The secret to being happy in difficult times

There's a song many of us know: it has a happy lilting melody and rhythm and invites us to "Don't worry, be happy." It's a lovely song and reminds us not to become preoccupied with our troubles or difficulties, but to instead, "Don't worry, be happy."

So how do people go about putting this advice into practice? Well I'm going to divide the field into a few categories if I may. There's the distraction and numb out approach; there's the solve the problem approach, and there's the "shift your focus" approach.

As solid, responsible people, let's start with the "solve the problem approach." Sometimes this is great: doing research, getting advice, trying different things with the determination to succeed can accomplish quite a bit. There are in fact many problems or life situations in which progress can be made with this approach. But we also know that in fact in the end, we don't have control over our lives, or our environments, no matter how much we would like to believe we do; for many of us we are faced with this when illness, loss of career or marriage, an accident, etc. confront us with our mortality, with the fragility of life. But even in disaster we don't have to be reduced to the pitiful helplessness of victims.

The 2nd group are those who cope with pain, trauma or difficult situations they are unable to manage or control by seeking relief in distraction or "numbing out" behaviours. Any relief found in ingesting or indulging is temporary and often leads to more issues down the road. These people often end up with very established habits, even addictions, that then become problematic in and of themselves.

Finally, there's the shift your focus approach, with variations I know of in both the East and the West. A teacher I respect more than any other person walking this earth today likes to say, "everything is always changing." He also likes to encourage us to consider feelings as internal weather that comes and goes and also is always changing. This is of course, actually true, it is a perceptual choice to see something as unchanging because we and the universe are in constant flux and motion. The problem is we get stuck in our problems, stuck with a certain understanding of ourselves and others, stuck within our own supposed limitations. For an example of someone who knows the cost of staying stuck, and so never gives up watch this short video of Nick Vujicic, "Are you going to finish strong."

So what keeps us stuck? What prevents us from continuing to work at it until we overcome? It isn't just our beliefs in our limitations or of our helplessness in difficult circumstances, it's also our beliefs about what it takes to be happy. We are unhappy when we don't have we want or believe we need and if we stay focused on the "not having" we can end up paralyzed in depression and despair. However, beliefs can be changed; changing the beliefs changes how you feel; and realizing you are more than your feelings gives you the freedom to let a mood pass instead of being dominated by it. Just like a parent can out wait the feeling storm of their little child all the while loving and holding her or him; we too can out wait our own reactions, calming ourselves down, because sometimes we too just need a little reassurance, even from our adult selves.

Jesus told us the same thing about our place in the universe. He told us that the Creator is our Abba (literally Dadda in Aramaic) and that those who relate to the One in whom we live and move and have our being as a very small child, are in fact living in a whole new reality. This is my experience: being able to simply walk in life like a little child of the One frees me from worrying about many things and certainly reassures me of how loved and special I am. Waking up to the reality of being created children, of not having to understand everything or try to be in control (believing we truly understand or are in control is itself an illusion!), frees me to delight in the little or big things of life as they come along, rather than staying wrapped up in the stuff that in the end does not really matter; or so it seems to me! We can be responsible, do the right action as seems to be best, and yet be unattached to the result as we trust ourselves in Abba's hands!

So don't worry, be happy! You ARE loved, You ARE protected, You ARE provided for if only you can wake up and realize that it's true! :)

Blame, judgment, projection & the spiritual path

This path known by many names but travelled by only a few, this path of surrender, of service, of self-realization, of grace and blessing, this path of transformation for those who have left or are leaving the world behind, this path as it continues to rise up before me weaves its spell of new insight, of self-recognition and in so doing blesses me, and makes me a vehicle of blessing for those around me.

But anyone with the power to bless also has the power to curse, and this perhaps is why Jesus was SO strong on us not judging, not condemning our sisters and brothers but rather forgiving them as part of our walk of love. If there is a needed change, it is in being lovingly accepted that a change is more likely, rather than in having a finger wagged in your face. But, more importantly, this habit, this tendency, this attitude of finding others blameworthy is rooted in our own insecurities, our own fear, even our own self-hatred.

