cool old guys - revisited

Spiritual resource to share: ageless living

When I grow up, I want to be like these guys. My dad and my two uncles are adventurous, always trying new things, traveling, reading, teaching others or joking around. Life is never dull here.


About a year and a half ago, I was inspired my my parents and aunts and uncles and wrote this blog and called it celebrate the octogenarian. Enjoy!


Here are some of the activities from the last few years of my favorite octogenarians: downhill skiing, travel to Italy, sailing across the Black Sea, writing as a regular columnist for the local paper, canoeing, managing a specialty bookstore, getting back into real estate, memorizing Shakespeare, etc.


Even Mary Baker Eddy is on my list of favorites -- she was the one who put the finishing touches on the Christian Science world wide movement and started up The Christian Science Monitor when she was eighty-something. All before women even had the right to vote!


These guys have got a wonderful sense of agelessness. Who says you can't play at any age? The Bible and Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures written by Mary Baker Eddy certainly confirm this:

And thine age shall be clearer than the noonday; thou shalt shine forth, thou shalt be as the morning - Job

The measurement of life by solar years robs youth and gives ugliness to age. The radiant sun of virtue and truth coexists with being. Manhood is its eternal noon, undimmed by a declining sun. - Science and Health

I love how Mary Baker Eddy characterizes growing older. She says,

Men and women of riper years and larger lessons ought to ripen into health and immortality, instead of lapsing into darkness or gloom. - Science and Health

As my lessons are getting larger and my years more ripe I remember years ago, when I went to a talk (later written up as an essay entitled "Doing Sixty") by Gloria Steinem. It was unforgettable. "I love sixty" she said "there are no rules anymore."


So I am now asking myself, "Whose rules am I following? Material health laws or God's laws?"


The choice is, of course, God's laws. My expectation is that year after year, I will grow into understanding more about beauty, power, abundance and peace. One day, after skiing down some slope, hiking up some mountain or writing a prize winning blog about spirituality and agelessness, I, too, will become someone's favorite octogenarian.

what does loving unconditionally mean to you? - revisited

Spiritual resource to share: unconditional love

Rabindra Singh, 'Raining in My Heart (Longing)', 2003
© The Singh Twins

Aside from roaming city streets and attending my annual meeting two weeks ago, I found my way into the National Gallery in London and spent time taking in the special exhibit on "Love." All kinds of works on all kinds of love were displayed which touched, flirted, saddened and agreed with my heart. It was delightful!

So now that I am back, I am roaming through my past blogs and came across this one about unconditional love written about a year and a half ago:

The question "what does loving unconditionally mean to you" came as an email from my aunt who sent it out to me and my extended family. It's a good question given that "The conclusion is always the same: love is the most powerful and still the most unknown energy in the world." -Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

So here is my shot at it (after first laying down some definitions and salient points):

First – what Love is
There are many kinds of love: eros (sensual love); phileo (brotherly love) and agape (divine love), but I think that all forms of Love start from our highest concept of Love – that is of agape. In that way, Love is the purest, most elemental and radical life force. God is Love. Love’s synonyms are harmony, balance, attraction, fulfillment, contentment, adhesion, and so on.

Second – we are made of love stuff
Being made in the image and likeness of God, we are made in the image and likeness of Love. Love is the new/old normal. We are so embraced by love, we can easily take it all for granted. It is what we yearn for, recognize immediately, can't live without, take daily doses of - all because it is the stuff out of which we are made.

Third - that we are loved unconditionally
Seeing that we are made in Love’s image and likeness, we are constantly companioned with Love – with thoughts of love, with harmony and balance in our lives, hope; these attributes of Love wash over us continuously and we are loved by God without conditions.

Fourth – that we are lovable and loving
Being made of love, we are naturally lovable and loving.

Fifth – we can love unconditionally
We are at our best when we love; stress disappears, distrust dissolves, joy emerges and forgiveness flows. The body relaxes and the thoughts are free to explore what is genius, spontaneous and intimate. We love the same way birds fly. We can love unconditionally because we were made to do this. When we go against this natural response, we clog up, resulting in all sorts of uncomfortable feelings and dis-ease.

SO - what does loving unconditionally mean to me?

Loving unconditionally means to be able to see others and myself as God sees them -- as good, beautiful, harmonious and free; and then to rejoice - be deep down happy - that we are all the children of Love. It is loving from a pure basis and not fearing.

It is easy to wax poetic about love - I Corinthians 13 does it best ( this is from The Message - a Bible paraphrase)

Love never gives up.
Love cares more for others than for self.
Love doesn't want what it doesn't have.

Love doesn't strut,
Doesn't have a swelled head,
Doesn't force itself on others,
Isn't always "me first,"
Doesn't fly off the handle,
Doesn't keep score of the sins of others,
Doesn't revel when others grovel,
Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,
Puts up with anything,
Trusts God always,
Always looks for the best,
Never looks back,
But keeps going to the end.


SO - what does loving unconditionally mean to you?





