FYI.  ILY.  SYT.  JW.

-----Original Message-----
From: Bill@bkspeaks.com [mailto:Bill@bkspeaks.com]
Sent: Monday, November 12, 2001 1:16 PM
To: ordinarylife@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [ordinarylife] Summary of November 11, 2001


ORDINARY LIFE - Thoughts and Ideas to Help You Live a Happier Life

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Summary of November 11, 2001

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Dear Folks ?

     The Principle of Just Noticing

   One of the fastest ways out of the fear that our current global
crisis can cause in us is to develop the skill of "just noticing" what
our reaction of life is. When we fail to notice what is we miss life as
it is. We do this because we try to make ourselves safe and secure -
especially from death. Just noticing is build on the principle of
"sacred unity."

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       Full text of presentation

   I'm calling the remarks I want to make with you today "Just
Noticing."

   We are attempting to learn how to be with the world as it is. And
with ourselves as we are.

   These are big tasks because the world as it is currently a scary
place with an uncertain future. And we as we are turn out to be a mixed
bag, some of which is hard to accept.

   Last week I introduced you to what are, at least for me, some key
concepts.

   First, were the principles of mind and spirit.
   Second, the process of learning to make life work for us in a way
that fits the goal of "living the life we want and wanting the life we
live." Some of you have wondered: "Is it really possible to do this?
Can we really love and accept ourselves and each other
unconditionally?"

   One very important spiritual skill is learning just to notice.

   Just be with what is.

   Yes, this is difficult to do with no judgment. But it is one of our
primary spiritual tasks. If we cannot learn to relate to ourselves this
way, we cannot relate to others with kindness or compassion either.

   Several years ago a man walked into a bar in San Francisco near the
waterfront. After he had ordered his drink, he noticed that the man
sitting next to him looked like a sea-going pirate. Not only was he
dressed the part but he had a peg-leg, a hook instead of a hand and he
had a patch over one eye.
   Curiosity got the better of him so he asked the man to tell him
about himself.
   "Excuse me, but you look like a pirate."
   "Aye mate, that I was. A true sea-going pirate."
   "My but you must have had an interesting life judging from the looks
of things."
   "Aye lad, that I have."
   "Do you mind telling about your adventures? For example, how did you
come to have a peg-leg?"
   "Well, I was a pirate you know. One day a huge wave came and knocked
me off the ship and a shark bit my leg clean off. That's why I have a
peg-leg."
   "And your arm? How did you come by that hook?"
   "Well, I was a pirate you know. One night in a bar in Singapore I
got in a fight and this guy took a machete and cut my arm clean off.
That's how I got my hook."
   "And how about your eye? How did you lose your eye?"
   "Well, I was a pirate you know. One day while up on deck I happened
to look up and a sea gull pooped in my eye?"
   "A sea gull pooped in your eye and that's how you lost your eye?"
   "Well, it was the day after I got my hook."

   There is a profound wisdom in learning to be with life as it is.
Something happens and immediately we react rather than just noticing.
When we do that we can blind ourselves. So often we want to escape
life. What I want our times together to help us all do is to develop a
loving and compassionate relationship toward life as it is and toward
ourselves as we really are.

   One way to talk about this is with the phrase "just noticing." The
foundation of this "noticing" is the principle of spiritual unity.

   When Jesus used the word "God," the word that he used in Aramaic
means "that which encompasses everything both outside and inside."

   This includes those things we label "good" and those things we label
"bad." Both within the world and within ourselves. This is one of the
reasons we are encouraged to know ourselves as completely as possible.
You can't love what you don't know or know what you don't love.

   Jesus was constantly inviting people toward himself in one way or
another. Indeed, I think one of the true marks of the spiritual life-
style I would aspire to is that it be one that is inviting. I would
like for people to find what we are up to in here, for example, to be
intriguing, appealing, etc.

   "Come, follow me," he said.

   "Come and see what I have found," said his followers.

   So Jesus embraced and invited everyone. Indeed, his hanging out with
sinners, prostitutes and drunks - his inclusiveness if you will - got
him into far more trouble than anything he ever said about himself.

   This is a manifestation of the Jewish principle of wisdom, called
"Sophia." In the Old Testament book of Proverbs you find Wisdom
gathering various guests together.

   At the time of Jesus there were very strict rules in Judaism about
whom you could eat with and whom you couldn't and he regularly and
deliberately disobeyed those rules. By violating these rules Jesus
modeled the nature of God's love. God invites and includes all.

