Reverend Jack Carlson

“There are many sources of spirituality; religion may be the most common, but it is by no means the only. Anything that generates a sense of awe may be a source of spirituality. Science does this in spades.” – Michael Shermer, The Soul of Science

Gary Vaynerchuk shares his rule for thinking about what you can do for others, how you can devote yourself to your job, relationships and passions without concern for what you’ll get out of it. Well, I’ll let him explain how it works…

The 80/20 Rule

“Much of the suffering in the world comes from the illusion that we are separate from one another.”

Gautama Buddha

There are people who don’t always fit into society as smoothly as others. They are the ignored, the passed-by, the unimportant. Those are seldom attributes they assign themselves; they’re assigned by others.
But then there are those who have found the nugget of value within themselves. Paul Potts is one of those. He’s not especially attractive. He got bullied in school. He could easily have become bitter, disillusioned and withdrawn. Instead he uncovered a talent, an absolutely beautiful voice, and despite being a mobile-phone salesman, he gathered up the courage to risk humiliation by sharing his ability with the world. And the world is better off for that.

Please allow yourself to enjoy this too short video, and let it encourage you to follow your own dream.

Paul Potts sings Nessun Dorma

Thirty years ago I started reading Alan Watts. Since I was just emerging from several years of having been a evangelical Catholic, and had been reading extensively of Thomas Merton and Dietrich Bonhoeffer, I was basically following Merton’s lead in examining Buddhism. This quickly brought me to Watts, who managed, despite his being an Episcopalian priest for five years, to open my eyes to the richness of a spiritual life beyond Christianity, beyond theology itself.

The first of Watts’ books I read was Behold the Spirit: A Study in the Necessity of Mystical Religion, but soon I was entranced by his other works that dealt directly with Zen and the Tao. To this day, reading Tao: The Watercourse Way helps clear my mind and makes me feel together and alive. It reminds me how important it is to remain aware of the balance and unity of life. It keeps me centered, away from extremes and absolutes.

There are many inspirational books that don’t require a dependence on superstitions to help you on your path through life. I’ll look through my library and mention a few others I value in the near future.

From LifeHack.org, some points to consider.  Click over to their site to read more.

• Stop taking so much notice of how you feel.
• Let go of worrying. It often makes things worse.
• Ease up on the internal life commentary.
• Take no notice of your inner critic.
• Give up on feeling guilty.
• Stop being concerned what the rest of the world says about you.
• Stop keeping score.
• Don’t be concerned that your life and career aren’t working out the way you planned.
• Don’t let others use you to avoid being responsible for their own decisions.
• Don’t worry about about your personality. You don’t really have one.

Some of those might sound a bit radical until you read the reasoning behind them.

