Debra Basham

Living and Loving

Tag: Huston Smith

  • Glenaire

    They were both attending a meditation retreat via Zoom.

    The attendees were asked to share a bit of where they are in their practice and/or in life in general.

    “We left our home we had lived in for forty years,” he said. “We moved into a community called Glenaire. It is a huge adjustment, but with all of us living here dealing with age-related dynamics, we take care of one another.”

    Although the guidelines of the retreat discourage speaking directly to another attendee about what he or she has said, she was so strongly moved she had to share.

    “We moved out of the home we had lived in for forty years, too, and into a community called Glen-Aire,” she excitedly said. “I would expect it to be very meaningful that we are here at this retreat together,” she concluded.

    She lives in Michigan. He lives in North Carolina.

    Daily the world grows smaller, leaving understanding the only place where peace can find a home. ~ Huston Smith

    Notes*
    Huston Cummings Smith was a scholar of religious studies in the United States, He authored at least thirteen books on world’s religions and philosophy, and his book about comparative religion, The World’s Religions sold over three million copies as of 2017.

    Glenaire is a continuing care retirement community (CCRC) located in Cary, NC.

    Glen-Aire is a family-owned business established in 1958, located in Lincoln Township, Michigan, about halfway between St. Joseph and Stevensville — approximately three miles from the shores of Lake Michigan.

  • Winds of Change

    Ride the winds of change, unafraid.

    ~ Larry Ward

    A friend mentioned Russell Boulding’s Earth Energy Healing work last Thursday and I finally got around to checking his website out. Russell says this of himself: “All of my life I have been inclined towards a left-brain rational approach to thought and action. I have a BA in geology from Antioch College (1970) and an MS in water resources management from the University of Wisconsin/Madison (1975). From 1977 to 2003 I worked as a free-lance environmental consultant, specializing in environmental problems related to coal mining and contamination of soil and ground water.”

    That was before the winds of change blew Boulding beyond his intellect.

    It certainly might be that the human intellect is overrated.

    Machaelle Small Wright’s procedures for gardening with nature spirits blew the winds of change for Russell. You can visit his website to read the amazing details of his life-changing experience after he blurted out without forethought, “I’m ready, take me as far and as fast as you can.” (See: Russell Boulding/Earth Energy Healing.)

    Late in the spring of 2004, a mother robin built her nest in the crook of the downspout just outside our bedroom window. On May 22 of that same year, a 2.5 mile wide F4 tornado tore through Nebraska with its 200 MPH winds of change. The storm damages totaled $160.22 million. Our friends, Roger and Sharon, survived to rebuild their home when their entire town was blown away.

    In the 40 years John and I lived at 4230 Lincoln Avenue, only that once did a robin built a nest in that location.

    When the storm system that had devastated Nebraska raged through Southwest Michigan, John and I watched out our basement window as the wickedly wild winds blew trees near horizontal to the ground. Our beautiful bluff a few miles away was cleared of its majestic mature trees, hundreds of roofs were ripped off area homes, and tens of thousands were left without power for weeks.

    Four baby robins weathered the storm in a secure nest.

    We can be sure it was not “intellect” that guided the mother robin to place her nest in that unusual location.

    Boulding says, “It has been necessary for me to develop my understanding of the larger reality that lies beyond our physical world primarily through intellect rather than through direct experience.”

    Once you know beyond a doubt the source of the winds of change is Divine, like Russell, you and I are able to say, “I’m ready, take me as far and as fast as you can.”

    Daily the world grows smaller, leaving understanding the only place where peace can find a home. ~ Huston Smith, author of The World’s Religions

    P.S. — A core benefit of the Imagine Healing process is the “evidence procedure.” Because you can see something you know is following its natural progression, you can pair up something else with it. Since late yesterday I am watching the progression of healing of a very sore little toe. Healing is natural. As that heals, I am saying to the whatever it was that moved the mother robin, “Take this healing as far and as fast as you can.”


    P.S.S. — Imagine my surprise to see my friend, Dottie, in the photo with Russell Boulding. He had come to Friends Lake Quaker community to give a workshop.

  • Mystical Me

    “Daily the world grows smaller,
    leaving understanding
    the only place where peace can find a home.”
    — Huston Smith

    In 1958, Huston Smith wrote “The Religions of Man”, which has been a standard textbook in college-level comparative religion classes for half a century. In 1991, it was revised and expanded and given the gender-neutral title “The World’s Religions.” The two versions together have sold more than three million copies. I first fell in love with Huston Smith when I saw an interview on TV while I was going through the ordination process to become a Minister of Reunion.

