A Trick of Grace...

                                                      A Trick of Grace... Making it Sacred                                               

Of course, this is all a tad bit silly, this making it sacred line... But, on the other hand, isn't it also true that our thoughts and attitudes -- at least those that we consciously cultivate -- do tend to have a significant influence over and during our days?
 
If you have been reading this blog and other pages in theburninghand.com for awhile, then you've already concluded that this is a favorite topic of mine. With all of my teachers, like Ellen Grace O'Brian, Ram Dass, and Matthew Fox, I believe that we are all called to our daily lives as mystics: that we don't give this essential call the spiritual attention that it deserves, is precisely why our world is spinning off its rails (greed, climate change, and a continuing sexism / racism as examples)... Digging a little bit deeper and we find a common core to our personal and social problems...

Isn't that common core the lust for domination? Seriously. Minus the lust for domination, would there even be an economic system of predatory capitalism? Minus the lust for domination, how many women would still be getting raped? Minus the lust for domination, would we be confronting the likely catastrophe of climate change? Bringing these ponderings back and into the realm of personal relationships, doesn't the lust for domination color so much of our interpersonal dynamics?

Eee-gadz, but this was certainly way too evident in life on the Chinatown Streets and in our old Soup Kitchen! Intentional Community was rife with this dynamic and with its flip-side ​resistance might be futile, but it will liven my day! And then there is the biggie: partnerships and marriage! Okay, so the reality in which virtually all of us have been habituated to is the dominate or be dominated motif... but is it necessarily a perpetual condemnation?

​Here is a hint of an answer: there is a trick of grace that just might work... In the American Heritage Dictionary (yes, I did look up the word) surrender is first of all defined as 1. To relinquish possession or control of to another because of demand or compulsion...

​It is right here, precisely here, that both a spiritual life begins and psychological health is restored: surrender the lust for domination... to relinquish even the idea that one has a right to the possession of another human being, or the right to control because of demand or compulsion... Surrender -- I call it a trick of grace because it is not obvious -- is key to making it sacred... Surrender is the intentional cultivation of the Christ Consciousness... Surrender is the dynamic verb of the Tao, the deep flow of the mystic river that is both the Source and the Goal of a Fully Awakened Human Being...

Of course, a blog is not an essay, so I must come to a quick conclusion: there are ways of cultivating surrender and making it sacred, among them are 1) Breath Prayer, 2) Nature communion, 3) Sacred reading and conversation, 4) Practicing the Presence of God, and 5) Cause no harm (and because that is a virtual impossibility, cause as little harm as possible in every aspect of your life). 

If you would like an "email conversation" on any of this, you are welcome to contact me!