Anger, Energy and Health

Posted on August 13, 2016 by a moment with god — Leave a comment

Antahkarana-Spiral-of-Spiritual-Illumination-Energy-energyenhancement-org Good Evening, God!

I was raised with the Newtonian map of Physics . . . very mechanical. I think of it as each object has a place and each object is in its place. Orderly. And that map still works. That is how my wonderful husband Kit and I were able to observe our third solar eclipse this March.

But for the last decade or so I’ve been trying to expand my mind into a much more complex Quantum Universe that seems much more a matter of Energy than of Objects.

And then I thought, HEY! It would be fun to try to recast some Bible verses into our Quantum Universe. So I’m starting with “don’t sin by letting anger control you.” Don’t let the sun go down while you are still angry, for anger gives a foothold to the devil.” Ephesian 4:26-27

All of us who have ever been angry know that anger both generates and consumes tons of energy. When anger is generating energy it makes us feel powerful. And sometimes we need that anger and that power. But, apparently, St. Paul realized that continuing in a State of Anger — going to bed angry — was a real drain on our energy.

Bursts of anger — like a burst of adrenalin — can be useful. But prolonged use of anger or adrenalin keeps us in a state of energy outflow. We get STUCK. And that means we are stuck in Anger — the exact opposite of the state of relaxed peace. And the state of relaxed peace is absolutely required for Healing and Cleaning out Waste.

Being stuck in Anger is not good for our health!

As for giving a foothold to the devil . . . I am picturing little Nano Creatures that are feeding on the Energy Outflow of Anger. They need us to be angry in order to eat. Although, they don’t mind feeding on our Fears too.

Fanciful images, God. But I find them helpful.

Tagged with: Ephesians 4:26-27, giving the devil a foothold, Little Nano Creatures
Posted in Anger, connecting, Energy, healing, health, Peace, relaxation

Our Inner Hearts

Posted on July 25, 2016 by a moment with god — Leave a comment

inner hibiscus2

Good Morning, God

Last week on a walk/jog up my valley I looked into the heart of a hibiscus. I thought about how You look into our hearts. This flower lasts for only a day. And I suppose, God, that our human life span is almost as brief as that when set against geologic time. But we are and we are here. And You have put us in Time for reasons unclear.

REJOICE You tell us! AND AGAIN REJOICE! Rejoicing involves great trust in You. Trust that life is MORE than this brief life span here. Trust that there is MORE. Trust that You Love Your Creations.

My wonderful husband Kit and I lost a daughter to cancer before she turned 19 . . . and we DID trust You. We trusted that she was/is WITH YOU! And You tugged me around so that I could look FOR and then AT Your Light in that darkness that engulfed us.

So I understand that Trusting You involves extending my Mental Map of Time and Space BEYOND what school teaches — beyond our human sense of time and space. And in trusting You, God, I believe that You mean it when You say BLESS, BLESS and DO NOT CURSE! When You say, IF YOUR ENEMY IS THIRSTY GIVE HIM TO DRINK.

You, of course, know that is not my first or even second response. BUT, it is sometimes my third or fourth response. So, now I am blessing a man who seems to believe that only he can BULLY America and the World into being “saved” by him. Not saved by YOU. Saved by him. I am, I admit, uneasy.

I consider Bullies to be weak . . . insecure and easily frightened. And frightened people are all too open to evil. And so, I sit here. And I ask for blessings and healings — for him and for all people who want to lead and who do lead — all over this world.

Tagged with: God sees our hearts, Prayer, Praying for leaders
Posted in awareness, connecting, Humility or Needing Help!, Prayer, Praying for our enemies, respect

Let’s Have A Jubilee Year!

Posted on July 13, 2016 by a moment with god — Leave a comment

51XAhxT+43L._SX329_BO1,204,203,200_ Good Day, God!

A friend handed me this book and said, “I think you should read this!” She was right. It is written by Dr. Charlotte A. Tomaino, a neuropsychologist. She is also former nun which she referred to as “an earlier career choice”. Apparently three years in a convent provides a very good basic course in quieting the “monkey mind.” That is something I am working on as I do Centering Prayer.

When we quiet our busy minds we find a “perspective” that helps us to do more choosing and less reacting in our lives. Indeed, Dr. Tomaino has a variety of links to videos that SHOW how our brains can change and grow according to our thoughts — thoughts based on our beliefs. I’m enjoying it.

