LABYRINTH

To every labyrinth there is a center, 

a destination, a terminal point.

But the whole of it, that is, 

every step of its way is sacred. 

The very moment we place our foot 

upon its threshold the holy begins. 

 

When we reach its core

we don’t simply retrace our steps.

No, as with our memories, 

we walk back upon the same path,  

but from the opposite direction, 

seeing the same scenes and scenarios 

but from a differing perspective. 

 

We may trace invisible footprints 

laid and left by the masses

who traveled here before us 

but still, these are our feet, not theirs.

This is our gait, our stride, our pace.

We can only walk our own labyrinth.

 

So it is with this labyrinth we call life;

Only we can place our own design upon it. 

And though up close, 

each one’s print is delightfully different,

from a distance we can see

we are all surprisingly similar.

 

Yes, our lives are the real labyrinths, 

labyrinths of our own God-like creation

with each step being sacred. The real holy.

All the other ones are but metaphors

lovingly, gently, intimately designed 

to point us wholly to our own,

and to the moment when we place our feet 

upon it at the threshold of each new day 

and the holy begins again. 

 

TODAY.

LET’S GIVE THE WORLD & OURSELVES A GIFT.

LET’S TAKE TIME TO THINK ABOUT OUR LABYRINTH.

 

 

BOTH WAYS

Nearly every morning I see them out my window, this elderly couple, neighbors. Back and forth they go, across the parking lot, past the house, round the block, each of them walking dog after dog after dog from the nearby shelter. One limps, the other lists, but it doesn’t deter them. Raincoats in the rain, sunbrellas in the sun, so great is their compassion for their furry furrowed friends, treating each as if royalty. I gaze out at them and what do I see? I see love. Humble love. It travels both ways on these leashes.

ONE THOUGHT AWAY

We’re never more than one thought away from a different world.

I’ve been sending my writings your way twice a week for just over two years now. And, while you never know what I’m going to say you always know what it’ll be about: THINKING. Yes, I am a quintessential “dog with a bone” on this subject. 

And unapologetically so.

Why? Because in my day-to-day experience, I am being constantly bombarded with voices telling me WHAT to think. So are you. People near (family, friends, loved ones) and far (coworkers, acquaintances, complete strangers) are constantly attempting--and frequently succeeding--in influencing what we think. BUT FAR FEWER VOICES ARE ENCOURAGING US TO CONSIDER “HOW” WE THINK…that is, how we come to hold a particular opinion, belief or position about someone or something. AND EVEN FEWER ARE HELPING US GET BETTER AT HOW WE THINK…that is, at choosing better underlying premises which in turn lead to better decisions vis-a-vis the world.  That's my bone.

But there’s good news here. No. GREAT news here! 

There is nothing in the world that is more accessible to us than how we think…and, logistically speaking, there is nothing we can change as instantaneously or easily as our thinking. Finally, there is nothing in the world that will have as positive and profound an effect on it as improving how we think…AND NOTHING THE WORLD NEEDS MORE.

So I’m just going to keep on digging for that same tasty old bone.

Fortunately, there are plenty here for everyone!

TODAY.

LET’S GIVE THE WORLD & OURSELVES A GIFT.

LET’S THINK ABOUT HOW WE CAN THINK BETTER.

MIND OVER CHATTER

My mind just loves to talk to me.

Yammers away all hours of the day. And night. 

In fact, especially at night.

Loves waking me up…keeping me up. 

Pillow talk. (It’s words. Not mine.)

“Wait!” It scolds, “No la la land for you just yet!”

(Apparently it equates rest with being available.)

“Hello!” I snap back. “What about my rem stage!”

One of the sharpest arrows in its quiver 

is its ability to rationalize anything I say or do.

Nice for me. Maybe not for you. 

Another sharpie? Justifying. Again, you name it,

Even my ‘me bad’ stuff. (Especially my ‘me bad’)

And its capacity for denial? Well, unbelievable.

But there’s good stuff, too. Dreams. Memories. Joys.

