compassion ..

compassion: a feeling of deep sympathy and sorrow for another who is stricken by misfortune, accompanied by a strong desire to alleviate the suffering
com-passion: passioning with someone
note both aspects of the definition; it's similar to empathy, but goes farther - it wants to relieve the suffering
.. ...    .

in recent times i've attempted to explain something of homelesslife to friends and acquaintances
it has been difficult
( and this is in no way deprecatory of those people; it is not uncommon in the western world of now )

apart from the fact that they had a difficult time grasping the concept ( i believe out of a tradition, a culture, an education, and a never-been-there mentality ), there was a denial and rationalization colouring the discussion ..
my only recourse was to provide examples, personal experiences, and stories from my homeless brothers and sisters

leading to this ..
Mark Twain made a comment - " i have never let my schooling interfere with my education " - the motivation being we can be indoctrinated by our cultural and social environment to think a certain way, believe certain things, while rejecting other think, assume this or that .. meanwhile the truth of life ( even in that very environment ) is simply not so
hence, ours is to question, investigate other sources, take a critical position and, most importantly, head heartfirst into God, the source of wisdom

the in-credible think that says because we live in 2014 we are wiser is just that
knowledge is not wisdom
our modern penchant for infobites and dreadfully briefly-stated arguments, our drive to condense so that we can consume so much more, is fraught with the danger of oversimplification and surface-engagement

there is a huge difference between knowing about something and engaging the issue with a view to some form of change in myself - the latter requires so much more
engaging a topic in order to affect any meaningful change in me deserves depth and breadth, consideration of this and that viewpoint, and should result in a challenge to our off-the-bat, knee-jerk response to a paragraph or soundbite  ..

thus, in this case, a willingness to understand homelesslife by listening first, by investigation, and by recourse to God would go far in opening my mind to the millions that live there in this country, not to mention the billions of impoverished in the world at large
to simply dismiss those people as lazy, as bums, addicted or alcoholics, insane or mentally disturbed - the intimation being that they deserve their circumstance, made their own bed to lie in - is to do massive injustice, probably on par with the inhumanity that allows for such a huge incidence of that lifecondition in the first place, and further allows that lifecondition to persist ..
it does not speak well to wisdom

further to that, to assume that i can sit here in my comfortzone and understand homelesslife is, at best, foolhardy - it smells of arrogance and judgmentalism, selfishness and a complete misunderstanding ( worse yet, dismissal ) of Jesus' primary teaching - i must love my neighbour as i love my own self

there is widom in the thought ' you can't truly understand my situation 'till you've walked a mile in my shoes '
did you think people actually choose homelesslife, like they were choosing a car or a university or a career ?
really ??
really ..
have you considered what a homeless life must be like ? as in, sat there and tried to walk yourself through some part of their day, or night ?
virtually walking in their shoes ..
and that still leaves a vast fissure in understanding, since ' virtual ' is a long-distance view

i am not being rude, nor am i castigating anyone; simply put, perhaps before we express our opinions or draw conclusions from our boxed-in point of view, we should consider compassion, particularly when it speaks to humanity in its manifestations

be wary of allowing your culture, your politics, your education, your religion, your whatever to dumb-down your inquisitivenss, your imagination, your reasoning, for the true you lies beyond that, as Twain implied

above all else, i must go to my spirit ( not mind ), where the spirit of the living God can access and bypass my own arrogance and insularity
stretching my self towards true reality


p.s. - a friend recently posted something similar to this on fb .. ' anyone has some cash i can borrow? i'm about to be evicted '
well, you could look down your long nose at them, but bear in mind this person has 30+ years in photojournalism, still employed, and was recently featured on a major network ..

p.p.s. - " It is not some religious act which makes a Christian what he or she is, but participation in the suffering of God in the life of the world. " .. bonhoeffer

p.p.p.s - " .. everything the most serious Christians would consider essential to Christan faith: the primacy of love; the demand for justice, especially towards the underprivileged; the insistence upon forgiveness ( not just once, but seventy times seven ); the equality of all human beings, without reference to race, culture, gender, and all else; above all, I think, the insistence upon a continuous and prophetic orientation toward truth and a concomitant vigilance against hypocrisy, subterfuge, and oversimplification. " .. dj hall

p.p.p.p.s. - " Christians, we have maintained, are those who through confrontation with death are given a new freedom from the sting of death and so a new freedom for voluntary service to others. ... The theology of the cross is intended to give rise not only to an ecclesiology of the cross, but to an ethic, the essence of which is the attentiveness to human and worldly suffering that is made possible in those who have been and are being delivered from self. " .. dj hall

peace to you

alone ..

aloneness
while most of us who've experienced it dread it for it's often depreciating effects on our souls
there lies within that cavern potential for growth, for strength, maybe for a deeper understanding of who i really am
who am i
really ..