As one who has committed himself to a life of loving service I nevertheless this week increasingly became aware of my own tendencies to judge, complete with righteous anger no less! For example, I’ve been starting to say what I think to some Tweeple on Twitter about how offensive I find their “marketing practices,” as increasingly they are setting up false attractive identities (young woman) as a way of getting you to click on a link/URL that is supposed to take you to this woman’s website but instead gives you some stupid get rich now thing to sign – just type in your email address! But worse are those people who pose as good Christian or spiritual people who really just want to sell you their own get rich quick scheme. I have gone after a few of these people, but then found myself in the messy situation of discussing someone’s way of doing business, of following God and leading their own lives. Perhaps something good will result from such an interaction, but it is a far cry from the satisfaction that comes from calling a spade a spade, especially when it’s someone else’s spade that you are naming!

So where does this feeling of satisfaction come from? In the case of Twitter, I too am a person representing myself to the world through this particular medium and working both on the face I present (trying to be as authentic as possible) and what in fact I have to sell if anything. So even a cursory look inwards turns up all kinds of mixed motivations and ambivalences that find some resolution in finger-pointing.

Then there’s soccer, where I felt righteous enough to take on the new manager of my team, the one I managed last year, but in pursuing Africa left it for someone else to rescue. Having rejoined the team just before the season will start, I reacted strongly to something he said in email about a couple of players. Again there was this telling feeling of satisfaction, and again, of course, stuff to deal with after calling a spade a spade. Speaking the truth in love does not result in self-righteous satisfaction; something else is going on.

But in an even cuter twist that the Spirit, the One in whom we live and move and have our being, the blessed magic of my path, has synchronistically brought to my attention, is this pattern of mine which begins with me, who after all lives in flow, pulling together or allowing to emerge a situation for which I have the vision, I get it, but then others don’t and things fall apart. Here again, I’ve woken up to realize that I badly want someone else to take the fall, if only in my mind, rather than looking at how my way of doing things is not working. I say synchronicity because it so happened that I was confronted with our (Saint Cecilia’s Singers) need to record our upcoming practice and/or performance (see poster), which brought again to mind the failure of the spontaneous recording of our last concert (we never got anything out of it) which I had organized. I felt I should tell our director how is actions had kiboshed the whole thing, which I least had the discretion to do privately. His response included the failures in communication that led to the misunderstanding.

I got an email today as well about how in the end the money sent by a friend to Ghana for supporting the start of our NGO was dispersed to another worthy cause because our NGO is a no go: again I had a vision for how it all should go, the pieces were coming together nicely and then it all fell apart. I so much want to blame someone else!!!

Finally, I’m presently struggling mightily (hmmm, doesn’t sound very flow-like does it?) to get a project I’m managing to come together as I see it . . . but the guys are not seeing it my way, and it has not come together yet. Perhaps now we’ll see how patience, being grounded in everyone’s input, confidence, etc., rather than simply my own and my ability to carry the day (sell water to fishermen) will bring US to that flow. We shall see . . . but returning to the main theme then . . .

It is when my own sense of self, my own ego, is threatened by a failure that implicates me, or by a way of acting that I’m repulsed by but also attracted, it’s the internal need to resolve my own ambivalence by projecting the blame onto another person that makes me feel that satisfaction, that calling a spade a spade that leaves me feeling righteous! There is so much work to do on this path, so much clearing away of illusions, defenses, assumptions, etc., The nice thing about this hard work is that it’s not only the work of an adult taking responsibility for his stuff and supporting other in doing the same, it’s also the work of a beloved child, held and supported by the One, our Abba, learning to love anew, to see anew, and to increasingly be free, free to play and dance lovingly with those I’m given to share this journey.

grace and blessings to you, whatever your path

may you also find yourself held by One! :)

Technorati Tags: spiritual path,judgment,projection,ego,surrender,love,service,blessing,flow,Spirit,the One

The Centre of the Confusion

Some people, like myself, because of some early trauma in life, have developed what Winnicott called a "false self;" one which was constructed to please Mom and other significant people as a way to seemingly guarantee getting one's required care and attention through an attunement to Mom's moods and needs (to the detriment of the normal connection to one's own needs) and the development of pleasing and helpful behaviours. Pleasing Mom or any other significant person like a teacher, spouse, etc., was such a person's way of ensuring their own needs would be met. Such a person, when answering the call to leave all and follow Jesus, to live for others, to live from the heart out of which flows the healing and transforming grace we all need, such a person requires healing and transformation: this includes the unmaking of old patterns, habits, assumptions, motivations, etc., the death of the old self, and the regeneration of a new way of being and doing in the world.

