Thank you dear friends for listening and sharing here. This post is devoted to you – for you to express your spiritual truth and say what you think about existence. Please share your thoughts by adding comments, and check back to see what transpires. I can’t wait to listen and learn from you.
Here’s to freely sharing how we see life.
LOVE,
Suzy
Share the Spiritual 
I spent two plus hours early this afternoon discussing judgment. Not judgment of others but of self. I find that after all of the classes one takes and the discussions one gets involved in, that not accepting one’s self for all that one is or is not still brings up judgment. Our judgment comes from that ever so small but destructive thing called the ego. Our ego pops up to “defend” our being when it feels attacked. It does not matter if that attack is from within or from the outside, the ego still tries to take control and judge us as in need of improvement or change, or even distancing ourselves from whatever put us in the place of judgment.
If we learn to look at everything as a part of our human journey then there is no need to judge. There is only to learn and to move on in the silence of completeness. So my thought is that there is no need to blame the ego because blaming the ego is still blaming somebody else.
I’ll close with this thought….isn’t there enough worth to go around without having to compete for it?
I’ve read Share the Spiritual since its inception and have enjoyed and learned tremendously from Suzanne’s posts and the group’s comments. As the analytical, ‘man of reason’ in the family, I’ll offer this thought for your consideration. Whatever your religious or spiritual beliefs, faith almost by definition requires a willingness to doubt. And I believe that this skepticism, of all forms of dogma, whether conservative or progressive, is critical to how we treat each other and live our daily lives. If you can’t be sure that your world view or your religious tenet is correct, then you bring a larger dose of humility and empathy towards your fellow woman or man.
Looking forward to the next post,
Seth
Thank you for sharing your truth here.
On this full moon in august there are a few thoughts that came to mind.
yes, but what is this same truth
everbody expresses in just
a little different way?
What do you seek?
Nothing.
Such desire.
*****
the opposite of truth is truth
*****
$5.00 insight:
rushing past the world
to the bookstore
to buy a book about Life
*****
death can’t kill you
only you can die
according to your own definition
oh sure, death will come
and death will steal
— but only your posessions
Seth,
I appreciate your words wholeheartedly. It reminds me of Thomas Merton’s prayer:
“MY LORD GOD, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it. Therefore I will trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.”
I think faith of whatever tradition is a balance of the above humility and perseverance of at least trying to follow something that is bigger than we humans can possibly understand.
Faith, to me, is less about being dogmatic in any tradition (traditional or progressive), it’s about being open to something bigger and also being open to the fact that we will most likely never understand it all. And if we really get that we don’t completely understand the universe, God, whatever you want to call it, then faith would also mean that we have to be open to the journey of others, even if we don’t understand their journey.
Rosary
Thanks Suz for opening up this forum. Rosary, I love your thoughts about the prayer. You mention two things that came to mind as I read the above sharings: Humility and not being alone in faith, two things that have helped me personally grow and endure life’s hardships. Just this week I witnessed the first serious accident of a child I was teaching at camp (the first emergency we’ve had in seven years) when she fell from a tree and broke her wrist. I was feeling all manner of guilt and shame despite prayers and personal faith guiding me to manage the situation. The call from an experienced teacher friend later that day who had been through a similar situation (an accident after seven years of teaching as well!) along with the grace with which the family whose child was hurt reacted and the look of bravery in the child’s eyes to have conquered her fears as she signed her name in chalk on that tree after the other campers had signed her cast, these were truly the blessings in disguise for me from that difficult experience. Why can’t Harry Potter conquer the dark lord alone? Why do we attend worship services or other forms of organized religion? I think our toughest moments require help from other humans, the more humiliating the situation the more we need backup. Instead of cringing at anyone seeing us in a humiliating circumstance or worrying that we are inconveniencing them I think we need to remember that God provides our backup all around us if we would just accept it. Over and over again we see communities around the world lifting each other up after natural disasters, terrorism, etc. Let’s embrace this aspect of being human, this blessed form of faith!
I/i have been trying to make sense of something that Seth put in his comments. “If you can’t be sure that you world view or religious tenant is correct, then you bring a larger dose of humility and empathy towards your fellow woman or man.” From whereI/i am looking at our collection of personalities and egos the ones that are not absolutely sure ofwhat they believe bring little empathy and are not humble when they question almost the very existence of religion, mythology and mankind’s future.
Thomas Merton’s prayer to me is about our willingness to be totally empty so we can go down the path of life without anything, Total emptiness only means that we can experience life in totality. We are not bringing along any of the “things” that we human collect as we move from birth to life’s final journey.
When we look carefully at this moment in time what is there to hold on to? Only a memory of a place we once were, or thought we were. We are nothing but an energy source that is here and then gone on to another space in the universe.