It has been a month of Sundays, now, that you have knocked at my door; a month of Sundays, now, that I have not answered your knock. Your punctuality has never wavered; every week, as the clock rings three, there you are in your conservative and impeccable dress, bearing your pamphlets — your tracts — which ask the pointed question, “Have you found your Personal Savior?” Your punctuality has never wavered, nor has your expression ever changed: your lips curl that wide smile of neighborly aggression, your chin holds that downward angle of proud humility, your eyes bear that unmistakable gleam of contemptuous compassion. That gleam has led me, after padding stocking-footed to the door and squinting through the peephole, to turn away, leaving your unanswered knock pinned to the door; leaving your penetrating pamphlet unread in your pocket; leaving your ready words, your insistent affability, untapped and unconfronted. That expression, this gleam in your eyes, marks you: as a missionary. Your mission, visible in your downthrust chin and in the set of your shoulders, is to ask of me your pointed question — Have you found your Personal Savior? — and to gain from me the admission, the confession, that indeed, I have not.
The missionary’s question, legible on the front of the pamphlet protruding from his breast pocket — Have you found your Personal Savior? — is the culmination of the work of a hundred generations of logicians, rhetoricians, philosophers, orators, authors. The greatest thinkers, the most effective debaters of the last two thousand years have given their lives, their sweat and blood, their voices and pens, to creating a script, unparalleled in its soarings of cogent and forceful sophistry, unimaginable in its length and depth, that distills, finally, to this one all-important question: Have you found your Personal Savior? A hundred generations of men, uncountable pages: one man, one question. Two thousand years of learning and reason are embedded in your single self. The most effective theological responses to every question whispered to priests, to every doubt wrinkled across foreheads in solitary contemplation, to every expression of faithlessness and disbelief thrown at the overshadowing heavens; this man, the missionary — you, sir — has been rigorously, and thoroughly, trained. Yet to put this rigorous and thorough training to use requires an opportunity to ask, and have answered, this one pointed question that pendulates from his lips, that stretches from the pages of his pamphlets; this one pointed question that sums up all of his two thousand years of reason and learning.
There is a single belief, finally, on which all of this knowledge, this two thousand years of lore, is based. Imagine that single belief as an adamantine column that has supported the vast entirety of the Church, as well as its ever-growing and far-reaching missionary limbs, above the world of unbelievers, through a storm of contradictions both internal and external to the faith, for two thousand years. The faithful’s blunt and heartfelt Yes to the pamphlet’s pointed question — Have you found your Personal Savior? — has built the most massive and majestic edifice humanity has ever known. It is an institution unmatched by nation, by craft, by clan. The single purpose that animates this leviathan, and that motivates its uncounted tendrils, the missionaries, is the quest for even further growth. The Church, like a machine created only to mine its own fuel, seeks only to expand, to survive. Every individual cry of Yes adds another foil-thin layer to the circumference of this pillar of belief, the Church’s support and its lifeblood. Every one who joins the Mass raises the Church ever higher; each broadens the base ever wider. For two thousand years, the Church has been gaining in girth; with each increase in size, its reach grows proportionately; with each increase in size, and in reach, the rate of expansion increases. A snowball rolling down a hill that becomes precipitous as the snowball accelerates — how long to hit the bottom?
This incredible momentum, the force of two thousand years of the faithful struggling in all directions toward a single light, is unstoppable; it must also be irresistible. For surely it would take a movement of similar proportions, an un-Church built of similar learning, over a similar span of time, upon a similar core pillar of un-belief, to resist that great inertia of the Church focused through its missionary limb, like a firecracker’s explosion forced through a cylinder of decreasing circumference, until the concussion from the final mouth-sized bore grinds granite to dust. It is plain to see that, in truth, this un-Church does not exist: the unbelievers have not organized. Clearly, if I were to give answer to your question, it would be only a matter of time before my yes joined the rapturous chorus and became one more bit of grist for the mill.
But there is a question that must be asked: why am I on my side of my closed door? Why is not every man, woman, and child handing pamphlets out to smiling masses who nod Yes each time they take another from the hand of a fellow, an endless field of daisies rippled by a single wind? How have the unbelievers survived the last two thousand years of concerted effort? We can safely assume, basing our assumption on the last century’s sociological and psychological studies of child-rearing, that parents who believe, who are devout and stalwart in their support of their Church, will instill that belief in their children; for two thousand years, unbelievers have been born of believers only rarely. But if it is true that belief follows family lines, and we have assumed with some assurance that it is, how can there still be any unbelievers at all? Two thousand years since it started rolling, and today the Church has sent its missionary limbs to every corner of the globe, probing into the minds and hearts of every unbeliever: unbelievers with no un-Church; unbelievers who lack two thousand years of learning and thought; who, oh! most debilitating of all, lack that one overriding purpose, the missionary’s purpose, his belief in the necessity and the innate goodness of assimilating the unbeliever. This grants him a strength of will that the unbeliever, undriven and purposeless, cannot match. It grants him a pride in his work which, by its very tangible presence on the missionary’s expression, shames the unbeliever. Why is he resisting this righteous person? Why has he not surrendered in the face of these insurmountable odds, this great edifice bearing down on one lowly man in stockinged feet, this mountain of knowledge, this purity of purpose? The unbeliever has not the purpose, has not the fellowship, has not the combined learning that the missionary wields. Why is he still here?
