Tai Shan

by Bob Charlick

Taishan rises like human desire.

What could men want in scaling those endless steps?

Rain falls on its green pines.

Plastic robed like fresh wrapped monks,

the pilgrim/tourists test their mettle

against this ageless stele

Wisdom abounds with each step up,

the rocks bear witness to our need to know

and leave our mark.

Taishan's call is bigger still.

We climb to defy entropy.

Health, riches and peace all counter

nature's slow erosion.

Don't ask the mountain, then, for peace

it stand aloof

offering nothing but the foil and stage

upon which we can play our piece of visions and dreams.

Over the past year, I am grateful for, or feel a profound sense of gratitude for:

Knowing that with God all things are possible. Let me explain what I mean. I am a student who is passionate about becoming a nurse. This year the Universe aligned with my desires so that I can focus on my studies, have my living expenses met, without any concerns. I am abundantly blessed. For this, I am eternally grateful.

Anonymous

I am grateful for:

That we all get where we are going."

For reflections on the waters.

For shady trees on a summer day.

For shadows that assert that we are.

For a clear day.

For a cloudy day.

For every breath I take today!

FAZ

Over the past year, I am grateful for the opportunity to contribute to educating the many young people that have come through my life at the colleges I teach at. The experiences that I have shared with them may contribute to their leading a more successful life. I also have benefited from our interaction. Their energy and creativity has inspired me. As a result of our interaction, I am inspired by the bright future they represent. I also am grateful that my teaching experience has helped me see how we are all one. We are both teachers and students in each other's lives. We are all perfect children of God manifesting that perfection in the world and making this world a better place to live in.

Bob Churilla

I am grateful for or I feel a profound sense of gratitude for:

A loving daughter Debbie and son Bill. For a lovely home and wonderful neighbors. For the life I have since losing my husband  five years ago. How amazed I am at what I have accomplished on my own since then. For finding this loving spiritual community and becoming a part of it. For these blessings I am so very grateful.

June Walker

Over this past year I feel a profound gratitude for the opportunity to serve, and serve with, all the people that make up the RSC community.  2009 has been a time of coming together, of affirming who we truly are, of discovering aspects of ourselves personally and communally previously unknown.  It has been a time of new friendships, deepened friendships, new synergies, renewed energies.  It will always be this—for it is who we are and what we’re about—embracing life, and one another.    

Rev. Dana Cummings

Over the past year, I am grateful for, or feel a profound sense of gratitude for:

-All the healing energies from the natural world and from the hearts, minds, knowledge and skills of my human family.

-All the plants of the earth for their nourishment and beauty.

Judy Charlick

I am grateful for: My path crossing Reverend Dana's and finding a comfortable spiritual home to return to.

Anonymous

I am grateful for: all the members of Renaissance Spiritual Community and those who attend regularly and those who occasionally join us.  I am grateful for them all, especially our minister and our friend,  Rev. Dana.

Jeanne Hood 

I am grateful for healing communities

Marge

I am grateful for Unity Renaissance being on my path as I go through my life journey with them. You, who have chosen to read this, know you are loved by me and are perfect as you are today.

Denise

I am grateful for all of the Shining Lights at Renaissance Spiritual Community who share their experiences, talents and inspiration with the community. I am grateful for the generous spirit of Rev. Dana as he holds the space so that community members can share their sparks of Divine Love and Light with us all.  

Barbara Douglass

Remembering Carl

I would like to start this month of gratitude by being grateful for the many people who have come into my life and touched it in many wonderful ways. Some have stayed and some have moved on. Many have made their transition. I learned today that Carl, a dear, sweet sweet man who many of us knew made his transition recently. I will remember him fondly and I'm certain many others will also.

Please feel free to respond to this post if you feel moved to do so. Just click on the below word "comments."

A Month of Gratitude

Each day during the month of November, individuals of RSC will post their thoughts on what they are grateful for over the past year or for what they feel a profound sense of Gratitude.

All (We/I) Need is Love

We all know the Beatles song, All You Need is Love. Have you ever sung the song changing the lyrics from "you" to I or we? Try it.

All You Need is Love

The Beatles

Lennon/McCartney

 

Love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love.

There's nothing you can do that can't be done.

Nothing you can sing that can't be sung.

Nothing you can say but you can learn how to play the game

It's easy.

There's nothing you can make that can't be made.

No one you can save that can't be saved.

Nothing you can do but you can learn how to be you (me/us)

in time - It's easy.

All you need is love, all you need is love,

All you need is love, love, love is all you need.

Love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love, love.

All you need is love, all you need is love,

All you need is love, love, love is all you need.

There's nothing you can know that isn't known.

