Brother Blue

From marketing guru Seth Godin.
“People don’t believe what you tell them.
They rarely believe what you show them.
They often believe what their friends tell them.
They always believe what they tell themselves.”
This is also true in a non-advertising sense. It can be good or bad depending on what we are telling ourselves about the world we live in and what we are telling ourselves about ourselves. On some level what we believe is more important than what is true.

Super cool artwork done on dusty windshields.

More photos here.
[via rebecca's pocket]

It is about time, and really it has been all my fault.
But it is finally here!
The new JoiaFarmer.com
Including more clips from Joia’s newest album before & afterlife
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Real conversation form a few weeks ago.
Person 1: I think there is a problem in adoration chapel.
Fr. Somebody: Really? What’s that?
P1: The host is not consecrated.
Fr.: How do you know?
P1: I couldn’t feel anything.
As I have continued to learn how to pray, there are two common obstacles that I often bump into: 1) Not feeling like I did a good job and 2) being distracted from what I am suppose to be doing.
(1) There are moments on our faith journey in which we have profound moments, that there is great moments, when we make great strides, where the world just seems to slow down in to the eternal now. These are important moments. Great growth can happen in them, but often times they are few and far between. But these are not every moment, nor do I think they should be. As time passes, I am starting to understand that prayer is not a moment (something you do for a few moments), but a disposition. It is something we do regularly that helps ground us, focus us, and center us, so that we are better equipped (with the right disposition) to deal with what we are presented with in our daily lives.
We never think to ourselves “Boy that was a good brush!” after we brush our teeth. Instead it is something we do a couple of times a day, every day for a long term benefit. Sometimes we have something stuck in our teeth we need to get at, but most of the time it is just one small action for great heath.
Not to sound to crass, but my prayer life is not much different. There are times, when I have something very specific that I bring to prayer, but most of the time it is more about the process of keep returning to center. It is a constant reminder of my base, my foundation, before I take on this moment of life.
(2) I was once approached by a high school student after a talk with this question: “I try and pray, but because of the ADD I can’t sit still long enough to hear God. How do you do it?”
If we are in prayers and there is not this profound sky-opening angel-trumpeting moment it is hard to focus. All the needs of the moment (returning that call, doing laundry, what does she really think about me…) creep to fill the space we are trying to keep quiet.
It was an important moment for me when I realized stillness is a skill. We don’t just all of a sudden be still for an hour at a time. It is something that we must re-learn how to do.
For me the steps were: 1) Keep expectations realistic. There was no way I was going to be still for an hour the first time I did it. So I started with ten minutes. Then each week added one to three minutes to my time. 2) When ever a thought that was not about my prayer time entered my mind, I just let it go. I didn’t dwell on it. I didn’t curse myself for having the unfocused thought I just let it go. I simply returned to concentrating on my breathing and the phrase “thank you for the blessings I have received and the blessings I am receiving.”

You are not the choices you made. You are not the memories you hold. That is who you were. It is not who you are.
You are who ever and what ever you choose to be in this moment. (There are limitless possibilities to choose from. Don’t make the mistake of underestimate your greatness and your potential.) And if you don’t like whom you have chosen to be in this moment, in the next moment simply choose be something else.
You are love. You are perfect. You are a child of God. Remember that when you choose in this moment (and in every moment) who you are going to be.

It is just so complicated. They have fighting one way or another for 3000 years. It is easy to feel helpless. So far away. So hard to understand. So hard to make a change.
To things I am trying to do:
1) Pray: Mother Theresa always said she would never attend an anti-war rally. A peace rally, she was there. She didn’t want to give the thought of war any power at all. She simply wanted to give power to the thought of peace.
My reflection is to look at this map of the region, manifest the feeling of peace in my heart, and pour it into the region. With my eyes closed I see all the children of God interacting with each other as brothers and sisters. I see people living in peace, knowing that in God there is enough.

2) Bring Peace: I may not be able to bring peace in that region through my direct action, but any time I see lack of peace it provides me with contrast. It shows me how I don’t want the world to be and calls me to be a peacemaker in my life. In every choice and every action.
Be the prayer you wanted to see answered, for you are the Body of Christ in the world.

