Elegant and Mysterious

Hi Friends.

It’s a beautiful, quiet, gentle morning here. Rooster next door crowing, I’ve grown used to it. Very sweet morning light falling on treetops. A woodpecker doing its work somewhere in the distance. Birds chirping like mad. The natural world entirely indifferent to the machinations of the human realm. I know how fortunate I am to be completely surrounded by the trees that have seen generations of people come and go. Their steady, rooted presence a good reminder of my fleeting existence.

For the last several days I’ve been doing the thing I tell other people to do all the time: getting rid of stuff I don’t need.

I don’t mean just material things, I also mean interior clutter.

It started slowly, because of the head thwunk. I cancelled or postponed things I couldn’t do.

Then I took an honest look at my calendar and realized that I am doing way too much, driving all over the place, hosting events, all of which are wonderful, but also really energy consuming. My battery was on empty.

I did an honest exploration into whether or not I want to do any more church things, and the truth that bubbled up is that I don’t. I taught in churches for ten years, I mean that’s really what a pastor does—teaches spiritual ideas. I realized that I don’t want to teach anymore. I did it. I gave it my whole heart.

I had said yes to a Sunday morning at a local church where the style of service is not reflective of who I am and what I believe about God. I had to be honest with myself— that it was a hypocritical move for me to accept the invitation. I told them so and backed out.

As I’ve grown older and become more curious about life and death and the idea of God, the things I believe to be true keep expanding and I don’t think there is a church reflective of the ideas I hold. Churches are nice places, but I also think, if you’re not careful, a church can limit you in your spiritual exploration. Churches do a lot of good work in the world, but there are a lot of rules and committees and personalities that the energy of love has to flow through before it gets back out into the world where it’s needed.

I realized I hadn’t really taken any time, after ending my life as a pastor in May, to think about what I had done, what I had learned and what I want to do next. I didn’t do the important work of reflection. I don’t think you can move forward with a sense of where you’re headed if you don’t take stock of where you were.

As I was doing this work I read that it was the mid-point of the year, a Snake year, and it’s a good time to release what weighs you down, let the old skin fall away in order to be able to move forward with clarity and purpose.

The more I removed my energy from certain situations, the easier it became for the future to come into focus. It’s more obvious how I want to use my time.

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You act as a conduit for the art to come out.

I found that pasted into a travel journal I made in 2012 when I took my son, Nate, on a cross-country adventure. I guess some part of me has known all along how life works. Or maybe my soul was always leading me in the direction I needed to go.

These days I find I am more drawn to what life reveals than anything else. What is it teaching me? Showing me? What needs to work its way into the world through me?

You have to really get quiet to figure these things out.

Here is another thought I encountered: The higher we move along the scale of evolution, the higher degree of free will, and the higher our ability to control or create our own environment. You have to willingly put an end to what is limiting you, and to the stilted, decaying structures you cling to. People spend their whole lives avoiding change, and, in doing so, die long before their body.

I think this has always been my greatest fear, that I will chose familiarity and safety over curiosity and exploration, especially now, as I get older and the body and mind aren’t as agile. Fear is such a terrible inhibitor of life’s vibrant energy.

Here’s another one, and I’m really sorry I didn’t note the origin, but read this very carefully, study it. Print it and put it on the fridge.

You can only be a victim of your own attitude. Every thought you think, every feeling you have, every word you utter, every action you take directly programs your genes and therefore your reality.

How’s that for freedom?
As freedoms are taken away from us in ways in which we have no control, perhaps more of us will turn to our own power as a means to build the life we want.

You can only be a victim of your own attitude. There are lots of examples in our world of people who have broken through massive challenges, by sheer force of will, into a place of incredible growth. I think of athletes who persevere after an accident, paralysis, how so many choose to keep pressing through, even as their body can’t do what it used to do.

It’s always someone else’s fault, right?
Turns out it’s almost always not someone else’s fault.

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One of the things that I’m super curious about right now is the concept of Source as related to computers. We are deep in the creation of the SAM app, using AI to help us write Source code for the project.

It’s a mysterious and elegant language that I don’t understand, but I am willing to try to harness it for the betterment of humanity.

I could describe God as Source in the very same way: I have no idea what it is, really, but I’m willing to let it work through me to help people.

I have been apologetic that the SAM project is using technology to solve the problem of loneliness and lack of meaning in our later years, among our senior population. Now I realize how absurd that is. We’re creating this because we have become masterful at keeping people alive forever with nary a thought to what quality of life looks like during those final years. I’m tired of visiting older people who tell me they have nothing to do, nothing to talk about, they’re stuck where they are because they can’t drive anymore. They feel their life has no meaning because the places where they live don’t contain the kinds of things that give our lives meaning.

I’m done with the mindset that this is just the way it is. Someone has to do something about it. We are using Source to try to solve the problem.

We are literally using the elegant and mysterious language of tech Source to bring the mysterious and elegant experience of spiritual Source into people’s lives.

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Human life is definitely structured in some kind of graceful, interactive, spiritually meaningful way, where each soul is participating in a grand, interlinked experience, designed for growth, learning and enlightenment. I think that we are all part of a much larger intelligent process. I feel so fortunate to be here to witness it. And I’m sorry if I had to cancel or postpone my time with you. I needed the space to do some deep thinking, and to try to figure these things out.

I hope that today you’ll consider the concept of freedom on your own terms. Your role in the creation of freedom and how you might use that to improve the conditions of the world, if even just a smidgen.

xo,mo

Meanwhile, my other Sam project, my firstborn, became engaged to the miraculous Mišel yesterday. 💗