"My True Nature" Practice

Read new two-page essay describing a practice that can bring the real self into focus rather immediately (demonstrating it with a nine-year-old boy who was having a "bad" day).

Click http://www.johnpcock.homestead.com/TrueNature.html. You may be surprised.

One, Holy, and Related

Thesis 60: All that is is holy and all that is is related for all being in our universe began as one being just before the fireball erupted. ~Matthew Fox, from his 95 theses

One, holy, and related –
originally, now, and forever –
from fireball to fireball.
Amen. (jpc)

It is so. So be it. Namaste.

image: the fireball in digital art www.inetdaemon.com/.../slides/03%20Fireball.html

Sunday Dialogue (L)

Journer: What do you think about the two-kingdom theory: the kingdom of God and the kingdom of this world?

Nez: A big lie!

Journer: What kind of reaction is that?

Nez: The absolute truth. There is only one kingdom and spirit’s at its heart.

______
image: “Autumn Blaze” by Sandy Huffaker personal.rockbridge.net/huffaker/fineart.html

Sing a Local Hero

Another unsung hero is being sung, one Weldon Phipps. More than six decades he’s been working downtown, Galax, Virginia (my hometown), and most of that time in his shoe repair shop. He’s another candidate for Studs Terkel’s Working, a book about people who love their work. “Slim,” as he’s affectionately known, has been working at least 80-hour weeks through the years – it’s not unusual to find him in the shop late at night and very early into the morning. His love of his work shows in its quality.

Weldon is among millions of local persons who glue our society together. Vibrant local community is impossible without them. ~jpc

Let us sing local heroes. Namaste.

image: painting of “Slim” by Rebecca Guynn (another local hero) for the celebration of his being in business currently longer than anyone downtown

"The Healing Sun"

Taking a daily 10- to 15-minute walk in natural sunlight not only clears our head, relieves stress and increases circulation, it could also cut the risk of . . . [internal] cancer. ~newstarget.com, via LLC

And a walking meditation would be in order . . . reflecting in gratitude for how our universe is sustaining us all our days? ~jpc

Something to do as it rolls “around heaven all day.” Namaste.

image: "Radiating Sun," age 7 www.prospectcenter.org/archives/2005/07/post.html

Responsible Decision-making

[U.S. Marine Lt. Col. Stuart Couch volunteered to be the prosecutor for Mohamedou Ould Slahi, who is suspected for helping to plan the flight of United 175 into the South Tower on 9/11, in which Col. Couch’s Marine buddy was the United co-pilot.] [N]ine months later . . . Col. Couch refused to proceed. . . . The reason: He concluded that Mr. Slahi’s incriminating statements . . . had been taken through torture. . . . For Col. Couch, it . . . represented a wrenching personal challenge. Laid out starkly before him was a collision between the government’s objectives and his moral compass. . . . [About that time he attended a baptism with] the priest asking if congregants will “respect the dignity of every human being.” . . . “When I heard that, I knew I gotta get off the fence,” Col. Couch says. ~Jess Bravin, “The Conscience of the Colonel,” wsj.com, 3/31/07, via Jerome Hunter http://www.pierretristam.com/Bobst/07/wf040107.htm

Couch, a Duke grad, says one of his heroes is Bonhoeffer. Maybe he read the “Freedom” essay by Bonhoeffer about the tension between one’s obligation and freedom, wherein one is called to make a “humanly impossible” responsible decision. ~jpc

We all have help making tough decisions? Namaste.

Almost to Phase VI

[Harry] Bernstein began writing The Invisible Wall when he was 93 as a way to deal with his memories and the loneliness [after losing his wife]. . . . “So you think of the past, particularly at nighttime when you’re lying in bed. And it all came back. So I began to write. . . .” ~Rebecca Santana, AP writer, news.yahoo.com, 3/31/07, via LLC

Harry understands a cardinal rule for living: no retirement. His second book is almost finished. Go, Harry. ~jpc

Life is for living . . . all the way. Namaste.

image: (AP) Harry Bernstein, 96, holds a Swedish version of his book

"Milken Goes Green"

http://thebrowser.blogs.fortune.com/2007/04/25/milken-goes-green/?source=yahoo_quote

The Milken Institute’s annual masters-of-the-universe confab is a site to behold — 3,000-plus attendees descend upon the corner of Wilshire and Santa Monica Boulevards. . . . [O]ne expat in from Paris told me, “The way [Milken Institute] is addressing this problem is making it OK again to be an American abroad. For a long time, all I did was apologize, but now there’s something to be proud of. It’s something to be optimistic about.”