the rocket-fueled madness we in the west call ' life ' offers scarce room for it
that, coupled with the fear of facing my self in those dark, seemingly-endless spaces
   - why go there ?!!
bars the door to what could be an opening to my broader self
a self that lies mostly dormant in the deep of whoever it is i am ..
noone goes there, barring the spirit of the Almighty ( an alarming thought )
noone

we don't choose aloneness much
but the privilege of choosing that
   quiet
      albeit welcoming the sounds of nature
   peace
      although the introspection, reflection and meditation
      bear heavy baggage
   discovery
      as i walk those black halls, musty corridors
      stare at scary locked rooms
is one we might well consider taking advantage of ..

face the demons
let them come, in the heavy blasts of their huge wings, the sickening smell as they swoop past, the terrible shrieking ..
they are my tormentors
and they are
   me

i have to run !
now !!
back to that space over there on top that flat rock table
where the Light bores through
where there's warmth
and i can see

there i'll recover from the dark
find my balance after the horror of that room
balance
in the Light

later, maybe i'll again find a spark of courage to leave that circle of Light again
back into the dark
in search of another room
.. . . .   .

the end of that cycle can be a stronger, maturing me,
formed from the dares, the scary challenge, the flint-will to go there
on tiptoes

maybe i'll get back
   or not
but i have to go
find
   me

.. . . .     .

I come to the garden alone
   the dew is still on the roses ..
there's this voice i hear, falling gently on my ear ..  
God speaks
and the sound of His voice is so sweet 
   the birds hush their singing

God 
   walks with me, talks with me 
   tells me I am His own ..

I’d stay in the garden with Him 
   though the night around me be falling
but God's voice bids me go
   midst those cries of woe ..
a voice to me is calling
   calling
                  [ my edited version of an old hymn ]

another read on suffering

" Holding the Darkness

When we try to live in solidarity with the pain of the world—and do not spend our lives running from necessary suffering—we will surely encounter various forms of “crucifixion.” Many say pain is merely physical discomfort, but suffering comes from our resistance to, denial of, and our sense of injustice or wrongness about that pain. This is the core meaning of suffering on one level or another, and we all learn it the hard way.

As others have said, pain is the rent we pay for being human, but suffering is to some degree optional. The cross was Jesus’s voluntary acceptance of undeserved suffering as an act of total solidarity with all the pain of the world. Deep reflection on this mystery can change your whole life. It seems there is an inherent negative energy or resistance from all of us, whenever we are invited to a more generous response. Yet this is the necessary dying that the soul must walk through to go higher, further, deeper, or longer. The saints called these dyings “nights,” darkness, unknowing, doubt. This is when you grow—but “in secret.”

Our secular world has almost no spiritual skills to deal with this now, so we resort to addictions, and other distractions to get us through our pain and sufferings. This does not bode well for the future of humanity. Only truly inspired souls choose to fully jump on board this ship of life and death. The rest of us waste our time blaming or playing the victim to our own advantage.

Without the inner discipline of faith (“positive holding instead of projecting”) most lives end in negativity, blaming others, or deep cynicism—without even knowing it. Jesus hung in the crucified middle and paid the price for all such reconciliation (Ephesians 2:13–18); he then invited us to do the same, and showed us the outcome—which is resurrection!

rohr

another read, this on suffering

" God needs to catch us by surprise because our very limited preexisting notions keep us and our understanding of God small. We are still trying to remain in control and we still want to “look good”!
God tries to bring us into a bigger world where by definition we are not in control and no longer need to look good. A terrible lust for certitude and social order has characterized the last 500 years of Western Christianity, and it has simply not served the soul well at all. Once we lost a spirituality of darkness as its own kind of light, there just wasn’t much room for growth in faith, hope, and love.

So God has to come indirectly, catching us off guard and out of control, when we are empty instead of full of ourselves. That is why the saints talk about suffering so much. They are not masochistic, sadistic, negative, morbid, or oppositional. The mystics have seen the pattern and, as Teresa of Ávila says in one place, it is not that you are happy for the suffering—who would be, who could be?—you are happy for the new level of intimacy that the suffering brought you to. You only know this after the fact, perhaps days or weeks or even years later. One day you realize, “God is so real to me now. How did I get here?” All you know is that you did not engineer or even imagine this. You were taken there when you were off guard. John’s word for that is darkness. "

rohr

the move of God

So then, if you all are encouraged by being in Christ, if you gain comfort from his love, if you share in the same spirit He does, and if there is any tenderness and compassion among you, then make my joy to overflow by thinking the same way, sharing the same love - be one in mind and spirit. Don't act out of personal selfishness or conceit, but rather out of humility, valuing the others above yourselves; don't look out for yourselves only, but for their interests too.

As you relate to one another, take on the same mindset as Christ Jesus - he was God, but he didn't consider his divinity something he couldn't let go of; rather, he emptied himself of it by becoming a servant, taking on the likeness of human. Further, as a man, he humbled himself through obedience, even to the point of death, even the death of the cross.