   The word Jesus used for "God," means "no boundaries." No one and
nothing is excluded. So our spiritual work involves attempting to
create our lives in light of this reality.

   Of course, the phrases "being with life as it is" and "learning to
embrace it all" are what we talk about all the time in here in one way
or another.

   Here is a promise: the more you work with not running from the
things that scare you - whether within or without - and the more you
and I don't try to sidestep the feelings of insecurity that facing
these demons brings us, the more we will be at peace; the more joy we
will experience; the happier we will be.

   It is that simple.

   It is that difficult.

   Of course, the bottom line thing we try to run from and escape is ?
death.

   Once I had a very profound dream. It was disturbing beyond belief. I
would say that paying attention to and honoring this dream saved my
life. And by "saved my life" I don't mean it in the way we usually do.
It didn't keep me safe and secure.

   I dreamed that I was back in Columbia, Tennessee the town where I
lived from age six until age seventeen or eighteen. I had gone back
there because I had some sort of business to conduct with the
undertaker. (You understand that we take nothing in a dream as literal.
Dream symbols are much more serious than that.) While I was waiting for
the undertaker to finish whatever he was doing and come to our meeting,
I was looking around this place. Off of the vestibule where I stood
waiting, there were numerous visitation rooms. Each seemed to have
several caskets in it. Each casket contained a corpse.

   I looked over to the room on my right and there was a casket in
which the body in it seemed to be breathing. I walked over to it and
there, plain as day, was my dad. All laid out but clearly not dead. He
was breathing!

   Now, in the dream I had no emotional reaction to this whatsoever. I
just noticed it. I went back to the vestibule to wait.

   Soon the undertaker came out.

   He had on a white lab coat with blood stains on it. Blood in dreams
always refers to sacrifice. (We don't like to make sacrifices!)

   I said to him, "Before we get down to business, I thought you might
like to know that the body in that casket over there isn't dead."

   "Oh yes, we know. He is about to die. You see, he is afraid of the
pain of the process of being embalmed. We're keeping an eye on him. As
soon as he is dead, we are going to close the casket and bury him."

   That seemed to make sense to me so I said, "Okay" and we got about
our business - which I have no idea what it was.

   When I woke, the dream seemed like it had been so real. I was very
disturbed by it. Remember, there are no bad dreams - just disturbing
ones. What could it possibly mean?

   I worked with that dream for weeks. What in me was afraid of dying?
Of the process of being embalmed?

   The ego.

   The ego thinks it is the whole show and is terrified about having
the life sucked out of it.

   This is why I say to you that the spiritual practice I am attempting
to teach in here has nothing to do with believing anything religious -
at least not at first. It has most of all to do with our being willing
to die and to do this dying on a continuous basis.

   Just when we are sure that we've found the truth, that we have a
place to stand, that we are safe and secure; life as it is - or God -
comes along and says, "Let that go!"

   Sometimes this command is whispered to us and is so subtle we miss
it if we aren't careful. Sometimes it is yelled so loudly in our ears
that it echoes there for a long, long time.

   This is why I have cautioned you about the danger of putting labels
on anything.

   For example:
   "I'm married." Then my spouse leaves by death or divorce.
   "I'm wealthy." Then the market crashes.
   "I'm young and healthy." "What do you mean it's malignant?
   "I'm a safe and secure citizen of the United States of America."
Then comes along 9/11.

   Almost nowhere do we get taught the folly of running away from that
which scares us. Instead we are taught to cover it up, make the bitter
sweet, smooth it over so no one will pay attention, take a pill,
distract yourself and don't think about it. By all means, by any means
make it go away.

   The saddest thing about how we are taught to deal with the fear we
have of the various deaths we need to face is that each and every
method causes us to cheat ourselves out of being in the present moment.

   Pema Chodron in her wonderful book "When Things Fall Apart: Heart
Advice for Difficult Times" talks about the wisdom of being nailed to
the present moment. I thought, when I first read that phrase, of one
who was willing to be so nailed and the powerful impact he had because
of that willingness.

   One of the negative contributions organized religion has made to our
lives is that it tries to organize things. Which, of course, it must.
But organized religion begins to create God in its image. Each
religious group becomes so certain of what it is that God wants and
believes.

   But you notice that what God wants and believes varies from group to
group. You get the suspicion that the beliefs have been shaped to
support and affirm the religious organization's existence and culture.
I have a suspicion that this is one of the leading causes of atheism.