But what delighted me today was her blog which invited folks to join in The JUBILEE Year of Mercy. I had understood about the Year of Mercy. What I hadn’t understood is that it is to be a Extraordinary Jubilee Year. The Book of Leviticus says that in a Jubilee Year (mostly every 50 years) slaves and prisoners would be freed, debts would be forgiven and the mercies of God would be particularly manifest.

But, God, it isn’t just debts that need to be forgiven. We ALL have piles of things awaiting our forgiveness. WOW! Wouldn’t it be revolutionary if we all took it upon ourselves to work on forgiving — forgiving others, ourselves and maybe even You, God.

Forgiving tends to be hard to visualize. So Pope Francis is having ACTUALLY DOORS opened! He says, “the Holy Door will become a Door of Mercy through which anyone who enters will experience the love of God who consoles, pardons, and instils hope”.

Gosh, God, if any any church near me opens a Holy Door I sure will want to walk through it!

Tagged with: Awakening the Brain: The Neuropsychology of Grace, compassion, Dr. Charlotte A Tomaino, Extraordinary Jubilee Year of Mercy, forgiving, healing, hope, humility, Pope Francis
Posted in Books, Caring, caring for the stranger in our midst, Centering Prayer, choices, connecting, Forgiving, mercy

My Starter Part and Darth Vader

Posted on July 6, 2016 by a moment with god — Leave a comment

Darth

Good Evening, God,

For the last week or so I have been thinking about what Parts or Aspects of me are not working as well as I would like. Right at the TOP of the list was my “Starter” Part. I “blamed” her for my not getting started on DOING a lot of small things I WANT to do.

This morningI asked my spiritual director, June, about it. She suggested that I try to see what she looked like. For a second or two there was only a dim dark shape — THEN DARTH VADER appeared.

Really, God. I was NOT prepared to visualize my Starter Part as Darth Vader!

But, June reminded me that when Darth was young he was a “Good Guy” — a Jedi Knight. Am I AFRAID of the Starter Part of myself? Afraid I might launch something that might do more harm than good? Afraid that I — like all the other humans on this planet –am capable of doing evil in the name of good?

Duh, of course, I am! We humans are easily misled. Still, should that concern keep me from STARTING on small helpful projects? I can almost hear You say — There IS the gift of DISCERNMENT! Yes! That’s right!

And, now that I THINK about it, I realize my Starter Part is not likely to run amok. She WANTS to do GOOD and good work. She will be so much happier if I USE her. . . judiciously.

Hmm.. Judicious. I’ve been traveling for the first half of this year . . . then recovering from a bad cold. Then traveling again and then recovering from a UTI (bladder infection). Starting projects when I need to REST and RECHARGE is foolish. So maybe my “Starter” problem is part Darth Vader and part Common Sense.

Once again, God, LIFE is all about BALANCE!

Tagged with: Common Sense, Darth Vader, Doing vs Being, humility, Starting, Taking Care of myself
Posted in Balancing and adjustments, connecting, recharging my battery, rest, Starter

500,000 Hours coming up

Posted on June 23, 2016 by a moment with god — Leave a comment

Good Evening, God!

This photo was taken as my wonderful husband Kit and I celebrated our 57th wedding anniversary. A night to treasure!

I thought that would be it for anniversary celebrations . . . until next year.

Well, not necessarily. We had lunch today with a young couple. We told them about our anniversary and while the wife “ooed and aahed” the husband pulled out his phone and said “You have been married 499,xxx hours!” Hours?

My immediate response was to ask “How long will it be until we have been married 500,000 hours? He went back to his phone and said June 21st plus 28 and one half more days. I had to count it up on a calendar but it appears that on July 19th Kit and I will hit 500,000 hours married!

Like most folks I love big round numbers! I remember the 2k flap with wild predictions of doom. Big round numbers get our attention. This has gotten MY attention. So, now I am puzzling over a suitable celebration. I don’t know of any precedents. I guess that means I can do whatever I want . . . and can convince Kit to do.

I’m open to suggestions.

Truly, we have innumerable reasons and occasions to rejoice and give thanks. It just tickles me to have discovered a very special NEW thing to be thankful for!

Tagged with: a new kind of anniversary, celebrating, number of hours married, rejoicing, Strawberry moon
Posted in appreciation, connecting, gratitude, thankfulness, time

In the Morning Light

Posted on June 15, 2016 by a moment with god — Leave a comment

morning light

Good Day, God!

We have been home for 7 days now . . . and I am happy. I’m always happy to be home. But, this time it is home after our third major trip — in a row! It’s not just that I am having to allow recovery time — FUN does take TIME to recover from — but exhaustion is cumulative.

