Pocketbook Notes
Humility is truth. It is a landmark. It is knowing who we truly are.
Sometimes a stranger’s eyes see clearest.
Do not put your desires at the center of your being.
Free me from the desire to be loved. Free me from the fear of being hurt.
The test of good manners is putting up with bad ones.
Truth should be whispered, to write things down is to invite abuse.
Time is a great gift we can give to one another, through time spent love is deepened.
Strive not to be better than others, but to be better than yesterday.
Rely on yourself, not others, to tell you who you are.
Never eat shit unnecessarily.
Expectations should only be of your self, not of others.
Every day should be a thanksgiving.
Take care of yourself, eat well, exercise, pray. Battle negativity. Apologize, take the extra step to bring love.
Dream. Do. Plan, execute.
We all thrive on challenge and accountability.
Prayer never ends, unless you think it does. Prayer is not accomplished, prayer is an openness, non-deluded openness of our being. Having attached our pride to prayer we think it ends, or worse, we think we failed at it. NO, prayer is openness, and it never ends unless we think it ends.
Humility also means giving in to necessity, obeying necessity...it is necessary to exercise, so you do.
Don’t view problems as permanent, be optimistic.
The same principle that causes us to laugh is the same one that impels us to truth: perfect truth brings joy.
That crushing weight is the loneliness of unlove. Set a reminder every day of who you are: you are God’s love. Muster up the courage to enter the song.
Truth is humility, humility breeds strength, strength breeds self-possession. All in humility. Meditate on God’s love to you and all.
Jesus left the work unfinished, poetry unwritten, dreams undreamed.
Jesus’ message does not belong to any institution, it is for all ages, for all people.
Familiarity can breed contempt, it builds ever so slowly, contempt creeps up attached to the best part of familiarity. There is a place for reverence, especially bodily since it reminds us what we are doing, it helps us focus our whole being on God.
Your dignity does not depend on what you do or don’t do, you are made in God’s image.
Be thankful for times of desolation, God is telling you something, usually pruning your pride, be thankful.
To see others faults is an opportunity to love them better, to focus your prayer.
You must have a forgiving heart, forgiving of others quirks and weaknesses. Be considerate of others, they are your children, your brothers and sisters, your companions.
Beware of people who ask a lot of questions while trying to get on your good side.
There is no genius without structure, genius is seeing beyond structure, beyond existing assumptions/accepted truths. Removing structure removes the circumstances in which a genius could thrive.
Life is so fragile: it hangs on a breath.
Your life will be a result of your actions.
Accept advice, follow advice but never forget YOU made the decision and only you are responsible for your actions.
We are not the sum of our failures and weaknesses. We are the sum of the love God has for us AND our real capability of becoming like Jesus.
Do not accept anything as true that lacks love. Don’t accept anything as love that lacks truth.
Love must be pulled softly, gently and with great care on a daily basis. Our hold on love is very weak, tenuous...we must remind ourselves daily of it...allow our mind to pull it into our mind, heart and soul like a wet taffy, whisping and breaking away...gently softly we must allow love to come into our soul daily.
Pride is built into us, ask for humility daily.
We have begun our heaven on earth because of our intimacy with him.
Always have a daily goal you are striving towards.
Conquer the day, let the problems of the day be your only concern, remain focused on the next step.
Identify yourself with Jesus but you must remain aware that our pursuit of christian renewal of self doesn’t result in us believing we are Jesus-there is a subtle movement of pride when we have become close to God that makes us believe the miracles we witness are our own.
God’s plan for you is for you to be free.
God speaks to us in our actions-through the sweat of our brow the restlessness turns to peace.
Don’t pretend to know the future because if you think you know the future you will likely lose hope. And truthfully you don’t. At best you will have seen a very symbolic and cloudy vision. Don’t kid yourself that you know the future, it is a great danger to you, your mind, your heart, your emotions. It turns you off in a sense. Beware.
1-Love the process not the outcome. 2-Keep an eye on overcommitment. 3-Rest away from project.
Mortification is not a lifestyle, it is a method of attaining something specific.
Morality itself should not be the goal-morality is a sign or a result of the love of God, self and others, of knowing and loving the human condition, of being a brother to those around you, of placing the dignity of others and their needs before our own impulses.
People sometimes confuse morality and make morality itself the goal. The human impulses must be explored openly and with an even keel and followed back to God. That is, we must trace our impulses back to God and see how they fit into a dignified graceful acceptance of the human condition. To reject what we are is stupidity and untruth. Jesus became one of us and dignified every emotion.
To think you can make God love you more or less is incorrect, we cannot sway God or make God do anything. God’s love for us is perfect and is always the same toward us.
