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The Science of Spirituality … Who Knew?

A lovely woman in the morning meditation group drew to my attention yesterday to the work of Dr Lisa Miller, who wrote The Awakened Brain.  A little digging took me to the Spirituality Mind Body Institute at Columbia University, where they study the science of spirituality. 

The science of spirituality… how refreshing!  When I was in graduate school, the dominant culture in the Psychology Department was that science and spirituality were mutually exclusive.  If something could not be measured, it didn’t exist or, at least, it didn’t exist as a legitimate subject of study.  What a delight to discover that, in another place, Lisa Millar was devoting her life to integrating the deep core of spirituality to our understanding of human experience!

You can find out more about the work at the Institute website.

I have taken the liberty of copying a table I found there.  It shows the difference between life without a spiritual core and life with a spiritual core.  This seems to align nicely with the work of Richard Rohr – the False Self and the True Self that he speaks of in his book, “The Immortal Diamond”, and the spiritual development from the first half of life to the second half of life that he writes about in “Falling Upward.”  

If you want to learn more about Richard Rohr, look for the Centre for Action and Contemplation.  Here is the website link for the daily meditations

A Spiritual core shapes development, meaning, purpose, calling and connection

With spiritual core (True Self)Without spiritual core (False Self)
Self isInherent WorthAbilities Based
IdentityMeaning & PurposeAquiring Success
WorkCalling & ContributionTalents & Gains
RelationshipsSacred, Share Love & GrowPleasing, Meet Needs
PathAlways ConnectedUltimately Alone
Place in the worldPurposeful WorldRandom World
Existential RealityLove, Life-givingUnknown
Good eventsBlessingsDeserved luck
Bad eventsOpportunities. LearningRandom. Failure
From https://spiritualitymindbody.tc.columbia.edu/our-work/

What we reflected on in Jan/Feb 2025

It has been tumultuous these days, as swift, unanticipated actions disrupt our old ways of being.  We are all feeling a lot of uncertainty about what comes next, coupled with some assurance that there will be suffering – if not for us, then for our friends and neighbours.  No wonder that our readings were filled with reminders that we can find stability and hope in our own stillness and companionship. Our contemplative practice is ballast.

————-

Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom. (Viktor E. Frankl) 

Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness. It took me years to understand. that this, too, was a gift. (Mary Oliver – The Uses of Sorrow)

Be joyful, though you have considered all the facts. (Wendell Berry)

The hard thing when you get old is to keep your horizons open. The first part of your life everything is in front of you, all your potential and promise. But over the years, you make decisions, you carve yourself into a given shape. Then the challenge is to keep discovering the green growing edge. (Howard Thurman)

1.

We come into this stillness like snowfall, the air alive with angels, every blessed flake singular and mysterious, what’s outside quiet now, and changing form.  Quickening, we breathe silence.  Presence holds our lives in hush. Light dazzles.  Listening, we learn to answer, and we keep each other warm.

 Silence wraps us close.  We’re comforted, although the angry world is cold.  We love the spell of falling snow, and tell how beautiful it is inside together here with God who may want us wiser, other, clumsy great Saint Bernards rising from beside the fire to go out across blizzard mountains, carrying rescue into the wild air. (Jeanne Lohmann ~ Between Silence and Answer)

..it is not the thing itself…that is the problem; but it is our clinging to the thing even when it causes us, ourselves, and others mental or physical pain, which blinds us to a bigger view and snowballs into more suffering. Ultimately, the challenge of letting go becomes a spiritual act in some way: in many spiritual traditions, surrender is the backbone, as Mohammed says in the Qur’an, “True religion is surrender.” And so as we grasp at the beautiful red leaf, we just might let it spin again in the autumn wind, delighting in that tiny leaf-filled and empty moment. (Patricia Donegan)

maggie and milly and molly and may went down to the beach (to play one day) and maggie discovered a shell that sang so sweetly she couldn’t remember her troubles, and milly befriended a stranded star
whose rays five languid fingers were; and molly was chased by a horrible thing which raced sideways while blowing bubbles: and may came home with a smooth round stone as small as a world and as large as alone. For whatever we lose (like a you or a me) it’s always ourselves we find in the sea (e e cummings)