There is however a significant confusion at the centre of the required transformation: I have been blessed enough to have a question put to me three times in the last week or so (twice in the last two days) a question that leaves me both further enlightened and quite confused. Let me explain. The question is a simple one, the first time it was asked it was, "Why do you want to go to Africa so much." The related question that hit the same point was asked in the face of a number of interesting and potentially rewarding opportunities: and it was, "What does your heart say." This simple question is incredibly important, because our Creator, the One in whom we live and move and have our being, the reality that supports our existence in ways we cannot even imagine, inspired Solomon, Israel's wisest king, to say:

"Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart." (Psalm 37.4)

Now I've been delighting myself in our Divine Lover, my Abba (Dadda in Aramaic) for some time now, but when it comes to the desires of my heart, I realize that I am so powerfully drawn to meeting other people's needs, that beyond meeting their needs, I have no idea. What is confusing of course is that I am called into loving service, but if this service is from a "false self" constructed to mitigate trauma and ensure I get what I need, then my drive to serve can be operating from the wrong motivation. Meanwhile my constructed sense of self, the identity that I project to the world, is quite satisfying as I am a humble servant, dedicated to serving others, but in the words of a friend of mine, perhaps also a professional codependent. The key is the motivation.

Now I've been going through a deconstruction of this ego or sense of self, and have therefore been becoming more and more aware of this need to be needed that has driven much of my walk with others over the last year or so: I was never so at peace and so satisfied as when I was helping or supporting others. But as I've become aware of these interior dynamics I have been both ceasing and desisting from reaching for these satisfactions as well as holding my younger self more and more. (Winnicott believed that the provision of a reliable holding environment gave the afflicted person the conditions in which to grow past the false self constructs into a more authentic being: holding simply means being warmly present to.) At the same time I have have also stopped describing with certainty the "inevitable" results of my business activities, developing a certain detachment to my activities, as I continue to simply walk with the ONE and those I'm given.

Now as for the realization that has finally come to rest today as I continue to allow this question to work away at me: "What does my heart say?" You see, as one who is detaching from the need to be needed, I've realized that I really don't know what my heart wants! I am however comfortable with not knowing but holding the experience as I unfold. Now I realize that what makes the many options opening in front of me attractive is what other people see in me: the meeting of their needs, the fulfillment of their desires: there is no stronger tonic for a false self constructed person such as myself. But now I'm not attached to the outcome of any of these potential opportunities, but rather I'm simply walking with the people involved as we find our way to what God has in mind for me, and perhaps for each of them. I know that a key to this will be my discovery of my own "heart's desires," for not only do I delight in Abba, but I am surrendered so that S/He is able to remake my heart according to her/his purposes. My task is simply to BE ME, the loving and beloved child I was created to be, the gift of light and life to those who are seeking.

To say the same thing in a language accessible to those who do not do the divine object thing, say my Buddhist or psychoanalytic friends, what I am doing is taking apart the delusional ego constructs that were developed in response to a traumatic situation. In so doing, I am becoming more aware of who I actually am in the fullest sense of those words. Self-realization must include such a transformational journey, before and/or after the moment of one's awakening. There is every bit the need to drop the old habits and ways of being and doing on these transformation paths as there is on the path of being a disciple of Jesus. In fact, Buddhists, Hindus, followers of Jesus and psychoanalysts all have in common the master/disciple or teacher/student relationship which is often provides the context and support for such self-transformation.

