Find Religion

The first place to start is to create a sacred space. Find a place in your yard that you can devote making a Medicine Wheel upon the ground. It can be under a tree, in a field or even among a garden or lawn. The first stones you will want to start out with are the sacred 4 directions, North, South, East & West. Using a compass find due North and work from there placing South next, then West then East. Getting to know the different elements of each direction helps give balance & focus for each season. Honoring the cycles of the earth, life and the seasons is a way for us to find continuity and touchstones of connectedness and familiarity that bring comfort and delight.

Use this space to come to to pour out your heart, ask for guidance, give thanks for your many blessings and to open, ask & listen. Making an external symbol of inner sacred workings is a powerful way to raise consciousness and connect with the earth around you.

One of the great ways to connect with nature is to watch & hear the wind. We live in a valley and everyday like clockwork around 3 p.m. the wind starts up. Not only can I stand outside and hear the wind coming before it gets here but sometimes the wind is so high that it’s only in the treetops and not touching the ground. I have several wind chimes hanging on the porch that signal the wind or a sudden, unexpected storm.

Spiritually or energetically, I love to send heartfelt wishes to my loved ones far away. And I love to send random love & compassion on the wind to find an aching heart of someone in need. Wishing on the wind is a lot like praying but instead of sending it up you send it forward to be caught by an open soul, like an unexpected smile, heart to heart. Try to hear if the wind has a song,  memory,  wish or dream upon it for you. Don’t feel silly doing this. If you do feel silly, so what? Do it anyways! We have more to learn from the foolish than the wise! Emotions are energy in motion and even though they are intangibles, they are very real energies. Use them kindly, use them often and use them compassionately. Like a boomerang, they will find their way back to you.

All the seasons have important lessons to teach us. One of the main lessons in Autumn is that our abundance is here! It’s a time to harvest and gather. Time to bundle up, hunker down and keep warm. It’s a time to share. It’s a time to let go of what isn’t useful anymore. Like the trees do with their leaves; let all the old, withering stuff fall to our feet to fertilize, mulch and protect us thru the winter’s bitter cold & wind. Take stock of the harvest this season. Do you have enough to share or is it going to be bare bones? Native American Indians use to gauge the intensity of the winter by the size of the acorns on the oak trees. It’s time to shelter those less fortunate and more fragile then ourselves. We fortify the chicken coop with straw for warmth & comfort. We put draft stops at the base of the door to keep the chilly fingers of jack frost from nipping our nose & toes. We make hearty pots of thick soups full of nature’s bounty to sustain us. We burn wood for warmth. The glow mesmerizes and comforts us.

Fall is a time to let go of what isn’t working for us anymore. Whether it’s a job, a relationship,  or an attitude or outlook we no longer have a use for, or a unwelcome memory. Spread your limbs and let that which no longer actively serves you to fall away and serve you as fertilizer & mulch for what the new seasons brings. It’s not a time of loss. It’s a time of separating out that which works and that which no longer works for us anymore. Let the inner warmth and abundance of the season nourish & sustain us, heart, mind, body & soul.

Autumn is not the time to hang on to baggage. Though it is a time to go thru and find the slippers, sweaters, wool socks & jackets that we put away so many months ago. It’s the time to protect and hold, to keep safe that which will keep us best thru the winter so we can be again renewed in the spring.

Wage peace with your breath.

Breathe in firemen and rubble,
breathe out whole buildings and flocks of red wing blackbirds.

Breathe in terrorists
and breathe out sleeping children and freshly mown fields.

Breathe in confusion and breathe out maple trees.

Breathe in the fallen and breathe out lifelong friendships intact.

Wage peace with your listening: hearing sirens, pray loud.

Remember your tools: flower seeds, clothes pins, clean rivers.

Make soup.

Play music, memorize the words for thank you in three languages.

Learn to knit, and make a hat.

Think of chaos as dancing raspberries,
imagine grief
as the outbreath of beauty
or the gesture of fish.

Swim for the other side.

Wage peace.

Never has the world seemed so fresh and precious:

Have a cup of tea and rejoice.

