This moment of our lives

Go slow.

You've heard that here before,
you'll probably hear it again,
and for now:
go slow.

It's good Friday.
It's hot.
It's Friday.

People are dying, right now,
people are being born,
this is the moment of this moment of our life.

I just gave a "lesson,"
in the Anat Baniel Method.
I was
"tired"
and hence forced to go slower than usual,
and guess what:
going slow I could notice even more than
I usually do
(which most would say is a lot)
and noticing more,
and using an even lighter touch than usual
and smaller movements,
and letting myself find the laziest easiest way
to come up with the next improved movement,
the lesson went
extremely well.

And what about Good Friday.
There is a death story.
Go slow about what we are supposed to think
about a death story,
even though tradition
and habit
and culture all say:
think and feel X about this,
go slow.

Just breathe.

You are alive.

Slow down enough to savor that.
From that think about the death that comes
before resurrection,
or not.

Mull over Katie's third question:
Who and how are you when you attach to and believe the thought
and
the resurrection question:
who and how are you when you don't have the thought, or don't believe it?

Go slow with even these thoughts.

Take a walk.

Read a book you love.

Take a nap.

Go slow.

This is the moment of your life to be at one
with this
moment of your life.

Good,
April 22, Friday, 2011.

New Wine in Old Skins: Poor Idea, Plus an Amazing Book

NEW WINE IN OLD BOTTLES




How to be kind to yourself after a “big shift”

Sometimes Life throws us what could be called a “big shift.” In the Bible Jesus talks about this “big shift” as the creation of ourselves as a new person, as New Wine. And He says, Why put the New Wine in Old Bottles, it will just go to waste that way. Put the New Wine in New Bottles.

The quote from my version of the New Testament, a highly recommended, The Restored New Testament: A New Translation with Commentary, Including the Gnostic Gospels Thomas, Mary, and Judas by Willis Barnstone, goes like this:

“No one pours new wine in old skins,
Since the wine splits the skins,
And both wine and skins are lost.
No, put the new wine in new skins.”

This is hugely applicable today, in the era of so many hip, shoulder, knee replacements. This is the New Wine. Because without a New Bottle, we really are not getting any where near all the benefits and improvements we could.

We had the shoulder or hip or knee surgery because we weren’t using ourselves in an ease-ful and pleasurable and efficiently masterful way. Basically, we were using our body as a neglected step-child, not really paying attention to our dis-ease and pain until they became intolerable. And truth be told, for people who don’t know about, or know and haven’t tried yet the two methods recommended here, there is often little effective that can be done.

Come to think of it, a chiropractic “adjustment” could be another way to set us up as New Wine.

And after our chiropractic help, we still haven’t addressed the underlying need to organize and sense and move in easy and efficient and pleasurable ways.

So here’s where the Feldenkrais Method, or the Anat Baniel Method come are crucial.

They are the most powerful, and most gentle ways on this planet to create inside of ourselves a new organization, a New Bottle for the New Wine of post operation, or post chiropractic. (Post alcohol, and post dis-ease, too, and during cancer and depression, and that’s a longer story, but thing of this: if we improve ease and comfort and breathing and pleasure in life, how much will that help our Whole Life.)

Almost invariably, people who have had one knee or hip replacement, need the next, and it is almost always from not having created a new organization from the one that created the stress and dis-ease and harm that necessitated the first operation.

Does that mean after two knee operations, or the second hip operation you should do FM or ABM? Only if you want to have a low level of ease, comfort, awareness and functioning for the rest of your life.

Don't worry, also from the Bible, but that doesn't mean "do nothing," it means: put your energy into love and improvement and into making the world a better place, and stop fretting. See, if you'd please, yesterday's posting: Don't Worry, Be Happy

Good.

Jesus in the New Yorker, letter to editor, who knows

if they'll take it.