   The spiritual path I am attempting to apprehend and talk about isn't
about getting someplace - at least not the place that organized
religion talks about. We're not trying to get to heaven or be "right."

   I grew up, as did some of you, in a church that emphasized the
importance of "being saved."

   To this day when I go to visit my Dad in Columbia, Tennessee - where
that funeral home is - if I go to church with my dad, the service is
just like it was when I was a child. There is almost no one in that
church under fifty. My dad is 93. Yet, every sermon and every service
is focused on the unsaved.

   A phrase that some folks used briefly after 9/11 "when will things
get back to normal. "Normal" is one of the most useless words in our
vocabulary. Things are not normal - except in this sense: Things come
together and they fall apart. Then they come together again. Then they
fall apart again. This is the way of ordinary life. Our healing lies in
creating room for this sort of thing to happen. Room to love. Then to
grief. Then to feel relief. Then misery and joy that frees us to love
again and start the process all over again.

   Do you see why I say that the spiritual journey isn't about getting
it together or getting to heaven? In fact, looking for a secure safe
place is what keeps us miserable.

   Just noticing what is going on right here and now and what our
reaction to it is, this noticing becomes our teacher. That's what
meditation is about. Learning to notice. We don't meditate in order to
become good meditators. We meditate so that we will wake up. If someone
were to ask me, "How long does this take?" my answer would be: "The
rest of our lives."

   Many people are out seeking for some special religious and/or
spiritual path to take them to bliss. All sorts of things are available
for that. Some try the drug Ecstasy. Some try weekend workshops of all
sorts. Some go off and follow someone who can channel a long dead
person into the present moment. These dead folks always seem to be so
wise. Are there no dead jerks? And on and on. All these are efforts to
transcend life as it is. My assertion is that it is only when we are
willing to be with ordinary life that we are free to really to live.

   You see, as long as I am pre-occupied with the hope that there is
somewhere else that is better to be or that there is someone else
better to be, I'm not able to be with where I am and who I am right
here, right now.

   I remember when I first heard the notion that suffering doesn't mean
that something is wrong. What a relief! Suffering is part of life. Life
is difficult. We don't suffer because we've done something wrong or
weren't good enough. To believe that is spiritual poverty. Spiritual
poverty is always experiencing "I'm not good enough or haven't done
enough; that there is something missing in me."

   I strongly believe that our efforts to protect ourselves from sorrow
and hardship are not being kind to ourselves. We get taught in this
culture on the importance of getting it all together and feeling good.
So that if we are experiencing an upset of some kind, we think that
something is wrong and we have to get it fixed. When we take this
approach, we inevitably become bitter, hardened, unavailable, fearful
and alienated. In our effort to avoid sorrow and hardship we end up
living tensely - it's like living your whole life in the dentist chair.

   When we suffer, it doesn't mean something is wrong.

   If you had a child or best friend who felt that that they were
inadequate or fundamentally flawed, what you would do is put your arms
around them and say, "No, you are fine, just the way you are." Then you
might help the child or your friend explore why they felt so bad.
Understand? We can explore the nature of our feeling inadequate without
believing that we are inadequate.

   [At the point each person in the Ordinary Life Gathering was given a
raisin. We spent time "just noticing" the raisin.]

   Now a raisin is a small thing. But what if it is your spouse or
partner that you are not noticing? What if it is your health? What if
it is your surroundings?

   One of the first things I learned when I began to do sitting
meditation is how much time I spend not in the moment. Rather I am busy
planning, thinking about the next item on my "to do list," how I'm
going to get done all I have scheduled for myself. One main goal of
spiritual practice is just to notice.

   These are dark times. Learning to notice and then practicing loving-
kindness and compassion toward ourselves is as good a way as I know for
us to start turning lights on in the darkness so that we and others can
see.

   No matter where you go this week, no matter what happens, remember
this: You are carrying precious cargo. Watch your step.

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Ordinary Life is a gathering that provides an opportunity to develop an
enlightened heart and an awakened mind to the reality of the present
moment.

The gathering meets on Sunday mornings at 9:45 am in Fondren Hall at
St. Paul's UMC - 5501 South Main, Houston, Texas and is taught by Dr.
Bill Kerley. If you would like more information -

Contact

Bill Kerley -

E-Mail - Bill@bkspeaks.com
Web - www.bkspeaks.com
Voice - 713-663-7771
Fax - 713-663-6418
Mail - 6300 West Loop South, Suite 480 Bellaire, TX  77401
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