Everyman's Journal 2011, #69 © 2011 Rev. David Seacord November 1 Being 'fully present' and 'having no prejudices' (pre-judgements) are exactly the same thing, for the absence of either makes the other impossible. _______________________________________________ Returning late last night to Yuma after a 19 day walkabout/workabout in New Mexico, I awoke this morning in an 'integration' mode. I saw that the theme of my personal curriculum continues to be 'the radical unlimitedness of Love'… and that this New Mexican journey had been chock full of expanding and learning opportunities along the lines of this theme. To me, the spiritual journey is like a spiral circle ever ascending, so that while the views continue to return with familiar regularity, they are seen from a heighten perspective each time they come around again. This gives us/me the opportunity to reexamine the learning previously assimilated, and add in the richness of recently honestly earned depth of being to them. Take spiritual prejudice, for instance. In one of my recent conversations an old soul friend expressed that he had never known me to be a spiritually biased person, and I agreed that in my general self-view, I am not. Yet when I add in the growth theme of 'the radical unlimitedness of Love', I see that in many ways that are not even all that subtle, I have been prejudiced towards various other communities of faith. No openly, not verbally, but simply by limiting my willingness to participate or be involved. A prime obvious example is 'fundamentalist Christianity', where I have held little hope of finding deep affinity with being holding those views. But less obvious are many other faith views… prejudices which have been hidden from my own view. I am integrating that my experiences in New Mexico have been about breaking all these hidden prejudices up, about exposing them within myself to myself, about deepening my own self-honesty. And then to allow in the radical unlimitedness of Love, which naturally includes ALL expressions of Love, without limit. I was guided to and revisited my 'somewhat distanced' relationship with Sufism, and found my heart filled when I attended a lovely Sufi retreat, meeting a new teacher of that way who inspires me to relook with new openness. I discovered new space within me for Catholicism as I listened recently to a friend testify of his growth gained by joining a Benedictine Monastery. I worked in a new intimacy and openess with the LDS communities that I was providing service to, and discovered that Love would have me Be Love there also. As the Zen teaching writes, I found everywhere the opportunity to 'move among and intermingle withoutdistinction' (ie, without judging), and in so practicing, received in return a greater fullness of Love. Remember a while back when I wrote "if God allows it, can I?" This is a corollary of Love's radical unlimitedness. Another is the simple practice of appreciation…. of intentionally looking for what can be appreciated in the expression of other. Godness allows us amazing, infinite space to be individualized expressions of Him/Her. What creates Heaven Here is our honest appreciation of each other, our willingness to see the Godness Principle active in each others lives, no matter the apparent disparities. Such willingness is the foundation of all peacemaking, both in ourselves, and by extension, in the world. Namaste, David *********************************** My partnership request.... Please consider yourself an important gateway this message is passing through on its way to others. Please do 'send it on'. Thank you. *********************************** Rev. David Seacord Fine Art Painter / Sufi Cherag david@davidseacord.com www.davidseacord.com (my fine art website) www.davidseacord-everymansjournal.blogspot.com (archived writings and poetry, circa 2002 to 2004) www.davidseacord-acimcommentaries.blogspot.com (archived 2010 writings on the lessons of A Course in Miracles) www.everymansjournal2011.blogspot.com (archived entries of this years Everyman's Journal) www.thelovedeclaration.org (info on The Love Declaration) To subscribe, simply click on the code below to open the subscribe window. http://davidseacord.us1.list-manage1.com/subscribe?u=306aba00e6959c604de750bcc&id=62a1ee7045 | 