I greatly appreciated Adam Gopnik’s essay “What Did Jesus Do?” As a participant in an evangelical and extremely good hearted Christian Church, I often feel that I’m a little crazy for having the sorts of thoughts that, from this article, I realized many people have been having for many years.

Like: If Jesus knew He was God, or really, really close, and the obvious end to all human life is death, and He knew his place after Death was a lock, what is the grand tragedy, other than a day of extremely unpleasant suffering? We all die. Many with more that a day of intense and awful suffeing. He got to join humanity in that. Good.

But the main craziness I feel is the contradiction between a gospel of Love Your Enemies; Cast not the First Stone; Judge Not that Ye Not be Judged, and then all the judgment that Christians have about those who don’t believe that this is the one route to …. Whatever. Heaven let’s say.

“My Way or the Highway” is certainly a favorite human attitude, and more than one of my ex-mates would gladly testify to my shortcomings in this area, but to base a religion of love and freedom from judgment on a premise that yeah, yeah, love is great and all that, but by the way: if you don’t do it our way: judgment, damnation, eternal suffering. Tough cookies for those who don’t line up on our side.

Which could be summed up something like, Christianity is really great, and wouldn’t it be even greater if Christians were Christian about those who didn’t subscribe to their take on the path to salvation (or their idea of what salvation is. OR, their ideas of what the “sins” are that bare the route to “salvation,” and so on.)

Okay, that’s a mess, to my mind, and then this article helped clarify that this isn’t just a trait unfortunately adopted by the Church under Paul’s zeal and guidance and organization building. This lack of tolerance is conveyed in the Gospels by Jesus Himself.

Which is to say: along the way Jesus isn’t very Christian. Gads, what to do with that?

Well, I’ve pondered down these roads many a year, and in reading this article a number of times come to a possible conclusion that Jesus, as a real man, born into a real time in history, was like most real humans, deeply dependant on his cultural biases in his perception of the world.

So he’s divine, maybe all along, or maybe he discovers what enlightened people have throughout history, that in a certain state He is divine. But he’s in this tradition of a people of the Book, and all these prophets, and a tradition of My Way or the Highway, our Way is right, we are the Chosen People, you all other people don’t really cut it, too bad, repent, get your act together, become just like us.

“Why can’t a woman think like a man,” says Henry Higgins. Why can’t you think like me, thinks every wife of her husband, every husband of his wife, every leftist of those on the right, every Republican of every Democrat.

We can have humor about this, or get serious, life and death, what a temptation if you can walk on water and whatnot, to let those who don’t buy your way know that they are going to suffer eternal damnation.

Alas, perhaps the damnation of anyone to and or in “hell” is the suffering that we all suffer, in the good old here and now, in this daily life on this ongoing planet, whenever we condemn, judge, feel superior to, angry at, dismissive of any other human. I.e., when we forget to “Love Our Enemy.” Righteousness is such a tempting poison, but when we feel what goes on in our hearts, minds, spirits, behavior, breathing even when we are busy in the world of “Me Right, You Wrong,” we are certainly far from happiness, and close to hell, if not well dammed / damned up in it.

There’s a thesis in here, which I’m in no hurry to round out. And, thanks so much Adam Gopnik and the New Yorker for giving me, and I hope many others, so much nourishment in the possibilities of real faith combined with real intelligence.

Chris Elms, Orcas Island, Washington.

Day Fifteen: “It is easier for a camel to get through the eye of a needle than a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.”

“It is easier for a camel to get through the eye of a needle than a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.”

This phrase, from Jesus, comes in the Bible shortly after ar rich man who “wants it all” is told by Jesus: okay, you’ve been good, that’s great, now give away everything to the poor and follow me.

What would “giving away all our possessions?” mean in this esoteric Christianity of love and being present that I am exploring as part of this book?

Like this: what are our “possessions?” Wow, everything we put “my” in front of. My home, my ideas, my country, my family, my beliefs, my books, my concepts, my name.

All the stuff that comes up, “No,” when we get present and dwell in the moment and ask, from that place: “Who am I really?”

