Keeping the Sacred Flame

What does it mean to pray? It’s a way of admitting that we can’t do it all ourselves. It’s asking for help. It’s a way to open ourselves up.  And when we open ourselves up to the Universe, things move both ways.

We are the Eyes and Hands of the Divine.  This gives us responsibilities, but it also gives us power.  Ignoring this power doesn’t make it disappear, and it doesn’t make us virtuous.  It just makes us less than we can be.

It hurts sometimes to open ourselves up, to offer ourselves and to ask for things.  It’s especially hard to know what to ask for.  One of the truest things I’ve ever read spoke of prayer as a dangerous business: the worst things that happen are answered prayers.  It can be a dangerous business.  And sometimes the answers aren’t what we expect.

I asked for years to be someone that could make a difference, and how to serve.  I was even working on this religion for at least a year before I realized that I had already been given my answer and was living it.  And I don’t regret the question.  There’s a power to service as well.

Questions:
What is worth asking for?  Only things you truly want answered.  Sometimes that answer is, of course, “no.”  But those things we ask for should be the callings of our heart and soul, and they should be things we’re also working towards in our lives.  We can’t just ask and not act.  Though action can also be prayer.

What does it mean to petition the Divine for aid?  It’s a statement of INability, really.  We’re saying we can’t do it ourselves and want help.  It’s also a way of offering ourselves up to possibilities.  When we open ourselves for a request, we also offer the Divine to work through us.  Prayer is in part a self-denial, a putting ourselves aside for something greater.  When we ask, we accept the possibility of being told “no”.  And we accept that the “yes” we get might not be the one we wanted or expected.

How does interconnectedness apply?  We are one being and many individuals.  What I ask for is something that affects other people, and what others ask for affects me.  We can’t pray in isolation.  When we ask, when we demand, and when we act, we affect others as well as ourselves.  We have to take other people in mind and consideration when we ask for things, or we go against the very Divine we are petitioning.

There are always times when we want or need something we don’t have. And there are ways to pursue this that are obvious (job applications for a job, going out and meeting people for more friends or a romantic connection) there are also ways to tell the Universe what it is we desire in a way that it will listen.

All that is outside is also within us. When we go far enough inside ourselves, we find the entire Universe spread out before us. Go far enough outwards, and we find ourselves in the Divine.

When there is something we need, we can petition the Divine, for we are only petitioning ourselves. Everything is part of one thing, and one piece can affect another. This is not to say that you will be answered, of course. There are many parts, and sometimes what they want conflicts with each other. But as part of the Divine we have the right to ask and be answered.

Questions:
What is worth asking for? Why?
What does it mean to petition the Divine for aid?
How does interconnectedness apply to requests for aid? What does it mean here to be all one thing as well as individuals?

I find myself puzzled by the idea that some people think and some don’t.  Or that some thoughts are valuable and some aren’t.  We all have value in our thoughts, if we only respect our ability to think.  We can all be more than we are, if we allow ourselves.

We need to think.  But more than that, we need to respect our thoughts and the thoughts of other people.  It’s easy to degrade other people’s thoughts without putting any work into our own.  But when we exercise our minds, we improve them.

Questions:
What does it mean to think?  It means to engage with different ideas, try them out, examine them.  It doesn’t mean to agree with them, but it does mean to look at ideas that you disagree with.  It means having more to say than just what other people tell you is the answer.  Finding answers for yourself.

How do we cheat the Divine when we refuse to engage with mental challenges?  Our thoughts make us what we are.  When we refuse to think, we lessen ourselves.  It’s easy to be less.  Sometimes it feels safer to lessen ourselves with the idea that we can’t.  And while there are things that people just can’t do (I can’t draw.  I’ve tried.  I sincerely doubt art and I will ever get along in anything other than a viewing sense) that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try and we shouldn’t stretch ourselves.  We can’t improve the Divine if we refuse to stretch ourselves.

How do I strive to think more and better myself?  Well, I do this blog.  I work on writing my stories, reading things that interest me, and refusing to accept “I can’t” as an answer for myself for something that interests me.  I might not understand it, but if I never try I can guarantee I won’t get it.  Success isn’t necessary.  But trying is.

We have a curious relationship with our thinkers. We celebrate people we think are good thinkers, but we also shun them. We try to fill up our time so that we don’t have time to just think, but then complain that we never have that thinking time. We fear our thoughts and people that spend their time thinking. We fear what we might find behind our eyes and behind the eyes of others.

It’s far too easy to follow these rules, to place ourselves either in the category of the thinkers or the non-thinkers, never to change again. It’s far too easy to think of thinking as something that is privileged and reserved for those that are special, are capable in ways the rest of us aren’t. But we do ourselves and each other a horrible disservice when we limit thinking and the products of thoughts to a favored few instead of everyone possible.

We can all think, if we push ourselves. We can all have insight and depth. But we have to trust our minds and our intellect, something that is hard to do. We have to trust that even if we’re not the best, that doesn’t mean we don’t have something to offer. Only one person can be the best. But many can be meaningful and necessary. We can all have insight, if we trust ourselves and work to become more than we are.

We’re all encouraged to devalue ourselves. It’s safer and easier to devalue ourselves than to work and strive to be better. But we cheat ourselves and the Divine when we say we aren’t smart enough and never take the challenge up. We won’t always be up for the challenge. But when we refuse to engage with it at all, we fail before we even get a chance to try.

Questions:
What does it mean to think? To be a thinker? Are you one?
How do we cheat the Divine when we refuse to engage in mental challenges?
How do you strive to think more and better yourself? Is it enough?

Community is a tricky business.  We don’t live in isolation, but groups are frequently made unhealthy by the people involved.  It’s hard to find a way to be in a healthy group as well as a healthy individual.  Every group ends up with people that are parasites, using the group without returning anything.  Get enough parasites, and the group collapses.

