Common Sense

Eggs have no business dancing with stones.

Seeing

Yes it has been a long time since I've written or shared on this blog. I am a terrible blogger, I am obviously not a writer, however from time to time I enjoy sharing thoughts and or comments. In particular I enjoy daily meditations written by Richard Rohr. I recently shared a series on "How Are You Seeing?" so I thought this article by Richard would be appropriate, so here we go. Enjoy!

NON-DUAL SEEING

The ability to stand back and calmly observe our inner dramas, without rushing to judgment, is foundational for spiritual seeing. It is the primary form of “dying to the self” that Jesus lived personally and the Buddha taught experientially. The growing consensus is that, whatever you call it, such calm, egoless seeing is invariably characteristic of people at the highest levels of doing and loving in all cultures and religions. They are the ones we call sages or wise women or holy men. They see like the mystics see.

Now do not let the word “mystic” scare you. It simply means one who has moved from mere belief systems or belonging systems to actual inner experience. All spiritual traditions agree that such a movement is possible, desirable, and available to everyone. In fact, Jesus seems to say that this is the whole point! (See, for example, John 10:19-38.)

From The Naked Now: Learning to See

Rest

The Rewards of Rest
June 21, 2010 by Gospel Today Mag

Rest rejuvenates, refreshes and reinvigorates. “Six days you shall do your work, and on the seventh day you shall rest, that your ox and your donkey may rest, and the son of your female servant and the stranger may be refreshed. (Exodus 23:12). Rest allows you to reflect, reexamine and recompose your thoughts.

Rest encourages you to reconsider and reposition. “My yoke is easy and My burden is light.” The rest that Jesus offers is a promise that His spirit will do the “heavy lifting.” Rest reposi- tions your thoughts, actions and reactions in alignment with the way, will and word of God. That way, you are not frenzied and worried and always ripping and running—trying to “make things happen”—you do what you are called to do, and let God be God!

In today’s busy society, many pastors don’t have time for members, parents don’t have time for their own children, hus- bands and wives don’t have time for developing loving rela- tionships, and friends don’t have time for fellowship. We make promises to “call soon”, “come by” or “do lunch” but never seem to take the time. God didn’t call us to be busy; He called us to be fruitful. He also called us to engage in Godly relationships that bless each other.

A wise woman once told me that if I would spend inti- mate time with God at the beginning of each day, I would find that the rest of my day would be much more focused and productive. At the time, I was young and couldn’t figure out how “taking” time away from working could result in increased productivity; I later learned that Godly wisdom does not agree with the ways of the world.
Don’t miss the opportunity here!

Change your schedule and your life! “Enter in” to the Day of rest each week. If you do, you’ll approach the next week as the refreshed person that God meant for you to be. Return to the rest that will rejuvenate you from the inside out. It’s never too late to change!
Here are some practical guidelines for the “day” of rest:

Go to church and worship God. Acts 17:1-2, Heb 10:23-25
Study the word 2 Tim. 2:15
Engage in a time of extra prayer Acts 16:13
Refrain from doing business. Neh 13:15-22

God Bless You!

Anchored Life Church

Anchored Life has a new home. July 4, 2010 we will be meeting at The Grange Hall in Broomfield, Colorado 7901 West 120th Ave. 80020. We are excited about community and sharing life together. July the 4th will be my first Sunday back, I was away for two months due to a stroke and spending time in rehab. I am grateful for the grace and mercy of God. I am grateful for family and friends. I am grateful to be alive. I have a testimony, in reality we all have a testimony, however I grew up with the saying "we overcome by the words of our testimony". I am an overcomer and more than a conquerer. My faith did not fail me. God was silent, my faith was tested, and many prayers lifted me up. I was not able to pray, I cried a lot, God had mercy. I had no pluse, no heart beat, I fought my way out of darkness clawing and climbing out of a dark hole, reaching for the top. I made it God had mercy. God said He makes me to lie down he did not need my permission. He restores my soul and I know there is a God.

Today

Today would have been our 34th wedding anniversay. Today is full of memories, some happy some sad. So today "Summing it all up, friends, I'd say you'll do best by filling your minds and meditating on things true, noble, reputable, authentic, compelling, gracious-the best, not the worst;the beautiful, not the ugly; things to praise,not things to curse." The Message

I believe I'll run on, see what the ends gon be.

A Lesson From a Coffee Pot

V. Charlene Christmon: A Lesson from a Coffee Pot.

This blessed me this morning ya’ll. It is funny because i actually originally wrote this about 3 years ago, but it is amazing how RIGHT NOW in this season of my life it applies as much if not more than it did back then. Talk about a fresh start!