So I say to all who have realized their disenchantment with the world, who have committed themselves to some vision of transforming the world, and have realized to some degree this transformation in themselves, I say, "Walk on sisters and brothers" for we have the grace and power of the universe co-operating with us, supporting us in our unfolding as we become lights on the way for those who are searching for a better way. We recognize each other not so much from the verbal and conceptual constructs we use to frame our self-understanding, our theology, our pictures of the Divine, but rather we recognize in each other people on the path having the same experiences, being transformed in the same manner. I am so blessed to have sisters and brothers from so many different religious and spiritual traditions who are on this path of suffering, renunciation and liberation, surrendered to the greatest horizon of their experience! J

Dazed and confused in the desert :)

I started out without finishing a couple of blog postings in the last few weeks, one of which was entitled "dazed & confused in the desert." I will start my reflections with this one after saying that I am okay if swamped by many things these days. More on that later: first the reflection I started sometime ago that gives you the feel for my ongoing experience and walk.

I've been resonating a lot lately with the Hebrews' exodus and desert experiences: the desert is the place to get Egypt out of you, lonely, uncomfortable and barren yet full of a life of its own. Egypt is of course a handy metaphor for "the world" today, being as most of us living in the world are in its chains (job, social expectations, etc.), and like the rich young man are just not able to drop everything to go with God wherever he calls you. However, sometimes God disrupts our illusory existence by calling us: Moses called Abraham's descendants, Jesus called his disciples, and still calls those today who will in fact drop everything and follow him.

Once you are following, then comes the desert, the confusion of having to relearn everything (dropping old habits and identifications and being refined by the loving but firey finger of the Spirit who unmakes and then reshapes us. You notice how much God's chosen people considered themselves cursed and simply wanted to go back to Egypt? It's not easy wandering in the desert, being undone and remade in the process!So as someone going through this ongoing traumatic yet uplifting experience, (agony and ecstacy being in some ways as close as love and hate it would seem but I digress in perhaps too exaggerated a manner! :) ) I find myself unconsciously grasping at straws to prop up a sense of self: and in fact they keep being offered to me.

One friend has said you're such a wonderful counsellor - you should put out a shingle, another has said you are such a good recruiter (IT) you should be a recruiter. I have people I've met on Twitter asking me to to mentor them. Then there's the opportunities! You see I have a growing number of irons in the fire as I seek for what it is God is leading me into: I don't have a clue whether any will turn out, and suspect that if any do, they will do so in an unexpected fashion. Oh, I tell you, wandering in the desert and seeing what looks like a familiar and hopeful sign is often an illusion, conjured up not so much by water vapour and sunlight, but by my own desires, memories and habits of thinking, as combined with what people see in me.

Until fairly recently I would go around describing what I was doing (therefore in some sense who I am) with reference to this or that possiblity I was persuing, giving them more reality than actually exists simply by use of optimism, enthusiasm and being able to sell water to a fisherman. So now, as I am increasingly overwhelmed with the number of seemingly high quality opportunities, I am also increasingly unattached to the outcome of any of these activities. Rather I try to maintain enough local business (money now) through window cleaning, carpet cleaning & supporting a strong painting/renovation team, while I continue to give the long range opportunities the energy they require, at least as much as I can manage at the time:

• I'm trying to get international development going with growing possibilities in Ghana and Ethiopia but I'm not from that field and only paying attention to it part-time
• I'm being considered for a 6 - 12 month term managing an IT project in Ghana
• I'm working on an opportunity in Oman to do a sustainable cultural eco-tourism strategy as part of InterCulture http://aix1.uottawa.ca/~iculture/eng/index_eng.html
• I've been invited to consider becoming part of a start-up Buddhist University in Taiwan to work in their department of philanthropy
• I'm looking at starting a Software company (search engine for social media sites) and/or a 2nd stage addictions treatment facility combined with a trades business in the Cornwall area
• I'm trying to find work for my Russian IT genius buddy who's currently unemployed
• I'm spending more and more time in Social Media environments like Twitter and Facebook - and as a result getting stronger in the understanding of why to establish a presence there and how to achieve desired results - so I'm starting to advise people on Twitter
• I'm still supporting friends, walking with them, being with them as needed, and, of course still being transformed myself in the process