Alas, pundit to pontiff, it has an axiom for everything,

everything from gossip to graduation-grade speeches.

Seems its goal is to give me whatever I ask for,

Oh, sometimes it’s all sweetness and light.

But at others, it can be downright nasty.

One moment it’s a lick-my-face puppy,

the next it’s a spitting mad Silverback gorilla.

So, much as I’d like to, I can’t just ignore it,

but neither can I affirm everything it sprouts off.

No, I have to monitor it. Mentor it. Mold it.

One good thing though, I’ve got a trump card.

Maybe I can’t control when or even why it thinks,

but I have total sayso on what--and how--it thinks.

At least, that much I’m in charge of.

Mind over chatter.

 

THE TECHNOLOGY OF THOUGHT

Sadhguru (sod-guru) is one of the wisest teachers I know. And yes, he’s a real live guru from India. He even looks and sounds the part. Relatively few of us westerners are familiar with his tradition because historically Christianity has kept its theological distance from such “non-Christian” eastern influences.

It’s time for that to change.

Sadhguru teaches classical hatha yoga. It focuses on what I would call “practical spirituality” and presents an extremely logical approach to life and God--as did Jesus. No threat. Rather, it invites us to think about how we think via refreshing-yet-ancient wisdom. 

Here’s an example:

The kind of yoga he teaches is not a religion, not a philosophy, not an ideology. It’s not even what most people think of as spirituality. Instead, he calls it a “technology of thought”--something that doesn’t require a system of beliefs, years of practice, the mastering of some expertise or the amassing of educational degrees. But, like any technology, simply includes certain things that anyone can do--like prayer or meditation--so it’s available to everyone. Right now.

Like all good spiritual teachers, Sadhguru invites us to grow and mature, to experience and express genuine love and to know real inner peace. His approach is intriguing, enlightening and freeing. Check him out on YouTube or at his website (isha.sadhguru.org).  

In the meantime, let’s consider: How practical is our spirituality? After all, isn’t that the purpose of all religion?

TODAY.

LET’S GIVE THE WORLD & OURSELVES A GIFT.

LET’S THINK ABOUT THE SPIRITUALITY OF OUR RELIGION. 

WRITING 101

The page is blank. 

Right to the edges. 

Staring back at you.

Eyes wide open. 

No margins. No rules.

Anything goes!

Then something comes, 

some meek little thought enters stage left. 

Tiptoes in. Outside the spotlight’s full moon.

It scoots into a rare vacant parking space 

in your brain. 

At the moment it appears trivial. Trifling. 

But wait. Don’t hit the delete button just yet. 

It may become the keystone. 

The cornerstone. A gemstone. 

May be your best move on the board. 

Then again, something huge, cometary, 

may come crashing into your consciousness. 

A simply fabulous something that, like a let-go balloon,

is just as likely to fizzle into a fallow nothing. 

You just can’t tell yet. Too early in the game. 

At first, you sweat to get something, 

anything, down on paper. Publish or perish!

But then you get to play connect--the--dots.

You watch which way it flows. Where it wobbles.

Never mind the ubiquitous honk of interruptions. 

You just keep building…building…building.  

A rhyme here. A reason there. 

Before you know it, you’ve moved to final edit.

You’re crossing your T’s. Dotting your I’s. 

The once-blank page is full. Overflowing!

Jewels and gibberish. Meaning and mumbo. 

But it’s yours. And it’s finished!

Sounds like writing a poem, I know. 

But really, it’s about writing your day.

THE SWORD AT OUR SIDE

To manage our stress requires that we focus on our stressors, right? Now that’s a dead giveaway that something's out of whack.

Why? 

For one thing ,the more mental space we give our worries, the more their negative nature conjures up anxiety in our thoughts and feelings. They are hungry little (and not so little) monsters that gobble up far more than their fair share of our precious life-loving energy.

Besides, what we focus on is what we become--AND, IN FACT, IS WHAT WE ARE IN THAT MOMENT! 

