“

… Children and old people are penned up and locked away from the business of the world to an unprecedented degree; nobody talks to them anymore. Without children and old people mixing in daily life, a community has no future and no past, only a continuous present. In fact, the term “community” hardly applies to the way we interact with each other. We live in networks, not communities, and everyone I know is lonely because of that. …

“

-John Tayor Gatto, “Why Schools Don’t Educate”

WOW…

“

What about the men who run about the countryside  painting signs that say “Jesus saves” and “Prepare to meet God!”  Have you ever seen one of them, and I wonder what goes on in their minds.  Strangely, their signs do not make me think of Jesus, but of them.  Or perhaps it is “their Jesus” who gets in the way and makes all thought of Jesus impossible.  They wish to force their Jesus upon us, and He is perhaps only a projection of themselves.  They seem to be at times threatening the world with judgment and at other times promising it mercy.  But are they asking simply to be loved and recognized and valued, for themselves? In any case, their Jesus is quite different from mine.  But because their concept is different, should I reject it in horror, with distaste?  If I do, perhaps I reject something in my own self that  I no longer recognize to be there.  And in any case, if I can tolerate their Jesus then I can accept and love them.  Or I can at least conceive of doing so.  Let not their Jesus be a barrier between us, or they will be a barrier between us and Jesus.

“

- Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation, Ch. 15 “Sentences”, pg. 106

“

Memory is corrupted and ruined by a crowd of “memories.” If I am going to have a true memory, there are a thousand things that must first be forgotten.  Memory is not fully itself when it reaches only into the past.  A memory that is not alive to the present does not “remember” its true identity, is not memory at all.  He who remembers nothing but facts and past events, and is never brought back into the present, is a victim of amnesia.

We are so convinced that past evils must repeat themselves that we make them repeat themselves.  We dare not risk a new life in which the evils of the past are totally forgotten; a new life seems to imply new evils, and we would rather face evils that are already familiar.  Heance we cling to the evil that has already become ours, and renew it from day to day, until we become identified with it and change is no longer thinkable.

“

- Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation, Ch. 15 “Sentences”, pg. 106

For the sorrow that is according to the will of God produces a repentance without regret, leading to salvation, but the sorrow of the world produces death. (2 Corinthians 7:10)

Lord have mercy.

how do i survive a thing that requires me to sacrifice my individuality?
you don’t survive. that’s the key.
stop waiting for Him to save your “self”.
He never said He would. He said you would have to suffer and die. He said that waiting for your “self” to be saved would result in never waking from this death.
your true self is waiting on the other side.
sacrifice your desires on the alter of your heart and you will know Me.

… that my reoccurring top post is “to tattoo or not to tattoo”. out of all my other “soul searching” posts the one post that comes up as most viewed is this. it’s ironic. what’s so important about tattooing? it’s permanent definitely, but besides that. definition of identity… in the ambiguity of identity lives anxiety. so then is it just to make me feel better about myself, feel secure? to say “this is who/what i am.” to quite literally wear my self on my sleeves. not trying to sound aloof or arrogant since someday i might get a tattoo. just wondering out loud…

My heart is a wine glass and only Allah can make it sing. Only He can fill it. Only His touch to the lips of my heart has the right pressure and friction to produce the resonance that makes it sing and shatter into a million pieces. Only the voice of God can speak my pieces back into the Oneness that can only be filled by Him. I long to be Sufi.

Whether I be Sufi or Christian, I don’t know. I know the basics of what I believe. I know what my heart believes. I know that my faith always seems to be walking on the razor’s edge. CERTAINLY i don’t boast with this. So much i wish i had a normal faith like everyone else that is easily “explainable”. Will I always struggle with this feeling of being an outcast? Jesus was an outcast, and look. So I should be thankful of my “problem” I guess. Maybe belonging to man’s delineation of God’s Kingdom is not my purpose. I don’t know. All I know is that Allah chooses to fill my cup through the Sufis and the Christians. For some reason I don’t find fullness in Sufism or Christianity alone. My cup is filled through Allah and Christ. I know my God, because even when I think I don’t, He knows me. I rest in that.

Christ is in our midst, Insha’Allah.

Just to clarify this previous post. The reason i say F the corporation is because if everyone was faithful to Allah, then The Corporation would not have to worry about “motivation” and holding people accountable to The Corporation.  The Corporation would not have to motivate people to do a good job if people’s hearts were focused on the Highest Good. The Love. Our One Triune God. Allah.

Thank You.

In prostration I find the wings of my heart.  I feel the closest to my Beloved when prostrating my self and my heart before Him.  Prostration is the most upright approach to the Divine.

But I have to say, Pride is a bitch.  It rears its ugly head in the most twistedly creative ways.

My beloved and I have been joining a local Eastern Orthodox parish for morning prayer on Sundays and it has been so wonderfully sobering, humbling and fulfilling.  After I started on my Sufi path most western Christian worship seemed hollow and meaningless to me.  I’m sure that it is my own fallen nature that limits me in this way.  Not that western worship IS meaningless and hollow, just my own experience of it.  I was thinking last Sunday how long it’s been since I’ve actually looked forward to Sunday worship and tears filled my heart with hope and thankfulness for EO morning prayer.  Thank God!  Anyway…

This last Tuesday, Juanita and I went to the “Vesperal Liturgy of The Forerunner.”  There was a point when everyone prostrated them selves before the Eucharist and I wanted to as well but all these thoughts and fears got in the way.

Every Sunday as well, I long to throw off the coat of self-consciousness and false humility.  I long to throw myself before the feet of God.  But every time this longing in my heart arises, I start to fear.  I start to fear what will other people think who are REAL Orthodox?  Will they think, “how inappropriate for a non-orthodox christian to worship in this way” or “just how inappropriate”?  Will they think that I am being like the Pharisee who prayed at the top of his lungs, “thank you god that I am not like this sinner over here”?  Will they think that I am simply doing it because everyone else is doing it and I just want to fit in?  All this flaunts itself under the guise of, “there is a time and place for everything” or “after a while I’ll feel more comfortable doing… whatever.”  Unfortunately though… possibly… if I take this route I’m sure those “comforts” will come to pass.  But will I then be giving into the lies that my pride is telling me?  Should I just go for it? Probably so… maybe not… but probably so.  May God give me His courage over my pride!   Ya Allah Al-Aziz!

Thanks be to God.

If you were married or had a Beloved you would come to realize…

The good you do for your beloved is the same good or actually better than the good you do for yourself.

Why serve yourself for the moment, when the fruits of serving your beloved in the midst of suffering, make your heart and belly full of peace, love, joy and satisfaction?

To serve The Beloved is to serve my beloved. To serve my beloved is to serve The Beloved and to serve My Beloved beats serving myself.  If only I could finally learn this lesson…

may you have deep peace…