Don’t Be a Spiritual Zombie

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Spiritual zombie and spiritual bypassing are two terms that describe how we might “hide” during times of great challenge. Two articles have been especially helpful for me to better understand these concepts. The first is Hold to the Center from Tricycle Magazine and the second comes from Very Well Mind and is titled Spiritual Bypassing as a Defense Mechanism.

Some quick highlights and links to the full articles are offered below:

Roshi Wendy Egyoku Nakao, abbot emeritus and teacher for the Zen Center of Los Angeles, wrote an enlightening article in the Summer of 2017 for Tricycle Magazine. Her words still have much to offer us some eight years later.

Roshi Nakao reminds us, both gently and provocatively, that when times are tough we should be careful to not turn into spiritual zombies. Specifically, she said:

“To hold to the center is not about becoming a spiritual zombie; it is about living the fullness of your own humanity. You are alive, so be fully alive.”

Additional advice includes:

“The Three Tenets, which are Not-Knowing, Bearing Witness, and Taking Action, as an effective way to hold to the center in any given situation.”

The complete article can be found here:

Hold to the Center!

The second article is http://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-spiritual-bypassing with a quick excerpt below:

“Spiritual bypassing is a way of hiding behind spirituality or spiritual practices. It prevents people from acknowledging what they are feeling and distances them from both themselves and others. Some examples of spiritual bypassing include:

  • Avoiding feelings of anger
  • Believing in your own spiritual superiority as a way to hide from insecurities
  • Believing that traumatic events must serve as “learning experiences” or that there is a silver lining behind every negative experience
  • Believing that spiritual practices such as meditation or prayer are always positive
  • Extremely high, often unattainable, idealism
  • Feelings of detachment
  • Focusing only on spirituality and ignoring the present
  • Only focusing on the positive or being overly optimistic
  • Projecting your own negative feelings onto others
  • Pretending that things are fine when they are clearly not
  • Thinking that people can overcome their problems through positive thinking
  • Thinking that you must “rise above” your emotions
  • Using defense mechanisms such as denial and repression

May we all be well.

Alone Again, Naturally

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It’s been nearly a month since our marriage was officially dissolved yet the heartbreak remains.

Gilbert O’Sullivan’s Alone Again (Naturally) is an old song but still captures how I’m feeling today.

Oh well, thank God for writing, for writers, and for all our fellow travelers on this crazy journey called life.

Another Brit offering comfort today is Jane Austen. In her book Mansfield Park, she reminds us that sometimes we are our own best companion.

Cheers.

SURPRISED BY OUR SHADOW

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The Center for Action and Contemplation puts the spotlight on our shadow this week and today’s thought-provoking article comes from author and spiritual director, Ruth Haley Barton. She does a wonderful job of capturing the fear of exposure when she says:

“We thought we had kept it fairly well hidden. We thought we could manage it or at least keep its destructive nature fairly private, but now here it is—out there for all to see—and it is wreaking havoc on our attempts to accomplish something good.”

Check out the full article below and at  cac.org/daily-meditations/surprised-by-our-shadow/

For more information about the author, check out her website at http://www.ruthhaleybarton.com  

Wake Up, Get Up, Rise Up … Again, and Again

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Today’s Center for Action and Contemplation meditation includes a reflection from theologian Matthew Fox on how we might reinvent and resurrect ourselves daily for our benefit and the benefit of others.

“Who does not seek a full and fuller life (and) how am I life for others?  

To be Resurrection for another I need to be Resurrection for myself. That means I cannot dwell in darkness and death and anger and oppression and submission and resentment and pain forever. I need to wake up, get up, rise up, put on life even when days are dark and my soul is down and shadows surround me everywhere  

Do not settle for death. Break out. Stand up. Give birth. Get out of easy pessimism and lazy cynicism. Put your heart and mind and hands to creating hope and light and resurrection. Be born again. And again. And again….”   

Why Love What You Will Lose?

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Tricycle’s online magazine offers a provocative article which discusses two key questions: Why love what you will lose? and What else is there to love?

Below is a highlight from this worthy article. To read the entire article see the link at the bottom of this post.

  • Suffering is, strangely, both sickness and medicine, impossible to tease apart in the end. … That we suffer and share this great fact of impermanence together is profound medicine in itself, a medicine that releases compassion, love, connectedness, and forgiveness as the healing source. 

From A Fire Runs through All Things: Zen Koans for Facing the Climate Crisis by Susan Murphy © 2023 by Susan Murphy. Reprinted in arrangement with Shambhala Publications, Inc. Boulder, CO

Why Love What You Will Lose?