I'm a sales guy, a counsellor, a mediator, a marketing guy, a business manager and my gifts are in human transformation and finding solutions to complex problems, whatever they might be - because in the end they're all human problems. But I'm also a disciple of Jesus, one who left the world behind to walk to the beat of a different drummer, and yet who is in the world trying to sort out "being in but not of the world." All the while I'm guided by the Spirit, by God-incidences, doors opening and closing, walking without attachment and more and more being unmade and refashioned by that fiery finger of Divine Love.On top of all of this I'm trying to figure out who the hell I am when it comes to presenting myself to the world. I've been experimenting for some time with "Brother Daniel" as a working or stage identity - and thus have that moniker in some social media sites as well as a name for my cleaning business. But as I continue to participate in Twitter, I find myself wondering, who am I, what am I selling, how do I present myself to the world? Of this I am sure, I am certainly a work in progress! :)

So I've stopped blogging and just as it was sometime since my last posting it may be an even longer time before the next one. From a sojourner in the social media corner of the internet to you then, as may best fit you:

Jai Guru Dev
Namaste
Grace and Blessings

Your brother Dan

suffering on the path

A friend sent me The Three Books of the Absolute by Richard Rose: a 7 page rumination on our existential situation as those who would suffer the death of our egos, looking for ulimate transcendence. A number of sections of it really struck me, so I've pasted them below followed by the letter I wrote him in return.
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I sought Thee, O Eternal Essence, in the grottoes and in the tabernacles. I called out thy name to the stone ears of statues. And thou answered not.
I sought Thee in the voice of nature. I looked for Thee in the footprints of animals, in the habits of birds. I listened for a revelation in the murmuring of waters and in the soft moaning of the forests. I laid my ear against the roaring cataracts and bared my head to the tempests. But Thou answered not.
I have sought Thee, O Eternal Essence, within my self. I have sought Thee in my mind until I was cursed with confusion. And I saw Thee not.
Then, O Eternal Essence, I sought Thee whence I came. I sought Thee in my womb. As the wild beast flees from the elements into his cavern where his wild dam littered him, so I fled the darkness of my clay. And naught did I find but the turbulence of my imagination. There in chaotic pattern did I find the seeds of all confusion that pretended to be wisdom. Where man was born was also born his gods. Where man was born was also born his demons. . . .

I, O Eternal Essence, beseech Thee,--where within Thee have I dissolved myself?
Where are prisoned those who follow love? Where have I left my I-ness, and now having left it, who is it that cries out to Thee? Where is the dirge of sorrow that is all that remains of me? Who feels this pain that burns and consumes, yet is felt not by I-who-am-no-more? Who is it that looks from the windows of my mansion like a strange prowler? Who is it that hears and hears
not, that yearns for life and lives not, that seeks out death and dies not....?
O Ever-Allness, what is Thy pleasure in my sorrow? Thou hast damned me to thoughtlessness, and yet I cannot leave off thinking, and still my thoughts are not words. Thou hast robbed me of my soul and mind, and my body laments for all ages, for my body dies not nor yet walks among men. Thou hast delivered me from my Ego, and what is there that remains? O Ever-Allness,
forever insensate, pitiless to entreaty, speechless to my prayers,--weep Thou with me for I am of Thee....and all that remains of me is Thee. . . .

Relax ye and die and live the darkness, and enter the impassive pool of the Unknowing....
Who shall extol the memory of man that leaves him often before his life....Who remembers after life? If man forgets his infancy before his manhood is upon him,--what shall he remember hence....shall he remember nothingness? Desist and enter the pool of the Unknowing....
What is time, O mind....? Is it the number of steps in a day,--the number of thoughts in a step....? Then of the thoughts in a day, how many years of days would it take to know all that is know, and then how long,--to know the magnitude of the Unknowing....and how many steps will take thee from here to there? Who shall anoint thy limbs?
Though he who forgets more seems greater than he who strived not and died in ignorance....who shall know....who shall know? Mourn ye for the hour when the cloud of the Unknowing passes and the falseness of light dazzles the eye. For the light is a liar unto the Light, and the light is the darkness of the mind. Yet who shall know....?

And soon I see, looking ahead, that all my joys are not, that all my love is not, that all my being is not. And I see that all Knowing is not. And the eminent I-ness melts into the embraces of oblivion. It melts into the embraces of oblivion like a charmed lover, fighting the
spell and languishing into it. And now I breathe Space and walk in Emptiness. My soul freezes in the void and my thoughts melt into an indestructible blackness. My consciousness struggles voiceless to articulate and it screams into the abysses of itself. Yet there is no echo. All that remains is All. My spark of life falls through the canyons of the universe, and my soul cannot weep for its loss....for lamentation and sorrow are things apart. All that remains is All.