Many counsel us to identify our stressors, separate them from each other like children who egg each other on, and then go after them one on one. This is good--when we’re good and ready. But one thing comes first: joy management.

Joy management? Really? Sounds crazy! 

Well, maybe. (If the only time we focus on our joy is when we’re actually feeling it--for whatever random reason--as opposed to practicing being joyful because that’s the way we want to be.) 

But maybe not.  

Maybe “managing” our joy is the best way to manage our stress. First, let’s identify some of the things for which we feel joy at this very moment in our lives. Second, let’s separate these sources from each other so we can get in touch with at least some of the infinite number or reasons we have to be joyful. Third, let’s hold these joys up in front of us as we respond (not react) to our stress. Our joys are the perspective granting sword at our side--an infinite source of emotional strength and mental fortitude--we may not otherwise realize we have.

Maybe this is one reason Jesus was so big on joy, e.g. “I have told you these things so that my joy may be in you and your joy may be full.” (John 15:11)

TODAY.

LET’S GIVE THE WORLD & OURSELVES A GIFT.

LET’S MANAGE OUR JOY FIRST…THEN OUR STRESS.

YET

There is a place, a holy place, 

a holy land that lies somewhere 

in between the land where everything matters, 

and the one where no one cares.

Like all that is holy, this place is life giving, 

it is the wellspring of wellbeing. 

It is not the land of what could have been,

nor land of what could be, 

nor the land of should have been, 

nor the land of should be. 

Those are all somewhere else, 

and they are hot, not holy.

But this is the cooling place of the Holy Spirit,

where our prayers are heard and healed,

and beyond, in the quiet pool of sweet silence.

No one can stay here forever,

but that doesn’t mean we can’t all visit.

In fact, quite the opposite, its breezes beckon.

How do we get here? We sigh, sigh deeply,

deeply enough to let our sadness sigh out of us,

deeply enough to sigh goodbye, at least for a moment,

to the dry winds of our fears, our anxieties, our angst et al.,

so we can experience the clarifying and catalytic world of Be-ing. 

Some think this is la la land, a mirage, a figment, a fantasy,

which simply means they’ve not been there. Here.

Yet. 

CATHCING FIRE

Last night we attended a Billy Strings concert at the “Amp” here in St. Augustine. (Billy just won a Grammy for Best Bluegrass Album in 2021.) Of course, the music was fantastic, the band members all superb, the light show stunning, the decibel level, well…livable…and the outdoor venue on a balmy night idyllic.

And it all happened for one reason: Billy Strings. 

Throughout the 3+ hour sold out concert I had the surreal experience that I was “in the presence of the extraordinary.” Billy’s technical wizardry coupled with his mesmerizing musicianship were wed so intimately together that I didn’t just see a man up on that stage.

I saw a man on fire. 

I saw the entire universe in microcosm. I was watching the big bang happen all over again. It was like Billy was there but he wasn’t. His fingers were so one with his guitar and his mind with his music that the man, while flesh and blood, was completely transparent. What the throbbing crowd experienced and undulated to was something so gloriously real yet so otherworldly, so raw yet so refined that it simply defied definition.

I wondered while he was playing, “What’s he thinking right now?” (No surprise there!) Well, I don’t think he was actually thinking anything. He was somewhere else. He wasn’t feeling either. Beyond that, too. 

So where was he? 

He’d merged with the essence of his being. The two had become one--one at such an intimately empowering level that what the audience saw and heard was someone whose whole being was ablaze--someone so on fire that none of us could adequately describe what we were experiencing. And, at least for the moment, none of us needed to. None of us wanted to. No, we wanted it to last forever. Because we’d caught fire, too. 

That’s the intimate and infinite power of becoming one with our own unique being. 

(BTW: Wasn't that the essence of Jesus's message?)

TODAY.

LET’S GIVE THE WORLD & OURSELVES A GIFT.

LET’S THINK ABOUT BEING ONE WITH THE INTIMATE & INFINITE FIRE WITHIN.