The Goodness of the World

I had a rotten day last week. Every direction I turned, I seemed to face obstacles. I received a frustrating, unkind email. Conversations meant to bring consensus brought more complications. A driver yelled at me, swearing and cursing, after I made a minor traffic mistake. It was one of those days, a kind most of us have, when the world, and its inhabitants, don't seem very beautiful at all.

In fact, I headed into the woods for a hike with my children feeling like people in general were difficult and annoying. Things, even little things, seemed hard. I felt glad to be in the woods, away from traffic and emails and phone calls and relationships. The trees and the streams and the dirt path were a relief.

As the children skipped and frolicked with pure joy, I began to relax. Together we came around a bend in the river and stopped to throw stones into the water. After a few minutes, I saw, out of the corner of my eye, two younger men on the path. They were wearing sagging jeans and hooded sweatshirts and laughing. They were probably college age. I immediately felt uncomfortable. I wondered what they were doing in the woods. I figured they must have come in to smoke pot. They did not seem like the types to take a nature hike.

They got closer to us and I could hear their voices and almost continuous laughter. So much laughter, in fact, that I decided they must already be high, or perhaps drunk. While I didn't fear for our safety, I was eager to have them pass.

And the did. But first they smiled and said hello to all four of us. One said, "You've got the whole gang!" and gave another laugh. The laughs were feeling up the forest. Still, I was happy to have them walk on.

A few minutes later, we continued on our way and came to a place where, normally, when the river is low, you can cross by using stepping stones. With all the rain we had that week, it was no longer possible to forge the river that way. Instead, someone had put down a heavy branch. Crossing it was possible, but only just. I had a baby on my back in a hiker, a three year-old and a five-year old. I didn't want to fall in with Emmett on my back, and I wasn't sure my young daughter would be able to make the distance.

The four of us contemplated the route for a few moments. The young men, now on the other side, turned to see us.

"Hey," one of them said in a lilting, melodic voice. "Do you want some help?" And then the two men helped us all across the river.

What restored my heart that day was not, simply, the beauty of nature, but the beauty of those two human beings. They restored my faith in the goodness of people and so also in the goodness of the world. They returned my mind to a place of innocence--seeing the innocence of those around me. I was disappointed in my own initial suspicion of them, but I know sometimes it is hard to feel good about others, about the world. And yet, the goodness of the world remains present, close at hand, unexpected and joyful, just like those two men.

May you run into such goodness this week, in surprising form, and know it also as your own. This wonderful kindness surrounds us, carries us over the makeshift bridges, fills the forest with laughter and heals the suspicious heart. It is God moving in and through us and others, Love expressed, Love received.

--Rev. Sam Wilde

Home

My family is in the process of selling our home, the home all three of my children were born into. I labored here and nursed them through all their newborn days in this bedroom, rocked them and sang to them in this nursery, cleaned up a thousand spills and exuberantly flung Cheerios in this kitchen and countless times chased them round and round the downstairs rooms. It is hard to leave! We have cultivated the berry bushes on our land and worked the soil year after year to improve our vegetable crops. Slowly, through small changes, we have made the house what we needed.

Today, during a quiet moment with my baby, I felt tears begin to overcome me at the thought of parting from a house that holds so many precious, irreplaceable memories. As I started to indulge them, I had a counter thought come to my mind: those memories belong to me, not to the house. Then I asked myself: where is your true home?

This question of the perfect home has come up for my family over and over again as we have gone in search of our new house. Where will we live? What town? What neighborhood? What style home? Every new house has something different wrong with it, a new kind of compromise, a problem, a missing piece. The perfect house seems not just elusive but impossibly expensive! And when I let myself get frustrated about that, I think that I will not ever have the home I most desire.

As I nursed Emmett today, I let myself have a conversation with Love that took me beyond these strong emotions to the comfort found in truth. Where is my true home? Is it ever in a single house? Can it be in a house at all?

There is a sweet chant I like to sing and one line of it is: "For God is my home." God, by whatever name you may use, is truly the perfect home for each of us. When we feel "at home" it is because we recognize the God-qualities in a place--peacefulness, joyfulness, spaciousness, love and ease. Also, when we don't find them, we can "put" them into a place with our own God-qualities. As a matter of fact, when I first moved into the house we live in now (the one I was just crying over leaving), I didn't like it at all. I found it dark and small and outdated and wrong for me. Over the years, we have poured love into our house, we have loved here, and Love is now reflected in this place.

What a comfort to know that the Love that makes a home goes with me wherever I go, and, like those memories, does not belong to a room or a location. No true and great thing does. How turtle like is our place in God, then. We carry our home with us, our home is all around us, a shelter and protection, a refuge and a sanctuary.

