Adventures in Meditating...!

I'm reading the "Art of Meditation" by Joel Goldsmith ... (finished "Practicing the Presence" a couple of days ago)... and I launched into my first-ever intentional meditation practice this morning ...

I opened my Bible, and it was bookmarked at Psalm 91 ... don't know why - it just was. I've heard that this psalm is written to/about Jesus, but since the end of it speaks of being given salvation, methinks it's not a Messianic psalm, but a psalm for any of us.

Here's the psalm - I'll highlight the parts that stood out to me (this is the version I read - NASB):

1He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High
Will abide in the shadow of the Almighty.
2I will say to the LORD, "My refuge and my fortress,
My God, in whom I trust!"
3For it is He who delivers you from the snare of the trapper
And from the deadly pestilence.
4He will cover you with His pinions,
And under His wings you may seek refuge;
His faithfulness is a shield and bulwark.

[I notice that it's HIS faithfulness, and not mine!]

5You will not be afraid of the terror by night,
Or of the arrow that flies by day;
6Of the pestilence that stalks in darkness,
Or of the destruction that lays waste at noon.

[I see this, not as a command, but as a promise -- for those who discover how to dwell in the inner-place of connection-with-God.]

7A thousand may fall at your side
And ten thousand at your right hand,
But it shall not approach you.

[LOL, this is my own response to the "swine flu" -- rather than trusting in an untested vaccination...!]

8You will only look on with your eyes
And see the recompense of the wicked.
9For you have made the LORD, my refuge,
Even the Most High, your dwelling place.
10No evil will befall you,
Nor will any plague come near your tent.
11For He will give His angels charge concerning you,
To guard you in all your ways.
12They will bear you up in their hands,
That you do not strike your foot against a stone.
13You will tread upon the lion and cobra,
The young lion and the serpent you will trample down.
14"Because he has loved Me, therefore I will deliver him;
I will set him securely on high, because he has known My name.

[I don't see this as "those who correctly say the English translation of the Greek transliteration we have made up, i.e., "Jesus" ... but those who know the nature and character of God, because of having experienced Him within them.]

15"He will call upon Me, and I will answer him;
I will be with him in trouble;
I will rescue him and honor him.
16"With a long life I will satisfy him
And let him see My salvation."

Now, that "tent" line stood out to me ... previously, I was told that "tent" meant my body ... that my body would be protected. And while that may be the case, I'm not thinking the focus here is on my physical body (physicality fades away -- this psalm speaks to me of my inner SELF, my spirit, that which is immortal and imperishable).

The word also means "dwelling" ... and I'm already told here that I will dwell in the shelter/shadow of God ... in HIM is my real dwelling, my real self.

So, when my consciousness, my awareness, is IN Him, nothing from outside of me can touch me ...

Things came to me that seem like "plagues" trying to "get at" me:

- A relative who is using manipulation, control and threats to attempt to coerce me into doing what she wants me to do -- or else, I am "betraying" her (can we all say, "junior high"? I allow myself one snide judgment per day -- that was it -- I'm done).

- Posters on SimpleChurch and Wisefire(!) who think it their place to "correct" me, with faux-love.

- Misunderstandings with loved-ones ... a temporary sense of "separation" between us ...

- My memories/frustrations with our friends/neighbors, who have left, but are still (argh!) affecting me through my own mind!

- People in my life who feel they must separate from me, 'til I come to my senses and repent.

- My children, who leave messes strewn throughout the house, as if to say, "you clean it Mom, we don't care."

- The general aches and pains that come with living in a human body (I've been experiencing hair-loss ... sigh....!)

- The deadlines and demands of others who want various things done in a particular way and timing.

- The deadlines and demands that come from within my own mind..!

- Dozens (if not hundreds) of emails that "require" a response.

- The ever-looming projects in and around the property that nag me to do/finish them.

- The multitude of books/articles/websites that I want to read and assimilate.

- The things I want to accomplish: painting more furniture, learning the guitar, writing a book, ballroom dancing lessons, organizing a yard sale, setting up a website, and a myriad of other things I won't bore you with.

- (& the biggest and most pervasive "plague" of them all): the THOUGHTS of my OWN MIND!


Then, deeper thoughts, or awarenesses, began emerging within me ... as I observed:

- Nothing from without enters in.

- I will dwell in God - I *do* dwell in God ... there is no evil in this dwelling.

- I noticed loud birds squawking outside the window ... just a cacophony of demanding noise. I let myself observe it, but noticed that it did not come in - either to where I was sitting, either in the natural (in the chair), nor in the spiritual (in the dwelling). It just was. They clamored for attention, incessantly yammering in their insistency, trying to drown each other out, but I could just smile (LOL, and they so reminded me of the debating folks on message forums!) ... they were "out there" and I was "in here." The message was not lost on me ... so, too, are all the "plagues" listed above "out there" ... I do not have to let them come "in here." Wow. (I then noticed that the birds quite suddenly ceased squawking, and silent peace ensued...)