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and I answered my friend from the bottom of my heart:

thank you!!! :) :) :)

I resonated in many places with the solitariness, the utter futility of any human action, thought, perception . . . but then I diverged strongly from where he went with it . . . because I cannot and will not imagine my ability to perceive, to be, to experience as anywhere approaching our creator's. For I believe we are created, I believe it is the only sensible belief. I cannot get caught in the solipsism, even narcissism of the endless return on myself, always questioning, always pushing beyond my last construct - for I know I will never clear the constructs - of that I am now sure. Oh, I will again and again break free from them, but again and again my ability to identify myself, to see myself in contrast or with others, this basic dualistic perception of creator and created will return. I love the I AM, I love the total identification with the God-head that being his child suggests - but I also know that I am limited to partiality until one day I know as I am known, and this is perfectly okay with me.

I remembered today a development in my realization I may not have shared with you from my time "on retreat:" First I found myself singing a little ditty that had manufactured itself in my consciousness "Out on a limb, out on a limb, out on a limb for the Lord" some days or weeks later I noticed it had changed to "dancing on a limb, dancing on a limb, dancing on a limb for the Lord." Finally as my dance became more and more abandonned, I found myself singing "drifting on the wind, drifting on the wind, drifting on the breath/spirit of the Lord." and so I've drifted ever since, occasionally getting hung up on this or that worldly identification, this or that preference for self-identification, but then again waking up to it, letting go and starting to drift again.

I don't know how this painful part of my drifting is going to go - I think I must be resisting now - not wanting to let go of what I've already lost, wanting to retain some vestige of my former life (family, money, career, prestige - yes - to be honest I can see myself yearining sometimes for these things) and so I burn as I cannot grasp, but try to grasp, cannot let go, but it's being torn away from me - is already gone from my failing fingers. Yes I am physically weaker now . . . I am sagging in some extistential way . . . it hurts a lot, I often find myself weeping easily . . . but my friend - I do know that despite my suffering that I'm held, that I'm going through a painful patch of somehow resisting letting go - I don't know if this is my ego's final battle - I'm wearily afraid that's it's just another of an endless set of rounds I will do in the ring, until finally I am released to BE all that I AM.

I very much appreciate you stimulating this in me - I am grateful to our God for inspiring you to break through my walls of passivity and lethargy, prompting me to write again about my experience, and in writing to make progress, to get closer to that inevitable breakthrough - that liberation I can almost see if I stand on tip-toe! :) heh heh - of course it is not by any effort of mine that it's going to come but only from God-incidences like a good friend whacking me over the head with such an evocative piece or writing! You are such a good friend! Thank you!

And so dear reader, I close. If you made it this far, perhaps you also know something of this painful journey, this determination to be free from illusion, free from the world (prestige, possessions, etc.), free from self-centred concern, free to BE, free to BE love, free to BE with whomever we're given, free to go where the Spirit leads us. If so, well met, and God's blessing continue to rest on you, flow through you, and grace you in every way!

suffering and joy

Many voices of the wisdom of the ages tell us that we run from our pain, that we distract ourselves in any way possible from the pain, loneliness, emptiness and essential deficiency of our existence. And so we experience transitory joy when we have fulfilled a desire, experienced great pleasure, achieved success, won a game, won a lottery, fallen in love, given birth to a child, etc. At such times we feel really good about ourselves, we are happy with who we are. As good as any one of these experiences is, and as joyful as we feel, they are all transitory, and our lives are consumed with the quest for or maintenance of these personal satisfactions, which often are reliant on what other people think, the approval we feel from them in our socially constructed roles of parent, employer/employee, coach, performer, consumer, christian/hindu/moslem/buddhist/sikh/you name it. And so many of us live out our lives achieving enough of a balance between the good and bad experiences, that on the whole we are happy enough with our lives, content with our socially acceptable identities. We are good enough people, liked enough by enough people, own enough of the right stuff that we are comfortable enough in our own skins.



