A Spiritual Break

Posted on November 26, 2024 by Michael J. Cunningham · 2 Comments

The lack of agenda

The lack of agenda

I wonder if you’ve ever thought about your spiritual journey. I’m sure you have. How did I ever end up here? At this point in my spiritual journey, I’m saying. I think we’re all a little hard on ourselves when we look at our spiritual journey. In fact, that’s probably a good thing because otherwise we would be looking at ourselves reflectively in the mirror and describing how wonderful we’ve done so far. As my mother often proclaimed when I made something of myself “self-praise is no praise, Michael.”

She was right of course. Self-praise is no praise. And yet we can see how we’ve made some progress, or at least that we’re interested in doing so. The more that we ditch ourselves, goals and agendas, the greater the progress. Funny how that works.

Centering prayer is perhaps one of the deeper dives that we make on this journey. Entering a space that we’re not really sure what’s going to happen, no expectations except the willingness to explore. And yet it seems to produce some of the better results. Father Thomas Keating says in many parts of his literature and teaching, that God is within us so why not let God do the praying.

I am asked, not that infrequently, how did I end up on the wrong side of the country to all my kids and grandchildren and leave a high-tech industry that had treated me quite well over my career. The answer is to that question is really, I have no idea. I do think being inquisitive, willing to try something new, and not knowing or expecting a specific outcome has helped me. Perhaps rather allowed God to guide me. The lack of steering, or a rudder, has managed to keep me off the rocks, even during the stormy weather which has peppered my life.

This gets me to the point of the reflection. Lack of agenda may be the most helpful thing we can do for our own spiritual development. The more that I try and concretize actions and outcomes and goals the more difficult that becomes to achieve it. So, what do we do if we don’t have an agenda? We don’t have those goals and objectives. I’m going to be better at praying in six month’s time. Most of us know that is an impossible goal. Why? Because prayer is not a solitary action, it is relationship with God and others. I think another way of us to consider deepening this relationship is to keep whatever mission we have in mind or are called to front and center. Now you might say that’s an agenda as well, but I don’t think that’s totally true.

If we take the Franciscan call to action in prayer, it’s immortalized in the words peace and all good. Is that an agenda? Not really. It’s a signpost for something more important than an agenda. Its alignment. Getting ourselves aligned with something, in this case a call to action and the prayer effects, or should affect every decision and moment that flows out of us. I think this concept of flow which is well understood in eastern traditions such as Taoism, is also relevant in all other traditions. Particularly those that rely on alignment with a higher power, one which we call God in the Christian tradition.

If we check on the alignment, then flow will take us where we need to go.

Posted on November 15, 2024 by Michael J. Cunningham

Scared to Get Close

Scared to Get Close

Do you ever get that feeling that you need to get close to something or someone but are scared to do so. We are all warned in the world to stay away from things that might hurt us. Don’t touch the stove Michael. Stay away from the edge! Don’t run with scissors. You get the idea. Sometimes, I just wonder what holds us back.

The person who will not take the dive from the higher board, try the more difficult ski slope, be willing to talk to someone who they don’t feel comfortable with are all characteristics we may have encountered at some time or another.

Often, we surprise ourselves by not only losing whatever fear we had of the situation by encountering it directly, but we conquer it completely, now seeing there may have not been anything to be afraid of in the first place.

Our human development and spiritual journeys are littered with such milestones. They could represent the end of a journey for us, if we are not willing to try and pass the slow car ahead which is hindering our progress. Or we may be happy staying in the village in which we were born for the next seventy years. There is no right answer, but there is an inflection point, the point at which we decide if we are too scared to face the fear. Is staying in port when there is a storm brewing on the ocean a sign of scaredness? I would not say so. More like a good decision. This is not the sort of decision that I am talking about here.

Being scared of something or someone often just requires us to examine consequences of confronting the fear which is operating within. What is the worse that could happen. The pretty girl rejects me. Perhaps, but then again, she might accept my proposal for coffee and we are together for the rest of our lives. Is the potential rejection not worth the risk?