- I heard, "enter your closet, and close the door..." Previously, I had wondered why Jesus would want us to only pray privately ... but it dawned on me that this was about meditating in intimacy with God ... it's a state of awareness, and not the proximity or positioning of my body. It's being aware of His Presence, in and through and around me, permeating all that *is*. Of course, at this stage of my journey, I do find it helpful to intentionally block out as many distractions as possible, but when the inevitable distractions occur, as demonstrated with the birds, even that can be an illumination for me, if I look for God *in* it. In my "closet", in that place of connection with God, nothing and no one can touch me there.

- "Evil" may show up all around me, but the essence of evil is only in their minds -- and is only real to me if I allow it to be so in my *own* mind. Powerful lesson there. Way-powerful ... will have to percolate on that one a while...!

- I love that angels will guard me in all my ways -- and angels (direct translation: messengers) can take many forms. I can bank on that one.

- I also notice that God *will* answer me ... my job is to look for Him, to expect to SEE Him, to HEAR Him, in all things. For God is all in all.

- All the "plagues" that come at me, threatening me, are *without* me ... they do not, and cannot, enter into my dwelling-place-in-God...!

As way of confirmation (and I do so love confirmations!), I received this snippet written by Henri Nouwen, from a dear friend:

Focusing Our Minds and Hearts

How can we stay in solitude when we feel that deep urge to
be distracted by people and events? The most simple way is
to focus our minds and hearts on a word or picture that
reminds us of God. By repeating quietly: "The Lord is my
shepherd, there is nothing I shall want," or by gazing
lovingly at an icon of Jesus, we can bring our restless
minds to some rest and experience a gentle divine presence.

This doesn't happen overnight. It asks a faithful practice.
But when we spend a few moments every day just being with
God, our endless distractions will gradually disappear.

I think I'll continue in this meditation-adventure, and see what else dawns ...

Shalom, Dena

God Comes to Me Disguised as My Life ~ Welcoming the Unlikely Messengers

So how are we to respond, when we see something we dislike, and strongly react to, within another person...? How do we know what's them, what's us, and what how we are to respond?

I notice that we tend to project our own stuff "out there", because it's easier to see it when we detach from it. What we're blind to in ourselves, we see OH-SO-CLEARLY in another ... and if we know how to use this awareness, we'll see it for the profound *gift* that it is...!

Projecting is ignoring the log in our own eye, and hyper-focusing on the speck we see in the eye of the other. We only SEE the speck because we *possess* the log ... and yet the nature of the log is to blind us to seeing what it is that's blinding us.

Jesus was clear about what we were to do first -- tend to the log. The speck, in all reality, is none of our business. There's three kinds of businesses: my business, your business, and God's business. The only one of the three I'm to tend to is my business. Knowing what's what is a matter of maturity .. too often, when we are filled with "facts" and not the experience of wisdom, when we have an overabundance of self-promoting certaintude and zealous energy (typically found in our youth), that energy can be skewedly put into the trouncing of others. Of course, the tendency is to be blind to this when we're smack-dab in it ... and so we tend to be insufferable for a while, until we outgrow it. We can't see it until we have the wisdom of hindsight ... we have to get out of it before we can see it. God knows this, and we can know this too, and can thus love the one who's temporarily afflicted with it. To varying and diverse degrees, we all "know not what we are doing." We are all the bumbling-beloved of God -- and if we got a clue about how OK this all is with Him, and is even likely a source of hilarity for Him, we might just ease up on each other as well, and enjoy the journey ... free to encourage each other, rather than climbing that tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and lobbing rotten fruit at each other ...!

I can't prove any of this to anyone... this level of awareness transcends "facts" (which are not as reliable as we've been led to believe, but again, we won't know that 'til we see it for ourselves). This comes from experience, and it takes time and long hard lessons learned the tough way ... though some, of course, manage to stubbornly hang on to their own skewed perspective to the very end ... and while it may seem like a "waste" from our limited perspective, they serve as examples/lessons/reminders to the rest of us for how *not* to think/believe/behave -- nothing is wasted in God's economy.

While reading "Practicing the Presence" this morning ... I was struck by what Joel Goldsmith wrote about seeing God in all others ... it requires some focused intentionality, particularly when the ego is loudly broadcasting, drowning out the God-glimpse within them.

He spoke of how those of us who see, who are walking the narrow path (the road less traveled), are called to see and to call forth the God-consciousness in the other ... which is a sort of "dying to self"... my ego-self wants to engage with their ego-self, to compete and to hopefully win ... and thus I'm meeting the problem with the same consciousness wherein the problem arises -- in the realm of the ego. When I do this, I merely exacerbate the problem ...

