So bone fishing was my entry’ into awareness and waking up. How about you? You might be a follower of Jesus, bible reading maniac, bible quoting, memorizing machine. You might be a sermon, book and seminar junkie. But none of those imply awakeness. My life is an example. And the whole mystic and spirituality tradition of the church proves it.
My life in the last 6 years of this journey has had some of the most incredible spiritual depth and growth I have ever experienced. Much of it due to waking up, some of it due to great pain, some of it due to engaging new patterns and practices that have helped me come to grips with how our lives are storied.
After my quick casting lesson we were off. Off quietly walking in calf to knee deep water watching for the glint of bone fish fins. The surroundings were spectacular. Large rock outcroppings into the water. Little cul-de-sacs where water would slowly and gently wash in and out. Gorgeous crystal clear water, through which the brilliant sun beamed to the sand floor.
The setting was incredible, the experience? Well….
We hadn’t been walking, well sleuthing quietly is more like what we were doing, for no more than 15 minutes when Clint held his hand up. You know a kind of military navy seals, “stop, silence, enemy ahead, prepare yourself.” Quietly he turned to me and semi-whispered, “do you see those fins over there, those thin silvery fins just above the water line reflecting the sun?” Squinting, like it would help me see better, I began scanning the water line about the area Clint was pointing. “uhhhh….” before I could say yes or no Clint said, “right over there…see them…right there!” Well what apparently wasn’t obvious to Clint was that I WAS NOT seeing these fish fins. He cast got a nibble but nothing more.
I had the opportunity this weekend to speak at an incredible church in Nassau that is led by one of my favorite dialogue partners, Christian McCabe. I have been on a journey with their staff and elders for about a year. They care about transformation. They are motivated to make sure real life change is actually happening. They are committed to a spirituality of awareness, a spirituality that is founded and rooted in Jesus’ invitation to Notice.
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The last post we gave you the opportunity to review attention and intention posts and just briefly mentioned repetition. These three key legs are what support a good practice.
Some people balk at this work practice but let me tell you why we use it. Jesus as an example had a practice of pulling away from the crowds and heading to the mountains, desert or water. This practice was for apparently a number of things… but what is important is that the Gospels make clear this rhythm of “awayness” funded him being in a different way. In other words awayness changed his withness. Practice patterns fund life patterns. Practice enables us to do through training what we simply can’t accomplish through trying. [read more...]
Neuroplasticity is the capacity of connections between neurons in the brain to change in response to experience and our environment. The good news? It isn’t age dependent. We have brain plasticity till we die if we exercise our brains.
I was just at a spirituality conference in South Africa where an expert on brain science talked about how up until just recently the medical community was convinced that our brains could be mapped showing where each of our abilities, for instance the ability to see, was located in the physical structure of the brain. In other words it was thought this map was the hardwired diagram of our brain. But not so. [read more...]
I said we would explore the notion found in almost every tradition, the renewing of the mind as a critical consideration for transformation. Unfortunately I think our love affair with the biblical text (not a good thing I might add, I think we are textually addicted) has clouded our reading of that very text.
When Paul says be transformed Romans (in 12.1-2) by the renewing of your mind I have yet to hear instruction on how this is to be done except by taking in more bible text, memorize more bible text, study more bible text, think about bible text. Maybe I was just exposed most of my life to one narrow strand of teaching. [read more...]
There are any number of ways to train our awareness which is why we are so big on centering prayer and the sources that can fund that practice like John Cassian’s Conferences, The Cloud of Unknowing, St Bonaventure’s Soul’s Journey to God, Thomas Keating’s work, Cynthia Borgeault, and Murchadh O’Madagain (Bourgeault’s Centering Prayer and Inner Awakening and O’Madagain’s Centering Prayer and the Healing of the Unconcious are the two best places to start if you are new to the practice.) [read more...]
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a follower of Jesus, bible reading maniac, bible quoting, memorizing machine. You might be a sermon, book and seminar junkie. But none of those imply awakeness. My life is an example. And the whole mystic and spirituality tradition of the church proves it.
