You Know What's Up?

You know what's up for me today? The NFL Draft. Yeah, I know, not very spiritual but very much like our experience of life. Remember when, as kids, we stood around the gymnasium or the ball field or the dirt lot, picking teams? Were you one of the first picked? The valuable kid who can make the runs, score the touchdown or create the winning play? Were you one of the vast middle bunch of kids who were thought to have some potential? Or were you one of the last of the last picked? Fine, we'll take him/her. You know the dead weight, the kid nobody wanted on his/her team, the loser. In the NFL Draft, the last aspiring college player hoping to get drafted by an NFL team is called Mr. Irrelevant. Nice. And the 39th pick of the 7th round, the 256th pick overall of the 2015 NFL Draft, the Arizona Cardinals pick...Mr. Irrelevant. Dictionary definition of Irrelevant - not relating or pertinent to the matter at hand; not important. Like I said, nice.
Here's what's up for me...no one is irrelevant. Not one person can be considered irrelevant. Each and every person here is here for a reason. We are born to make manifest the glory of Spirit in some individual way that only we can. Don't ever let anyone convince you that you are irrelevant. Spirit creates, that's what it does and it saw fit to create you for amazing things. Be your authentic self, do your thing, create your dreams, scale your mountains, walk your path, proudly, individually, as only you can do.
And that goes for you, Mr. Irrelevant of 2015, Tight End Gerald Christian, out of Louisville. There is nothing irrelevant about you.

A Day We Remember

March 5, 2001...gun shots...sirens...phones ringing off the hook...hearts pounding...parents crying...wandering around the Albertson's parking lot looking for their kids, their friend's kids, any kids they know...high school students hugging, gripping each other tightly, not letting go for anything...teachers in shock, doing everything and anything they can...police, EMTs, counselors all mobilizing to be of support...a small community, Santee, changed forever...families devastated...2 dead, Randy Gordon and Brian Zucker, 13 wounded...and the reverberations of that horrible act continue to this day...
March 5, 2014...flowers are placed on the Santana High School sign in front of the school...13 years later and the grief, sorrow and pain are still present in abundance...time does not heal all things...I cry and I pray and I long for the ability to forgive but it does not come...not yet...it takes more time than it's been and I'm still angry...

Moving - One of the Top Ten Stressors

So, VISION moved into its new digs the first week of August. It's been a process of unpacking and trying to find places for things. Our office space is smaller by about 300 square feet so we are trying to move three offices into two. We are in the process of creating two classrooms that can serve both children on Sunday mornings and adults during the week, daytime and evenings. It's quite a process. Everyone is pulling together to come up with creative ways to store things and serve the community. I know we are in the right place at the right time and we are poised to grow and thrive in our new space. It's fun, exciting, scary, overwhelming, and challenging to make a space that is inviting, friendly, warm, and uncluttered, neat, clean and welcoming. We are making a place to come and transform, to laugh, to grow, to hear great music, to see wonderful plays, to experience transcendent moments, and to bond with fellow VISION members. We are the place to come to transform your life by using these spiritual principles in your daily life. I have to say that the process of moving is one of the top ten stressors of living. One of the symptoms of the type of stress moving brings up in us is that it magnifies us. By that, I mean that the highest aspects of our being goes higher and the lowest aspects of our being goes lower. So, moving tends to bring out the best and the worst in our tendencies. Take that and couple it with our coping behaviors when stress goes up and we have an ideal environment to practice the principles we teach! I know for myself that when change comes up, I want to know how it comes out, and in my need to know, I exercise control as a coping mechanism over the change itself. What are the coping mechanisms you use? Some of us withdraw, some of us avoid, some of us control, some of us get angry. We all have some habit behavior we use when the stress of change invades our personal space. I would invite you to look at the habit behavior you express when stress invades your space. What do you do? Who or what do you blame? What do you use to deflect the stress? How do you cope with the change? All change is a call for us to see our world as bigger, more beautiful, more expansive, more supportive than ever before. We are called to do our work. We are not victims of our circumstances, our jobs, our government, our family or anything else at the physical level. We are free to experience the joy of being alive, and the simple pleasures of life are the living of it.

Community Building Exercise!

