If my meaning and purpose can shift to a place of greater presence, awareness in the moment and real attentive being, then what I am committed to in an ongoing way shifts as well.
When I have vision, goals and strategic objectives I commit to the incremental steps to implement and execute. What is important here is I have an intention to focus my attention on my next steps. This interplay of intention and attention is critical to the entire transformation process.
When I was focused on catching a fish and all the mechanics connected to it I had and intention that caused me to focus attention on a certain mode of doing. But bone fishing requires a different intention. It requires commitment to attending to what is going on around me – an awareness. Intention to focus my attention on just being, on being attentive, aware, awake, and alive has an entirely different texture to it.
When my purpose becomes letting the universe unfold through me, God’s purposes and kingdom coming in and through my being, my commitment and success or failure are entirely different. Our traditional image of being committed is about working hard, expending effort, and wearing the badge that really proves I am somebody….which usually means always being incredibly busy.
Unfortunately I have found in my own life and in those I get to help this is a subtle form of self manipulation that doesn’t create greater awareness and fuller being-ness but inattentive numbness.
Can anyone relate?
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“Is your life fact or fiction,” seems like something of stupid question doesn’t it? Fiction comes from the Latin fictum meaning “created.” Fiction when it comes to narrative is a story that has at least parts if not all of it that are “created” by the author and do not represent anything in the real factual world.
Hmmmm….
For the last couple months I have alternated blog posts between my personal story of awakening through a bone fishing experience and about reading the text of scripture with new metaphors and eyes. One seemed more academic, the other more personal. One seemed more engaging the other a bit dry. The next series of posts though will bring the two together in a not so obvious connection. And hopefully both posts sets will live in new ways
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Awareness, awakeness and day dreaming.
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.
All of us live in a constructed reality; personally and socially constructed. This has been and remains the most profound and powerful insight that waking up has brought. What do I mean?
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