When we have taken the immensity, the momentum, and the purpose of the Church away from the unbelievers, we have left one thing behind within their breasts. We have left them that slim, simple core, twin to the pillar that — combined and recombined into one mighty trunk — supports the Church. That Yes to the pamphlet’s question — Have you found your Personal Savior? — has its echo in the unbeliever’s adamant, unwavering No. Although the pillar of unbelief has not the titanic proportions of the Church’s column — the unbelievers have not combined their voices into one great hymn of faithlessness — still it has held fast against all of the missionary’s unceasing efforts and the missionary’s unflagging energy. The slim pillar of unbelief in the heart of a single unbeliever is fashioned of a stuff equally as intractable, equally as immobile, equally as irreducible, as is the aggregated pillar of the Church. Yet how can this single thread be as strong as that mighty oak?
Let us examine these pillars of belief and unbelief: the assumption that the positive and negative aspects of belief are equivalent in potency is not unreasonable; Nature is generally symmetrical. But how potent are these pillars truly? Is it the cohesive strength of the pillar’s material, or simply the sheer breadth of the Church’s support, that has kept this edifice from falling? If we look at the Church’s successes in converting their heathens — those who had found their Personal Saviors, and named him Odin, Coyote, Allah — we see that the pillar can be shifted; the flow of one’s faith can be rerouted. But can it be dammed? Can the pillar be broken?
That smug expression on your face, sir — can it be turned to doubt? Those pamphlets in your pocket — can they be thrown, by your own hand, into the wastebasket? Can the missionary be un-converted?
In two thousand years, only one similarly paradigmatic institution has tried to cut the pillar of belief from underneath the Church’s foundations, to lose the Personal Savior in the prosaic and turbulent confusion of the world of unbelief. Science, which reached its zenith during the Industrial Revolution, made several sallies against the Church’s tenets and teachings: evolution, archaeology, biology, geology, astronomy, genetics; the chisels hammered into the pillar of belief, the fingers of Science’s own Sampson wrapped around the pillar — shaking, shaking.
And Science at the height of its power and glory could not reduce that pillar of belief. Not one iota. Not a chip fell; not a crack appeared; not one missionary lost his strong faith. The assault that came closest, that came nearest to besting the missionary in debate, the 19th Century attack of Natural Selection and the Origin of Species, was ultimately consumed by the Intelligent Designer: the date of Creation moved back several billion years, and the seven days of Genesis become metaphorical, not literal. Science could not win; it required definitive proof to choose between two alternatives, while the Church accepted all theories as equally valid, once placed within the Church’s vocabulary — one cannot be right if one’s opponent is never wrong. Science, chastened, has not made an attempt to break down the pillar of belief since Darwin broke his teeth on its unyielding stone: Science has given the whys to God, and now seeks only after how. The pillar can not be broken.
But just as Science’s laws can be explained by the missionary, redirected into the path of his faith so that the forces are joined rather than opposed, cannot the missionary’s miracles be explained by Science? If Science cannot break the pillar of belief as its assaults break like waves against a bulkhead, can the Church’s mighty tide break the pillar of unbelief, that holds up nothing, that supports nothing? How many scientists have run from the laboratory into the Light? How many doctors have traded the stethoscope and the syringe for the laying on of hands? How many mathematicians have spent their lives trying to count angels on a pin’s head?
It is a month of Sundays, sir, that you have come knocking at my door. Though I have not answered your knock, what would have been the result if I had opened my home to you from the first? What if I had taken your pamphlet, listened, week after week, to your arguments and proposals, to your rhetoric and explanations, your intimidations, obfuscations, implications; what if we had spoken, every Sunday around three, of saints and sins and saving grace, of commandments and Christ? Would you have succeeded in doing what the missionaries of Science could not?
An argument between you and I, between missionary and unbeliever, would inevitably deteriorate to the seesawing struggle of toddlers debating ownership of a toy: unable to persuade, we see who can yell louder, who can tug harder at the object we both covet — not a doll or a jumprope, not a picture book or a yo-yo; no less of a toy than my immortal soul. To you, it is a Creation of your Heavenly Father; you cherish it as a precious jewel. To me, it is mine; I cherish it because it is mine.
But beggar the nobility of our purposes; our beliefs, our pillars, our cores, are of the same stuff. I ally myself with Science; you follow your Personal Savior; we both have faith in our beliefs, we both trust our laws. Thought I that it would do any good, I would point out to you that perhaps my institution has shown greater maturity, inasmuch as it has not continued to besiege a Church that it cannot bring down, whereas every new day, every time the sun rises over the pulpit, brings to light another of Science’s sins against your Personal Savior, and a new plea for Science to come, and kneel, and confess. But this begs the question — I know it would do no good. I cannot convince you. You have found your Personal Savior.
I will open my door to you. I will say to you the words that you will never hear: I have found my Personal Savior, and it is not yours. My only salvation will come while I still live on this Earth in all its chaotic magnificence and its shining, stinking morass of birth and death, separated by hate and love and beauty and the scars of the world. Only I can bring about that salvation, by seeing, by hearing, by tasting and smelling and feeling. My only reward for that salvation will be to continue on, in just the same way, with the same consciousness and same form, until I die, and it is all gone.
You will tell me that I can lose all of my fears and doubts, all this earthly pain, if I find your Personal Savior. You will tell me that all good things come from your Personal Savior — in the same breath, you will tell me that I will be rewarded in Heaven for my suffering on this Earth: I will be allowed to look on the face of God, for eternity. Why would I wish this? Why would I want to see this world as the valley of darkness — and if I did, why would I want to spend eternity in the blessed light of Your Personal Savior? You will ask me to see the Light; won’t I see the light?
You cannot see the light that I see: for how can this world shine in the shadow of Heaven? How can even Heaven shine in the shadows cast by the Eternal Light of God? Tell me, sir, who is rewarded by an eternity of dumb adoration of your Personal Savior? You cannot hear the words I say; you cannot see the light I see; you cannot live the life I live, a life of unbelief — and of beauty and peace and bliss, here, now. You may go on with your quest, on to the next door, to the next debate, the next pointed asking; I will stay here, wiggle my toes in my warm stockings, sip my hot coffee. I will live.