So We Can Do the Other Great Causes

We’ve got to slow global warming. One reason is so we can go on making the world a better place. ~Bill McKibben, “The Crunch: Act Now to Preserve a Future Full of Human Possibility,” www.orionmagazine.org, Mar-Apr, 2007

This reminds me of the conversation with Thomas Berry that changed my thinking: “You can go on doing your other great causes, but if the earth becomes uninhabitable for humans, then what?” ~jpc

So that the earth continues to stage human possibility. Namaste.

image वww.unicef.org/girlseducation/23934_20739.html

Sharing Things that Matter

[W]e all have so much to teach each other. Buddhists can teach us about the delight of contemplation and “the infinite within.” From Muslims we can learn about the nature of surrender; from Jews, the power of the prophetic conscience; from Hindus, the “realms of gold” hidden in the depths of our hearts; from Confucians the empathy necessary to sustain the fragile web of civilization. . . . [A]ll the great religious grapple with things that matter. . . . ~Bill Moyers, “A Time for Anger, a Call to Action,” Occidental College, 2/7/07, commondreams.org, 3/22/07, via Richard Kroeger

One spirit tradition. Namaste.

image stphransus.blogspot.com/2005_10_01_archive.html

Prayer and Spiritual Reality

Save we understand corporately that prayer is a spiritual task, and that the doing of it is to bring about a spiritual reality, then we’re going to do far more harm than good, and should never set forth. ~Joseph Mathews, “Prayer,” Bending History, p. 138

What spiritual reality are we praying into being these days? Off the top of my head: peace, care for the total earth community, and a deep sense of meaning for the human community. ~jpc

Praying hands do as praying hands pray. Namaste.

image paxfellaship.blogspot.com/2006_03_01_archive.html

"The Soul of a New Laptop"

"The Soul Of a New Laptop: can a network build a potentially huge new product?" By Jonathan Fahey http://www.forbes.com/free_forbes/2007/0507/100.html?partner=yahoomag

What if global wiki co-creation were applied to the auto engine, heating/cooling, Middle East peace, hand-gun control, AIDS, immigration/global workforce -- you name it. Another noosphere manifestation, Teilhard. ~jpc

Sunday Dialogue (XLIX)

Journer: What would you name the 20th century?

Nez: The century of The Great Wars.

Journer: What would you name the 21st century?

Nez: One* of my students called it the century of The Great Work.

______
* Thomas Berry, author of The Great Work: Our Way into the Future

image: "Life Wave" by Lisa Lipsett tlc.oise.utoronto.ca/conf2004/call.html

We're Now In It

[S]elf-realization is the knowing in all parts of body, mind, and soul that you are now in possession of the kingdom of God; that you do not have to pray that it come to you. ~The Essence of Self-Realization: The Wisdom of Paramhansa Yogananda (Wikipedia)

This is all we need to experience and know, finally. ~jpc

Celebrate the kingdom of spirit always at hand. Namaste.

image: Corey Barksdale’s “Atlanta Reflections” dawn.iqonline.net/

Limbo in Question

Pope Benedict XVI has reversed centuries of traditional Roman Catholic teaching on limbo, approving a Vatican report released Friday that says there were "serious" grounds to hope that children who die without being baptized can go to heaven. ~Associated Press

There are serious grounds to hope for the church. ~jpc

A Clear Picture Emerges

According to the U.S. Department of Energy . . . world oil consumption rose consistently from 77 million barrels a day in 2001 to above 85 million so far this year. A clear picture emerges: demand now exceeds world supply. ~James Kunstler, “Making Other Arrangements,” Jan-Feb 2007, www.orionmagazine.org/pages/om/07-1om/Kunstler.html#, via LLC

At all human levels – global, continental, national, regional, and local – honest information, focus, and individual plus corporate will are called for. ~jpc

These are the times, we are the people. Namaste.

image www.peak-oil-crisis.com/

"We Are Virginia Tech"

Nikki Giovanni, professor and poet, speaks at Convocation, April 17, 2007 (via Jerry Cook):

We are Virginia Tech.

We are sad today, and we will be sad for quite a while. We are not moving on, we are embracing our mourning.

We are Virginia Tech.

We are strong enough to stand tall tearlessly, we are brave enough to bend to cry, and we are sad enough to know that we must laugh again.

We are Virginia Tech.

We do not understand this tragedy. We know we did nothing to deserve it, but neither does a child in Africa dying of AIDS, neither do the invisible children walking the night away to avoid being captured by the rogue army, neither does the baby elephant watching his community being devastated for ivory, neither does the Mexican child looking for fresh water, neither does the Appalachian infant killed in the middle of the night in his crib in the home his father built with his own hands being run over by a boulder because the land was destabilized. No one deserves a tragedy.