We all have a set of markers that tell us what our risk profile is, some seem to be willing to take a risk or jump in more than others. It does not make them necessarily reckless just because they would do so. The risk profile is there for them to determine. What may seem risky to one, is a walk in the park for others.

So, what should we be scared of then? I can’t really answer that question for you, you must do so for yourself. Danger holds its victims close by. And our perception of danger has a variable scale.

However, I will say this. If you never confront the issues which are causing you to feel scared, and they are addressable, you may be setting yourself up for misery and regret. Some of the most important decisions that have been made in the world are bold and in retrospect, beautiful. A wound does not heal well until it has been fully cleaned and dressed in readiness for its new skin. Attention is paid to the wound; it will not heal by just looking at it and feeling sorry for ourselves.

Such is the world in the spiritual realm. We must see what is bothering us, keeping us awake at night, giving us that “gut feeling” which tells us something is wrong, or needs to change. And then to not only listen, but to do something about it.

Or not.

Posted on November 8, 2024November 8, 2024 by Michael J. Cunningham

Entwined

Sometimes, we find ourselves in a wondrous place, experiencing God visiting us in an
unexpected way. When this happens, all we can do is embrace the experience.

Entwined
Strange and wonderful paths led from Celtic soil,
Where roots were planted generations before,
Creating the tapestry, which now forms the soul.
An Irish smile now faces oceans that once passed beneath young feet.

The firmament remains as the traveler goes on their way,
Not intersecting or meeting the other.
Enriched and embellished from learnings and experiences,
Until the ancient silence of prayer, calls them together.

Now, years later, a dance of desire beckons involuntarily,
Not a trumpet, but rather soft invitation,
From a source unseen yet felt.
A mystical call from one soul to another.

And willingness,
That most important gift
Of open love

Offers no barriers
No resistance
Just a gentle, silent yes.
As they merge
Never to separate

Drained and fulfilled, they reside in each other
One as never before
Since
Or forever
In God as a union of love

As if there were no before or after
An eternal state
Now involuntary love
A state of ecstasy
To be savored forever

In a merging of spirits
Never to separate

Posted on October 12, 2024 by Michael J. Cunningham · 1 Comment

Freedom, the Beatitudes, and My Life

Freedom, the Beatitudes and My Life

Our nation has a wonderful tradition of freedom. There are few examples of countries who have offered themselves up to maintain the freedom of others. Perhaps the most essential expression of the greatest love. To lay down your life for another. Many thousands of American citizens have died for the love of their fellow man. May God Bless them all.

Blessed John Duns Scotus, the thirteenth-century Franciscan theologian, expresses God’s greatest gift to us is our freedom and our free will. This is the way we can show our alignment with God in all our actions or words. Or not as the case may be. We have the option to use our free will in whatever form we want. Only to be moderated by the law.

Scotus continues to illustrate with this with blinding simplicity, if our choices are based in love, then they are from God. So, patterns of love are exercised if we align ourselves with God, and therefore do His will with this in our heart. All other actions are not of God.

This simple message is best communicated in Jesus’s words on the Sermon on the Mount, in the beatitudes. Here, and thoroughly, the Way of God is illustrated in all parts of our lives. Loving others, caring for the poor needy, surrendering to God, are all there.

This coming month we have a way of communicating His will using the beatitudes and His love in our duty to vote for those who best represent our personal values and beliefs. It is always a time for me to dig deep into these bigger questions and move beyond the sound bites and divisiveness which seems to encourage a polarizing atmosphere. I often feel, listening to the news that I am hearing “The United Hates of America” and so little of what caused me to move here, so little of what truly makes up the character of an accepting, loving, nurturing and generous nation which is the one I came to in the 1980s. While I am still optimistic, my own decisions, not just in voting, but in everyday life, continue to be informed by these guidelines in the beatitudes.

The word beatitude means “supreme blessedness.” How beautiful is that? Today, I need this blessedness to guide me during my days and weeks. And I will use them next month as I make decisions to determine who I feel is most aligned with those instructions from the Sermon on the Mount.

How are the beatitudes playing out in your life? Perhaps I can should pick on one for the week and see how important it is to me and those around me.

