You Are Born To Be Free (2/18/15)

“Now I become myself. It’s taken
Time, many years and places;
I have been dissolved and shaken,
Worn other people’s faces …”
-May Sarton

Yesterday, I was reading a book that so touched me, I could feel the shift within me as my body was remembering the therapy work, the “mat trips” at Shalom Mountain Retreat and Study Center, and the necessary deep inner work on my journey to healing and wholeness which for me started when I was 39 years old and the process continues to unfold. For me, this has been one of the great truths in my life:

“Until you learn to die and be born again, you are but a dull guest on a dark planet.”
-Goethe

I was reading Soulcraft: Crossing into the Mysteries of Nature and Psyche by Bill Plotkin which is about learning to say good-bye to the old constricting patterns, preparing ourselves to welcome the freedom and new life that is seeking to emerge within us, if only we will choose it. He writes about how many of our patterns of unconscious inauthentic behaviors, and addictions, are anchored early in our childhood. I invite you to read slowly, prayerfully, and aloud to yourself:

“All children and adolescents fashion personalities that fit with the native culture. In the West, that means a society largely materialistic, synthetic, technological, anthropocentric, ethnocentric, and egocentric. Fitting in with such a culture is difficult to accomplish without losing contact our souls and with nature, the web of life. Western lifestyles that revolve around a constant barrage of anemic distractions may be, in part, ways of self-numbing so as to minimize the pain of that loss. Many people have succumbed to daily routines of soul-starving entertainment, superficial fashion, and mind-numbing jobs.”

A life style such as the above is only possible by the splitting off and the denying of much of our human potential, much of our magnificence as daughters and sons, created in the image and likeness of God. Our soul can be wounded – our soul can even be murdered. One can be hollow and empty inside, only going through the motions of being alive. Childhood can be hell for all of us, especially if we have been good and nice and obedient and have conformed to all the expectations of parental, educational, cultural, and religious authority figures. For some where there has been alcoholism, violence, inappropriate sexual behavior, narcissistic parents, the pain can be unbearable, worse than hell.

Alice Miller wrote about children in The Drama of the Gifted Child: The Search for the True Self, Revised Edition. The book was given to me by my therapist. All of the above is unconscious adaptive behavior coming from patterns that we developed between the ages of 3 and 12 – just to conform. As children, it was the only way to live – or so it seemed.

I sent this Soul Nugget to a therapist friend of mind who commented on “the deep unlearning work we must do as we awaken at mid-life.”

Often, there is so much for each one of us to unlearn.

Thank God there is a road to freedom. One can breakthrough and out of such “unfreedom.” One can become conscious and find one’s path to freedom, to healing and wholeness. Psychologist Jean Huston says this is an “invitation to our renaissance” – a call to rebirthing and to freedom.

You begin to wake up and choose authenticity instead of conforming to the old well learned social expectations of others. Shedding patterns of social conditioning, unlearning constant conformity to others, can lead to an inner jolt of freedom and new life. Jesus, our brother and friend, is right. Yes, you must be born again! Your true self, not your fearful adaptive and conforming self. This leads to what Bill Plotkin calls the “Death Lodge,” where the old patterns of belonging to the world and to external authority figures are broken, set aside to die as they no longer are needed. The goal here is not to discover who you used to be, but rather who you really are. This is new creation, new being. This is freedom road! This is a breakthrough to naked authenticity.

Until you learn to die and be born again, you are but a dull guest on a dark planet.

Music for your prayer and reflection – allow the music to flow through you opening inner spaces, releasing you to become you, letting you unlearn some of the scripts that have inhibited you, that have not been life giving for you. These words come to mind: “For freedom, God has set you free! Do not submit again to the yoke of slavery!”

I welcome your thoughtful responses to this post.

Love to you and the freedom to become all that you can be.

We are all sparks of the Divine flame
Blessed Be
Compassionate Be
Boldly Be

The Afternoon Of Your Life (1/9/15)

My wife and I saw Selma last night – powerful. Tears and weeping at times. The courage of people to stand up for dignity, freedom, equality. Many of you marched, rode busses, preached, demonstrated – God Bless You!

Dear friends on the journey with, in and to the Eternal Now we call God. Let me say at the beginning that I hope you will read this and I would love to hear from any and all of you who find that you relate to this which I now call “Learnings in the afternoon of your life.”

I woke up thinking about learning, education, school – life-long learning. They say that the first six years of your life are the most critical years for learning. I can’t argue with the experts. Most of you reading this have gone on to a great academic education. This is the way the culture, your family of origin, the church, other spiritual institutions, the Boy/Girl Scouts, the colleges, universities, seminaries, pour all of their content and concepts forming and informing our being.

But then there comes a time in the words of Carl Jung:

“Thoroughly unprepared, we take the step into the afternoon of life. Worse still, we take this step with the false presupposition that our truths and our ideals will serve us as hitherto. But we cannot live the afternoon of life according to the program of life’s morning, for what was a great morning will be little at evening and what in the morning was true, at evening will have become a lie.”

You and I know that there is so much more in the afternoon of life. While I am most grateful for all the education of my youth, it comes to me that I have learned more in my years 35-74 than I learned in those early years. That which worked in the morning of my life did not work in the afternoon of my life.

There have been shifts, breakthroughs, journeys to far countries, transitions, painful times, joyful times – deaths and resurrections – and I expect that you too have in your own fashion been acquainted with all the ways that life is a’learning you.

