The Loud Quiet

It rained here on the mountain the other day.  Not the usual 10-minute summer downpour that coats the ground but does not filter very far into it.  Rather, this was one of those longer, deliciously sustained rains that goes all day long, interspersed with an occasional short pause to regenerate itself.  The kind that soaks into the ground and provides genuine nourishment to all that inhabits there.

We are fortunate to have guests and retreatants visit here on this remote, rural mountain.  Their question “Aren’t you bored here?” inevitably comes after a few hours of realizing there are no neighbors within sight, and virtually no human-generated sounds to detract from the continuous quiet.  (Even the birds chirp softly here.)  The answer is always No, because there is always something to do and experience here, and many fascinating people to interact with on those occasions when we seek each other out from our respective hideaways.  My life-long complaint about a lack of sufficient hours in the day is unchanged here.  It is just that removing the usual frenetic distractions and “to dos” of the urban “civilized” life allows one to be focused instead on the “worthwhiles to do.”  Worthwhiles that reclaim a more fundamental connection with the real essence of our being and the life we are truly meant to live.

Which brings me back to the rain.  I have always loved the rain.  There is a warmth and  comfort from being enveloped by it, a calmness from both the sight and the sounds of the rainfall.  Or, at other times, a reminder of the unrestrained power of God-through-Nature as the thunder announces its presence and the lightening illuminates the energy of the vast sky.

On this day, the rain fell like a continuous but gentle waterfall cascading down from the clouds.  I sat for hours under the protecting porch roof and watched the clouds gradually envelop all of my surroundings.  Sometimes starting in the valley, working its way up the mountainside before me, coming higher and higher until the tops of the distant multi-tiered ranges gradually disappeared into the arising mist, while simultaneously engulfing the house.  Other times, the clouds would start at the tops of the far ranges, gradually moving closer and dipping downwards to fill that same valley, now masked from view.  Then the clouds would slowly pull back, revealing the mountaintops and the valley floor once again, until the cycle would repeat itself.  

As the fog removed itself and revealed its hidden contents, linear strands of clouds would work their way in and out of the various ranges.  Sunlight would occasionally break through for brief moments, seemingly to remind us that there is always a brightness hidden behind the opaque veil typically in front of us, only to quickly disappear yet again.  Large solid clouds in the upper sky passed in review in changing light → dark hues.  These clouds formed a parade of shapes and images, perfect representations of animals of every kind.  A side glance into the landscape of the endless trees below reveal a face, a person unknown, yet a spirit waiting to be acknowledged.  The fact that no one else looking at this scene sees these images does not diminish their very realness.

People travel distances and pay money to visit museums in order to see masterful landscape works of art.  And so they should, for they represent inspiring artistic forms.  Here on this mountain, I have the very good fortune to see in-person an ever-present gallery of landscapes.  And unlike a museum’s static display, Nature’s display is a constantly moving montage of visual imagery. A still life illuminated in movement.

When we remove the noise and distractions around us, and replace them with the natural sounds and visuals that come from Original Creation, then we are able to reconnect, however briefly, with our own Creation.  And ultimately to our own destiny.  Taking time and opportunity to lose our Self within such excursions into a larger Oneness creates the special moments that remind us of the truth of our spiritual existence, even in the reality of this human time.  Moments that nourish us, teach us deep meanings, direct us to our future.  And that is never boring.

©   2015   Randy Bell               www.OurSpiritualWay.blogspot.com

God Speaks

God speaks.  To each of us.  Regularly.  Do we hear God speaking?

God speaks to us in a manner tailored for each of us so that we have the best opportunity to receive God’s personal messages.  God speaks in our own vernacular, even at the risk of not sounding “holy” enough to our ears.  (God does not speak in Hebrew in a 2000 year old dialect and cultural context to a person native to Japan.)

It is a somewhat tricky business, this God-speaking thing.  Many doubt that such a thing is even possible, except perhaps to a select few supra-divine mystics.  Yet many of us long for such conversations.  The challenge is separating ourselves from our doubts and accepting those divine conversations when they occur, while discerning those many ego moments when we invent such a pretend dialog out of our own imagination.  It is a subtle yet hugely significant distinction.

To some small number of people, God speaks directly.  Perhaps audibly to the ears, heard quietly in the mind.  Or perhaps in written narrative, 1:1 between God and the pen in hand, bypassing the filter of our mind in favor of the expressed Word.  These forms of direct communication with God work only if our heart and mind are open and ready to hear.

