Flapping gently

​Listen to audio reflection or read below.

Reading the latest edition of Parabola Magazine on Balance, I was struck by 2 encounters. One was the brief retelling of a story of, perhaps a temple acolyte, who upon coming into work is berated by his boss for causing someone's murder and in a particular town. And the the man defended himself saying well I haven't even ever been to that particular town. And his boss said that is true, but you are energetically connected to someone who is and when you yelled at your wife, when you did not prevent yourself from yelling at your wife, that energy impacted that other person whose energy came out in a way that caused him to take another's life. So you are to blame ....


Wow, I mean that's a pretty big, Um .... for me in any case it, it's kind of rough to have to wrap your head around that. And it was reminding me of that notion that I'm sure many of us have heard about when the butterfly, butterfly flaps its wings then a storm occurs on the other side of the world.


Maybe it's not that the butterfly, that light gentle movement of the butterfly causes a bit of a breeze which then picks up and carries on and eventually picking up more energy becomes a storm. It may simply be that the butterfly is connected to something. The wind that creates storm. Or it may simply be that butterflies and storms both happen. I don't profess to know that .... But it is certainly something that makes me thoughtful. Because I do believe that how we carry our energy and the energy that we send out into the world does impact the world. We've all experienced someone else's good mood or bad mood, stepped on an elevator with someone who made us immediately uncomfortable even while they were smiling at us ....


And then the other encounter had to do with connection to stars, to the divinity of stars, like a Core Star. And then how that lives within us, our own Core Star, part of the great All in All, the Universal Oneness but living also within us. We are within the Oneness and the Oneness is within us .... And again, there’s a question then of how .... How do I live? In knowing this, how does this call me to live? How does this invite me to live? .... Compel me?....


And then, if we lived, if I live in that deeply spiritual reality of being within the Oneness and the Oneness within me, that Core Star is equally out in the infinite and within me .... .... .... If this is true .... how do I bring that Oneness with me into the world? Huh. It’s funny as I started off that thought I had a question and then I lost the question so the question I just asked I'm not sure was the same one that I started with.


But it also then was reminding me of a quote and I cannot, in this moment, think to whom to attribute the quote. A relatively contemporary spiritual person. But I'm not sure how contemporary. But what I remember about it is this person’s comment about “I used to pray for 2 hours every morning in order to prepare for the day and now I prepare for 2 hours every morning for a day of prayer.”* Such a beautiful turn around. Speaking so specifically to the purposefulness of how we walk in the world. And also, the purpose of a deep and rich spiritual life .... “I used to pray for 2 hours every morning to prepare for the day, to prepare to walk in the world. And now I prepare for 2 hours every morning for a day of prayer.”

​We continue to walk in the world but how do we walk? What do we bring with us? What energy do we share .... ?

​~
* It was John Shelby Spong.

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