Want to build community? Move a church. I mean it, really. The members of VISION: A Center for Spiritual Living did the most amazing job of moving the center. There were people involved in all aspects, all phases of the move, all along the way. People came out and volunteered time, talent, treasure, and so much more. Our members are incredible resources of knowledge about fundraising, about construction, engineering, electricity, packing, sound, lighting, you name it, someone is an expert at it. Everyone gave what he or she could and then did more! We are blessed to have the most dedicated, committed members ever! It is a wonderful demonstration of just how strong our community has become over the past six years. The connection between members is important and this move clearly showed the connections run deep. It warms the heart of a minister to know that the community is healthy, strong, thriving and bonded with each other. It's nice to know we created a community that can continue to thrive through a big change like moving which is one of the top ten stressors for people. We are taking the center to the next level and we are taking it with the wisdom that the center is not a building, it's not a location, it's not the minister, it's the community, and at VISION, the community is thriving!!!

Guns, Guns, Everywhere Guns

So, I was thinking...what is it with the paranoid rantings of the pro-gun faction saying that any regulation of gun ownership is a blatant violation of the 2nd Amendment? I believe in car ownership and I still recognize that laws regarding car ownership and car operation must be enforced in order to protect all citizens of our country. Responsible ownership must account for something. One cannot buy a car and then drive over people, property and disregard the rules of the road. We have agreed to some common laws regarding responsible car ownership to the safety of all of us. I believe the same applies to gun laws. We must have some comprehensive laws regarding gun ownership for the safety of all of our citizens. That does not make me anti-gun any more than saying we need car laws make me anti-car. Making better laws and creating additional regulations will not eliminate gun violence any more than making more traffic laws eliminate car accidents. But it may make things better, and isn't that what we all want?

That Bothers Me

The other day I noticed that I was annoyed by the car that was driving in front of mine. I looked into the car and noticed that a blue placard, which identifies the driver as disabled, was dangling from the rear view mirror as the occupant of said car was driving. And it annoyed me. I came up with all different reasons, sane reasons, safety reasons, intelligent reasons why I should be annoyed with the dangling blue placard. But the bottom line was, I was annoyed by it. Have you ever been annoyed by things like that, things totally outside of your power to control them? Wow, it's such a waste of energy, yet there I was being all annoyed and up in this driver's business with my condemnation of his placement of his placard. After a few moments of distain, displeasure and judgment, I realized that I was no longer in my business because I was so preoccupied with his business. Talk about futility. Then, it dawned on me. I had been missing some of my meditation times in the month of December. With all of the hustle and bustle of the holiday season I neglected to set time aside to do my regular meditation and was participating in a hit or miss kind of practice. Well, no wonder I was cranky... I remembered something that Mother Teresa once said about being so busy she better meditate twice as long on that day, I'm paraphrasing here, but that was the gist of it. I do what I do, I get what I get. Miss my regular meditation time and I start being pulled and pushed by the effects of the world. Stay in my regular meditative practice and I go about my day anchored in the Truth. It's that simple and that challenging sometimes.

Equality Means Equal

I read with some interest that Maggie Gallagher, same sex marriage opponent, is ending her syndicated column after seventeen years. While she mentioned all of the reasons why she decided to walk away from her column, newpapers are dinosaurs, print media is a dying breed, I believe she has simply realized that she is not on the winning side of her crusade. Whether or not she has seen the light, it is apparent even to her that she will not "win" this one, that equality will win the day, and that marriage equality is a done deal, state vote by state vote. Freedom wins in the final analysis and the freedom to marry must be a freedom for all Americans. Over the age of consent? Want to marry the person of your dreams? They are over the age of consent also? Go for it. And don't give me any of those slippery slope arguments, either, they are stupid. Heteros cannot marry their dogs or their goats or whatever, so that's not even a conversation I'm going to have with the haters. And the legalization of same sex marriage will not force churches to marry anyone they don't want to marry...the Catholic Church has been denying the sacrament of marriage to various hetero people forever, and they have never been sued because of it. The legal contract of marriage issued by the government should not be dictated by religious beliefs but by the laws of the government. The religious sacrament of marriage can be as biased as the particular religious belief wants to be. It gives everyone freedom to marry. In her closing column, Maggie Gallagher admitted that the fight has not been going well. I am reassured by that. The Truth will out, as they say, and in the end the freedom to live a life as well as one can, to fall in love, to marry, to raise children, to love the person one loves must be a freedom accessible to all.