    “It is the most important book in comparative religious studies ever,” Stephen Prothero, a professor of religion at Boston University, said in an interview.

    This morning I was having a conversation with a dear friend. She had been frustrated navigating some computer responsibilities she was finding challenging. Even on our easiest days, our days are filled with news of challenges. I opened my email after hanging up the phone and saw this quotation from a colleague who writes a daily inspiration message:

    “I am grateful for all my problems. After each one was overcome, I became stronger and more able to meet those that were still to come. I grew in all my difficulties.” James Cash Penney, American businessman and entrepreneur; 1875-1971 (from greatest-quotations.com

    I quickly sent my friend a message: “Oh, wow, this opening quotation is so timely! One friend was vacationing in Rome with her husband and now he is hospitalized there…. A colleague just cut the tip of her finger off as she prepares to start a new career as a massage therapist…. My daughter’s father-in-law just lost a toe, a foot, and now a leg to diabetes.”

    My conversation this morning got around to the importance of making a commitment to be kind to ourselves, as we would be with others. The woman who was frustrated with the computer tasks would have been compassionate toward another colleague; the woman who cut herself would not have called her child injured in an accident ‘stupid’; and neither should we hold these attitudes toward ourselves.

    I met Alan Seale in 1997, right after he wrote On Becoming a 21st Century Mystic. I still hear him saying, “In the 21st Century we will become mystics or we will become nothing at all.”

    His was “the first book to fully integrate spiritual awakening with intuitive development, ON BECOMING A 21ST-CENTURY MYSTIC brings together timeless wisdom of ancient traditions with practical spirituality for today. It leads the reader on a very personal journey of spiritual self-discovery – a journey free of dogma or attachment to any particular belief system. A ground-breaking book, it offers clear and practical tools for sacred living, including over 40 exercises and meditations, in-depth chakra exploration, personal stories, and powerful techniques for heightening intuitive skills. ON BECOMING A 21ST-CENTURY MYSTIC is your personal guidebook for spiritual living in the new millennium.”

    My friend asked me why mystical consciousness is an option for common folks now, not just a few masters. Ken Wilber has done an amazing job of helping us recognize the stages of consciousness. He used colors to help us understand the way we think. Information has changed the way we view the world. We see how connected everything is. What we think/say/do affects the whole.

    The mystical me realizes there is no OTHER.

    “And therefore, all of those for whom authentic transformation has deeply unseated their souls must, I believe, wrestle with the profound moral obligation to shout form the heart—perhaps quietly and gently, with tears of reluctance; perhaps with fierce fire and angry wisdom; perhaps with slow and careful analysis; perhaps by unshakable public example—but authentically always and absolutely carries a a demand and duty: you must speak out, to the best of your ability, and shake the spiritual tree, and shine your headlights into the eyes of the complacent. You must let that radical realization rumble through your veins and rattle those around you.

    Alas, if you fail to do so, you are betraying your own authenticity. You are hiding your true estate. You don’t want to upset others because you don’t want to upset your self. You are acting in bad faith, the taste of a bad infinity.

    Because, you see, the alarming fact is that any realization of depth carries a terrible burden: those who are allowed to see are simultaneously saddled with the obligation to communicate that vision in no uncertain terms: that is the bargain. You were allowed to see the truth under the agreement that you would communicate it to others (that is the ultimate meaning of the bodhisattva vow). And therefore, if you have seen, you simply must speak out. Speak out with compassion, or speak out with angry wisdom, or speak out with skillful means, but speak out you must.

    And this is truly a terrible burden, a horrible burden, because in any case there is no room for timidity. The fact that you might be wrong is simply no excuse: You might be right in your communication, and you might be wrong, but that doesn’t matter. What does matter, as Kierkegaard so rudely reminded us, is that only by investing and speaking your vision with passion, can the truth, one way or another, finally penetrate the reluctance of the world. If you are right, or if you are wrong, it is only your passion that will force either to be discovered. It is your duty to promote that discovery—either way—and therefore it is your duty to speak your truth with whatever passion and courage you can find in your heart. You must shout, in whatever way you can.”
    ― Ken Wilber, One Taste