Rev. Sam Wilde

Our thoughts are not who we are

Thoughts flow through the mind endlessly. The river of our thoughts create our experience and feeling tone in our lives. We cannot control which thoughts arise in our minds. However,
We have choices on how to approach them.

I would like to share three ways to approach thoughts which have helped me, when I feel
uncentered, disconnected from love and from God.

In order to create a change, I have to first notice that my mind is moving in a direction that
escalates feelings of doubt, fear, anger, insecurity, or any negative energy. The awareness
Of observing the thought pattern assists in detaching from the identification with the thoughts.
Once I can see what is happening, I no longer am the victim of my thoughts. Distance is created. I become the witness to my thoughts and no longer see myself as the thoughts.

We are the witness of our lives. We are pure consciousness.

I have the choice now to decide if I want to continue experiencing the suffering or to
redirect my attention toward a direction that brings healing and peace.

My teacher, Swami Satchidananda, advised me to repeat my mantra when my mind
indulges in harmful thinking. It works and is a very simple practice. A mantra is a sacred sound vibration which uplifts the mind. The energy of the sound is healing. A very simple mantra is:
Om Shanti. Shanti means peace in Sanskrit. If you are more comfortable repeating peace in English, that works also. There are thousands of mantras. Use the one that works for you.
This is a form of training the mind. We benefit from being in charge of our thoughts instead of our thoughts being in charge of us.
I enjoy practicing metta when my thoughts are not helpful toward my well being.
Metta is wonderful at any time.  It is a practice taught by the Buddha to his disciples
to help develop loving kindness and compassion in our heart. We begin with repeating the following phrases to ourselves:
May I be safe from inner and outer harm
May my mind be peaceful and happy
May my body be healthy and strong
May I live with ease in this life.
You can alter the phrases so that they feel good to you.
Engaging in a spiritually uplifting practice helping to open the heart shifts energy into
A healing direction. In doing metta, do not be surprised if sometimes you feel unloving toward yourself instead of loving. It is a part of the process. Be clear about your intention of
Moving toward loving kindness and allow whatever needs to be cleared and felt move through you.  Compassion toward your human experience will arise in time.

I hope that these suggestions are helpful. 
Truth is one.
Paths are many.

With love,
Rev. Supriya Swerdlick

Stay on the Path

Many years ago I heard for the first time the phrase, "trust the process," which is now, in certain circles, thrown around as a cure-all much in the same way "Let go and let God" is used. Trusting in the process means relaxing into the flow of life with the a belief in its goodness. In an essential way, it is the very base level of faith--a belief that there is something beyond us, something both seen and unseen, something greater and powerfully real.

Last week I took my children, a friend, and her child, to walk a labyrinth. It was a spectacular sunny, summer day. We had views of the mountains and down into a lake. We walked through a field of wild flowers to pass through a wooden arch into the labyrinth where the children, the three little walkers, began to excitedly follow the path as it circled in and then out and then back in again. On their way to the center, they each asked me, at different times, how to get to the end. My son even once traveled backwards, worried he had made a misstep. "You can't get off the path," I told them. "Just keep walking and you will get there."

In the labyrinth, this is absolutely true. All you need to do is keep walking on the path. If you follow it, it will lead you where you want to go. You simply cannot get lost. It isn't a maze with false dead-ends, though at times it can seem similarly confusing. But with a maze you may not make your destination. In a labyrinth, put one foot in front of the other and you can't not make it.

As I walked the labyrinth and kept saying over and over to the children, "just stay on the path. Keep going. You'll get there," I heard my own voice and my own words like an offering. "Just keep walking. Stay on the path." I began to savor the idea that you can't get off the path, and I started to see how this is the truth of life, though at times we may not believe it. But faith and trust require a level of daring, a willingness to let go of pretending we know everything, to find we have been given all we need to know.

"Trust the process" may be trite at times, or insufficient, but it speaks to the simple truth of Divine Love's universe: you will make it to the center. No matter the circuitous path or the moments when you may fear. "Just keep walking." You will get there. We do not need to know how it unfolds exactly. We can let go of our disbelief and open to a more childlike delight just as the three children at the labyrinth, on their second stroll around, began to giggle and skip, run and hop the labyrinth walk. They knew, then, that they could not get lost. And neither can we.

--Rev. Sam Wilde

Faith Amalgam

Recently I was asked to lead worship at a local Christian church, something I do on occasion.  Whenever I am asked I feel obligated to say “yes.” I gave up being a pleaser many years ago; my life subsequently got a lot more interesting when I started doing only things I felt really called to do. Leading worship is, however, not one of those things. In fact I have always felt out of place in such a role…Me? In a robe? You might be wondering, then, why I would say “yes.”

As an Interfaith Minister, I truly believe that the only singular path to God is the one each soul chooses to take in this lifetime. I find beauty and merit in all faiths at their core and have lived my life with a Faith Amalgam, borrowing from the wisdom of the Lakota, the Sufis, the Buddhists, Christians, Jews, Taoists and more.