I also pray the divisiveness which permeates the country, communities and even families will be dissipated soon, washed away in the Blood of Christ and the Eucharist we celebrate together today.

Oversensitive

When the pain comes in from those who dislike you,

Or what you have done,

Or seems you had done;

The fork in the road rushes up.

To vilify and engage in debate,

Shredding their argument,

And then their clothes;

Until they are left naked, and your work is done.

Or listen and pray,

Perhaps then, we might hear what is behind the words,

The critiques, the noise,

And learn what is in their heart.

Which may tell us what is in ours.

Posted on October 9, 2024October 9, 2024 by Michael J. Cunningham

Blurred Vision

Blurred Vision

Sometimes when you wake up first thing in the morning and you’re a little tired everything is just starting to get moving, and you head towards the bathroom for that morning shower … and you can’t see that well.

If you haven’t had a really good night’s sleep and your body’s telling you don’t need to get up quite so early for work today, but you do so anyway. You find yourself with a little bit of blurry vision. Your eyes aren’t quite open yet … well they don’t want to be, … there are some bags under your eyes and you find it necessary to splash some water on your face and tell yourself wake up it’s time to get up.

This blurry vision dissipates when we finally open our eyes and start to see once more. This is not just a physical thing. (Well, it is I guess in relation to our eyes; and being a bit of a sleepy head in the morning.) But there’s another type of blurred vision. One which isn’t so easily fixed with a splash of cold water, the shower, and some powerful coffee to jolt the body and the mind into action.

The blurred vision I’m talking about now is the blurred vision of the mind.

We all have a certain level of sensitivity, empathy, and compassion. And frequently the more sensitive we become to picking up the vibes going on around us, the more easily we become subjects to holding those vibes within us. Actually, not just holding them, but transmitting them. Someone says something to you that offends you, which seems like it’s wrong. You catalog this, in your mind and it is remembered. You may or may not respond. Later in the day, the same thing occurs, perhaps in a different period, a report on the news, or trouble from a personal situation. They start to pile up.

This becomes blurred vision, from a spiritual perspective. It can accumulate if you don’t do something to release it.

I always admired boxers; who seem to be able to take as much as they can put out. From a spiritual perspective, we can take a lot of blows, but sometimes the effect of them just accumulates, until eventually, you don’t seem to be able to do anything about it. Then, our vision, our spiritual vision becomes blurred, and we start to lash out, perhaps even at the wrong person, just the last person who broke through the barrier we had built up. Now the weight was too much. We snap.

And yet, others seem to be able to take so much more. Why is that? Is it because those first few times when the vision seemed blurred they immediately dealt with whatever was causing us to not see straight? Maybe the thing that was activating us was not as serious to them as we thought it should be? It was a nothingburger to them, but upsetting to us. This blurred vision may need the freshwater of the morning, some eye drops, or just a good night’s sleep. Whatever is causing our reservoir of peace to be disturbed should be attended to, as it rarely gets better.

A listening ear, some time for reflection, a dose of gratitude for the other things in our lives, a glimpse of a loved one, even a joke about whatever is bothering us can bring us back to a clearer vision. Spiritual vision.

Centering prayer, quiet contemplative prayer is one way of dealing with this. Engaging in a close encounter conversation with the guy upstairs, the divine within, can make things better. And provide the needed ointment to heal the wounds of everyday life. What is your solution when your spiritual vision becomes blurred? Something to consider for the week.

Blurred by Michael Cunningham

I can see you

I can see you

Hiding that thing you want from me

That desire to tell me what to think

What to say

What you do I

I can see you

A member of the clan that’s not me

But an enemy in disguise

Pretending to know me by kind words

Hiding in sheep’s clothing

I can see you

Your message is clear to me

You have taken God and painted him in your own colors

Without asking me first

What colors I like

I can see you

The mask and show of yourself

The projection to the world

Of what you are trying to do

Of who you are trying to influence

I can see you

But now you are infecting me

With your desire to control

So my desire is to reject

You and all your wares

I can see you,

But I can’t see me clearly anymore

Because I see you