I used to complain that we humans ought to have some sort of meter or graph that showed us how low our Energy Account was. (Now THERE is a potential Health App!) But, I am learning that our bodies are quite happy to tell us — IF we are willing to listen!

My Being seems much more willing to hear my body nowadays. Well, yes, being sick after the first trip . . . and then having an attack of plantar fasciitis . . . that helped get my Body some Respect! After weeks of eating the Standard American Diet (lots of SUGAR) . . . I was not at all surprised to find myself suffering from inflammation! So, it was off the sugar and breads and pastries and cookies, oh my! And after only a month or two of CLEAN LIVING my left heel feels fine.

Actually, it isn’t just my body that is getting more respect. My own priorities — as opposed to the priorities of worthy groups or other worthy folks — are getting more respect and time. Yesterday I passed up a worthy meeting to invest 3 hours of heavy labor in our downstairs carport-garden. Imagine, God, I have 30 pots!

Now that we are home for the rest of the year, I am bringing my palms back inside. I love green, growing plants. Hmm. I love the feeling that I might be growing, too. Growing out of old cultural world views — like getting confused about “selfish” and “self care.”

So, God, now I am going to go and invest a few minutes in Stretching. And then I will rest. And then it is off to another “worthy” meeting.

Tagged with: energy levels, Inflammation, recovery, respect for my body, rest
Posted in accepting my ability to REDESIGN, authority over my life, Balancing and adjustments, being repotted, Changing, Cherishing our Bodies, choices, connecting, days of rest as conservation days?, food questions

Home is where the Heart is

Posted on May 21, 2016 by a moment with god — Leave a comment

what a view we didn't see

Good Day, God!

This morning was invested in Centering Prayer with a monthly group sponsored by the Contemplative Outreach of Hawaii. I sat with 20-30 other folks for three sessions of 30 minutes each. WONDERFUL. I am feeling peaceful and a bit more aligned and a lot less fearful. I’m smiling, God. Maybe even ready for another trip?

I was chatting with a dear friend afterwards and she asked me if that wasn’t HARD to do? Oh YES! It is Hard for me . . . .I’m active and chatty . .. full of Words! But, in a group — even a small group — I find it easy. I feel like I am carried by the prayers of the others.

And, I need carrying these days, God. I too — like everyone — am buffeted by diverse fears. My big Fear is that as our species hovers on the brink of a Double of Nothing choice — we will choose nothing. We all either seek Your Help — seek to rise to full Human Status — or we will fall back into Reptilian Behavior.

Ah, and now I am smiling ruefully. I need to seek Your Help. I need to pray FOR people. I have been careening downhill into a Pit of Dark Judgments. Dark, Stinky, Sticky Judgments. Like calling folks Zombies. Ick! I am projecting my darkness on to others. Most folks are good or at least see themselves as good. Wanting to serve You, even. But Fear has a frightful way of yanking us out of our higher level human brain and down into our Old Reptilian Brain.

Now, I need to start praying for You to help ME!

Posted in connecting

Loving Our Whole Self

Posted on May 1, 2016 by a moment with god — 2 Comments

top of stone barn housing car collection

Good Morning, God!

I love this photo of the very top of a restoration of an old stone barn designed by the Shakers. Their not being interested in sex, I guess they had a lot of time and energy to put into Really GOOD Design. The barn was designed so the cows were in the middle level, hay was carted up to the top level and the manure was dumped into the bottom level where it, too, could be carted away. All the chores were simplified by building the barn on the side of a hill!

But, looking up at the top one can see that aesthetics were important, too. And since I wanted to talk to You about the enneagram and Father Richard Rohr’s blogs about it, I chose this image to picture the Complete Self. And yes, God, now I see that the Light at the Center is symbolic, too.

Fr. Rohr quoted Teresa of Ávila, who said that “the sinner is actually one who does not love himself or herself enough. We do not see or admire the whole self; so we split and try to love the good self and reject the bad self.”

I’m smiling because I think what I have been doing is RENAMING my sins. For example, my enneagram type is mostly (or often) a Seven. Which means my root sin is GLUTTONY. Yikes! One pictures corpulent drunkards lolling about. Distasteful! So, I have chosen to describe my Sin as ENTHUSIASM! A charming euphemism . . . I thought.

But, several weeks after reading about my root sin, I actually realized that Gluttony sort of explained my problems of Over-packing, Over-scheduling, and — not last or least — Over-eating. Hmm.

Well, God, I am not sure if renaming is better or worse than rejecting and ignoring parts of myself. Oh? It is just On The Continuum? Sigh, I can sort of see that. And Now I am reflecting on how IF I AM UPSET BY A BEHAVIOR in someone else — it might well be a SHADOW part of myself.