I am writing this to invite you to reflect upon your own life journey and to remember your stepping stones, your times of deep insight and transformation, deaths and resurrections, moving in new directions, of making necessary changes, of beginnings without end. Those times when you may have said along with May Sarton:

Now I become myself.
It’s taken Time, many years and places;
I have been dissolved and shaken,
Worn other people’s faces.

Our life story, our journey to authenticity, freedom and wholeness, is of vital importance. We are not birthed, created to live a life that adapts and conforms to the expectations of others or of our culture. Each human life is an experiment of one. We are here for an original experience of Life and of freedom. It is never too late to learn this.

The choice is always ours.

What new life is seeking to break through to you?

Neil Diamond sings: “Some people they never wake – until the day they die.”

“In the world to come I shall not be asked, ‘Why were you not Moses?’
I shall be asked, ‘Why were you not Zusya?'”
-Rabbi Zusya

With you in awakening to who God is in us and to who we are in God here and now.

We are all sparks of the Divine flame
Blessed Be
Compassionate Be
Boldly Be

What A Wonderful World (9/10)

Our five days in Maine were astonishing. Everything seemed super alive, vital, joyful. Was it the people? First with Nancy and Jack Collins, Debbie and Marsh Ryon in Brunswick? Then time with Tom and Mary Cushman on Chebeague Island? Was it the weather – 73-77 degrees, bright, sunny, and clear? Was it the landscape – the awesome beauty of Lands End, a picnic in the woods, walking in silence, a labyrinth near a waterfall, the ferry rides to and from the island, the awesome beauty of creation, the earth and trees, the skies and seas?

I have to say it was like an earthly holy communion. The wonder of it all. We were feasting on the beauty of the earth and on our life together with each other. The sacrament of Life. It’s not that we were celebrating Life, but more, Life was doing something to us. Awakening us! Cracking us open! Awesome! I cannot find the language for it. I think you have had your own experiences of such unspeakable grace breaking through our routines, our numbness. There is a deep, deep gratitude that fills one with tears of silent joy.

May the eyes and ears of our hearts be open. Let us walk the earth today consciously answering to that of God in everyone and in everything.

Great words from May Sarton:

“Now I become myself. It’s taken
Time, many y ears and places;
I have been dissolved and shaken,
Worn other people’s faces …”

Prayers for all in pain and suffering

Coming Home: A Fall Contemplative Retreat

In the tradition of the Iona Retreats founded by Marv and Nancy Hiles.

“The path of real life moves from one shelter to another. We are not drifters or homeless, but seekers, pilgrims, itinerants of a hidden impulse”

–All the Days of My Life by Marv and Nancy Hiles

Robert and Nina Close announce a very special contemplative retreat at the Santa Sabine Retreat Center where they have attended for many years. Inspired by the retreats led by Marv and Nancy Hiles, quoted often in the Soul Nuggets. This retreat will blend quiet time in a perfect location, deep community, chapel gatherings, art process with Debbie Ryon, and more – all centered around the theme of “Coming Home.” Throughout our lives, that longing to be at home – with ourselves, with others – manifests in many different ways, and has much to teach us. And amidst change and transition, a sense of “homeground” is vital and can show up in many ways.

We hope that you might feel led to join us at Santa Sabina Retreat Center. Here is the information for taking the next step:

Dates: Thursday, November 13th to Sunday, November 16, 2014

Location: Santa Sabina Retreat Center, San Rafael, CA

Cost: $485 for a single room / $425 per person for a double room.

Meals: All meals are included in the total cost.

Space for the retreat is limited and is limited to a first come, first serve basis.

Contact: Are you ready to register? Do you want to have more information? Please contact Nina Frost at: nhfrost at aol dot com or call: 347-546-4029.

Spirituality of Aging-Song by John Lennon

Planted in the house of Yahweh
they will flourish in the courts of God,
still bearing fruit in old age,
still remaining fresh and green.
-Psalm 92:13-14

All growth comes from the unconscious in the second half of life.
-Carl Jung

I have friends in their 70s, 80s, and quite a few in their 90s and they are still bearing fruit, still fresh and green, still creative and compassionate. At The Chautauqua Institution, they let folks ages 90 and over in for free for more learning and growing. Aging is a summons to wisdom. I want to share these words with you about the spirituality of aging from two friends of ours whom we respect and love.

Aging is about a willingness to change.
Aging is about continued growth and development.
it is about nuturing inner awakenings and
accepting new challenges brought on by the aging process.
It is about new awakenings brought on by
inner resources that become freed up in aging.
All this is part of a spirituality of aging.
Aging has proved to us that each of us has not one adulthood.
We each live through many adulthoods in this Long Life we have as a gift.
-Dr. Anne Brennan and Dr. Janice Brewi
taken from Passion for Life: Lifelong Psychological and Spiritual Growth

Love and freedom as you continue to grow, deepen, and evolve. It seems to me that life becomes more precious as we age and we learn to cherish one another more. We lighten up and are less judgmental. We begin to love and care for everyone. We soften, becoming more open and transparent. What do you think? What has been your experience?

Seek to be open, to stay curious, to keep growing, to be filled with gratefulness for the sacred gift of life. Reach out to others, hug them, carry them in your heart.

These are not hours of fire but years of praise
The glass full to the brim, completely full
But held in balance so no drop can spill.
-May Sarton in her 80th year

May you be filled with loving kindness.

Let your heart take courage.

We are all sparks of the Divine flame
Blessed Be
Boldly Be