I’m slowly learning that even if I react, it won’t change anything, it won’t make people suddenly love and respect me, it won’t magically change their minds. Sometimes it’s better to just let things be, let people go, don’t fight for closure, don’t ask for explanations, don’t chase answers and don’t expect people to understand where you’re coming from. I’m slowly learning that life is better lived when you don’t centre it on what’s happening around you and centre it on what’s happening inside you instead. (Rania Naim)

Meditations we began 2024 with

Begin doing what you want to do now. We are not living in eternity. We have only this moment, sparkling like a star in our hand – and melting like a snowflake. Marie Beynon Ray

Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life.  It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity.  Melody Beattie

Do not be dismayed by the brokenness of the world.
All things break. And all things can be mended.
Not with time, as many say, but with intention.
So go. Love intentionally, extravagantly, unconditionally.
The broken world waits in darkness for the light that is you.
L.R. Knost

There is no place for place! How can a place house the maker of all space, or the vast sky enclose the makerof heaven? He told me: “I am a homeless treasure. The world was made to give you a place to stand and see me.” Tell me, if the one you seek is placeless, why put your shoes on? The real road is found by polishing, polishing the mirror of your heart. Hakim Senai

Be helpless, dumbfounded. Unable to say yes or no. Then a stretcher will come from grace to gather us up. We are too dull-eyed to see that beauty. If we say we can, we’re lying. If we say No, we don’t see it, that No will behead us and shut tight our window onto spirit. So let us rather not be sure of anything, besides ourselves, and only that, so miraculous beings come running to help. Crazed, lying in a zero circle, mute, we shall be saying finally, with tremendous eloquence, Lead us. When we have totally surrendered to that beauty, we shall be a mighty kindness.  Rumi

To love someone long-term is to attend a thousand funerals of the people they used to be.  The people they’re too exhausted to be any longer.  The people they grew out of, the people they never ended up growing into.  We so badly want the people we love to get their spark back when it burns out, to become speedily found when they are lost. But it is not our job to hold anyone accountable to the people they used to be.  It is our job to travel with them between each version and to honour what emerges along the way.  Sometimes it will be an even more luminescent flame. Sometimes it will be a flicker that temporarily floods the room with a perfect and necessary darkness. Heidi  Priebe

Never sit back and feel there is little or nothing you can do to help the world situation.  There is a tremendous amount you can do to help by the work you do on the inner in radiating Love and Light out to individuals, to countries, to nations and to the whole world.  lt is holding the whole world in balance, so never cease, never let up in any way but carry on faithfully.  See the whole Network of Light all over the world doing this inner work, see every tiny spark of Light gathering together bringing more and more Light into the whole world situation. Guidance received by Eileen Caddy

Perhaps our greatest service is simply to find ways to strengthen and live closer to our goodness. This is far from easy. It requires an everyday attention, an awareness of all that diminishes us, distracts us, and causes us to forget who we are. But every act of service bears witness to the possibility of freedom for us all. And every time anyone becomes more transparent to the light in them, they will restore the light in the world. Rachel Naomi Remen

Meditations for Grief

As our group mourned the death of our beloved member, Carol, we found ourselves meditating on these offerings

It is not our job to remain whole. 
We came to lose our leaves like the trees,
and be born again, drawing up from the great roots.
Robert Bly

Though we cannot see you with outward eyes,
We know our soul’s gaze is upon your face,
Smiling back at us from within everything
To which we bring our best refinement.
John O’Donohue – On the death of the beloved

To live in this world
You must be able
To do three things
To love what is mortal
To hold it
against your bones knowing,
Your own life depends on it;
And, when the time comes to let it go
to let it go.
Mary Oliver – in Blackwater Woods

Gratitude is the understanding that many millions of things come together and live together and mesh together and breathe together in order for us to take even one more breath of air, that the underlying gift of life and incarnation as a living, participating human being is a privilege, that we are miraculously part of something rather than nothing. Even if that something is temporarily pain or despair, we inhabit a living world, with real faces, real voices, laughter, the colour blue, the green of the fields, the freshness of a cold wind, or the tawny hue of a winter landscape.
David Whyte – Consolations: The Solace, Nourishment and Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words

What the caterpillar calls the end of the world
The master calls a butterfly
The only thing that matters at the end of a stay on earth is
how well did you love?
What was the quality of your love?
Don’t be dismayed at good byes
A farewell is necessary  before you can meet again.
And meeting again, after moments or lifetimes
Is certain for those who are friends.
From Richard Bach’s – Messiah’s Handbook