Act as if armistice has already arrived.
Celebrate today.

wage peace - judyth hill - september 12, 2001

What this poignant poem tells us is that peace begins with us. When we are steady in our lives, keeping at task. When we take time to enjoy the beauty is when we are most alive.

Breath in the peace that you can create in your life. Close the doors to the confusion, let the mind shuffle it all on it’s own to land where it may, far away from distracting you from the delights of your day. Have every step you take be a heartbeat for peace. Let every breathe you breath be the wind that brings us all closer to this vital goal.

When my son a baby, I remember being up with him nights when he wasn’t feeling well. I would rock him in the old rocker, long into the morning hours. I imagined the rocking of all the chairs the mamas were in, soothing their children, like some kind of magical weaving machine. As we all rocked, we created peace and comfort, like invisible threads knitting & weaving blankets of invisible comfort, uniting us all together, family human.

Doing mindful things like this puts us in a reflective and conscientious mode. We may be plodding along in our lives but we are leaving precious, silken threads of hope and sanctuary to gather around us.

Blessed are the rockers & peacemakers!

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field.

I’ll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass, the world is too full to talk about.
Ideas, language- even the phrase “each other” -do not make any sense.

This Rumi poem/prayer of truth is the way we are to approach sacred circle. Empty out so the space can be filled with Her grace. Divine femininity is characteristic by the chalice, the bowl; such as the womb. It is hidden, open & receiving of the abundance that is our birthright. She gathers her knowledge and wisdom not thru words but thru sacred imagery and symbol. This is why creativity is so essential to nurture the spirit. Our creative endeavors are Divinity Herself being made real for all to see. This is why beauty is so important not only to the senses but the sensibilities. We were created for ecstasy and pleasure. Art is the God/dess Herself manifest. I can’t imagine much more exciting than that right now. Go create! Let’s see what She wants to say thru You! This is a challenge. Read the Rumi Poem & begin. Be Inspired!

Email me pictures of your creations so I can show them in a future post. Thanks!

Elizabethtown, Pa. - ONE year ago today, a shooter entered a one-room Amish school in Nickel Mines, Pa., dismissed all but 10 girls, and fired at them execution-style, killing five before shooting himself,

Within hours, the Amish community forgave the killer and his family. News of the instant forgiveness stunned the outside world – almost as much as the incident itself did.

READ MORE.

The snippet above is from a column written by Dr. Kraybill of Elizabethtown College, my alma mater. Today marks the one year anniversary of the Nickel Mines shooting, and as someone who was right down the road when this happened, I can say that it was horrifying to believe that someone could do something to these people.

Regardless of your religious beliefs, the Amish will help you. They are some of the kindest people in the whole world, perhaps second only to the Buddhist monks still living in monasteries in Asia. There have been all kinds of criticisms of the Amish over the years - their refusal to “join the 21st century”, their controversial shunning practices, their seclusion…but at the end of the day, if you are thirsty, they will give you something to drink and if you are hungry, they will give you something to eat. I’ve known a number of Amish people, and there’s not a single one I’ve met that wouldn’t rather give you the coat of his/her back and freeze to death than see you suffer in the cold. This religion is one of peace.

We remember, Nickel Mines families. Even if you can’t relate religiously, you perhaps have children or grandchildren of your own (or younger relatives). Can you imagine getting that news that your child was executed while at school? Schools are supposed to be a safe place for children.

This event was proof that forgiveness is a great healer. A while back, I challenged you to forgive someone who has wronged you. Today, I ask: Where are you with that goal. Have you forgiven that person, or are you working on it? We can’t always forgive as quickly as we’d like, but we can try.

I’m Christian, and so every weekend I’d like to given anyone who is willing to take it a “homework” assignment. They’ll be Christian in nature sometimes, but you can use these as a starting point to reflect you own religious beliefs. Stop back every Friday for your homework!

This weekend’s homework: Forgive someone.