We are Virginia Tech.

The Hokie Nation embraces our own and reaches out with open heart and hands to those who offer their hearts and minds. We are strong, and brave, and innocent, and unafraid. We are better than we think and not quite what we want to be. We are alive to the imaginations and the possibilities. We will continue to invent the future through our blood and tears and through all our sadness.

We are the Hokies.

We will prevail.

We will prevail.

We will prevail.

We are Virginia Tech.

Wrought wtih Travail

[I]n the middle of this time is the Spirit, as always, working through our confusion and conflict to bring a new thing into being. For this is the eternal work of the Spirit – to resurrect God’s people when their old ways are dying. ~Brian C. Taylor, “The Episcopal Church as Prophet to our Day,” 3/4/07 sermon, www.all-angels.com/sermons/2007/03/post_1.php, via Ida Forbis

Our old ways are forever dying and bringing us new life, that is quite often wrought with travail. At such times, the comfort of the holy spirit is seldom experienced as comfort. ~jpc

Bring it on anyway. Namaste.

image: boy weeps while holding a placard near Kirkuk, 3/4/07 Reuters/Slahaldeen Rasheed

spirit is spirit is spirit

The execution . . . of the simple formula that Jesus suggested requires the heavy application of an element of faith: faith that the Muslim’s spirit is the same spirit Christians know; faith that the Jew’s spirit is one and the same as the spirit Hindus know; faith that the spirit known in the secular world as “synergism” is the same spirit Buddhists know. ~David J. Pope, from a summary note to his forthcoming book

Spirit is spirit is spirit, pure and simple, inside and out, up one side and down the other. ~jpc

The one spirit unites creation. Namaste.

image www.ltsg.edu/programs/arts/thulin-spirit.htm

More Accessible

More liberal commentators, particularly women, say . . . usual interpretation [of the Koran, for instance] reflects . . . patriarchal practices . . . . [They say] the sacred texts have become encrusted with medieval traditions that need to be scraped off like a layer of barnacles. . . . [T]he Asma Society gathered Muslim women from around the world in New York last fall to explore the establishment of a female council to interpret Islamic law. ~Neil MacFarquhar, “New Translation Prompts Debate on Islamic Verse,” nytimes.com, 3/25/07

Post-modern women translating the Koran, such as Laleh Bakhtiar, whose translation comes out in April, can help make Islam more accessible to post-modern people, especially women. ~jpc

Reformation is eternal. Namaste.

image: an Iranian woman, 3/18/07, Reuters/Morteza Nikoubazl

Not a Pollyanna Idea

“Peace is strategy, just like war,” says [Judi] Poulson [women’s Peace Club in Fairmont, Minnesota]. “. . . This is not a Pollyanna idea. . . .” It turns out that many local-government officials across the nation agree. The city councils in nearly 20 communities – including Atlanta, Detroit, Chicago and Newark, N.J. – have passed resolutions supporting the Department of Peace [bill now under deliberation in Congress]. ~Daniel Zwerdling, “Peace Department Proposal Rattles Small Town,” www.npr.org, 3/24/07, via LLC

The bill’s time has come, even though Poulson’s community passed then rescinded the resolution of support because of a backlash – calling the resolution “communist” and giving the “United Nations power over the United States” and making us “a bunch of wusses” – and even though the USA has been attempting to legislate a Dept. of Peace (and Non-Violence) for 200 years. ~jpc

More local Peace and Non-Violence Clubs. Namaste.

image: art by Jan Jacobsen worldpeace.org.au/art.asp

Sunday Dialogue (XLVIII)

Journer: Please explain to me how consciousness works.

Nez: I say with one* of my students that few have “explained the origins of consciousness (or even how consciousness works).”

Journer: So we don’t know?

Nez: The right question, Journer, is How do you express, share, and live the consciousness you have?

______
* Sharon Begley, Newsweek online: Letters and Live Talk, 3/10/07

image http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consciousness

Radical Detachment

1) If it happens that the human race doesn’t make it, then the fact that we were here once will not be altered, that once upon a time we peopled this astonishing blue planet. . . . We emerged out of depthless mystery, and back into mystery we returned, and in the end the mystery is all there is. ~James Howard Kunstler, The Long Emergency, pp 20-21, via JPC II

2) Don’t worry about the world coming to an end today. It’s already tomorrow in Australia . ~Charles Schultz, via April Eckman

Two different ways of looking from outside ourselves at ourselves . . . maybe enabling detachment to make new decisions. ~jpc

In but not of; not of but in. Namaste.

