't have to sit sogging, or slosh around, in our own construction of reality when reconstruction is only a perspective shift away. Awareness is life. The doors are "right there." But, it takes being fed up to find them. It takes having enough to be able to see.

Silence....

"All this talk and turmoil and noise and movement and desire is outside of the veil; within the veil is silence and calm and rest."

"I am glad that so much movement happens in this stillness."
-- Richard Land

"Be still and know...."