I am “So and so,” (our name). “No.”

I am a man/ woman. Well, biologically, yes indeed, but is this correct to who we Really are, as we sense and aware in the moment? Try it out: sense and aware right now and see, outside of concepts and social behaviors and patterns of actions, is man/ woman who we really are?

You decide.

Republican, Democrat, liberal, conservative, TV watcher, book reader, ecologist, not caring: these again, fit us into various crowds we “like” or “don’t like,” but are they who we really are?


Play with this today: if you were to die to your possessions of all the “my” this and “my” that, would nothing be left, or would something that is the essential you?

And see if unhappiness today, as it comes and goes, has anything to do with so called “identification” (or clinging) to these various conceptual and material possessions in our life.

This is game. This is an exploration. This is huge. Enjoy.

day 91: Go Inside, wake up to Loving the "enemy"

Peaceful "interior" of a different sort. Photo by my daughter, paintings by my son's ex-gal

Go inside, be happy, and if not….do the Work

My Christian friend, Dick Staub, offers Jesus as the way to find our lives centered in love. He and I agree a lot that one center of a real, authentic and full life, is the ability to “love your enemies.” The heart, our heart, is the heart of the matter. And our heart, holding onto any little bit of a grudge, can't love the way a heart so loves to do (and be).

Another way this could be said, is to feel good toward, and treat well, people who don’t necessarily feel go toward you, nor necessarily treat you well.

So here’s today’s project: go inside and let your mind touch, with love, those people who “bother” you the most.

Don’t struggle.

Don’t wish them to be different.

Don’t take their treatment of you personally.

Either see them with the love Jesus would, or use the help, as you know it, of Jesus, to get you to a place of love and appreciation and enjoyment of these people.

Or use the Work of Byron Katie, if you need to come to inner peace that way, or find it useful. Indeed, you could be a fine Christian, and take advantage of the four questions and the turn around to help you return to the place Jesus wants us all to live.

Either way, go inside, let your mind roam freely, and then come to the place where you can smile about the stuff that bothers most people.

This is only a life time’s work, this little section today, and a life is composed of days, and today is a day, so enjoy many times of doing little except going within and finding peace.

And making this a peace that gets work, by letting your thoughts wander the to “troubling” people, over and over, until there is no “trouble” left.

Play with, and work with this dilemma and challenge and gift of our life on Earth: other people are jerks sometimes. We are jerks sometimes.

We can be present and we can find a way to see them as the same as us and love them. This is the inner game for today.

Other People

even though
they preach the gospel
of love

some people

just don't have
time
or the bigness
in their heart
to be kind
to other people

especially
anyone who has
ever "rubbed them the wrong way"

oh, well:
that's their issue,
isn't it?

Jesus said it kind of like this:
"Anyone can love someone
who is kissing their you know what,

but when the other person
starts to be a jerk
then you get to learn whether
you can really love or not."


So, then the turn around gets really
fun:

can
we
love the people who
aren't big enough
(and that could be a fine
and
false
story, couldn't it?)
to love us

when we are jerks


and then again:
the real
super duper
inside out
and sweetening
into truth
turn around:

can we love ourselves
when we are jerks

and forgive

and come into the present enough
to "do better"
next time


not so shabby,
this learning ground of a life,
eh?

short speck big deal

Jesus
was some say
born around Christmas

died
some
say
around Easter

a speck of life
in a vast universe

a brilliant speck

as
is

each
and every
glorious
instant

of this
short
speck
of our
own

life

Death, love, learning, Jesus, children

books

full of words

pointing

if we are lucky

to some richness in life
some reminder
of how splendid
this world is

how amazing we are

what fools we be when we wallow
in words
that tell us
how we are some deprived
or lacking


the jewels
of life
the light in the darkness

Jesus jumping off the page
of a recent book
Three Gospels, by Reynolds Price

and then
children's books
by William Steig
full of the whimsical glory
of life

and the darkness coming
earlier

and death of the summer
and of the day's past
and
of
maybe, sweet, Life, maybe
some of my/ our illusions