WALKING TOGETHER 
I don’t spend time with the broken 
because I like pain, but because 
I need to feel life 
from inside its shell. Everywhere I turn, I witness 
such resilience breaking out of 
ordinary people: the fourteen year 
old who was burned saving her 
grandmother; the Black sergeant carrying his 
white lieutenant out of live fire and how 
they fell in the sand and cried in each 
other’s arms; and the one with no arms 
who keeps asking what she can carry.
I’m watching a hummingbird now 
work so hard, its wings seem not 
to be moving at all. Is this what 
happens when we love?
I’ll tell you a secret. I ran a comb 
through Grandma’s hair minutes after 
she died. She was still warm, her Spirit 
on its way. I still have the comb. And 
when in doubt or awe, I get by myself 
and finger the spaces in 
that comb. How can I say this properly: 
We can cheat death for a while 
by feeding it things that are false. 
And we can draw life out 
by giving when we think 
there’s nothing left.
Mark Nepo – Reduced to Joy

When great trees fall,
rocks on distant hills shudder,
lions hunker down
in tall grasses,
and even elephants
lumber after safety.
When great trees fall
in forests,
small things recoil into silence,
their senses
eroded beyond fear.

When great souls die,
the air around us becomes
light, rare, sterile.
We breathe, briefly.
Our eyes, briefly,
see with
a hurtful clarity.
Our memory, suddenly sharpened,
examines,
gnaws on kind words
unsaid,
promised walks
never taken.

Great souls die and
our reality, bound to
them, takes leave of us.
Our souls,
dependent upon their
nurture,
now shrink, wizened.
Our minds, formed
and informed by their
radiance, fall away.
We are not so much maddened
as reduced to the unutterable ignorance of
dark, cold
caves.

And when great souls die,
after a period peace blooms,
slowly and always
irregularly. Spaces fill
with a kind of
soothing electric vibration.
Our senses, restored, never
to be the same, whisper to us.
They existed. They existed.
We can be. Be and be
better. For they existed.
Maya Angelou

Surrender prayer (a riff on Ephesians 6:13-18)

Here is what I am playing with as a morning prayer. I’d love to hear comments.

As I ready myself for the day

I remove the armour of my ego, so that I may surrender to the Presence of God.  

I undo the belt of what I think I know, so that I am free to breathe and receive Your truth.  

I take off the breastplate of emotional defensiveness to allow me the vulnerability to truly love my neighbour and myself.  

I remove the shoes of habit, fear and temptation which inhibit me from stepping into Your peace and service.  

I put down the shield of bias and contempt, which separates me from the communion of all God’s people.  

I take off the helmet of control and the sword of self-will, so that I can act in the knowledge and the love of God.

Then I pray.

For those who are wondering, here is Ephesians 6:13-18

13 Therefore put on the full armour of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. 14 Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, 15 and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. 16 In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. 17 Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

Everything is Sacred

Now is the time to know that all you do is sacred.
Now, why not consider a lasting truce with yourself and God.

Now is the time to understand that all your ideas of right and wrong were just a child’s training wheels to be laid aside.
When you finally live with veracity and love.
Why do you still throw sticks at your heart and God?
What is it in that sweet voice inside that incites you to fear?

Now is the time to know that every thought and action is sacred.
This is the time for you to compute the impossibility that there is anything but Grace. 
Now is the season to know that everything you do is sacred.
– Hafiz –

Perhaps ultimately, spiritual simply means
experiencing wholeness and interconnectedness directly,
a seeing that individuality and the totality are interwoven,
that nothing is separate or extraneous.
If you see in this way, then everything becomes spiritual in its deepest sense.
Doing science is spiritual. 
So is washing the dishes.
– John Kabat-Zinn –

Knowing and unknowing

A person who can see a little bit will resist guidance; a person who cannot see at all will stretch forth their hands and be led to unknown places where they don’t know how to go. John of the Cross

We expend an enormous amount of energy, trying to meditate our way through the problem of being human. Mirabai Starr

Your vision will become clear only when you can look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes. Carl Jung

All things are possible to those who believe. Mark 9:23

To know and yet think we do not know is the highest attainment.  To not know and think we do know is the highest disease.   Lao Tsu

It is only with the heart that one can see rightly.  What is essential, is invisible to the eye. Antoine de St-Exupery

