To Be Extended and Expanded

Selflessness
Holy Spirit – Human Spirit
Holy Human Spirit
God Inside – God Outside
They accused him of being crazy. They accused him of doing work by the power of the evil one. They were blinded by their prejudices and their fear. He was love, pure love, and they could not understand it...

I give away all that I have and then I must rely on the kindness of others. But doesn't my dependence on others take away valuable resources from those who need them more than I do? The questions are “How much do I need and if I refuse to give what I have am I not also using valuable resources that might be of help to others?” “But you must take care of yourself and then you can take care of others,” they say. – How can I receive from those to whom I give? That might be the most relevant question.

CONNECTION –     

Fears

Because I fear your grasping hand calling me to the unknown of love, because I fear my emptiness, my poverty, my call to death, I fear myself, I close my hearth, I shut myself from you, my despairing brother. Your presence is a call. Do I turn away or do I dare? Love is the greatest of all risks. Do I dare leap into the cool, swirling, living waters of loving fidelity?
Jean Vanier, Tears of Silence, p. 22

HOPE - Chittister

"The spiritual task of life is to feed hope. Hope is not something to be found outside of us. It lies in the spiritual life we cultivate within. The whole purpose of wrestling with life is to be transformed into the self we are meant to become, to step out of the confines of our false securities and allow our creating God to go on creating. In us."
 - Joan D. Chittister

The Guest House

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they are a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice.
meet them at the door laughing and invite them in.
Be grateful for whatever comes.
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.
— Jellaludin Rumi,
translation by Coleman Barks

from T. J. Grey- A Thought -

Crossing bridges can be a scary thing to do. When we cross a bridge we put our lives in the hand of those who designed it, those who built it, and those who maintain it. --- Some bridges are so long that we can't see the other end. We trust that the other end is there because we see no indication that it isn't. 

I can not live my life very well if I do not place my trust in God, the designer, builder, and maintainer of all that was, all that is, and all that will be.

more from Brother Ben

I am thankful that there is not a requisite “feeling” that I must experience to show my gratitude. I have had mountaintop experiences that have invoked very powerful emotional responses. 
I, like Peter, would build a shrine to that experience but the emotion would not remain. We cannot live on the mountaintop forever. – When I go looking for the “feeling” I can't make it happen. The “feeling” comes and goes as it pleases.

My home garden and my relationship to it is a good example of what I am talking about. I have known absolute bliss in my garden. Yesterday, after many days of neglect, I went out to the garden to work and to find the bliss. The work happened but the bliss did not come. – The bliss did not come yesterday but it will come when I least expect it to. LIVE LIFE even when you don't feel alive.   

more thoughts from Brother Ben

The bit of God's love that I know is the bit of God's love that has been made real for me in the love of those who have loved me. – INCARNATION – I have longed for much of my total life and all of my adult life to have the same kind of impact on the world that my father had. I longed to give myself to the world and I longed to be recognized for the great things that I would accomplish. – I wanted all of the benefits but I did not want any of the requisite cost and sacrifice. I wanted a meaningful life but I wanted it on my terms. Life is not like that. We seldom get to live life on our own terms. But we do get to live life meaningfully if we choose to. → ←
HOLY SPIRIT – God's love overflowing – discernment – connection – the human connection

The Day (dated 09/27/2016)
Nothing big happened today. It was just one more day of ordinary. I was sitting in my chair thinking about the day just past and many more just like it and I realized that my memories were much greater than my dreams.  
The Holy Spirit comes as a quiet and gentle breeze, so soft that we might very well miss it.

From William Barclay

"So long as we judge ourselves by human comparisons, there is plenty of room for self-satisfaction, and self-satisfaction kills faith, for faith is born of the sense of need. But when we compare ourselves with Jesus Christ, and through Him, with God, we are humbled to the dust, and then faith is born, for there is nothing left to do but to trust to the mercy of God."

Three By Will Rogers

"There's no trick to being a humorist when you have the entire government working for you."

"After eating an entire bull, a mountain lion felt so good he started roaring. He kept it up until a hunter came along and shot him... The moral: When you're full of bull, keep your mouth shut." 