Nothing you can see that isn't shown.

Nowhere you can be that isn't where you're (I'm/we're)meant to be.

It's easy.

All you need is love, all you need is love,

All you need is love, love, love is all you need.

All you need is love (all together now)

All you need is love (everybody)

All you need is love, love, love is all you need.

The Turning Point

RSC, as we call our Renaissance Spiritual Community, can also be pronounced as Risk. It takes courage or risk to be a beginner, the baby wobbling, falling down, and getting back up again, or the fool, wearing his heart on his sleeve. Taking a chance on a new beginning clears out what no longer serves us and brings about renewal and increased growth. To step outside of our comfort zone means to leave old ways of thinking and habits behind in hope that positive change will result for ourself or others.

To find a passion in life is a risk worth taking, since only our limited ego and fears are at work to keeping us "safe" and small. In truth, we are not risking anything that is worth losing since Love is permanent.  We will only have more love to gain and give. What do you love? What are you passionate about? What tugs at your heart and whispers in your ear, patiently wanting to be heard. Is it a calling to reach out to someone? Heal an old wound? Nurture a child? Follow a particular path? paint, draw, create? We have all heard this still small voice at some point in our lives. At times, it is no longer a quiet whisper, but a shout or deep restless ache.

"It doesn't interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for, and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart's longing. It doesn't intest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk llving like a fool for love, for your dream, for the adventure of being alive...

-Oriah Mountain Dreamer  

Love is a great healer and teacher. It truly conquers all. Love stretches you beyond your limitations and pulls you higher. Love can give you strength when you thought you had none. Love gives you the courage to try again, or to begin to pursue something that calls to the core of your being. "With God all things are possible." If God is love, then with love all things are possible.  Love can make a shy person approach people and tackle situations that otherwise be painful if love was not at the helm. 

"love is the magician that pulls man out of his own hat." 

-Ben Hecht 

As an artist, I have been getting a calling to start doing my own work in addition to my regular creative job. Fears pop up, but I now know that if I pursue what I love I will absolutely succeed in creating a body of artwork. Someone else's views of what I create  and it's salability is irrelevant. Doing the art is what is most important. I have a sign in my cubicle at work that reads "Keep what you love and get rid of the rest."  I use this sign as a reminder to throw away anything that I don't absolutely love otherwise I would probably keep everything and create a big mess or not focus on what is important. It's time to throw away the "should" and "what if" stories. If I passionately step out in love, I will have much to gain.  

What do you love? Who do you love? How can you love? What do you feel passionate about to the core of your being? If love is in charged of the situation, you cannot fail; you will be successful. Even if the path you pursue comes to an end, all journeys sowed in love will reap loving benefits. What would be possible if you step out of your comfort zone and see what is possible? Each day offers a turning point to choose love and choose it again. It is a risk worth taking.

 

In the Quiet

Lessons In Truth

by H. Emile Cady

No person, unless he has practiced it, can know how it quiets all physical nervousness, all fear, all oversensitiveness, all the little raspings of everyday life ?? just this hour of calm, quiet waiting alone with God. Never let it be an hour of bondage, but always one of restfulness.

When you have learned how to abandon yourself to infinite Spirit, and have seasons of doing this daily, you will be surprised at the marvelous change that will be wrought in you without any conscious effort of your own. 

 

Embracing Uncertainty

I've been thinking about what to write for the last few days. I feel like Billy Crystal in Throw Momma from the Train. You know the scenes where Larry struggles to find the perfect opening sentence for his book. It's the classic writer's block which results in a pile of crumbled up papers. Here we are a spiritual community with a new blog, an open forum to create whatever we dream or envision.  The possibilities are endless, yet I ponder. "What do I write? What will this page look like? I don't know. Maybe I should do.... How do make this a paragraph? I don't know what I'm doing." Hmmm, Maybe it's appropriate that this blog is so stark white.

Before the Beginning: Getting Started

- Lao Tzu adapted by Pamela K. Metz

"To create is to struggle with the empty spaces

of the canvas,

the blank page,

or the void of the empty stage.

To live is to do the same.

Before the shape takes form, there is nothingness.

There must be nothingness before the beginning.

Before the beginning is prologue:

all that has come before."

I let the anxiety and struggle go, and just be with the uncertainty.

I remind myself that with this emptiness is the greatest potential for new possibilities. Though we see a landscape of snow and bare trees, new growth is just stirring beneath us. It is inevitable, as certain as the sun rising tomorrow morning. We glory in the days of a completed project or a reached goal though they will soon come to an end.  New life stirs within us and will be birthed in time. It is in this quiet stillness that we can hear the voice of Spirit.

Be still and know that I am God.

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