To share your thoughts on this or to explore this idea further, please feel free to be in contact with me, add your own comments below, email this article to a friend, or add to the healing finds and sites on the web to the right.

dance with the world

Spiritual resource to share: caring hearts

Very recently, a former editor of The Christian Science Monitor, Richard Bergenheim, passed on. A beautiful article of love and appreciation was written up in the Monitor. You'll need to read the article to get the full force of the contribution he made to others personally and internationally. The article closes modestly enough with these words:

Richard liked travel because he loved humanity. In June, he told a group of college students, "Think of the world as filled with friends. We don't let our friends be in trouble without trying to figure out how to help them. We care. And part of what the Monitor exists to do is increase the caring capacity of our hearts."

When this delightful youtube video showed up on my screen, it reminded me of the thousands and millions of people who love humanity and who work, love and dance with others and in so doing, increase the caring capacity of all of our hearts. So enjoy watching it, and I hope you'll find your heart dancing to find even more ways to love and care for one another.





You can click here to subscribe to The Christian Science Monitor now!

To share your thoughts on this or to explore this idea further, please feel free to be in contact with me, add your own comments below, email this article to a friend, or add to the healing finds and sites on the web to the right.

The Community Table

Spiritual resource to share: nourishing home-cooked prize-winning food !

Church: whatever rests upon and proceeds from divine Principle

In my newfound expansive expression of church, I am so happy to share an activity that my family and other area churches are involved in. It is called The Community Table. The idea behind it is a community meal to all, with a focus to invite those who need to stretch their dollars at the end of the month.

The watchword is dignity to all, and no one should know who comes from the food pantry or is homeless and who isn't. The instigator of this project is a Franciscan Catholic and I so admire her vision - a divine Principle - to bring the sense of equality and dignity to the community.

In order to do this, she has set down some ground rules:

• We use china and real cups and silverware
• Breads and desserts go directly on the tables
• It's a buffet style feast that includes 3-4 host churches' best foods: Gramma's famous potato salad, Fred's silky chiffon cake, Al's mouthwatering squash casserole and on and on.
• Host churches are assigned for set up and clean up, but everyone serves everyone.
  

I love this activity for its simplicity. It is so......pleasant! There are no agendas, no sermons, just the community taking care of the community. There are a number of ideas that are relevant to this activity that I am reading in a Bible Lesson this week, including these two:

• Behold, how good and pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!
• The cement of a higher humanity will unite all interests in the one divinity.

There is something wholesome and real about serving others, and joining with others to do good works. The Community Table is one vehicle that makes me feel good about the higher concept of church which is to elevate the race and rouse the dormant thought to a more spiritualized understanding of who we are to God and who we are to each other.

To share your thoughts on this or to explore this idea further, please feel free to be in contact with me, add your own comments below, email this article to a friend, or add to the healing finds and sites on the web to the right.

what does loving unconditionally mean to you?

Spiritual resource to share: unconditional love






Two people loving each other unconditionally in the reflection of Chicago's Kapoor Sculpture in Millenium Park.



This question came as an email from my aunt who sent it out to me and my eclectic extended family. It's a good question given that "The conclusion is always the same: love is the most powerful and still the most unknown energy in the world." -Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

So here is my shot at it (after first laying down some definitions and salient points):

First – what Love is
There are many kinds of love: eros (sensual love); phileo (brotherly love) and agape (divine love) , but I think that all forms of Love start from our highest concept of Love – that is of agape. In that way, Love is the purest, most elemental and radical life force. God is Love. Love’s synonyms are harmony, balance, attraction, fulfillment, contentment, adhesion, and so on.

Second – we are made of love stuff
Being made in the image and likeness of God, we are made in the image and likeness of Love. Love is the new/old normal. We are so embraced by love, we can easily take it all for granted. It is what we yearn for, recognize immediately, can't live without, take daily doses of - all because it is the stuff out of which we are made.

Third - that we are loved unconditionally
Seeing that we are made in Love’s image and likeness, we are constantly companioned with Love – with thoughts of love, with harmony and balance in our lives, hope; these attributes of Love wash over us continuously and we are loved by God without conditions.

Fourth – that we are lovable and loving
Being made of love, we are naturally lovable and loving.

Fifth – we can love unconditionally
We are at our best when we love; stress disappears, distrust dissolves, joy emerges and forgiveness flows. The body relaxes and the thoughts are free to explore what is genius, spontaneous and intimate. We love the same way birds fly. We can love unconditionally because we were made to do this. When we go against this natural response, we clog up, resulting in all sorts of uncomfortable feelings and dis-ease.

SO - what does loving unconditionally mean to me?

Loving unconditionally means to be able to see others and myself as God sees them -- as good, beautiful, harmonious and free; and then to rejoice - be deep down happy - that we are all the children of Love. It is loving from a pure basis and not fearing.

It is easy to wax poetic about love - I Corinthians 13 does it best ( this is from The Message - a Bible paraphrase)

Love never gives up.
Love cares more for others than for self.
Love doesn't want what it doesn't have.
Love doesn't strut,
Doesn't have a swelled head,
Doesn't force itself on others,
Isn't always "me first,"
Doesn't fly off the handle,
Doesn't keep score of the sins of others,
Doesn't revel when others grovel,
Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,
Puts up with anything,
Trusts God always,
Always looks for the best,
Never looks back,
But keeps going to the end.


SO - what does loving unconditionally mean to you?


photo by Kim

To share your thoughts on this or to explore this idea further, please feel free to be in contact with me, add your own comments below, email this article to a friend, or add to the healing finds and sites on the web to the right.