The Crowing Rooster

Our neighbors at our mountain cabin now have flock of hens and a rooster.  Just the other day, as I was  sitting on the screened in porch doing my morning meditation, trying to calm my racing mind and settle into silence, the rooster crowed,  and the rooster crowed and then again the rooster crowed.  That blasted rooster is on autopilot, impulsively, instinctively doing what he is used to doing…..so he crows and he crows and he crows.

I began to think about myself and what in my life is like the crowing of the rooster.  Where are my actions or reactions on autopilot?  What do I do in my life that is as automatic as the rooster crowing?   I was reading the other day that any pattern of thought or action that is repeated many times can result in neurosignature, or “brain groove”.  When we do or think the same thing over and over in response to stimuli our brain creates a pathway of interconnected neurons, or a “brain groove”.  So instead of actually thinking about what we do or how we think about a particular issue we are on autopilot, we are in effect the crowing rooster. 

Where have I allowed negative “brain grooves” to encroach on mindful thoughts and behaviors?   I just finished reading Paulo Coelho’s  The Witch of Portobello, where the teaching about  raising spiritual awareness stressed the need to step out of the ordinary reaction to the rhythm of life and do what actually feels discordant as a practice to feeling the Spirit’s presence.  Perhaps that is why so many of the great mystics truly marched to a different drummer.

This week I will pray for illumination, for increasing awareness of where in my life I have a crowing rooster that needs to be examined, that needs to be brought into my prayerful awareness.  I will mindfully choose my actions and my thoughts, even if they feel discordant so I get rid of some of those blasted crowing roosters in my life and step more fully into the presence of the Spirit.

This I Believe....

There is a wonderful radio show on NPR call "This I Believe".  Different speakers share a significant belief that is foundational for their lives.  The Rowan Public Library has some of the "Best of the Show" on Audio CD for check out.  I was driving my car listening to each of these very normal people declare their beliefs and decided that I would take the challenge.  What is the core of what I believe about God?  So here goes......

I believe in the mystery and wonder of God, the Nurturing Creative Force of all that is.  I believe that I am a part of this Wondrous Entity just as a drop of water is part of the ocean or a molecule of hydrogen is part of the universe.  Therefore saying that we are one in the body of Christ is not just a metaphor to me, but an actuality.  I believe that sin is anything that separates us from this knowing and thereby creates disharmony in the whole.  Just as a virus causes havoc in our body so can the virus of sin cause havoc in the Body of the Universal I Am.

I believe that the “cure” for this virus is at all times available and that by opening myself to the cure of love I am helping to create harmony in the body as a whole.  Peace within is indeed peace for the whole.

I believe that my separation from God is illusion.  If God is indeed omnipresent then she is infused in every atom, every quantum particle of my being.  Indeed God is within me, within the dandelion, the shell, the ocean, the birds, my neighbor and my enemy.  Indeed when I do something for "the least of these", I am doing it not just for God but for my neighbor, my lover, the person imprisoned in Guantanamo, the child in Guatemala, for the rocks, the sand, the trees and the mountains.  We are all a part of this Wondrous Cosmos, this Universal Force, this Unnamable Mystery.  What I do here in the little community of China Grove does indeed impact the world.

Indeed, I can plug into the Source of all that is, commune with the Mystery, raise my awareness and understanding of the Divine, but what little I learn, what little I know and understand will continue to point to the absolute incomprehensible greatness, majesty , wonder and love that is beyond all that I can even imagine.  I can never through my own understanding grasp the nature of God, but only know her through human metaphor and human limitations.

My limited understanding leads me to believe that God is merciful in ways that I will never understand.  I believe that God’s justice is about full reconciliation of all creation not about condemnation because in my limited awareness, in my humanity I have in my ignorance not been able to comprehend the vastness of her love for all.  God does not make mistakes. Life has been created in vast diversity which I am called to celebrate rather than condemn. Eternal life is a restorative process that has already begun not a threat for future punishment or a reward for good behavior.  God is love and all that God does is for the restoration of all; that thru grace, all of God’s creation can know and experience the fullness of God’s love.

So knowing this, how do I respond, how do I live?  What am I called to do in response to this Love?  Indeed God’s work is in my hands.  Keeping my ego out of the equation is vital to my open experience of God.  I am who I am through no credit of my own will or design. God has provided me with certain skills and abilities and has provided me with exactly what I need to bring to the opportunities before me.  I pray that I can release the desires and needs of the ego and stand as a child of the Mystery, a bearer of the Light, a sharer of God’s love wherever I am called to do so.

What do you believe?  What is at the core of your understanding of the nature of God and the universe?  Take the challenge to go beyond the creeds and dogma that you grew up with and dig a little deeper into what you believe about God at the core of your being.  Take the challenge!