Time is one of the more elusive concepts in science.  We believe we experience the passing of time, yet on the most fundamental level we have no proof that time exists as an objective reality.

This creates one of the biggest problems for people trying to transcend their distracted, complicated human minds.  We worry about the past.  Mistakes we made, goals we failed to reach, we dwell on what we perceive as the past  as though we could somehow go back in time and repair the damage we fear we’ve caused.  When we aren’t obsessed with the past, we’re trying to imagine the future.  We set goals and priorities without any thought that circumstances may make those plans meaningless.  In our minds, the past and future are real.

Yet every single person on the planet only lives in the present moment.

The past is actually just our imperfect memory’s reconstruction of events that have already happened.   The future is nothing more than our limited hope that somehow we can affect events yet to come through sheer willpower.  We ignore or are ignorant of all the factors that will determine what actually happens once the future become now.

We can’t change the past, nor can we be sure our image of the future will ever come to pass.  The only reality we truly have is the present moment.  This second counts, this moment is all that’s important.  We can only be fully aware of life if we remain focused on the moment we’re living.  Do you wish you were more empathetic, more loving, more giving?  Then be that, now.  Any one of us could die in the next second.  How foolish to waste the moment dreaming about what could be, what might happen.  If it’s important to you, if it will make you a happier person, do it now.  Don’t wait for something to happen, don’t put conditions on your peace of mind (saying that when so-and-so happens then I’ll be able to …).  The only time that you have to do anything is this moment.  All else is imaginary.

Focus on this second.  Look around you.  Take in all that’s happening in this moment.  Everything that matters is happening right this moment.  Don’t miss it by being distracted by what isn’t.  Life is what is, right now.

At its core, spirituality is about transcendence.  Any time we move outside our normal existence, any time we see through eyes not blinded by the patterns of our own history, any time we are startled or surprised by a new thought/insight/idea, we transcend our everyday world and experience a moment of spirituality.

Most of us spend our days in a sort of fog.  We react according to patterns established early in our lives.  Those patterns are addictive.  How many times have you responded negatively to a suggested change of routine just because the idea of altering your normal pattern bothered you?  We become addicted to our routines, yet those same routines are what deaden us to the spiritual, the magical, the wonderful.  Love, joy, amazement, we are robbed of our enjoyment of these aspects of life every time we allow the routine to cloud our ability to appreciate the spiritual.

We can enjoy spiritual moments more often in our lives.  We are in control  of our addictions and our perceptions.  We have the ability to defy the routine and experience moments of joy and wonder.  How we do that will be unique for each person.  Yet we can suggest that you make an effort to be conscious of how much of your day is spent running on “auto-pilot”.  Try to reduce those periods by causing yourself to try something new, shifting your attention to something you haven’t noticed before, take joy in doing what didn’t bring any pleasure before.  Bring wonder and innocence into your day.  Fight the jaded outlook.  Reject the “Oh, I know just what’s going to happen” response when some novelty interjects itself into your routine.

In short, become aware.  Self-awareness is the start of any spiritual or philosophical journey.  You can’t go somewhere else if you aren’t sure where you are now.  Just don’t let yourself get stuck in what you are now.  That’s just the starting point.  You are what you make of yourself.  Your life is what you make it, as well.  It doesn’t have to be boring, depressing or wasted.

Experience joy, wonder, love.  Shed the average, the boring and the routine.  You are a god, and your life is your creation.  Cherish it, nurture it.  Pay as much attention to the health of your spirit as you do your body.  Life is a miracle.  Treat it as such.

“Live your life that the fear of death can never enter your heart.
Trouble no one about his religion.
Respect others in their views and demand that they respect yours.
Love your life, perfect your life, beautify all things in your life.
Seek to make your life long and of service to your people.
Prepare a noble death song for the day when you go over the great divide.
Always give a word or sign of salute when meeting or passing a friend,
or even a stranger, if in a lonely place.
Show respect to all people, but grovel to none.
When you rise in the morning, give thanks for the light,
for your life, for your strength.
Give thanks for your food and for the joy of living.
If you see no reason to give thanks, the fault lies in yourself.
Abuse no one and no thing, for abuse turns the wise ones to fools
and robs the spirit of its vision.
When your time comes to die,
be not like those whose hearts are filled with fear of death,
so that when their time comes they weep and pray for a little more time
to live their lives over again in a different way.
Sing your death song, and die like a hero going home.”

Tecumseh
(1768-1813) Shawnee Chief