no problem...

The Gita held strong appeal for Ralph Waldo and others of the transcendentalists.  I am currently reading "The Bhagavad Gita According to Gandhi" which is Gandhi's translation with commentary of what was, for him, the central scripture.  Gandhi on the "devotion required by the Gita"

"...the devotion required by the Gita is no softhearted effusiveness.  It certainly is not blind faith.  The devotion of the Gita has the least to do with externals.  A devotee may use, if he likes, rosaries, forehead marks, make offerings, but these things are no test of his devotion.  He is a devotee who is jealous of none, who is a fount of mercy, who is without egotism who is selfless, who is ever forgiving, who is always contented, whose resolutions are firm, who has dedicated mind and soul to God, who causes no dread, who is not afraid of others, who is free from exultation, sorrow, and far, who is pure, who is versed in action and yet remains unaffected by it, who renounces all fruit, good or bad who treats friend and foe alike, who is untouched by respect or disrespect, who is not puffed up by praise, who does not go under when people speak ill of him, who loves silence and solitude, who has a disciplined reason...."

Blessings

every vile practice...

I rarely speak of politics in this space. This morning, however, my devotional reading included James 3:13-18. 

" Who is wise and understanding among you? By his good conduct let him show his works in the meekness of wisdom. But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast and be false to the truth. This is not the wisdom that comes down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic. For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder and every vile practice. But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere.  And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace."

In light of the current election cycle, I think everyone running for office in the future should take a "James 3:13
Pledge." 

Here endeth the politics for this year...Blessings

the self removed...

Thomas Treadwell Stone gets passionate about the...

"REJECTION OF EVIL.
Mat. iv. 10, II.

THEN SAITH JESUS UNTO HIM, GET THEE HENCE, SATAN  FOR IT
IS WRITTEN, THOU SHALT WORSHIP THE LORD THY GOD, AND
HIM ONLY SHALT THOU SERVE. THEN THE DEVIL LEAVETH
HIM, AND BEHOLD, ANGELS CAME AND MINISTERED UNTO HIM.

"The first movement in the true life is self-renunciation; a renunciation, unqualified, absolute, complete. Only when man loses himself, can he find himself. This may be, perhaps, the great idea from which mythologies have derived their sayings of a final absorption of created things in the uncreated. A man absorbed in the Supreme Essence, so soon as, with the awful fear of he knows not what, in the immense possibilities of the universe, he lets the whole pass by leaving him desolate and alone, trusting only to the Unseen, finds himself no longer alone, no longer desolate. By losing even his life, he has found it. The demons are gone, and angels minister unto him. But there is one grand condition by which the blessing is guarded. The renunciation must be literally unqualified. If a person says within himself, "Now let me try some other way of happiness than has misled me hitherto. Now I will surrender these worldly pursuits, bringing me nothing but disappointment and anxiety, for those heavenly gifts which I believe will make me content and bring no care "; be sure he will be deceived. It is with him only a spiritual bargain. He sells off his present goods, to purchase a better stock; rather, he invests what he holds in something safer and yielding a larger income for the future. He may be satisfied to live somewhat poorly now, waiting for the Indian treasures and the luxurious paradise which a few days will bring him. Alas! his is an empty phantom, a bewildering shadow, a deathful delusion. What odds do time and place make in the great principles of the Divine Life? The selfishness, which asks for heaven, just as it grasps earth; which would find indulgence and grandeur and power after death, just as it seeks them before death; which is proud of spiritual attainments and turns them to means of aggrandizement, just as it is proud of any temporary thing and turns it to kindred use; is but the spirit of darkness transforming itself into angel of light, and seduces the wandering soul only the more surely, because the evil is more concealed and the good more obtrusive. Not in dying for the sake of living, but in dying to the self wholly without thought of reward, comes the true life. Not in giving up earth for the sake of heaven, is heaven won, but in sacrificing the world without demand of compensation, comes the real heaven. Not in worshipping the self through God, but in worshipping him alone, the self removed, is peace found. Then, never else, the Devil leaveth us: behold, then, never else, angels come and minister unto us."

Blessings

confession houses...

It's just barely possible that the Lord is trying to tell me something.  Last Friday I led tours of our beautiful church for children in our local elementary school.  During question time, one earnest young man looked at me and asked, "Where are your confession houses?"  Today's devotional topic in "Altar at Home" was Confession of Sin.  Finally, in looking for prayers by Thomas Treadwell Stone, I found the following which, of course, turned out to be a prayer of confession...

"We confess unto thee how weak we are in ourselves, how powerless to do the work of life, how prone to selfishness and sin. We beseech Thee to grant us strength, the strength of Thy Spirit, the power of Thy Christ, wherein we can do all things. Enable us thus to repress every selfish propensity, every wilful purpose, every unkind feeling, every thought and word and deed of anger and impatience, and to cherish perfect love, constant kindness, to think pure thoughts, to speak gentle words, to do helpful and generous deeds. Raise our minds to the contemplation of Thy beloved Son, that, seeing His divine beauty, we may be drawn near unto Him, and changed into His image, and empowered to bring every thought into obedience to Christ, into harmony with His Spirit and His immortal life—Amen"

blessings

a very angel of the Lord...

I think the second post ever made in this space was on Thomas Treadwell Stone and he is someone I return to often.  This excerpt from his sermon, "The Secret Attractions" illustrates why...