I have left all this behind me: like a Buddhist or Hindu monk I am in a process of dropping all attachments but I am doing so as a follower or disciple of Jesus. This process leads me directly into suffering, but this suffering is the suffering of not having the crutches we all need to feel good about ourselves, and so I'm faced with my own personal deficiency, loneliness as I increasingly refuse to make it better in the ways we all learned. Perhaps the story of Job can help as a way to illustrate my point.



Job was a very rich, successful and righteous person: he always did everything right and so had a great reputation on heaven and on earth. But his happiness or security was vested in all the signs of his success - he knew he was blessed of God because of his great success. Yet he lived in fear. He was afraid his children would offend God so he did sacrifices on their behalf, and when everything was taken from him including his health, he said, "I was always afraid this would happen." Having everything stripped away from him left him confronting his own misery not only from the loss of his children and health, but also his reputation and social standing because by the calamities that had befallen him he was now marked in that society as a sinner and cursed by God. It was only when after having everything stripped away from him, and nakedly confronting his creator that he finally MET God, and after that, nothing could ever make him afraid again - for now, he knew who God was and who he was, and everything else was secondary.



Like many before me who have chosen to leave the world (prestige, possessions, etc.) behind, I have given away or sold my possessions, and as I recognize attachments or ways of constructing an identity on which I like to rely, I drop them as well. In so doing I am responding to Jesus' invitation to follow him, but in order to do so leaving everything else behind. For I too have met our creator, whom Jesus revealed to us as Abba (literally Dadda in Aramaic), I know who I AM, and am content to more and more walk in His presence.



Yesterday I was again moved to tears listening to the story of Jesus suffering and sacrifice, after having already been confronted by the pain of the Tamil people demonstrating at Parliament Hill demanding that the Canadian government do something about the attrocities being committed against them by the Sri Lankan government (chemical warfare, bombing hospitals, churches and schools, etc.) through whom I walked on my way to Church. From the God's eye point of view, there is so much suffering in this world, and yet I know that S/He is surrounding us, holding us, waiting for us to awake from the illusions of our social "realities," our immersion in all of the constructs that imprison us from seeing the truth, that keep us compliant as good little consumers, happy in our nests, trading "Good days" with our friends and colleagues, chattering about weather, sports, or what the neighbours are doing, oblivious to the suffering we have insulated ourselves against, inside and out. But Jesus calls us to leave these comfortable illusions and distractions behind and to follow him on the path of suffering and joy.

It is interesting to note that Jesus described himself as coming for the "sick" (oppressed, poor, sick, imprisoned, rejected, etc.) and not for the well. Those caught up in the illusions of their goodness, of the good-enough quality of their life do not respond well to a radical like Jesus who said to the rich young ruler, one more thing you need to do beyond being a good person and loving God, and that is give away all your possessions and follow me. The young guy left saddened because he was to attached to his possessions and position to give it all up in order to follow Jesus. Oftentimes it's only those who've already been knocked out of the mainstream by society's cruelty, by illness, by their own misdeeds, it's only the marginalized who can truly respond to Jesus' call to leave the world behind. If you find yourself resonating with this post, then it is likely because you too are marginalized in some significant way, and, realize the value inherent in dropping all the superficial stuff and going all out for transformation and liberation . . . but that is material for another post.

So have a blessed Easter all; whether it is one in which your own personal suffering is deepening as you drop your attachments and leave the world more and more behind, or whether you are feeling the joy of the resurrection, the joy of liberation, the joy of new life. The two go hand in hand!

take up your cross and follow me

I find myself resonating more and more with Jesus' command to his disciples. For those who have answered the call, who have realized they've been chosen, this is the straight and narrow path that almost everything in our nature rebels against; I say "almost everything" because the depth of filial love and devotion can in fact cause us to lay down our life if need be.

Inspiring me this week on this path have been the reflections of a Sufi devotee going through his early awakening back in the early 1970's, a devotee who has since gone to become a teacher of many. I have been offered many things to read, but rarely pick one up. In this case though when I had read the first paragraph I knew I would be working with this for a while.