Live into the questions. Rilke

When you go more slowly, things aren’t as blurry. Craig Johnson

“And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who couldn’t hear the music. Frederick Nietzsche

And the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started, and know the place for the first time. John O’Donohue

This world is still alive; it stretches out there shivering toward its own creation. And I’m part of it. William Stafford

All’s well that ends well

Prayer is not asking for what you think you want but asking to be changed in ways you can’t imagine. Kathleen Norris – Amazing Grace 

It matters not how strait the gate, how charged with punishments the scroll, I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul.      William Ernest Henley – Invictus

Hope makes you see God’s guiding hand not only in the gentle and pleasant moments but also in the shadows of disappointment and darkness.    Henri Nouwen

Plant your feet on the way to love…the first step invariably makes the second one easier… love begets love… you shed your misgivings … … to descend deeper and deeper on the way of love.      Henri Nouwen

You will keep in perfect peace those whose minds are steadfast, because they trust in you. Isaiah 26:3

Strength is not clever words or actions but deep, still waters of the Spirit within.  Jim Teeters – Because of This   

There is in all things an inexhaustible sweetness and purity, a silence that is a foundation of action and joy. It rises up in gentleness and flows out to me from the unseen roots of all created being. Thomas Merton – Hagia Sophia 

Late February/Early March

#beingwith #presence #trueself

We meet ourselves time and again, in a thousand disguises, on the path of life.     Carl Jung

When you do things from your soul, you feel a river moving in you.  A joy.    Rumi

May the forms of your belonging – in love, creativity, and in friendship – be equal to the grandeur and the call of your soul.   John O’Donohue

Words exist because of meaning; once you have gotten the meaning, you can forget the words.        Chuang Tzu

Collect your mind from its customary circling and wandering outside, and quietly lead it into the heart by way of breathing.    Callistus

You have seen beauty and know it for its transience.  Patricia Fargnoli

Anxiety and fear are only a brother and sister inviting you to belong to the strangeness of it all.     David Arthur Auten – The Nomad

Those undeserved joys which come uncalled and make us more pleased than grateful are they that sing.     Thoreau

Whatever our path, whatever riddles we must solve to stay alive, the secret of life somehow always has to do with the awakening and freeing of what has been asleep.     Mark Nepo

Reflections from early February

Compassion is a spirituality as if creation mattered. It is treating all creation as holy and as divine… which is what it is. Matthew Fox

May what I do flow from me like a river, no forcing and no holding back, the way it is with children. Rainer Maria Rilke

To be in too big a hurry to get over our difficulties is a mistake because you don’t know how valuable they are from God’s perspective, for without them you might never be transformed as deeply and as thoroughly. Thomas Keating

And so remember this, life is no abyss, Somewhere there’s a bluebird of happiness. Emily Dickenson

“To appreciate the beauty of a snowflake it is necessary to stand out in the cold.” 

Plant so that your own heart will grow. Love so God will think, ‘Ahhhh, I got kin in that body! I should start inviting that soul over for coffee and rolls.’ Hafiz

One of the most calming and powerful actions you can do to intervene in a stormy world is to stand up and show your soul. Soul on deck shines like gold in dark times.  Clarissa Pinkola Estes

The more agitated we are, and the more compacted our lives become, the more difficult it is to keep a space where God can let something truly new really take place. The discipline of the heart helps us to let God into our hearts so that God can become known to us there, in the deepest recesses of our own being. Henri Nouwen

Worthiness

I am no longer waiting to be recognized; I know that I dance in a holy circle.  Mary Anne Perrone 12-2-05

Surrender to the sweet bliss that is not part of this world.  Breathe deeply.  Love extravagantly.  Be all the parts of you that make you extraordinary.  Lihat Said Penh

let me remember to give more than i receive. to listen more than i speak. and to understand that everyone is searching for a little piece of fire.  may i take part in building that.   ullie-kaye

We are all complicit. … It’s a waste of God’s time—and our own—to try to prove who is more worthy, more holy, more blameless. Stop trying to be better than someone else! Just forget it! All that does is make us egocentric.  Michael Singer – The Untethered Mind

May God bless you with a restless discomfort about easy answers, half-truths and superficial relationships, so that you may seek truth boldly and love deep within your heart. 

May God bless you with enough foolishness to believe that you really can make a difference in this world, so that you are able, with God’s grace, to do what others claim cannot be done.