Well I went in to make coffee (as I do every morning) I started the coffee brewing and then went and sat down to start work. Not even 10 minutes later something told me to get up and go and check on the coffee. To my surprise, when I went in the kitchen, the coffee pot was boiling over and there was ground coffee spilling out the sides…. This happened b/c when putting the pot back in the coffee maker I did not put it in all of the way, so the coffee had no where to go so it backfired.

At first I was frustrated and immediately said “UH is this how this day is gonna be!! “ But that is when God started speaking to me! It was SOOO CRAZY. The first thing he said was clean it up and start again. As I began to clean up the mess God continued to teach. First he said.. Today is the day that we redo what we did not do right the first time. He pointed out that making the coffee is a lot like my life and the things that God is trying to do. When you make coffee all you have to do is possess the ingredients, put them in the maker, place the pot in POSITION and wait… the machine will do the rest! It is like the coffee ingredients are the innate things in us that we already posess, our strengths, talents, etc. The pot represents your self, in this case Me. and the Maker of course is God.

It is like, you can posses all of the ingredients, but if aren’t in position, even when the Maker/God tries to create something there is no where for it to go and you end up with a mess. It was also interesting to me that God pointed out to me the hole at the top of the coffee pot… there is an exact position that the pot must be in in order for the coffee to go through, it cannot be to far left, to far right or to far back… What is most interesting to me is that God seemed to show me that my problem was not going left or right of the correct position, but not putting the pot all the way in.. as if to say I have still not fully committed myself to the position he is trying to place me in! THAT BLEW MY MIND!!!

The funny thing is that I got in the room in time to clean up the mess, start again and still have coffee before anyone noticed the difference… It’s like God was giving me the heads up, and then showing me how to clean it up and start fresh the right way. I don’t know, it is funny, b/c when the guys came in today they saw nothing of the mess that was made the first time around, all they saw was the end result. A BOMB cup of coffee!! LOL I heard God telling me that when he does this thing for real, it will not matter about the first go round / the mess or the false starts.. All people will see and all that matters is the end result, an untainted, BOMB

A Long Time

Make a Mess, Discover Your Life By Anne Lamott
Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor, the enemy of the people. It will keep you cramped and insane your whole life. I think perfectionism is based on the obsessive belief that if you run carefully enough, hitting each stepping-stone just right, you won’t have to die. The truth is that you will die anyway and that a lot of people who aren’t even looking at their feet are going to do a whole lot better than you, and have a lot more fun while they’re doing it.
Besides, perfectionism will block inventiveness and playfulness and life force (these are words we are allowed to use in California). Perfectionism means that you try desperately not to leave so much mess to clean up. But clutter and mess show us that life is being lived. Clutter is wonderfully fertile ground—you can still discover new treasures under all those piles, clean things up, fix things, get a grip. Tidiness suggests that something is as good as it’s going to get. Tidiness makes me think of held breath, of suspended animation.
When I was 21, I had my tonsils removed. I was one of those people who got strep throat every few minutes, and my doctor finally decided that I needed to have my tonsils taken out. For the entire week afterward, swallowing hurt so much that I could barely open my mouth for a straw. I had a prescription for painkillers, though, and when they ran out but the pain hadn’t, I called the nurse and said she would need to send another prescription over, and maybe a little mixed grill of drugs because I was also feeling somewhat anxious. But she wouldn’t.
I asked to speak to her supervisor. She told me her supervisor was at lunch and that I needed to buy some gum, of all things, and to chew it vigorously—the thought of which made me clutch at my throat. She explained that when we have a wound in our body, the nearby muscles cramp around it to protect it from any more violation and from infection, and that I would need to use these muscles if I wanted them to relax again. So finally my best friend Pammy went out and bought me some gum, and I began to chew it, with great hostility and skepticism. The first bites caused a ripping sensation in the back of my throat, but within minutes all the pain was gone, permanently.
I think that something similar happens with our psychic muscles. They cramp around our wounds—the pain from our childhood, the losses and disappointments of adulthood, the humiliations suffered in both—to keep us from getting hurt in the same place again, to keep foreign substances out. So those wounds never have a chance to heal. Perfectionism is one way our muscles cramp. In some cases we don’t even know that the wounds and the cramping are there, but both limit us. They keep us moving in tight, worried ways. They keep us standing back or backing away from life, keep us from experiencing life in a naked and immediate way.
So go ahead and make big scrawls and mistakes. Perfectionism is a mean, frozen form of idealism, while messes are the artist’s true friend. What people somehow (inadvertently, I’m sure) forgot to mention when we were children was that we need to make messes in order to find out who we are and why we are here.
Anne Lamott is a writer of books and essays. This piece is an excerpt from her book, Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life.

In light of my struggle with perfectionism I needed this article. Thanks to inward / outward.