Studying a wide range of traditions has worked for me, enriched my life, opened my mind and fostered in me a tolerance for even the fundamentalists. Because I see the Path of Faith as a labyrinth, the circuitous path that leads always to the same center no matter where you begin.

When I am asked to share a message in a Christian church, it feels like a great challenge, not the size of it, the degree of worth. It seems to me the world has never needed the Interfaith message more than now -when it seems the left hand has no tolerance for the right and would rather cut it off than oblige a compromise. So, I say “yes” in the hopes of bringing to a community of faith, the primary Inter-faith directive: Love. In fact, isn’t it the primary directive of any religion in its concentrated state?

So, the senior pastor of said Christian church got wind that an Interfaith minister had been invited to preach the following Sunday in her staid and called to interrogate me. “Now, where is it you were ordained?” and “What exactly does your seminary teach?” etc. I told her that we believe that God is Love and there are many paths to love; we practice tolerance and diversity of all faiths as long as they are non-violent. We promote peace, community and respect. She responded, “I’m sorry, but that’s not the direction I am taking this church.” She went on to tell me how progressive and tolerant she really was, but just could not have that kind of message when her main goal was to build her church.

I felt the fear come through in her voice, I felt the wall that separates the “us” and “them.” And, I felt the judgment rise in me, a moment of sadness for the lost opportunity – for myself and her church community, and I felt a jab of hurt, I had never been rejected before, this was a blow to my ministerial ego. Then my own words circled back on me like a boomerang, “…tolerance…peace ... respect.” 

It was, for sure a “practice what you preach” moment. It also reminded me to keep following my path not the path anyone else thinks I should take. In doing what we love, believe in and are drawn to, we fulfill our destiny and give to the world the very specific gifts that have been planted in us to give. Isn’t that what any of us can hope to accomplish?

Howard Thurman, theologian, writes, “Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive and go do it. Because what the world needs are people who have come alive.”

Breath

Sometimes we get flooded with thoughts, feelings, or sensations.
We get overwhelmed. Sometimes we are confused, undecided, uncentered and we have lost our clarity and sense of well being.
We feel that life is out of control. That we are out of control.
Sometimes life throws us surprises we feel that we are not prepared for. We are stressed and need to love ourselves back to balance and
Equanimity.

Our breath is a wonderful way back to our experience of
Peace and comfort inside our own skin.
Focusing on our breath listening to it, feeling it move through our bodies, allowing ourselves to relax into our own natural rhythm brings
Us home to our centered self. Attention on the breath allows us to witness our thoughts, feelings and sensations; as we slow ourselves down we have space to collect ourselves, our most evolved self is able to come forth and we can embrace ourselves, each other and our experience. Flooding leads to survival mode, defensive behavior
(fight or flight) and breathing with awareness leads to openness
And a return to love.

Rev. Supriya Hermenze

Is it the End of the World?

So much lately, in world news, has been excellent fuel for those in the global community who believe the end times are near. Disasters of every kind, natural and economic, killing, death, and greed make the headlines, and those who are moved to help can barely keep up with the tragedies. In my own neck of the woods, a woman, who had a FEMA trailer as a result of losing her home in early June in a extreme torrnado, had that same trailer destroyed last week in a freak microburst. People shake their heads and say, "what is the world coming to?" And more seriously, some people, in some places, are scared.

I came across this piece written by Martin Luther King in a response to the Norway tragedy.

I am convinced that love is the most durable power in the world. It is not an expression of impractical idealism, but of practical realism. Far from being the pious injunction of a Utopian dreamer, love is an absolute necessity for the survival of our civilization. To return hate for hate does nothing but intensify the existence of evil in the universe. Someone must have sense enough and religion enough to cut off the chain of hate and evil, and this can only be done through love. ~MLK

I don't think I can add to this, certainly not with any more eloquence, power or truth, save to say, I think we ought not merely to Love, but to FOCUS on love, not simply do GOOD, but LOOK for the good. As a culture we are obsessed with disaster, and we must actively free ourselves from this addiction by retraining our minds to see the Love around us, talk about it, build it up, add to it, the same way we can generate excitement and energy around the dismal news.

Love is a "practical realism." It is a real tool we can use, not some sentimental Hallmark card. It is a force and a power. We ought to train ourselves to know it, use it, and grow it. Rather than being helpless in the face of it's opposite, we can become professional Lovers. We can learn about it, notice it, and swiftly use it, in every situation, every day. If hateful acts begin with a seed of hate to which a person puts lots of time, energy and attention, so do acts of Love. And there are more Lovers among us than haters, so let's begin to take seriously our work keeping in mind: love never fails.  --Rev. Sam Wilde