Bible verse: “And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, eve as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you.” - Ephesians 4:32

Devotional: Forgiveness can be extremely power. So can holding on to a grudge. When someone wrongs you, the Bible says to forgive them, and I don’t think they mean “when you’re ready.” You’re supposed to turn the other cheek right now. It’s your Christian duty.

As a real person, we all know that’s not possible. As much as we want to do the “right” thing, we also want to reach out and slap the other person right back.

Today I’m asking you to forgive someone from your past. As you look back over your life, many people have hurt you in many ways. Holding onto that hurt will only continue to damage you, mentally, emotionally, and physically.

I’m not asking you to forgive every person out there who has “slapped” you. Even if you say that you forgive them, that won’t be the truth. Instead, look to your past and choose someone you can forgive…and do it. For real. Say it out loud, right it down, or pray about it.

Forgiving just one person, sincerely, can take off a lot of weight. Tomorrow, start on the rest of them. No one said it would be easy, but it will make you a happier and less stressed person if you practice forgiveness more often.

forgiveness, God, homework, weekend, prayer, forgive, Jesus, Bible

Today, all eyes are on the campus of Virginia Tech where, I’m sure you’ve heard by now, over 30 people were gunned down this morning when a shooter attacked the campus. As of yet, the gunman has not been identified, nor has it been released whether he was a member of the student body. One thing is certain: this is the deadliest shooting in the history of the United States. As I’m writing right now, 33 are confirmed dead, including the shooter. It has not been released if police killed the shooter or if it was suicide.

EDIT, 4/17:Since writing this yesterday, the gunman has been identified as Cho Seung-Hui, a senior VA Tech English student, and it has also been determined that he shot himself. The number dead stands at 33, with the students still in the hospital as stable.

At times like these, most people, myself include are just dumbfounded. I look to the sky. Why, God? Why? Death is never an easy part of life, but on top of death, shear tragedy.

And yet, it is difficult to not want to bring the shooter back to life, just to shoot him again. Most people will agree with me when I think, I hope he suffered. That, dear readers, scares me. My own feelings about this situation make me question my very ability to write a daily blog about religion. For in the Bible, it says,

“If we say we have no sin, we are only fooling ourselves and refusing to accept the truth. But if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us and to cleanse us from every wrong.”
1 John 1:8-9

To condemn the shooter, as heinous as the crime may be, is to put ourselves above as somehow “better.” It is to deny the sins within ourselves. I’m not justifying what the shooter did. This was a horrible, horrible thing, and he is a cold-blooded murderer. However, right now, I’m pledging to open my heart to forgiveness.

Remember, forgiveness is not the same as saying “it’s ok.” It’s NOT ok. It will never BE ok. Forgiveness is simple saying “I acknowledge what you did, but it is not in my place to judge you.” God will judge this event; I feel confident in that. The deaths of the innocent will not go forgotten, here or in an eternal life. However, it is important that we don’t let the grief and hate consume us. It is important to realize that the loss of ALL the lives today was a complete tragedy, but we are still living, and we can work towards creating something positive out of this.

My first reaction is to tell you to donate to any one of the numerous funds that I’m sure has been set up/is being set up in the names of the victims. Give what you can in their honor to make Virginia Tech safer and to help close friends and family members with funeral expenses and with getting the help they will surely need with the grieving process. On second thought, I’d like to recommend something else as well–donate or volunteer within your own community. What happened today at Virginia Tech could happen at your alma mater or at the college where your child attends or even at your local high school. Violence is a problem that is not going away. By giving what you can when you can, you will help to make our communities a safer place.

God bless all of the deceased, God bless all those left behind.

forgiveness, God, heaven, death, Virginia Tech, school shootings, VA Tech, Virginia Tech shooting, VA Tech shooting, education, violence

I was talking to a group of women in my community and the topic was brought up about how, “God never gives you more than you can handle.” I got to thinking what on earth does that mean? I don’t believe that for one bit! It struck me as very naive` and a great way to keep yourself from active action to change or serve those in need in our community. What about the people who find themselves on the other end of a gun in their own hands-is that considered more than one can handle? What about children who are so tormented in public school that they snap and go off and shoot & kill people. Is that being given more than can be handled? What about the people who can’t fit in with the guidelines of societal standards and find themselves in jail , insane, profiting from illicit means or worse? It is this Pollyannaic thinking that ‘oh, everything happens for a reason and hopefully we learn from our mistakes’, that discounts the human frailty. What about the person who gets their life snuffed out by a reckless drunk driver? We already know that one puts life at risk when drinking & driving. Why does it take that person killing someone to make them stop doing destructive behaviors and have the reverence for life that was intended before they take an innocent life?