Morals and prayers are so we can appreciate Gods love for us and appreciate who and what we are, not so God can love us more. The traditions of asceticism, mortification, prayer, trials are so we can find out what is in us that is keeping us away from God. To think that doing x or y will make God love us or love us more misses the point and is superstitious: as if doing the dance and throwing the bones on the fire would make God do this or that.
Happiness is achieved through giving.
God speaks to us through our drives and emotions. The most important growth will come for the individual through understanding his or her drives and emotions.
Our innate confidence in our ability to understand is undermined by initiation rituals (Phd, etc).
Landmarks are better than dogma.
Practice goal oriented speech as opposed to good will oriented speech.
God is sacred. Honour God. Start by giving thanks at every meal.
Evil only exists because good people allow it.
-Stop hating the world. If I found reasons to love it, so can you.-God
God is in our lives and wants us to know him. Love is a result of knowing the created and the creator. Love is the flow between the creator and the created and yes, there are innumerable eddies.
God loves you . You are doing ok, really. You are too hard on yourself. You get carried away by fantasies. You are one of the good guys. And although your life and all in it isn't perfect, you are doing ok...really.
Confidence and service (how am I going to serve my community/the people around me), I think that was lacking and should now be your focus.
Crazy folk and their craziness rubs onto you. Get away from it.
Take care of your body.
Stop defining yourself with the things you do not have but may want, the things that you wish you'd have achieved bit didn't, your shortcomings, your failures, your struggles...things could always be better, or different, or bigger, or skinnier...you are doing really well, don't let yourself forget that.
God would speak to you much more often if you would only make time to hear him.
Regularity and frequency are key, humility is essential.
Humility is elusive, a greased pole. Humility is knowing your place, knowing the truth of who you are.
When we start getting regular in prayer it's sooo easy to get lead astray thinking we are awesome.
To breathe is an act of humility, to remember that everything you are and may do depends on that short simple act. Honour the act of breathing, give it it's place and focus on it, check in on it, visit with it daily.
Appreciate who you are, with all your broken bones you are still good for something; with all your shortcomings you are still just another guy. Appreciate yourself.
For some there will is a need for loneliness, to enter into loneliness to get to solitude, to that place where we are our own, in possession of self. We need to remove the clutter in our lives to get to where we know we are not what others see in us. We need to get to where we are not defined by others but by knowledge of self, by truth.
Love is like a muscle so it can get stronger, but since it is an act of will, love will always require a conscious act of preferment or choice.
Jesus became man because women generally speaking, are touched by God, innately women understand we are children of God.
Explore, it tickles-God. All that is good is yours, your heritage. The true and good needs to be discovered, a childlike enthusiastic curiosity is the key to lifelong friendship with God. All that is good and true is and is from God.
Since every human is unique in the freedom of our own deliberate choices in life, we will build our life and realize our goal in our own inimitable way. Yet there are enough similarities among us that past or present experience of others can serve as landmarks to us.
Contemplating on truth and acting upon the revealed truths go hand in hand in that one informs the other and the other hones the one. Truth should inform our actions and it is through our actions that the truth we believe is tested, forged, tempered, assayed, proven. We are free, entirely, and are the only creatures on this earth that we know of that have been given entire freedom. This is why there is evil in the world. The great gift of radical freedom we possess is abused by many, and many more have the truth that would allow them to act in accordance with what is true and good, kept from them.
Meet death as an old friend come to visit, a dear old friend you’ve been expecting to see again for a long time.
God loves us. Jesus came so we may know we are children of God.
A SHORT AND SIMPLE GUIDE FOR THE LIVING
1-GOD LOVES YOU NO MATTER WHAT. GOD IS IN YOU AND YOU IN GOD. YOU ARE PART AND THE WHOLE. (God is everything true good and beautiful).
2-BE ACTIVE IN YOUR COMMUNITY.
3-CONSIDER THAT YOUR EVERY ACT HAS REPERCUSSIONS INTO ETERNITY AND ALSO IN WHERE YOU ARE RIGHT NOW AND WHERE YOU WILL END UP IN THE FUTURE.
4-PRAY DAILY: EVENING AND NIGHT AT THE SAME TIME EACH DAY. (prayer is achieving and holding on to an idea or example of love in a quiet environment with your body relaxed).
5-PRAY A REPETITIVE PRAYER THAT HAS ONLY GOD (TRUTH, BEAUTY, GOODNESS) AS ITS FOCUS AT THE SAME TIME DAILY.
6-DO ANY ACT THAT IS CAPABLE OF MAKING THE MIND AND BODY WORK TOGETHER AS ONE HARMONIOUS WHOLE (LIKE BIKRAM YOGA).
7-DAILY ENJOY AND CELEBRATE THE BEAUTY YOU FIND IN YOUR EVERY DAY, BIG AND SMALL.