"The money was all appropriated for the top in the hopes that it would trickle down to the needy. Mr. Hoover didn’t know that money trickled up. Give it to the people at the bottom and the people at the top will have it before night, anyhow. But it will at least have passed through the poor fellow’s hands."

"Yesterday is done. Tomorrow never comes. Today is here. If you don't know what to do, sit still and listen. You may hear something. Nobody knows." - Carl Sandburg

"The biggest mistake you can make in your life is to be always afraid of making a mistake."
                Dietrich Bonhoeffer                  

"Christianity stands or falls with its revolutionary protest against violence, arbitrariness and pride of power and with its plea for the weak. Christians are doing too little to make these points clear rather than too much. Christendom adjusts itself far too easily to the worship of power. Christians should give more offense, shock the world far more, than they are doing now. Christian should take a stronger stand in favor of the weak rather than considering first the possible right of the strong."                               -                   Dietrich Bonhoeffer

"If I sit next to a madman as he drives a car into a group of innocent bystanders, I can't, as a Christian, simply wait for the catastrophe, then comfort the wounded and bury the dead. I must try to wrestle the steering wheel out of the hands of the driver." - Dietrich Bonhoeffer

"Life will break you. Nobody can protect you from that, and living alone won't either, for solitude will also break you with its yearning. You have to love. You have to feel. It is the reason you are here on earth. You are here to risk your heart." 
             - Louise Erdrich

"The beginning of love is to let those we love be perfectly themselves, and not to twist them to fit our own image. Otherwise, we love only the reflection of ourselves we find in them." 
                                  - Thomas Merton

"You have your identity when you find out, not what you can keep your mind ON, but what you can't keep your mind OFF." 
                             - A. R. Ammons

Go not to the temple - Tagore

"Go not to the temple to put flowers upon the feet of God, first fill your own house with the fragrance of love. Go not to the temple to light candles before the altar of God, first remove the darkness of sin from your heart. Go not to the temple to bow down your head in prayer, first learn to bow in humility before your fellow men. Go not to the temple to pray on bended knees, first bend down to lift someone who is downtrodden. Go not to the temple to ask for forgiveness for your sins, first forgive from your heart those who have sinned against you."

 - Rabindranath Tagore

Light ?

Just a bit of humanity

a brief bit of connected understanding

one flash of no hate

no giving in to fear just yet

A flash of light in the darkness

one momentous moment

without this light

all life is hell

QUESTION:

From whence does this light come?

What Work Should Be

"Work is not primarily a thing one does to live but the thing one lives to do. It is, or it should be, the full expression of the worker's faculties, the thing in which he finds spiritual, mental and bodily satisfaction, and the medium in which he offers himself to God."
                        - Dorothy L. Sayers

From poet Dylan Thomas

All the sun long it was running, it was lovely, the hay
Fields high as the house, the tunes from the chimneys, it was air
And playing, lovely and watery
And fire green as grass. And nightly under the simple stars
As I rode to sleep the owls were bearing the farm away,
All the moon long I heard, blessed among stables, the nightjars
Flying with the ricks, and the horses
Flashing into the dark.

–Dylan Thomas (1914–53)

Advice on Arguing

Never argue with stupid people, they will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience. - Mark Twain

from Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander

"You do not need to know precisely what is happening, or exactly where it is all going. What you need is to recognize the possibilities and challenges offered by the present moment, and to embrace them with courage, faith, and hope." - Thomas Merton

 

Lesson from a young Christian

It is a beautiful thing when folks in poverty are no longer just a missions project but become genuine friends and family with whom we laugh, cry, dream, and struggle. One of the verses I have grown to love is the one where Jesus is preparing to leave the disciples and says, "I no longer call you servants... Instead, I have called you friends" (John 15:15). Servanthood is a fine place to begin, but gradually we move toward mutual love, genuine relationships. Someday, perhaps we can even say those words that Ruth said to Naomi after years of partnership: "Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there I will be buried" (Ruth 1:16-17).” 
― Shane Claiborne

from Father Richard Rohr

Good leaders must have a certain capacity for thinking beyond polarities and for tapping into full, embodied knowing (prayer). They have a tolerance for ambiguity (faith), an ability to hold creative tensions (hope), and an ability to care (love) beyond their own personal advantage.