and on the other side
of

"In the beginning was the Word"

what was before the beginning

what is the kiss
the sunlight
the fingers touching the tree bark
the feet brushing the ground
the bird or frog or wind calling

and no word
to tell

just
the thing itself

and we
maybe
luckily

there,
becoming lost
one with
entranced
entuned with

the Whole Deal

soft stomach, open heart, curiosity

loving what is:
the key to
changing
and to
being content,
change or no change


soft belly,
breathe easy,
be present:

in moving
and learning to be at ease
as we reach
and twist
and balance
and move in various directions:
keeping the head and neck free
keeping the stomach soft,
keeping the breathing easy,
being curious:
how could I make this a little easier,
how could I be a little more aware
how could I be a little more kind to myself
how could I allow the various parts of me to help with the whole of me

all this:
good

and when
a so called
"trouble" happens in our life

say
a beautiful partner
wishes to be on her own
and the "end" is what is
coming

again:
keeping the breathing
and the thinking soft:
no enemies
no blames
not even regrets

what has been wonderful:
good
what has been less than wonderful:
good, what can I learn from that

what mistakes have I made?
good:
softly examine,
no self hatred
how could I have been less about me
and more about her
curious:
what can I learn about
how to love
better

and when she was less than wonderful:
good,
what can I learn about being kind
to
a person
who is in a troubled place

as Jesus says,
anyone can love someone who's treating
you all peaches and cream
and
then
when you want to really learn about love,
love the one who is giving you a hard time

and now:
not to give me
a hard
time
or her

and the open heart:
how can I love
change
that my "mind"
"doesn't want"
how can I love
life
when it is
(as it always is)
out of my control

and the Neurological Upgrading Work?
ah,
soft belly,
stay in the present,
curious:
what can be just a little better
now
and
then
now
and
then
now


good,

lot's of learning
and loving possible

if I am to live happily
in what is supposed
to be an unhappy
time

more water, rumi, learning

i can only do this,
but to a lesser extent,
and so what,
even to know
we have a back
and can bend even a little bit that way,
is to begin to realize
how amazing it is
how amazing it is
how amazing we are
how amazing this
time is

to be in this human
body
for this
short/ long
brilliant
and wonderful
(and awful,
when we let the story
get us down)
life
on
earth
thing


the day is wet
the fingers are cold
the stomach is full

my attention
is now
and then
not now
and back
again:

life on earth

the waters
come
the waters go
the waters come back
again

so be it

how much can we love
this life

---

Imagine a man selling his donkey
to be with Jesus

And now
Imagine him selling Jesus
to get a ride on a donkey.
This does happen .

Rumi

Christmas coming, the geese are getting worried, parenting Wed,

one day
we
will all be dead

apparently
one day
a long time ago
or long long
time ago
depending on your sense of timing
the Jesus child was born

he was clear on His life's purpose:
to be one with God
to speak for God
to help people find the Kingdom of Heaven within
to try to put out this radical message:
love your neighbor
love your enemy

a big job he/ He set out to do
and with some miracles to jazz up the interest
and some good parables
and a great salesman (Paul)
some of his/ His stuff and ideas are
still around

and some days
we love our neighbors
and love our enemies
and even
gasp
love our selves

wednesday is
"supposed" to be about parenting:

well,
sometimes the little shits
seem like enemies
and then
we have to remember:
whose idea was it to bring them into the world
and
what is it that they don't understand
and
what is it that we don't understand
about how we are contributing
to their being
in one of their awful states

and then,
as always,
when we learn how we are asleep
and operating out of habit
and control programs
and forgetting to listen,
we can breathe
and be
now
and listen to them
and our own life

and then we can be happy
and when we are really happy
the enemy thing
dissolves

and if this doesn't work
then the work will

ciao
chris