In the 1930 (according to a talk I heard Dr. William Tiller give) there was an experiment done with some very special glasses. The glasses were made of a number of lenses and a prism. The glasses turned the visible world upside down. The subjects were asked to wear the glasses every waking moment.
Obviously this made life difficult.
Then something happened. For every person in the study somewhere between day 14 and day 21 the world turned right side up through the glasses. When they took the glasses off the world was upside down.
It then took them 14 to 21 days with the glasses off for their sight to return to normal.
The conclusion from the experiment is provocative. Over the course of 2 or 3 weeks the mind was so bent on receiving data in a certain way (see the world the way it knows it) that is rewired the neural paths from the eyes to the mind so it could get the information it wanted.
Think about that, the mind rewired itself to see things, not how they were, but how it wanted to see the world.
That is amazing…and a little scary. It shows us that we are not simply receiving information as it is, but we are interpreting everything that comes in through our senses.
This would explain why it is often said that it takes 21 days to create a habit. If we are going to approach something in a new way, we need to change the way the mind works, which doesn’t happen overnight.
Not that is necessarily a bad thing. In the experiment, the mind was simply doing what it thought was best. It was taking the information that was coming in though the eyes and changing it so that it was useful information. When the subjects saw the world upside-down, they had a hard time walking around. The mind was making possible to function in the world.
On a much more profound level it sheds light on to how we perceive ourselves, our experience and others. What happens when the foundation that the mind is defending is unhealthy or wrong? In these cases it makes it very difficult (if not impossible) for change and healing to happen.
In my work one-on-one with clients, one of the areas I am working with more and more is weight. A person might say (and on some level believe), “I want to loose weight.” They can even tell you way they want to loose weight. “If I loose weight I will have more energy, my knees will stop hurting, I will live longer, and it will be easier to do this or that.”
But there is a problem. Unspoken are a number of worries or beliefs. “The reason I am not married is because I am fat. What happens if I loose weight and am still not beautiful? What happens if I loose weight and still can’t find a mate? If I loose weight, but gain it back again I will feel like the failure I am. If I loose weight I am going to have to buy a bunch of new clothing and I can’t afford that. If I loose weight my fat friends are going to think that I think I am better than them and they won’t hang out with me any more. I have tried before and fail; I will just fail again.”
The ego see that there are number of good reasons to loose weight, but there are many more (much better) reasons to not loose weight. The ego thinks it is your best interest to say fat. It might be painful, but it is less painful than the consequences. We think, “The pain I know is better than the pain I don’t know. I know how to manage this pain.”
We can see this scenarios play out with many issues. There are people who don’t want to give up being the victim because they get attention and sympathy. There are people who don’t want to go give up feeling worthless or alone because it is feels safe to be on the outside, not having open yourself up to others possibly opening their heart to hurt. There are people who don’t want to give up physical illness because it means they get attention from their fiends and family. If they healed, they would be left alone.
All suffering exists because we perceive ourselves differently than how god sees us.
We are prefect souls. God knows this. We are unconditionally loved. The love never stops. We perceive ourselves differently. We only see our fragile bodies, and mistake them for being us. We see our past and our mistakes and mistake them for being us.
We are one thing and one thing only. Loved children of God who are in this moment right now. We are nothing more and nothing less.
Our ego is mistaken. It thinks it is protecting us, but it is blinding us for what and who we are.
The ego is powerful, but it is nothing in comparison to our soul, our prefect soul.
It is hard to change our mindset. Because of this, we mistake our reality for a reality of suffering.
The challenge for us is to believe we are something better than what our ego tells us. Every moment we hold this idea in our heart and mind is another chance to erode the false image of who we are that our ego holds.
In time we will know not only in the depth of our soul, but also in our mind what we are.
Perfect. Loved. Eternal.

I don’t know if this is the coolest thing ever or the single greatest waste of a day for 40 people. Maybe it is both.
Live action Space Invaders

I fly a lot. I love to fly. I love planes and airports. I love the time before I can turn my computer on as we are taking off to catch up reading a newspaper. I love going to new place and meeting new people.
Things I don’t like: People who bring two bags onto the plane and then put them both in the overhead space on a very full flight. People who talk so loud on their cell phone that even with out the use of the cell phone the person they are talking to could hear them. Parents who threaten their misbehaving children with, “If you don’t straighten up I am going to leave you hear at the airport and you are going to be all alone.” (Really said last Sunday in Chicago). People who are rude to service agents and fight attendants, especially when it is about wealth or mechanical issues (or anything else they don’t have control over).
One other thing I do love on planes is crying babies. I really do. Crying babies cause two reactions from me.
First, whenever I hear a crying baby (especially in an airport or on an airplane) I take pause. I center myself as much as I can. I try and fill my own heart with as much peace and joy as I can muster. Then I project that peace and joy into the baby. I do this until the baby stops crying. I have no idea if this has any effect on the baby. It does have an effect on me.
It reminds me that this little baby who is in some discomfort is a perfect little being. The baby was divinely created and is animated by a prefect soul. It is loved unconditionally by God and should also be by me. Maybe my prayers will bring it some peace in this discomforting moment.
Also, it is not only a good opportunity to bring myself to peace (in order to do this meditation), but it is a reminder of how I should perceive those around me. They to (and myself) are these being animated by prefect souls that are unconditionally loved by our God and I should do the same.
Second, malnourished babies don’t have the energy to cry. When I hear I baby crying, it reminds me to give thanks that this baby has enough enery to cry.

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