For some others, the conversation must come more indirectly through the voices of other intermediaries.  In the midst of an otherwise everyday normal conversation, with a person in a close relationship or even just a casual stranger, “something” is casually, almost offhandedly, said to us that inexplicably jumps out at us and grabs our attention.  Likely a single sentence within an otherwise unremarkable conversational paragraph.  Something of no noticeable significance to the speaker, but which is heard deep in an unknown place within us, leaving our path slightly but deliberately altered in that brief moment.  Hearing God in this way requires us to be alertly listening, to recognize those unexpected momentary but critical instances when they occur.  We do not hear God if we are the one doing all the talking.

Such moments as these are a more informal version of “channeling,” which is a three-party conversation between two participants.  God, through a speaker, comes into our ears; the middle party is not really part of the dialog.  The speaker’s mind is set aside for that briefest of time, out of the way of the conversation between God and us, simply providing a voice to God’s words which are flowing through them.

If our mind or hand or ears are not good media for conversation, then God speaks to us through circumstances.  Events happen to us, whether tragic or exhilarating.  Opportunities open up to us or are shut down.  Our life flow – career, job, family role, relationships – changes.  Changes we typically judge as being in a positive or negative direction.  These events are God’s way of effectively saying, “Go this way.”  “Do not go this way.”  “It is time to move in another direction, to yet another place.”  “You need to rethink what you have previously believed, and give thought to a new idea.”  This way of God speaking to us can often be very troubling or upsetting depending upon the circumstance we encounter.  The message will not likely be seen in the immediate moment; the event itself first serves to simply get our attention.  God’s actual message will only be heard by us in a calm, quiet period of reflection we must give to it thereafter.  We will rarely hear God’s words within that circumstance in the heat of the moment.

If none of these methods work, then we must hear God through our eyes.  God leads us to walk in the embrace of the solitude of nature’s forests and deserts.  We walk on a beach and lose ourselves in the protective blanket of the regular cadence of the waves.  We sit on the solid rocks of a mountaintop and take in the vast visual expanse of other mountains and valleys in front of us.  We look at the sky, clouds, stars and planets and see the unbounded miracle of a never-ending Creation.  We stand in the cities and see majestic architecture, or sit in museums and devour creative expression in art.  We lie in a farm field on a late summer evening with renewed appreciation for the rural simplicity of a way of life that nourishes our body.  In the doing of any of these things, we rediscover the full power and expansiveness of God’s Creation.  In that rediscovery, we find a sense of place and connection with every thing, once again become part of an indivisible whole.  We hear a different kind of voice, out of which in some inexplicable way comes clarity: an answer to our question, a new direction to follow, a new understanding of What Is.

God speaks softly to us.  In our own personal way.  Sometimes speaking silence, thereby encouraging us to find our own answers out of our growing spiritual maturity.   Likely giving us a message we do not really want to hear, challenging us to move from where we now are to a new and more fulfilling place.  Are we willing to hear God?

©  2015   Randy Bell                www.OurSpiritualWay.blogspot.com

Appreciating Where We Are

By nature, I am a “doer.”  A typical Type A personality, always ready to go on to the next big thing.  Such a trait has allowed me to do and accomplish many things over the course of my life, for which I am grateful.  Even if not all ventures were successful, I still managed to take away something worthwhile and insightful from the experience.  It also usefully served to give me a career and an income to get through life reasonably responsibly.  The downside, though, is that often I was so busy moving from one project to the next that there was no real time spent appreciating and enjoying what had just been done.

I spent ten years building the spiritual sanctuary in the mountains where I now live.  It was a constant progression from one building going up to starting the next one – planning for the next while the prior was still being completed.  Clearing one meadow in order to clear the next one.  One walking path leading into the next path.  All while concurrently maintaining a fulltime primary career.  It was not until a person finally said to me, “Stop, and look at what has been created here!” that I truly had any real sense of what had been done.  And only then began taking advantage of it and personally enjoying it.  It is a reminder that continues to echo in my mind in the midst of all the continuing ongoing maintenance that is forever to be needed.

We are busy each day doing what is expected of us.  Many of those expectations are ones we have put onto our selves, even though we often attribute them to other people’s demands on us.  A large part of our life is taken up with thinking about tomorrow’s project list, tomorrow’s job assignments, what remains undone for us to complete.