Life is. Life is impersonal. Life is chaos. We all know about being at the right place at the right time (or the wrong!). It is that which makes us essentially human that makes us contrive something from nothing (or everything) or make sense from the chaos. That which we would like to think is divine intervention, fate or destiny is merely a sort of crippled coping mechanism to the forces that we have no control over. Taking the responsibility for our free will also has an accountability factor that is often overlooked. If everything happens for a reason then we can quell our impulse to help hungry people in our community because well, by golly, God won’t give them anymore than they can handle, right? If everything happens for a reason we can rationalize away the needs, the cries, the sorrow and the lack all around us. I think the true context of “God never gives you more than you can handle,’ is that we are to find our niche` in society, our place to serve, in whatever way is our unique gift, and give it all we got with all the heart and love and sweat and determination you would give anything you want to thrive. I’m reminded of the woman who wanted to help the hungry children in her community. Everyday children came to her door begging for food because they were so impoverished they went hungry. She wasn’t a woman of means by any means, but she could afford a couple extra loaves bread a week and some jelly & peanut butter. She began making peanut butter & jelly sandwiches for the kids. Soon the word spread that this woman was giving out PB & J sandwiches and dozens of kids were coming to her door, the numbers growing each day. She made more and more sandwiches and fed the kids that were hungry in her community. I can tell you, those kids were changed by her thoughtfulness, kindness and compassion. It’s the little things like that, that transforms neighborhoods into communities. A gift so simple, so meaningful and so basic. She is an inspiration to me.

Be inspired, take something on. Get out of your comfort zone. Help someone in need. Let your freewill be someone else’s lifeline. You never know when your unique kindness will help someone bend a little further and keep from breaking. We can do no great things. Only little things with great love.

When a man and a woman become one,
that “one” is You.
And when that one is obliterated, there You are.

Where is this “we” and this “I”?
By the side of the Beloved.
You made this “we” and this “I”
in order that you might play
this game of courtship with Yourself,
that all “you’s” and “I’s” might become one soul
and finally drown in the Beloved…

Rumi | Jalaluddin Rumi, Mathnawi

This sort of blissful oneness that Rumi writes of is reminiscent of the sacred sex we see in some religions. Japanese & East Indian cultures acknowledge sexual power as sacred. It is called Kundalini in India and is part of the life force energy that it represented as a snake that lay coiled at the base of the spine. Like a snake the sexual energy uncoils with arousal & climbs up thru all the chakras until oneness with creator & universe is attained. There is also belief that as spirit we are no longer male and female separate but that we are whole within our selves as a balance of each. Sexual bliss is one way on earth that we can achieve the feeling of not being separate from each other, not only in body but in spirit. This is why some people feel like there is a soulmate out there for them. Because they are remembering being whole in spirit and know that finding someone to love and love them back is part of a satisfying life, in fact as close to nirvana as we can get without mind altering drugs or being skilled as a yogi or monk.
As an armchair philosopher, I think it holds some truth. Look at the polarities we have on earth; we have day & night, good & bad, happy & sad, yin & yang, sweet & sour, north & south. All the balance of heaven is divided when manifest. It’s as if we are light shot thru a prism that is formed in each unique expression but all from one direct source.

Goddess religion is not based on belief, or based on history, in archeology, in any Great Goddess past or present. Our spirituality is based on experience, on a direct relationship with the cycles of birth, growth, death and regeneration in nature and in human lives. We see the complex interwoven web of life as sacred, which is to say, real and important, worth protecting, worth taking a stand for. At a time when every major ecosystem on the planet is under assault, calling nature sacred is a radical act because it threatens the overriding value of profit that allows us to despoil the basic life support systems of the earth. And at a time when women still live with the daily threat of violence and the realities of inequality and abuse, it is an equally radical act to envision deity as female and assert the sacred nature of female (and male) sexuality and bodies.