image www.sxc.hu/photo/393419

Spirit Humor

Humor is an expression of spirit and fellowship in the midst of a descent into the underworld, it’s a means of commenting on reality and getting through uncertain times of risk and pain. (Frankl described humor at Auschwitz and Dachau as among “the soul’s weapons in the fight for self-preservation.”) ~Jean Shinoda Bolen, Close to the Bone, p. 37, via LLC via LiDona Wagner

I am always addressed by that smile on the Buddha’s face and wonder what s/he is smiling about in this grim moment? ~jpc

As Annie sings, “You’re never fully dressed without a smile.” Namaste.

image www.slrobertson.com/galleries/angkor-buddha.htm

"Spirit Is Waging Peace"

Spirit is waging peace
when foolish rush to war.
Spirit is waging peace
amid the costly roar.

Search your holy scriptures –
is spirit waging peace?
It verily declares,
“You’re born that war will cease.”

~jpc, 3/24/07

Jesus, spirit’s son: “My Father’s children are peacemakers.” Namaste.

image: Sawgrass Springs Middle School, Coral Springs, FL, 6/1/05 www.pinwheelsforpeace.com/gallery.htm

Respecting Her Seniority

I would feel more optimistic about a bright future for man [sic] if he spent less time proving that he can outwit Nature and more time tasting her sweetness and respecting her seniority. ~E. B. White, “Coon Tree,” Essays of E. B. White, p. 47

“I bow to all that is / all universes, our universe, and mother earth / all species and all humans / and spirit transforming it all. . . .

I bow to all as thou this day. Namaste.” ~from “Daily Ritual,” jpc

image: photo by Monica S. Hoel – near Emory & Henry College in southwestern Virginia, where llc/jpc met and walked nearby mountain trails (part of the Appalachian ranges, birthed some 680 million years ago; because N. America and Africa were connected, the Appalachians form part of the same mountain chain as the Atlas mountains in Morocco) http://en.allexperts.com/e/a/ap/appalachian_mountains.htm

The Chance to See Life

. . . A wise one I admire declares this Holy Child
Not born to die, but born to live
So you and I might have the chance to see LIFE
Running on all cylinders
Extravagantly, lovingly poured out with joy. . . .

~Janice Ulangca, “From the Silence,” 2006

Again, resurrection’s meaning is for this life. ~jpc

Seeing is believing. Namaste.

image: "New Life" by Mary Shone newjersey.anglican.org/.../butterfly.html

I, New-risen, Resurrected

. . . Ha, I was a blaze leaping up!
I was a tiger bursting into sunlight.
I was greedy, I was mad for the unknown.
I, new-risen, resurrected, starved from the tomb,
. . . now here was I, new-awakened, with my hand stretching out
and touching the unknown, the real unknown, the unknown unknown.

~D. H. Lawrence, from “New Heaven and Earth”

The blaze that started the church was persons experiencing resurrection in this life – and that blaze restarts it now. ~jpc

Gratitude for the resurrections I’ve already experienced. Namaste.

image www.catholic-sacredart.com/crucifixion-resurr...

Easter Sunday Dialogue XLVII

Journer: What is the meaning of Easter?

Nez: One* of my students wrote, “. . . then I am here risen / accomplishing a resurrection / risen, not born again, but risen, body same as before, / new beyond knowledge of newness, alive beyond life / . . . myself same as before, but unaccountably new.”

Journer: That doesn’t come from scripture, does it?

Nez: Yes, from the scripture of every person’s life experience with transforming spirit, where all scripture comes from that’s worth its salt.

______
* D. H. Lawrence, from “New Heaven and Earth”

image: Sergei Chepik's "The Resurrection," www.chepik.com/st_paul/saint_paul.html

New Creeds

. . . God’s seal is set forever on Jesus’ message and ministry. In him we know that God is love, and that forgiveness and acceptance are ours always. In him we are called to realize God’s kingdom in our own lives and in the lives of others. In him we are called to join with God in making all things new. We believe God has granted to us and to all humanity the same Spirit that was in Jesus, creating community and empowering us to be like him. . . . ~Tom Harpur, “New Creeds” (chapter 3), The Emerging Christian Way

“We believe God has granted to us and to all humanity the same Spirit that was in Jesus.” That is very good to know: the same spirit. ~jpc

At the heart of all is the same spirit. Namaste.

image www.antoineart.com/.../28_earth-spirit-I.htm

Courage In Spite Of

To believe in love in the face of hatred, life in the face of death, day in the dark of night, good in the face of evil – to some, all of these may seem to be hopelessly naïve, wishful thinking, . . . “whistling in the dark” . . . ; but, to Tillich, all of these are manifestations of . . . the courage of confidence . . . [which] “says ‘in spite of’ even to death.” ~Peter J. Gomes, intro. to 2nd ed. of The Courage To Be, by Paul Tillich, p. xxiii