It is HARD, very much like a "dying" to choose to see the good, the God-essence, in the depth of the other ... hard to see past that which "hooks" me, and "triggers" my old unresolved stuff (pain not yet attended to, losses not yet grieved, assumptions not yet challenged) -- leading me to *react* from my ego rather than to *respond* from my spirit.

Dang, dang, dang, this is HARD...! But mostly, I believe, because of the unresolved things within me that *CAN* be hooked, and thus draw me in to the ego-scuffle. I believe, because I've experienced it in some areas of my soul, that when I attend to the inner-things (when I deal with the "log in my own eye"), then I am free from the "hook" ... then I cannot (in THAT area) be "triggered" again by the externals (whether in the form of a person, or a situation), and I AM then free to respond from my spirit -- from who I really am. (Note the subtle but powerful distinction between "reacting" and "responding"...!)

Then, I notice, I am able to deal with the splinter in the eye of the other, or else realize that it's no big deal, and not my business.

Perhaps the awareness of the splinter in the eye of the other is merely meant to show ME the log in my own ... and THAT is my business, THAT is my work -- the rest is only God showing up as messengers/angels in the people and circumstances of my life ... God comes to me disguised as my life ... my question for myself is: will I reject how God shows up, or will I embrace whatever form He chooses...?

While I can't say I have a "requirement" for how others must believe, I notice that if they are not open to accepting others who have different views, if they believe that everyone "should" believe a certain way, then relationship (of any meaningful measure) cannot thrive ... without mutual respect, mutual sharing, mutual hearing and receiving and acceptance, there is no ground for true relationship.

Words about how they "love" me, and thus must correct/reject me (because I believe differently) are empty and hollow to me ... I don't "feel the love" when others have to withdraw out of self-protection. What they love is their own concept, and the projection of what they think I "should" believe, how they think I "should" behave. They love their concept of me, which is in their own mind, rather than really loving me (who is in continual transformation ... and is that not the point to life?).

Of course, the "me" they reject is also a fabrication of their own mind ... they tell themselves a story about me, and they believe the story, and they aren't connecting with the real me ... aren't trying to hear me, to understand me, to accept me. Perhaps this stems from not really knowing the real them ... perhaps they don't know themselves as God knows them (and who else can truly define us, but the One who made us?). Perhaps they cannot yet love their neighbor as themself, because they do not yet love themself, because they don't yet know how God loves & accepts them...? (and perhaps this is just as true for me)

I also notice that if they withdraw from me, and do not share themselves with me, do not allow me to hear them, then I don't really know them either ... then I only have the story I tell myself about them.

But the glory is in how I have a CHOICE in the story I tell myself about them. I can choose to see them as "wrong" and thus judge them, and end up doing/being the way I'm judging them to do/be (judgment always does that, I notice).

I can choose, instead, to tell myself that who they really are is a child of God ... one of the bumbling-beloved, doing the best they can based on where they are in their own journey with them ... I can forgive what they do (they know not what they are doing), I can look past their projection-of-self to see the real Self ... I can intentionally look for God-in-them, and focus on that, letting the rest go as temporary ego-fluff. I can love my neighbor as myself, when I realize that we're all manifesting the same Self (a huge shift in awareness that makes all the difference ... I'm only beginning to taste the edges of this awareness, and I want more ... I expect to receive more).

I can receive them as divine messengers ... if I see something I do not like in them, I can be sure that I can only see it because I also possess it (something I never like to admit to, initially, LOL!). When I can allow myself to see that, to own that, to accept that, then I can receive that message as a gift -- if I resist it, then I miss the message, and miss the gift. My choice. But I can always learn.

I acknowledge that I resist and miss most of the messages that God is lavishly and generously offering me, because I (or my ego) do not like the packaging ... and so I "cut off my nose to spite my face" ... and for the time being, I remain "stuck" in my own warped perspective ... but such is the human experience, such is the purpose of life, to learn from who & what we encounter ... and I see that I can either learn the hard way, or the easy way ... thus far, my penchant, it seems, is to learn the hard way ...! Ah, the humanity!

But I believe in transformation, and I believe it's happening, and I believe that I'm learning ... albeit ever-so-slowly (according to my perspective, anyway) ... perhaps I need to treat myself with the same patience and graciousness that I sense the Spirit is inviting me to extend to others ... rather than demanding that I strive according to my own ego, I can instead allow myself to respond to the Spirit who is, indeed and always, leading me into all truth.

Maybe I can really trust that ... maybe it's really true.

Wow ... I needed to hear this!

Shalom, Dena