Friday, June 4, 2010

Normal Friday at Home

Tonight feels like the first normal night I have had in a week (actually it is): came home from work, ate, napped, and worked out. I have come home to the dimensionless, infinite solitude of my one bedroom apartment.

It is not that I cannot socialize or am not good at it; it’s that I seek something beyond the material world. Seeking the Beyond in solitude is not disrespectful or arrogant toward other people. Spiritual solitude is just a choice to serve all by attending consciously and directly to the Presence. As one person remembers God, they do so for all; since minds are joined.

The world does not understand the need to change false beliefs and silence worldly thoughts for the purpose of remembering God. I am following a spiritual course of action because the awareness of God is the top of my priority list.

My trainer nixed my idea of the Maryville Marathon. So now I need to hunker down and just steadily work out until July 23: Lunar Trek (40 mile ultra, at night on the Kansas prairie). It’s back to the silence and the pondering of the Presence. I love being consistent. I love turning right into health and fitness; while the world jabbers away but takes no action.

Tomorrow I will head out for a long ultra pace run. Nothing will be proved. Time will be spent. It will be sweaty. It will be monotonous. I will be just a girl, jogging along with a thought of God playing over and over in her head.
One of my favorite things I learned in monastic life:

St. Romuald's Brief Rule

Sit in your cell as in paradise;
put the whole world behind you and forget it;
like a skilled angler on the lookout for a catch
keep a careful eye on your thoughts.

The path you follow is in the Text -- don't leave it.
If you've come with a novice's enthusiasm and can't
accomplish what you want, take every chance you can find
to sing the Text in your heart and to understand it
with your head; if your mind wanders as you read
don't give up but hurry back and try again.

Above all realize that you are in God's presence;
hold your heart there in wonder as if before your sovereign.

Empty yourself completely;
sit waiting, content with God's gift,
like a little chick tasting and eating nothing
but what its mother brings.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

something that might resonate with you, as it talks about doubt:

http://experimentaltheology.blogspot.com/2010/06/john-patrick-shanleys-doubt.html

"There is an uneasy time when belief has begun to slip, but hypocrisy has yet to take hold, when the consciousness is disturbed but not yet altered. It is the most dangerous, important and ongoing experience of life. The beginning of change is the moment of Doubt. It is that crucial moment when I renew my humanity or become a lie."

--sgl

Ultra Monk said...

Following the link given by one of my favorite dudes (sgl) I read:
"...deep down under the chatter, we have come to a place where we know that we don't know ... anything. But nobody's willing to say that...
under that face of easy response, there is another You. And this wordless Being moves just as the instant moves; it presses upward without explanation, fluid and wordless, until the resisting consciousness has no choice but to give way...Life happens when the tectonic power of your speechless soul breaks through the dead habits of the mind. Doubt is nothing less than an opportunity to reenter the Present...that crucial moment when I renew my humanity or become a lie."

Anonymous said...

"...deep down under the chatter, we have come to a place where we know that we don't know ... anything. But nobody's willing to say that..."

well, there's a few people willing to say it. i recently stumbled upon a blog with some lovely taoist stories.

the blog is:
http://ramblingtaoist.blogspot.com/

the particular stories i liked so much was the "Book of Chen Jen", which has all the posts collected together here:
http://ramblingtaoist.wordpress.com/series/book-of-chen-jen/

read the stories, and you'll find a few people that say they know nothing!

--sgl