Whence comes such courage? Wherever it comes from, we’ve all experienced it. ~jpc

“Courage in spite of . . .” is a mantra for today. Namaste.

image www.siuh.edu/hospice/berserv.html

"Leave No Child Inside"

A number of trends, including the recent unexpected national media attention to . . . “nature-deficit disorder,” have now brought the concerns . . . before a broader audience. While some may argue that the word “movement” is hyperbole, we do seem to have reached a tipping point. State and regional campaigns, sometimes called Leave No Child Inside, have begun to form. ~Richard Louv, Mar-Apr 2007, www.orionmagazine.org/pages/om/07-2om/Louv.html

In Galax, when I was growing up, we played in broomsage fields, dug forts on the big hill, climbed apple and cherry trees, played with trucks under the big maple tree in the yard, and walked the trails on the Blue Ridge Parkway. We suffered not from “nature-deficit disorder.” ~jpc

Wonder in nature is healing in most every way. Namaste.

image: photo by Kate Anderson in the Orion article above

Global Health Care Disparity

“The situation becomes more complicated because we see that radiotherapy is the mainstay of cancer therapy,” [Dr. Peter] Boyle [director of the International Agency for Research on Cancer] said. Over half the people with cancer in the West get one course of radiotherapy, and a quarter get two courses, according to the agency’s director. But there are 30 countries in the world that do not have a single radiotherapy machine, Boyle said, and Africa has only enough radiotherapy machines to cope with one-fifth of the continent's cancer needs. ~United Nations (AP), usatoday.com, 3/4/07 http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2007-04-03-un-cancer-cases_N.htm?csp=34

Also Suggested reading:

“Impacts of a Warming World: How Climate Change Is Expected to Affect the Earth in the 21st Century” ~Report from Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
http://www.usatoday.com/weather/climate/globalwarming/2007-04-03-tipping-points_N.htm

You Still Eat Meat?

Americans and Europeans eat meat because we want to, not because we have to. And we do it at the expense of animals, people and the environment [and our own health and life-span]. We would do well to consider a dietary change. ~Kathy Freston, “You Call Yourself a Progressive – But You Still Eat Meat?” www.alternet.org/story/49188, 3/14/07, via Jim Rippey

Yes, I still do, but I’m repenting by joining AV (almost vegetarian). The primary reason, besides my health, is the health of the planetary community, which the above article makes too clear for comfort. ~jpc

Good news: we have so much left to give up. Namaste.

image: a market in China's Gansu province, 3/14/07 2007, Reuters/Stringer

7-million-year Human Evolution

As ancient DNA and gray matter give up their secrets, they are adding life to the age-old quest to understand where humankind came from and how we got here. ~Sharon Begley, “Beyond Stones and Bones,” Newsweek, 3/19/07, www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17542627/site/newsweek/

Amazing perspective on where we came from (click link above). It took all that time and global trekking from mid-eastern Africa to get us to where we are (e.g., all N. American humans are really African-Americans). We’d be foolish not to guard that human journey and evolve it. ~jpc

It’s a great calling being human today. Namaste.

image: www.cs.mcgill.ca/~bmaniy/personal/biodata.php

"God Did It"

[I]f you ask a question about the natural world – be it where lightning comes from, or why volcanoes erupt, or how planets were formed or how humans evolved – and assert that the answer is (basically) “God did it,” that puts an end to inquiry . . . not a very interesting way of proceeding. ~Sharon Begley, “Where Do We Come From,” Letters and Live Talk (Newsweek, 3/10/07) http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17553803/site/newsweek/

The universe does it (including us humans), which opens inquiry wide, with evolving interest. ~jpc

We bow to spirit, always and forever creative, at the heart of this and all universes. Namaste.

image: “Kalmunai,” tsunami art done by relative of tsunami victim, via Chenoa Stock, facilitator, Joining Hands, Sri Lanka

Sunday Dialogue (XLVI)

Journer: What has Lent been about?

Nez: One* of my students wrote, “Everyone who wants to follow the . . . [spirit] path . . . has to rid himself [sic] of this fixation [on things].”

Journer: So I’m to give up things? That sounds unrealistic, even for saints.

Nez: True, but they struggle to give up obsession with things, e.g., family, relations, accomplishments, religion, money, body, self – anything that distracts from spirit.

______
* Carlos Castaneda, The Eagle’s Gift, p. 21-2

image: www.catholicgreetings.org/Create.asp?card=776