For this reason God has highly exalted him, giving his name ultimate priority, such that at the name ' Jesus ' every knee in the cosmos will bow, and every tongue will acknowledge that the Messiah Jesus is indeed lord, and God will be glorified.

philippians 2. 1-11

a read ..

the following is Richard Rohr's post, Surrendering in Stillness

Mirabai Starr, who will be joining us for CONSPIRE 2015 in Albuquerque, New Mexico, writes of the dark night as one who has gone through it herself, like John of the Cross:

“The dark night descends on a soul only when everything else has failed. When you are no longer the best meditator in the class because your meditation produces absolutely nothing. When prayer evaporates on your tongue and you have nothing left to say to God. When you are not even tempted to return to a life of worldly pleasures because the world has proven empty and yet taking another step through the void of the spiritual life feels futile because you are no good at it and it seems that God has given up on you, anyway.

“This, says John, is the beginning of blessedness! This is the choiceless choice when the soul can do nothing but surrender. Because even if you cannot sense a shred of the Beloved’s love for you, even if you can scarcely conjure up your old passion for him, it has become perfectly clear that you are incapable of doing anything on your own to remedy your spiritual brokenness. All efforts to purge your unspiritual inclinations have only honed the laser of attention on the false self. Unwilling to keep struggling, the soul finds itself surrendering to its deepest inner wound and breathing in the stillness there.

“The only action left to the soul, ultimately, is to put down its self-importance and cultivate a simple loving attention toward the Beloved. That’s when the Beloved takes over and all our holy intentions vaporize. That’s when the soul, says John, is infused passively with his love. Though his radiance is imperceptible to the faculty of the senses and invisible to the faculty of the intellect, the soul that has allowed itself to be empty can at last be filled and overflow with him.”

From Mirbai Starr’s introduction to her translation of Dark Night of the Soul
by John of the Cross

finding me ..

i often wonder at my profuse use of personal pronouns in my writing
and then i remind my self that the intention of the blog is to present ' my musings as a disciple seeking balance on the way to centre in Jesus ' ..
so then, forgive the personal viewpoint and my intentional ( lazy ? ) lack of references to the words of others ..

speaking of which .. the following is today's entry in my journal, in part

my quest to understand my self is all too human, i suppose

i like to think it is driven by an underlying desire to grow into God

whether or not it is in fact so is another issue - got to keep reminding my self that i tend to deceive my self, and must be wary of lying to me

also, from another direction, the key to understanding who i really am lies in looking at my self through the eyes of God, who is ' not a man that he should lie '

only and solely by moving my inward quest outward to an upward quest, into the realms of my spirit ascending towards Spirit God will i ever uncover and encounter my true motives, desires and thinking ..

my delving into me must be cultured by and open to the wind of God, blowing through me, leading my spirit where it will, clearing cobwebs, dispersing long-fallen leaves, now rotting, bringing newness, freshness, clarity, infusing energy for spirit eyes to see new vistas of God on my way to God

unless i allow me to see the image of me in the eyes of God, i fail

i will be caught in a cycle of ' i think ' to my conclusion, followed by a rethink of ' i think ' to some other conclusion ..

not that there is no process, no rethinking; but the end of that, the telos, must be implicit through it all: to see me as God sees me

help me, Master Jesus, to, like you, be in constant communion with God, even when i'm not actively, consciously doing it

to be there like breathing is there, like heartbeat is there

just being there

me in you and you in God and God in me and in you and you in me

blessed are the destitute ..

it's an unfortunate truth
often it's when we are dislodged from our safety that we are open to godness
in our human frailty, within the security of our fragile fences, we think we have a future, losing sight of reality, trading it for realty and career and wealth and ..

the real reality lies within,
inside, in our heart where the substance of me is, where there is no pretense when i look in the mirror to me, knowing i am who i am

to find that 'me' involves a denial of who i am seen to be, even to my own self, the person we often display to those on the outside, and too a denial of my true self, the person i really am on the insiide

mine is to become destitute of all reliance on stuff, and to open me to the Divine, freed, completely reliant on God for all i am and am to be, walking the Way of Jesus, single-eyed

it may well be that those who are not only ' poor in spirit ' but also poor in wealth have a one-up on those of us who have
it may well be that, in their poverty, they are more open to the speaking and singing and dancing of God, as he woos us, than i am
not to say a hungry belly is a desirable thing ( although there is the value of fasting for spiritual growth ), or that having to panhandle is in any way to be sought-after ( although there is the example of Francis of Assisi ), but it calls me to wonder if perhaps in their physical need a person is not somehow closer to the real God than we are in our cathedrals, as they stare upwards from their hiddenness under a bush or bridge into starry space at night, wondering if they will survive into whatever dreadness tomorrow holds
that sort of living drives us to the brink of our mortality, challenging the facades we were born into and educated for

strip me, o Lord, of all the ropes and handrails and things i hold on to as i climb through life
cause me, in my wealth and satiety, to be destitute in spirit, relying only on you, leaning hard on your Spirit to ground me, guide me, and to cut through the distractions that cling to my boots as i walk your Path

and bless the poor and the needy, those that mourn, those stricken in this life, deprived somehow
may their poverty and deprivation be a doorway to you
and meet them in their neediness, please; relive their hurtness ..
use me in their destitution
give me opportunities, and open my eyes and my heart