Sunshine

This is our new bedspread which got me cleaning up the bedroom and the close closet with great enthusiasm.  How quickly we can let our spaces become cluttered.  I think the same happens with our minds.  Most of the time I live in what I call my rational mind which is very cluttered with noisy thoughts and feelings.

I am learning a lot by going back into Jewish thought and how they replaced the law and the temple with the study of scripture.  This was not an easy task for people who had believed the glory of God lived with the Holy of Holies in the temple.  A simple truth that they would come back to time and time again is "Thou shalt love they neighbor as Thyself."  Truth was discovered by spiritual exercises such as fasting and repeating verses of scripture quietly in their minds.

Midrash required them them to investigate and go in search of fresh insights as they gathered to discuss scripture.  The scripture would help them to regain what they had lost and what had become a fixed and unalterable past built on intellectual dogma when they needed to be creative in their readings so that the words carried the joy of the spirit to within their own souls. 

"Any interpretation of scripture that bred hatred or disdain for others was illegitimate when the purpose was to open your heart to the fullness of love."  from the Case For God.  As human beings we want to tame the wind and the imagination so that spiritual experiences are like a closed door that we may be afraid to open.
This calls for courage, heart and humor that enables us to surrender all our worries and confusion into a sacred place of peace, that can be like the secret garden, my favorite movie where they open the door and find a beautiful garden waiting to be restored.

I never read over what I have written because I would probable change it over and over again.  The goal of spirituality is to find within ourselves goodness and challenge us to share and help others.  My one room is now tidy and the other bedroom looks like a disaster as I try to gather up what I am giving away to the Disability people.  Dad has gone out and bought some new shirts which we can now fit into our closet.

"God gives us just this one life and if we do not try to enjoy it he is insulted"
This is what the author of the Holy Unexpected believed before she believed.
Being inspired means to live out daily what we believe in our own way!

"We are all really mystics slowly awakening to the reality of who we really are."
Meditations with Teresa of Avila