Friday, September 30, 2005

When We Share Woundedness

'How strange that we should ordinarily feel compelled to hide our wounds
when we are all wounded! Community requires the ability to expose our wounds
and weaknesses to our fellow creatures. It also requires the ability to be
affected by the wounds of others...But even more important is the love that
arises among us when we share, both ways, our woundedness.'

-- M. Scott Peck

Thursday, September 29, 2005

Each Choice

'As the eagle soars in the endless blue,
Its shadow races after it, far below.
Yet space does not divide: bird and shadow
are linked. So too each act - each choice
and consequence.'

-- Jigme Lingpa

Tuesday, September 27, 2005

Doing or not doing?

In a Zen koan someone said that an enlightened man is not one who seeks
Buddha or finds Buddha, but simply an ordinary man who has nothing left to
do. Yet mere stopping is not arriving. To stop is to stay a million miles
from it and to do nothing is to miss it by the whole width of the universe.
As for arriving, when you arrive you are ruined. Yet how close the solution
is: how simple it would be to have nothing more to do if only - one had
really nothing more to do. The man who is unripe cannot get there, no matter
what he does or does not do. But the ripe fruit falls out of the tree
without even thinking about it. Why? The man who is ripe discovers that
there was never anything to be done from the very beginning.

-- Merton, Thomas. Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander, Doubleday & Company,
New York. 1966. P. 258.

<i>Always a struggle for me: To do this or to do that? To do or not to do at
all? To do more or to do less? But all that is missing the point. The real
issue of the heart has never been about doing or not doing, or how much we
do. But what is it really about? - YY </i>

Killing Him Softly

Nothing is more dangerous to the advancement of God's kingdom than religion.

But this is what Christianity has become. Do you not know that it is possible to kill Christ with such Christianity? After all, what is more important - Christianity or Christ? And I'll say even more: we can kill Christ with the Bible! Which is greater:

the Bible or Christ? Yes, we can even kill Christ with our prayers. When we approach God with our prayers full of self-love and self-satisfaction, when the aim of our prayers is to make our world great, our prayers are in vain.

- C. F. Blumhardt

Monday, September 19, 2005

My soul, find rest!

My soul, find rest!
Find rest in God alone.

Alone,
Not with your thoughts

Alone,
Not with your ambitions

Alone,
Not with your books
or PC
or projects

Alone,
Not clawing at things to achieve
Things to hold
People to impress

Alone,
It's so hard isn't it?
Are you afraid,
There is nothing there?

Do not fear
Being alone
For alone is where I am
And where you are is where God is

-YY

Thursday, September 08, 2005

Teach me your will

A slow and repetitive reading (Lectio Divina-style) of Psalm 143:10 makes my heart ache.

“ Teach me to do your will, for you are my God; may your good Spirit lead me on level ground. ”

The words 'teach me' and 'lead me ' captures my longing for the direction and purpose I so need at this point of my life. No one can give me the kind of over-arching navigational sense through life. Not my employer, not the world's needs, and certainly not my own impulses that are driven by ambition and comfort-seeking than truth. I need a real guide I can trust.

'Your will' sinks in even more deeply.

'Your will',
Not my own
'Your' thoughts
Higher than mine
'Your' lead
I shall follow

Not the will of man
Not my selfish dreams or foolish ambitions
Not the pace of the world
Only YOUR will

For 'You' are Yoke Yeow's God
No other God and no other will, will do.