We spend most of our time with eyes pointed to the front of us.  Hikers are focused on the next steps on the trail, leading ahead to the next mountain to be climbed.   Builders are reviewing the next blueprints even as their crew is finishing up work on the current building.  The runner is looking at shaving yet another fraction of a second off her last run time.  And the artist hears the incessant voice in his head constantly nagging, “so what have you done lately?”

We are unceasingly on the go.  We think that that “going” is inherently moving us forward.  But when do we just sit and sink fully into that which we have already done?  Turn off the “I will …” voice and simply hear the words “I did”?

It may be important for us to know where we are going – or at least where we think we are trying to go.  But it is equally important to know where we have already been, and to take proper stock of that “been.”  Because much of where we are going is the result of that been.  We may be enjoying our life journey, or fighting with that journey.  Regardless, taking time to remind ourselves of, and to appreciate, our outcomes along the way is an important part of our journey.  It is not about living in the past or trying to recreate a past long gone.  It is that sometimes the rear view mirror is the true forward view.

©   2015   Randy Bell               www.OurSpiritualWay.blogspot.com

Growing Up

In a recent conversation, a mid-30s woman posed the question: “When do parents stop thinking of their children as ‘children’?”  My reply was, “Never.  But the nature of the relationship continually changes.”  In retrospect, I am unclear as to whether her question was a generic philosophical one about all parents and their children, or a personal one underlying her particular relationship with her specific parents.  But in thinking about the conversation later, I realized tha appropriate follow-up question could have been: “When do children stop thinking about their parents as a ‘parent’?”   The answer, of course, is the same: “Never.  But the nature of the relationship continually changes.”  The parent loves the child; the child honors the parent.  But the tie that binds” is designed to unravel over time.

We have all seen examples of parent/child relationships that are virtually unchanged in spite of the ages and years of continuous relationship.  The pet names, the disparaging judgment, the unsolicited opinions, the critical judgment by a parent that ignores the age and maturity of his/her child, never stops.  Likewise, the quest for approval, the deference if not subjugation to the parent, the disappointed feelings of inadequacy, and the conflict over when/if to “rebel” lingers through the lifetime of the child.  Even the terminology – “parent” and “child” – remains unchanged for one’s lifetime, seemingly freezing each from moving into a new status with each other.  Ae there different terms that we could use instead?

The relationship between child and each parent is the strongest relationship we will have in the course of our lifetime.  Regardless of the nature and “quality” of that relationship.  Because it comes from such a basic premise – our birth and first years of life – and it is our first relationship with another human being.  For better or for worse, the parent defines for us what human being-ness is, what a human “relationship” is, and how interactions are conducted.  All subsequent relationships and interactions are molded and measured by these parental models.

The models can be “good” or “bad” ones, interpretations likely unique in the eyes of each parent and child, and not likely to be the same.   These interpretations stay with us, and guide or direct us the remainder of our life.  Yet though death may remove the physical stimulus of the continuing parent/child experience, the nature and effects of the relationship go on unabated long after the parent’s death.  The deceased parent and the stories live on fully in the child’s memory, even as they move from vivid consciousness to a vaguer subconsciousness.  And the interactions repeat as a result of the deep habits we formed (our “personality”); those interactions are now simply redirected to our contemporaries.  For ill or good, the parent/child relationship goes on intact, now cast on a wider scale.  The force of that relationship grows even stronger by its incessant replay in our mind, combined with our inability to confront and create a new relationship with the deceased parent to replace our past image – an image now frozen in time in our mind.

We experience a similar phenomenon with God.  We had some form of relationship with God before our birth; it was our first relationship, a spiritual one.  From some source – our parents, our community, our personal experience – we were guided into a form of ongoing relationship with God after our birth.  That form may have been based upon a perception of a judgmental, wrathful God with an ever-present rule book in hand.  It may have been a forgiving God, but forgiveness presumes that a judgment has first been made that requires forgiveness.  It may have been an always loving God, who recognizes our shortcomings but whose feelings and benevolence toward us are unaffected.

Whatever presumption we make about the essence of God, the same question still arises: does God, our spiritual parent, continue to treat us as a spiritual child, and we in turn choose to willingly remain as that child?   Or does God grow with us, stepping back a short distance as we both flounder and flower in pursuit of our own spiritual maturity?

Sometimes our parent holds us in childhood, both in their presence and in their absence.  Sometimes we choose to cling to our childhood.  Sometimes, with effort, we each find our path to growing up.

