Today is my sabbath - for a couple of days at the end of my week I step out of the fray, and regroup. Today I'm giving myself over to awareness.
My perfect sabbath is a celebration, a holiday. I keep it holy with my attitude: I don't rush, complain, or worry. Everything I do has a flavor of peace. I schedule some work, but it's work I find fulfilling, or uplifting. Simple is a great word to describe my ideal activities for the sabbath: Simple tasks, simple foods, and an undemanding schedule.
Agenda today:
1. Synopsis of my next month
1. Synopsis of my next month
3. Read "Testament of Devotion"
4. Surrender, rest, recuperate
1. Synopsis of my next month:
At the new moon (next week) I will transition from one focus to another, and a whole new field of opportunity. This week I've been journalling about my goals, dreams, and exciting ideas for the next 30-days, including a few crazy, improbable notions, and reflecting on what my best month would look like, moving me in the direction of my most important reasons for living.
Today I'm ready to write a very brief synopsis of the next month of my life:
It's summer, part two (second verse, same as the first), all the same meetings, plus even more social gatherings and in-person events. I will sink deeply into an Earth-Quaker awareness, and discern my purpose and missions.
2. My Earth-Quaker awareness practices:
I've decided to make a plan to nurture my spirit or soul - that inner voice of my true nature - because it's feeling unheard and uncared for (I only know because I finally took some time last week to listen).
My spirit is not my brain, nor my emotions; it's my Better Self, or moral compass, which allows me to be responsible and honorable, and to reach beyond selfishness in order to serve others. And it's also my Essential Self, the part of me that thrives on understanding my purpose and intentions. It’s like a rheostat of consciousness: As my level of awareness grows I am lit up ever more brightly, and can see and understand aspects of myself and the universe more clearly.
Just like any other part of me, my soul appreciates some attention, renewal, and care. Spiritual growth has (at least) four parts: Attention to virtue habits (like working towards being more generous), soul searching (the ongoing quest to understand my purpose and intentions), awareness practices (such as meditation or journaling), and opening to God or a higher power.
My goal is always to practice all four of these everyday (and all day)... but I've certainly been pretty haphazard with it, so I've designed this set of habits to guide my daily spiritual growth and give me something to push against, to build some spiritual muscle, that I'm calling my Earth-Quaker practice:- Ground with the Earth - I do this outside, planting my bare feet on a patch of grass or dirt and taking slow breaths while I feel my connection to the Earth and the Sky, as a little part of nature myself.
- Sit in silent listening, to the inner Guide - Sometimes I stay outside for this part.
- Read from a devotional book - today I'm reading from Testimony of Devotion.
- Write in my journal, especially about any virtue habits I'm working on, and my spiritual intentions for the day.
- Set a prayer mantra for the day, that I can carry with me and repeat - today I'm using "Grow to hold the suffering of the Earth".
3. Read Testimony of Devotion:
I've been reading Thomas R. Kelly's book "Testament of Devotion" (1941). I'm still in the second chapter - Holy Obedience. Today I'm continuing with another of the fruits of obedience - entrance into suffering. Yum yum.
He uses suffering as a counter to joy, which he says needs no advocates - I questioned whether that was accurate in the present day, when suffering has reached such a peak of universal experience, but then I remembered that he wrote this book at the start of World War 2. He understands suffering, and pulls no punches:
"An awful solemnity is upon the earth, for the last vestige of earthly security is gone. It has always been gone, and religion has always said so, but we haven't believed it. And some of us Quakers are not yet undeceived, and childishly expect our little cushions for our little bodies, in a word inflamed with untold ulcers ... For the plagues of Egypt are upon the world, entering hovel and palace, and there is no escape for you or for me."
I appreciate the paradox he introduces: Nothing matters, everything matters, a key to the entrance into suffering. He begs us to come to terms with the inevitable nature of suffering, bear the burden of our own suffering, and "rise radiant in the sacrament of pain." Basically, get over your need for life to be comfortable and well-ordered, and enter into the suffering, so your heart can be enlarged, and you can obey the call to your particular task, to help ease suffering in the world.
Kelly suggests that, "Some of us will have to enter upon a vow of renunciation and of dedication to the 'Eternal Internal' which is as complete and irrevocable as was the vow of the monk of the Middle Ages." He says that our Quaker Meetings were meant to be such groups, bands of men and women set apart, "living by a vow of perpetual obedience to the Inner Voice, in the world yet not of the world, ready to go the second half, obedient as a shadow, sensitive as a shadow, selfless as a shadow..." -- and we can recreate the Society of Friends in that image.
This next few days is a time to be empty; the time for striving is past. As the moon’s light fades into darkness I get to relax and surrender to the universe.
Some things will always be out of my control. As the moon's appearance dwindles, I let go of useless beliefs, unreasonable expectations, grudges, defensiveness, projects that don't fit into my life, and anything else that isn't working for me. I turn these all over to the Divine and give thanks, my way of opening to receive new intentions in the new month.
And I give myself permission to rest!
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