He traces in his own experience themes found in many mystical paths, that of accepting even embracing the wounded heart we all carry: the loneliness, the emptiness, the self-rejection; this pain we all flee from by way of distractions such as work, food, alcohol, drugs, sex, entertainment, sports, etc. He does so by accepting his teacher's instruction to not allow himself to follow any of these ways of constructing an ego, a sense of self based on partial identifications. Rather than becoming the doer, the person who strives for this or that pleasure, who pursues fulfillment in these ways, and becomes self-identified as a person who does this or that, as a Sufi he only focused on God and on being aware of this emptiness, not trying to fill it at all. This he found extraordinarily difficult as he was at that time both in love with a woman for the first time as well as devoted to his teacher; but he would not permit himself to ask them for anything, to need anything from them and so found himself in agony.

Eventually after suffering for many weeks some experiences of love and bliss began to break through here and there. As he described his transport of delight at a loving glance from a friend, or a sublime moment in nature, I remembered fondly my own sweet tendency to ecstacy a year ago, how easily I slid into an exalted state of love, joy and bliss. I realized that the metaphor so often used for transformational work and the spiritual path, that of peeling the layers of the onion, was quite apropro here for me. I have been through a number of successive layers of denying a certain ego gratification, of dropping a certain attachment to identity, and am currently going through one again.

The one that is now being dropped is my attachment to being the advisor, the wise friend, the one with the answers: oh how I loved this ego identity! Letting go of it is really quite depressing, both because I've kicked another crutch out from under my faltering sense of identity, as well as tarnished the memory of many pleasurable encounters where I was the man with the right word at the right time. Not that God doesn't work through us when we're "happy doing what we're doing" so to speak, for of course S/He does; but seeing my need to be needed outlined in such bold relief turns yet another worldly or self-centred fulfillment into ashes in my mouth.

At the same time I'm feeling more and more urgent about getting business going again; believing perhaps that it's finally time to make some money, to repay some debts, to get myself back over to Africa, etc. I have my brother continuing to say to me that he believes that my gifts are in the business world, not just on the path, so to speak. I don't know, but perhaps I've spent enough time in this desert of the ego, enough time dropping attachments, etc., that perhaps I'm ready to truly be "in the world but not of the world."

Let's face it folks, there is a certain something suicidal about the willingness to "take up my cross" and follow Jesus; to emulate him in every way. The willingness to take the via dolorosa, to be tortured, to fall under the weight of the cross, to be crushed, broken and pierced is yet finally the path of liberation.

We cannot have two masters, either we care more about what everyone thinks, we care more about our creaturely comforts, about our stuff, or we are in fact sold out, surrendered and living only for God. It's not that our Creator doesn't love all the children S/He has created, or that those who are merely good in a worldly or religious manner are not loved and accepted; it's simply that to be like Jesus is to NOT be of this world.

It is so confusing for Christians who believe they are following Jesus when in fact they are part of a religious club that has Jesus as its hero. Picking up your cross and following Jesus is not simply another way of saying that suffering is part of life, just accept it and know that Gop still loves you: No, it's far more radical than that.

Jesus didn't call Christians, he called disciples saying only those who were willing to leave everything behind to follow him were worthy to be chosen. When he said go and make disciples of all nations, he did not have in mind building churches in every country, nor was he trying to create a religion. He was saying to people one at a time, come and follow me, become like a little child with Abba (literally Dadda in Armaic) our Creator like me, be filled with the Spirit like me, leave the world behind like me and be my disciple. At his ascension his disciples graduated into teachers and were told to go and make more disciples in the same way: one at a time, person to person, heart to heart, so that those who could hear the call, who would one day realize they too had been chosen, would follow them, would follow Jesus, whatever country, language or religion they came from.

We are a light in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it, nor can it. Those of us who see the light, through whom the light shines, are also not at home in this world anymore. I was realizing just the other day how much I missed "being at home." I've been such a married family guy in my life but have been on my own now for a few years; more recently I woke up while on my long reteat and realized I was called to walk with whomever I'm given to walk with, and have since given away or sold most of my possessions so that I'm free to go wherever the Spirit leads. I now find myself being like Jesus, not having a place to lay my head, a place to call home. This then is part of what it means for me to pick up my cross and follow him: I seek no worldly comfort, no place to call home, but instead walk as I'm led, with whomever I'm given. So be it!