© 2015   Randy Bell                 www.OurSpiritualWay.blogspot.com

Living Within Spirit

OUR RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD:

 

7 - LIVING WITHIN SPIRIT

Regardless of our spiritual faith and religious beliefs, “being spiritual” ultimately requires us to live spiritually.  Regardless of how we conceptualize “God,” or “the Universe,” living spiritually ultimately requires us to think, speak, and act from a perspective greater than just our self.  Greater than the individual.  Greater than the normal human experience.  Letting go of being the all-important center of everything.

 

But how do we transform “living spiritually” from just words, an ideal, a goal, into an everyday way of truly being?  A being such that living spiritually does not just happen in special moments set aside for that purpose (e.g. weekly church or temple), but infuses in some manner everything we think/say/do.  Such that the line of separation between secular life and spiritual life blurs to become virtually indistinguishable, without separation.

 

It is not about continually screaming our spirituality at the top of our lungs for all within earshot to hear.  It is the opposite: a secure quietness that knows one’s spirituality in one’s own heart; there is no need for speech-making.  It is in the doing itself; there is no need for recognition and approbation for that doing.

 

Living spiritually means knowing and accepting many things.  It means “God” – whether “Spirit, Universe, Allah, Nature, Tao” or any other of the many names we may use or forms we may envision – is a constant and interactive presence in our life.

 

It means understanding that we are here in human form and existence to fulfill a mutual understanding we have with God for this life.  That we will live our life within the framework of God’s thinking and expectations.  That though we have “free will” to make our own choices about our actions, we always choose to make our thoughts and actions consistent with God’s thoughts and actions.

 

It means acknowledging that the outcome of our life is not solely the result of our own singular activity, but the collective actions of many brought to bear on our life.  That all that comes into our life reflects both the actions of others fulfilling their own life’s agreement with God, as well as God’s use of them for our greater benefit.  That remaining humble towards the limitations of our accomplishments is as important as celebrating the achievement of our accomplishments.

 

It means God, and Life, can be trusted, so we do not live intimidated by fear.  That God will provide what we need, which may or may not be what we perceive is needed; when we need it, which may or may not fit our timeline; in the form we truly need, which may or may not be the form we desire.  That we therefore give God time and space to contribute God’s part of what happens to us.

 

It means we have faith that all that happens to us carries a benefit inside of it, even if that benefit is not always obvious or disclosed at the time.  That we trust that – IF we are living within God –  regardless of the short-term effect, all things will be right for our highest good in the long-term.

 

It means when we are truly connected with God, then what we are doing now is exactly what we are supposed to be doing in this moment.

 

It means God honors us as we honor God.  That God and I are spiritually One.  Living spiritually means living as that One.

 

©  2015   Randy Bell                www.OurSpiritualWay.blogspot.com

God And I Are One

OUR RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD:

 

6 - GOD AND I ARE ONE

Have you ever watched a devoted couple speak such that either can complementarily complete the sentences of the other?  Where one can seemingly read the thoughts of the other?  Have you ever worked for a boss so closely, in such lockstep, on such a shared wavelength of goals and purpose, that other employees or customers readily accept your word as though coming directly from your boss (“my right-hand assistant”)?  Have you ever been part of a group, working on a shared endeavor, in which everyone worked in perfect synchronicity, each knowing what needed to be done and effortlessly moving together toward perfect completion – “the team” transcending the individual?

In each of these scenarios, each person is operating at a level far different from his/her normal functioning.  In tune.  Connected.  Multiple individuals extending and merging into one greater whole.  As all of the thousands of individual parts come together to create the single thing we call an automobile.  The many both separate and distinct now unified into one greater whole.

So it is with God.  Jesus famously said, “I and the Father are One.”  (John 10:30)  For many in the Christian faith, these words led to the idea of the Trinity: an attempt to clarify the relationship among God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit.  Three distinct entities, three separate roles, each equal to the other, all combined into – yet individual manifestations of – One.  This Trinitarian belief became central to the early Catholic faith, adopted as official Church dogma in the 4^th Century CE.  A belief that later became a key litmus test of religious fidelity (and a basis for declaring one a heretic and invoking the persecution thereof).

Continuing into some later Protestant religions, “the Trinity” to this day gives explanation and comfort to many, anchoring their religious faith and understanding.  For non-Christian religions, some non-Trinitarian Christian denominations, and for some individuals, it brings more confusion than understanding, a discomfort with the concept and where its implications lead.  For these, is there an alternative way that Jesus’ words might be understood?