"The good...whose hearts are always open like day, whether dwelling amidst the dawn of their East, or surrounded by the shadows which persecution loves to cast, represent equally the higher principles; such, the wise men, loving and seeking the Truth; such, Joseph and Mary, types of the holiest qualities and relations of the man and the woman; such, he who is less type and representative than very substance and reality of whatever is enduring, the central form, as of this, so of all history, the Divine Child. Let it be next observed, that there are in every life, perhaps, certain hours of crisis,— hours when these different and opposite qualities and impulses appear, as it were, collected within the circle of open vision, as these their historical types were drawn together in Judea. A new star has risen in the East, inviting the soul to seek the Highest. Beneath this light of the Divine countenance sin looks dark and deformed, such as it really is, passion and pride and selfish pursuits seem as they are, worse than vain and ignoble. Evil is condemned, falsehood denied. Amidst shades and clouds, it may be, but really, the Beauty of the Lord shines from the heavens. The only greatness now is Love; the only reality, Truth. All betokens the approach of a life quickening and exalting the whole manhood. States or processes like these may be called by different names, and may be attended by different forms of conscious feeling and thought, as men are trained in unlike theologies and under unlike methods of discipline, or as their own temperaments are varied. But name and describe them as we may, they can never be other than realities to sincere souls. They present the celestial, appearing amidst the terrestrial. Love rises, even if darkened by hates. The Divine overlooks the clouded and tempestuous abyss. Mark now the secret movements of the roused spirit! All noble aspirations, all unselfish purposes, all kindlier affections, all lofty thoughts, move toward the birthplace of this immortal Promise. I have seen, when one is reading of a martyr deed or a transcendent word, or when he sees or hears either from another, how the eyes will fill, and the lips quiver, and the voice falter, overmastered by the power which is yet tenderness rather and entrancing beauty, taking the man from himself as into a holier Eden. T'is a dawning love, a rising wisdom, a very angel of the Lord coming down to stir the deep fountains, that we may bathe in them and live. Obedient to the heavenly vision, our better affections all come forth, as the star shines, and go toward the holy place of Truth, even onward to where the star rests over the infant life."

Blessings

the great Optimism...

At about this time of year in 1839, Ralph Waldo Emerson was contemplating a new series of lectures and fretting over the limitations of the "lecturer's desk." No wonder as he had some slightly large ambitions.

    " What shall be the substance of my shrift?" he asked himself in his journal.  "Adam in the garden, I am to new-name all the beasts in the field and all the gods in the sky; I am to invite men drenched in Time to recover themselves and come out of Time and taste their immortal air.  I am to fire, with what skill I can, the artillery of sympathy and emotion.  I am to indicate constantly, thought all unworthy, the ideal and holy life, the life within life, the forgotten Good, the unknown Cause in which we sprawl and sin.  I am to try the magic of sincerity, that luxury permitted only to kings and poets.  I am to celebrate the spiritual in their infinite contrast to the mechanical powers and the mechanical philosophy of this time.  I am to console the brave sufferers under evils whose end they cannot see, by appeals to the great Optimism self affirmed in all bosoms."

   His friend and biographer James Elliot Cabot reports that "When the lectures were over, he felt that he had come short of his mark."

an astounding spectacle...

John Brazer gets passionate about "The Great Salvation"

"But this is only a partial view of the great boon. It possesses, not only the negative character of preserving us from great evils, but the positive one of conferring upon us unspeakable benefits. But I cannot here enlarge upon this aspect of the " great salvation." The tongue of an apostle has faltered on this theme, and the language of inspiration only faintly essays to indicate it by saying that "eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him."

But, " great" as is this salvation, it is not yet " great " or attractive enough to secure it from the neglect of those to whom it is offered. This is implied in the inquiry of the text, — " How shall we escape, if we neglect so great salvation ?" And how is this neglect manifested ?

In the hope of giving to the subject a practical turn, I shall attempt, very briefly, to answer this inquiry. And here, passing by in a single sentence, and that one of mingled pity and sorrow, the conduct of that unfortunate class of persons who live in a state of total unbelief in the " great salvation," and are hastening onwards towards their dread account in the dark and sterile path of a desolate skepticism ; — passing these, I observe that those may emphatically be said to neglect the great salvation who treat it with an habitual and cold indifference. This, if not the wickedest, is certainly the strangest state of mind that can prevail on the subject of religion. To see men living on in a world like this, amidst unnumbered cares, infirmities, sorrows; amidst conscious weakness and helplessness; liable constantly to dangers, seen and unseen ; exposed to death, and the consequences of death, whatever they may be, at every instant; continually feeling in their own souls irrepressible hopes, aspirations, misgivings, and fears; yet living on from childhood to old age in utter disregard of a light which purports, at least, to solve the mysteries of life ; of a revelation which claims, at least, to proceed from God; of a doctrine, which, whether true or not, has altered the whole tone of human thought; of a scheme of faith and duty, which, whether divine or not, has formed anew the whole system of human manners, and claims, whether rightfully or not, to be authenticated by the miraculous power of God in this world, and to be sanctioned by august hopes and awful fears in a world to come ; — to see, I say, men, claiming to be rational beings, passing through long lives in a state of total indifference and unconcern of calls and claims like these, is an astounding spectacle. And yet it is one that is not without a parallel in common life around us, and is to be regarded as an emphatic and most melancholy example of one class of those who neglect the " great salvation."

Blessings
(painting is "Rainy Day, Boston" by Frederick Childe Hassam)