Sigh. Thank You God for Richard Rohr and insights. . . especially for the Unwanted Ones.

Tagged with: Enneagram, Father Richard Rohr, gluttony, shadow selves, Shakers, stone barns
Posted in accepting my ability to REDESIGN, Caring, Choosing to respond, connecting, Light, LOVE

A CHANGE IN OUR OIL continued

Posted on April 26, 2016 by a moment with god — Leave a comment

A Fresnel lighthouse lens, in the Nantucket (Mass.) Museum

Good Morning, God!

This is an old Fresnel lighthouse lens that has been replaced by better and brighter lights. But the need for lighthouses remains. We need to be warned when we are too close to rocky shores AND we need to be helped to locate where we are.

Right now our Civilization seems short of Lighthouse equivalents. So here I go . . .trying.

The production of Very Cheap Grain following WWII has had tremendous unintended and largely unseen consequences. One is the overwhelming use of CHEAP vegetable (grain) oils. It turns out that the oils in grains are meant to be stable for LONG periods of time. So they are primarily composed of slow reacting Omega 6s.

But, it seems that our brains and nervous systems prefer — in fact NEED a FASTER FAT . . . a more highly chemically reactive fat. One that is primarily composed of fast reacting Omega 3 fats found in butter, grass fed animal fats, cold water fish and flaxseed oil. That oil is used not just in our brains and neurological systems but in the very membrane of our cells.

So, what have some of the unintended consequences been? One major change, caused by the overconsumption of omega 6 fats, is an upsurge in inflammation. And inflammation is now getting attention as perhaps a root cause for all sorts of health problems. Hmm.

Years ago I heard Dr. Michael Greger talk about our overuse of omega 6 oils. He said “GO HOME AND TOSS OUT ALL OILS EXCEPT OLIVE OIL.” I did so! No more margarine for us. No store-bought salad dressings. Plus I made the addition of fish oils. Why keep olive oil? Olive and coconut oils contain omega 9s. Very little omega 6 comes into our systems with them.

But, one fish oil pill a day doesn’t help much. We have an enzyme that is necessary to use of oil. If we consume omega 6 oil first, it uses up that enzyme. So it isn’t just amount of each oil (preferably one-to-one) but the TIMING.

So? Have you heard this all before? Probably. Did you make a dramatic shift? Not so easy if you eat the Standard American Diet. More on that later.

Tagged with: a moment with God, Knowing vs Changing, Omega 3, omega 6, SAD the Standard American Diet, the FAST fat, the SLOW fat
Posted in a hand up, adjusting, asking for help for myself, connecting, the joy of sharing

A CHANGE of OIL

Posted on April 26, 2016 by a moment with god — Leave a comment

pushing back at CHANGE

Good Morning, God!

I think it was King Canute who pointed out that he could not “hold back the sea.” How true that is on Cape Cod. Rising Oceans, Warming Seas, Stronger Storms.

The erosion here is CHANGE made VISIBLE! Or maybe only visible to those who can SEE over TIME. Most of us humans have real trouble with that, God. Often it isn’t so much that facts aren’t known as that they are not CONNECTED to other facts.

As a wannabe synthesizing thinker I am delighted when I suddenly see a Connection. That happened yesterday as my wonderful husband Kit and I toured the Whaling Museum on Nantucket Island. There we learned about the SUPERIOR qualities of Sperm Whale Oil. So superior that it was a BIG contributor to the Industrial Revolution. Hmm. Right! Machines don’t run well — or at all? — without oil. And Sperm Whale oil was perfect. It didn’t gum up, go rancid or whatever it is that inferior oils do. And the supply of Sperm Oil came along — in the late 1700s — just as the mechanical age got going.

I had assumed that petroleum could do just as well — until I found an article online that said that when whale oil was made illegal (around 1972?) the rate of car transmission failures rose from one million in 1972 to eight million in 1975. Sperm Whale oil in Transmission Fluid? Really?

Well, who knows BUT it did connect dots that hadn’t been connected before.

Another CHANGE in OIL took place in the years after WWII when the munitions factories turned to making artificial fertilizers. As a result grain production SOARED!!! We had so much grain that we figured out how to make food oil out of it . . .and then figured out how to tell folks how much better that (polyunsaturated) oil was for us. And then on to how awful ANY fat was for us.

Only, of course, it wasn’t true. More later . . .

Tagged with: Connecting the Dots, Industrial Revolution, omega 3 oil, Omega 6 oil, Sperm Whale Oil
Posted in connecting