Perhaps by recognizing that the human being Jesus was One with God in a spiritual unification.  One in the melding of thinking, feeling, words and actions.  One in the understanding of the Universe and its higher workings and unique forms.  One whose vision was universal, seeing the big picture of Life and Humanity.  One who knows no separation from other beings, or from life that exists in any other forms.  One who knows their human Self, but is willing – and desirous – to lose that Self in spiritual union with God.  And so “The Father is in me, and I in the Father.”  (John 10:38)

As Jesus was in God, God was in Jesus.  A partnership going both ways, not in Being, but in Spirit.  A non-Trinitarian Jesus shows us that such a union with God is not reserved only to god-forms, but to human beings themselves.  Such union is available to each of us if we so desire it, if that desire is willing to sacrifice our ego of separation to our spirit of unification.  It is a desire we all have within us, but a desire to which few are willing to fully open and commit themselves.

And so my personal daily mantra: “God and I are One.  In all that I Think.  In all that I Say.  In all that I Do.”  Said over and over again, I remind myself of my true spiritual being, my true spiritual path.  These moments of divine sharing give peace and quiet confidence to life.  All in One.  God and I Are One.  Not God, but As God.  In perfect, unified Spirit.

©  2015   Randy Bell                            www.OurSpiritualWay.blogspot.com

Surender Unto God

OUR RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD:

 

5 - SURRENDER UNTO GOD

“Surrender Unto God.”  Giving ourselves over to God, and God’s Will for us, is an oft-repeated call in the Jewish and Christian heritages.  It is a core tenet of Islam (“surrender unto God” being the literal translation of “Islam”).  A central concept of Buddhism is to extinguish our sense of being a “separate, independent self” and to instead devolve into “no-self” – an interconnected and interdependent being with all things in the Universe.  And the Taoists remind us that there is a larger life force (the Tao) that drives through all of Life and Nature.  Our job is to surrender to, and align ourselves with, the direction and pacing of this force.

Our Spiritual Self is attracted to the beauty of this idea, the giving over of our Self to the unifying Oneness of God and the Universal Reality.  The Human Self – especially in its Western orientation – recoils at this prospect.  We protest, “What about my individuality, my uniqueness, my separate Being?  What about living my own life as I choose?  Isn’t that what my Free Will is all about?”

All things start with Creation.  And all Creation comes with Purpose.  We see this truth every time we focus on any object, and see that object in its fullest meaning.  Every thing is formed, evolves and changes, and then expires.  Within that cycle, every thing has a function, a role to play, a point to accomplish, interconnected with other things.  The food chain; the workings of animal and human societies; the village that feeds, clothes, and raises a child.  This Purpose, these functions, are inherently in the very being of our existence.  Our Purpose from God from the act of our Creation.

It is to this Purpose of God that we are called to surrender.  It is not an option; we committed to it when we agreed to our birth.  Our ability to choose, our Free Will, is in the HOW through which we fulfill our Purpose, not the Whether.  God works at the Purpose and Outcomes level; we work at the detail, mechanics level.  Our Free Will is in how we realize (or not) our agreement with our Creation.  We have the human ability to go pretty far afield, to wander down paths that take us far away from Purpose.  Take us deeply into Self and into temporary gratifications and the pursuit of human success, forgetting the Spiritual Person that we also are.  Forgetting that our Free Will bumps up against the Free Will of others, all of whom also work within God’s Universal Truths.  And so when we finally discover that our human Victories won for our Self are in fact fleeting and hollow, and ultimately un-nourishing, then we finally turn to Surrender.  Surrender of Human Self to our greater Spiritual Self.  Surrender of our blinding ego to the clear vision of our Spirit.  Surrender of our lonely separated Self into the awaiting fullness and connection of all of Life.  In surrendering the small things of our ego, we realize the truer large victory of our Soul.

We surrender our singularity to the Universal plurality.  We surrender our fear into love.  We surrender our lost-ness to the compass of our Spirit.  Surrendering in this way does not diminish us, it expands us.  It does not lessen us, it fulfills us.  This is the true basis of the Free Will we have – to choose a life of fear and aloneness, or a life of confidence and connection.  We have the choice of going our own way in a false sense of our “independence.”  Or we can freely choose to assert our will to live connected with that greater whole that is God and the Universe.  To surrender into spiritual victory.

©  2015   Randy Bell                www.OurSpiritualWay.blogspot.com