I’ve been in groups that worked, and I’ve been in groups which effectively turned into support groups for some of the individuals.  And that’s miserable.  Being turned into someone’s support group ruins the point of the group for everyone else.  You end up hating what you’re doing and why you’re there, and the group collapses.

We owe something to each other, because we do live in community.  But we also have to make sure the group works.  We can’t spend ourselves on other people and have nothing left for ourselves.

Questions:
What does community require of us, and what do we require of it?  It requires of us that we participate honestly.  If it’s a group of friends, that you are there for people as they are there for you.  When we are honest and contribute fairly, we all benefit.  When we cheat the group, the group begins to fall under its own weight as it doesn’t provide what people require of it.  If being in the group isn’t good, people will leave, and then it will fall apart and have only the users left.

What does it mean to exist in a system?  We’re not alone, and we can’t behave as though we are.  What does it mean to the Divine?  The Divine is all the systems put together, both the ones we see and the ones we don’t.  When we sabotage groups, we’re sabotaging the Divine.  You can’t separate people from the Divine, even when it’s inconvenient.

What do I offer to the groups I’m part of?  I try very hard to offer as much as I take, though of course it’s not a zero-sum game.  For my writer’s critique group, I do my best to give useful suggestions, just as I hope others will give me.  For the Cauldron, which I’m a member, I try to be useful and fair.  Everything is about giving as well as taking, or I’d be a parasite.  And that’s an awful thought.

None of us exist in isolation. As people enmeshed in a society, the health of that society is important for the health and well-being of all of us. So what does it mean to belong to a society? What demands does that place on us?

Communities are tricky things. There’s a tension between making the community work for the members, and the view of the community as its own separate thing. When it takes on a life of its own, there is a problem. Community works for the people in it or not at all. When the goals of the group supersede the goals of the members, community has failed. When the goals of the individuals destroy the community, community has also failed.

We live in groups. Families, work groups, friendships. Clubs and associations. When we destroy the groups for our own individual goals, we’re destroying the very thing we need to survive. When we prey off our groups to support us and don’t provide anything in return, we’re sabotaging the Universe. When we destroy ourselves for the group, we’re sabotaging ourselves and again the Universe. Neither can take priority over the other. We have to support our systems and ourselves, both.

This requires some sacrifices. When we support the groups we’re part of, that means we can’t do everything we might want to. We’re limited. But those limits offer more possibility in the long run, too. Systems of people and friendships are there for us as well as us being there for them, or they’re being parasites.

Questions:
What does community require of us? What do we require of community?
What does it mean to exist in a system? How does this relate to the Divine?
What do you offer to the systems you live in? Is it balanced by what you take?

Starstuff. Spun of stars, plasma, the entire cosmos
distilled into a body, a mind, a heart
You are the Universe, bound into life, movement
I dance within you, the Universe within, the Universe without.
You are my body
I am your soul

Dive within, deeper, deeper
Inside yourself you’ll find
the entire Universe spinning inside
Far enough within and you find yourself outside again.
You are the container
I fill you to overflowing.

You hold the world in your hand
Creation in your heart
together we spin out galaxies
together we create the cosmos
You are the body
I am the soul

And without you, I am nothing.

It’s difficult to know when to apologize and when not to.  I know that I tend to use apologies as a passive-aggressive tactic when I’m fed up with something.  It’s easy to apologize, after all.  Harder to mean it, and much harder to actually change your behavior.

I do think apologies are important.  They’re a way of social glue, of acknowledging that we’ve transgressed and a promise to do better.  But they’re only meaningful if they’re meant, and they’re only meaningful if behavior changes.

It’s hard to change behavior.  But behavior is what matters.  No matter how good the intentions are, if they’re not acted on, they’re irrelevant.

Questions
How hard is it for me to admit fault?  Actually, it’s very easy for me to admit fault.  Part of that, though, is the passive aggressive behavior tendency.  It’s a lot harder for me to actually MEAN that it’s my fault.  Like everyone else, I don’t like to think that I’m imperfect, and I certainly don’t like to share my faults with other people.

Do I work to repair the damage when I’ve done something wrong?  This is something I also have problems with.  When it’s something that I can see an easy solution to, I take it, but I tend to get paralyzed by options.  It’s a lot easier to see a problem than a solution.  But I do try, which is the best anyone can ever do.

How do we improve the Universe when we apologize and repair damage?  When we admit fault and try to fix it, we’re repairing the pain we’ve caused to the Divine.  Every person is Divine.  Every time we cause damage, we’re not just damaging other people.  We’re attacking the Divine.  And when we repair that damage, as best we can, we put the Divine back together again.  The damage we cause doesn’t happen in isolation.  Nothing does.

Apologies are something that are hard for people to do. It’s difficult to admit fault, accept responsibility. However, they’re also used as a way to evade responsibility. Whatever the problem is, it does not end with the words of apology. Problems are solved with acts of apology.

It’s hard to admit fault. We like to protect ourselves, and we do so by rewriting our words and actions to make ourselves look as good as possible, regardless of what it does to the people around us. It’s hard to lessen ourselves and admit our imperfections. That said, it’s necessary. We need to recognize our lacks as well as our abilities. Humility is necessary for people to be able to live together in community.

But even more than admitting fault, we need to take the next step. We need to repair. Admitting fault isn’t enough. An apology doesn’t solve anything, it just acknowledges the problem. When we stop at an apology, we’re only doing half what we need to. We need to know that we’ve made a mistake. But then we need to try to fix it, to repair the damage we’ve done.

Questions:
How hard is it for you to admit fault? Why?
Do you work to repair the damage when you’ve done something wrong?
How do we improve the Universe when we apologize and repair our damage?