Easter People in a Good Friday World

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Once again, the Center for Action and Contemplation, helps us reconcile our aspirations with reality. Yes, we can persevere even though we are confronted with “with the forces of death, hopelessness, fear, discouragement, or lack of will.” Yes, we can continue to believe even though we are surrounded by non-believers.

Big inhale, slow exhale. Yes, we can.

Check out the provocative message below and go to CAC’s website for continued encouragement here: cac.org/daily-meditations/easter-people-in-a-good-friday-world/

Deputized by Love

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Today, Dr. Rev. Jacqui Lewis‘ adapted Easter Message recounts Mary of Magdala. Dr. Lewis reminds us that each of us are also deputized to bring comfort to the afflicted and to afflict the comfortable by speaking truth to power: “You’ve got sermons to preach.”

Check it out below and/or go to the original post at cac.org/daily-meditations/called-by-name/

Called by Name 

In her homily at the 2019 CAC Universal Christ conference, Rev. Dr. Jacqui Lewis reminds us that we are each called by the resurrected Christ who knows us by name:   

Christ is everywhere. Christ is in all things. We are all one. When you’re hungry, my stomach growls. When someone chops down a tree, I’m cut. When the oceans are being poisoned, I feel thirsty for something different. This is our calling, because we’ve been ordained, just like Mary, by the One who knows all about us. I’m inviting you to look in the mirror and see yourself. Recognize yourself as deputized by the Living God. Amen. 

Reference: 
Adapted from Jacqui Lewis, “Easter Liturgy: We Shall All Be Changed,” The Universal Christ Conference, Center for Action and Contemplation, March 31, 2019. Unavailable.  

We Too Suffer, Die and Rise Anew

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Below is today’s message from the Center for Action and Contemplation. In it, Richard Rohr explains how we miss the message if we focus on religion versus the natural life cycle of … life.

Hope you enjoy a couple of highlights from Richard Rohr’s Easter message:

An Example for Us All

Monday, April 21, 2025  

We got into trouble when we made the person and the message of Jesus into a formal religion, whereby we had an object of worship; then we had to have a priesthood, formal rules and rituals. I’m not saying we should throw those things out, but once we emphasize cult and moral code, we have a religion. When we emphasize experience, unitive experience, we have the world Jesus is moving around in. Once we made Jesus into a form of religion, we projected the whole message onto him alone. He died, he suffered, he rose from the dead, he ascended and returned to God. We thought that by celebrating these wonderful feasts like Easter that this somehow meant that we were members of the club.    …………

Easter is the great feast of the triumph of universal grace, the triumph of universal salvation, not just the salvation of the body of Jesus. What we’re talking about creates a people of hope, and a culture of hope that doesn’t slip into cynicism and despair. Easter is saying, we don’t need to go there. Love is going to win. Life is going to win. Grace is going to win. Hallelujah! 

Parting Is Such Sweet Sorrow & Waiting Is Never Easy

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Instead of rushing to a desired new future we must often dwell in a state of unknowing. In between crucifixion and resurrection is a long waiting period and I’ve never been good at waiting. How about you?

Today’s message from the Center for Action and Contemplation comes from Dr. Christine Valters Paintner of the Abbey of the Arts. Highlights below address the liminal space of moving from a painful past to a new future … from letting go “of things, people, identities, or securities” and wondering “what will rise up out of the ashes of our lives.”

Lingering In-Between 

Christine Valters Paintner invites us to the patience necessary to receive the wisdom of Holy Saturday:  

For me, Holy Saturday evokes much about the human condition. It helps us examine the ways we are called to let go of things, people, identities, or securities. We wonder what will rise up out of the ashes of our lives…. 

Instead of rushing to resurrection, we must dwell in the space of unknowing. We must hold death and life in tension. One day, we can help others live through these scary and tense landscapes. The wisdom of the Triduum is that we must be fully present to both the starkness of Friday and the Saturday space between before we can really experience the Resurrection. We must know the terrible experience of loss wrought in our world. This pain can teach us more when the promise of new life dawns, and we will appreciate its light because we know the darkness….  

Much of our lives are spent in Holy Saturday places but we spend so much energy resisting, longing for resolution and closure. Our practice this day is to really enter into the liminal zone, to be present to it with every cell of our being.  

Honor the mystery. 

Reference:   
[1] Christine Valters Paintner, The Soul of a Pilgrim: Eight Practices for the Journey Within (Sorin Books, 2015), 122–123.