These wise words above are from Starhawk, one of the essential leaders of the Goddess movement.

Our experience is a reclaiming of the power of the feminine forces. All humankind comes from woman. It’s not that far of a stretch of the imagination to think our Creator is actually a Creatress. When I first realized I was seeing God’s face, I didn’t recognize Him because it was Her. Now that I have Her in my gaze, I realize I am looking at Me. She is no further than my own heart. This gives me great comfort. Find her in your heart of hearts. Just ask and then listen. Sometimes all we need is the right question. Sometimes we need to find the right key to unlock ourselves. What opens your heart of hearts? And what lay within the depths? These are important question we all can be asking ourselves as we come closer to self-realization, which can be your own personal rapture!

I found an interesting charity idea on my own campus–it’s not one that I’ll include in my “Top 10″ list, since it’s not a national organization, but one I think a lot of churches have, so check out your neighborhood.

We have an angel tree, with small paper ornaments. Each ornament has the name, age, and Christmas wish for a child who’s father or mother is in jail. The gift comes to them “from dad and a secret santa”.

I think it’s a really nice idea because it helps us show compassion to children who really didn’t do anything wrong and it helps us learn forgiveness by helping the inmates. In short, it helps God live in your heart.

And if you don’t believe in God? Well, it’s still a very nice deed.

charity, churches, angel, Christmas, jail, gift, santa, children, forgiveness, God

This whole OJ thing is a little out of hand. Basically, for those of you who do not know, he’s maintaining his innocence but describing how he would have done it if he had actually done it.

Lesson this teaches us? Own up to your sins[tag]. Whether it be to mankind or to [tag]God, is is a much better policy to always accept the blame for what you’ve done wrong. If you’re guilty, take the punishment. You’re a better person for it. Ask for forgiveness and move on with life…otherwise, you just look like OJ–silly.

OJ, innocence, sins[tag]. Whether it be to mankind or to [tag]God, guilty, forgiveness

I’m a big fan of Top Chef, a cooking competition on Bravo. If you haven’t seen it, the premise is simple–contestants are given a “Quick Fire” challenge in which they have to prepare a little meal very quickly and according to certain rules and then they are given an elimination challenge in which they have a little more time to prepare a more elaborate meal according to another set of rules. The player who wins the QF challenge wins immunity, which is really important because the loser of the elimination challenge every week goes home.

The rules change from week to week to make things interesting. This week, for the elimination challenge they were put on teams and had to make a three course meal for kids that did not exceed 500 calories. Professional counted their calories on day one and signed off that they were under 500 calories. On day two, they had time to finsih preparing the meal and then to serve it.

One of the contestants changed her recipe from day one to day two. She thought this was allowed, since she was still within the 500 calorie range. However, the rules were that you had to stick to what you did on the first day while the calorie counters were there.

So she cheated–but she didn’t mean to cheat. She was not sent home, but the rules are going to get a lot more strict from now on so that this doesn’t happen again.

So why am I telling you all this on a religions website? Well, I think it can be applied to sinning very closely. We are all sinners (or so the Christian church tells us), and we are taught to ask for forgiveness continually for our sins. What about for the sins we didn’t mean to commit? Should those “count” and should we ask forgiveness, even though we didn’t even know we were breaking a rule?

The chef on the TV show teaches an important lesson–she admitted to her cheating (even though it was unintentional). Unintentional sins are still sins, and when we do something wrong and are shown our error, we should ask for forgiveness, and, more importantly, be more mindful next time…because God is gonna watch us closely.

Top Chef, cooking, Quick Fire, cheated, cheat, rules, sinning, Christian, forgiveness, breaking a rule, sins, God

You can forgive someone but also never want to have anything to do with them again.

Fact or Fiction?