Friday, January 25, 2019
SELF III
FRIENDS,
THIS IS THE LAST OF OUR
THREE PART SERIES ON
SELF.
PARTS I and II
ARE AVAILABLE
BY SCROLLING DOWN HERE
OR
AT BLOG ARCHIVE
TO THE RIGHT
( online posting ).
*****
Hi There !
So, "Smores" on
Self.
This time round,
let's see if we can
put some flesh on the
conceptional bones of
TRUE SELF
FALSE SELF.
What's it like out here
on the street of everyday life
to embrace and live out our
True Self
and do that with delight?
- It takes clear thinking
and gutsy freedom.
- It often calls us
to be counter cultural.
- It takes regular
reality checks.
- They depend on
naked openness to God
and being energized by
The Spirit of Truth.
- Being based in a
truly spiritual community
for sharing and support
is a tremendous help.
- So, too, is having
a seasoned, spiritual
Spiritual Director -
great care is
imperative here -
many so called
spiritual directors
get minimal training
and are credentialed by
less than sound sources
- Savoring Sacred Texts
- Prayer and meditation
- Living from the inside out
is essential.
- Otherwise we fall
into the foul of the
False Self,
we are wasted
and we waste
our endowments,
the gifts meant
to be shared .
- In prayerful reflection
The Spirit shows you
to yourself
and gets you,
not down right, but
" up right"
excited to be you
and about having
treasures to share.
- Let God happen in you
the way God wants
to do that.
- Get "juiced" by
the electricity of divinity
flowing through you,
and that through
your one of a kind circuitry.
- Get really turned on
by turning over
to others the gifts
God gives you
to give away.
Living out our
True Self
takes things like:
- being pleased with and
proud of your body,
being comfortable
in your own skin,
whatever your body type,
toning and coloration,
being tall, short,
of medium height,
being slender, full figure,
any wonderful sizing,
having lots of hair
or hardly hair,
very muscular or
just muscular enough
to move and
on a good day be able
to make a cake,
- to relish your body
as the unique
Temple of the Holy Spirit
that you are,
- to give your body the chance
to be and do what it is,
not what social pressure dictates
( as in "dictator" ),
e.g. diets, weights, abs,
tattoos or not, rushing 24/7,etc.
- to share your body as appropriate
in real relationships
and genuine love,
one way at work,
another with a child,
another with a neighbor,
yet another with your life partner,
- to use your physical powers
in the service of people and nature
- tending a garden,
- working a part time job
after your full time one
to help get your child
through college,
- serving at a homeless shelter
- staying up all night
with a sick relative or friend,
- volunteering at
an animal reserve.
- whatever your intellectual
and artistic endowments,
function on all eight cylinders,
- being curious - notice, appreciate,
be inventive and creative,
share and serve:
- keep the team's score at
a baseball game,
- write poetry,
- be a leader in government,
- further the work
of Stephen Hawking
and go beyond his
limited understanding of God
with a full, zesty sense that
Being, Existence, Reality, Goodness
are coded as "God."
- show Shakespeare
how to write a play,
- be fully applied at work,
- sing barbershop.
Whatever your endowments and talents
let them be treasures of creativity
generously shared.
Whatever your
temperament/personality,
be true to it it.
It is the channel
through which your spirit
flows and communicates.
To violate it under social
or other pressure
will thwart your way of being
and your way of being with others.
The American culture is noisy
and highly interactive.
Extroversion predominates.
Introverts need
a power plant of courage
to be true to their unique
God given manner
of socializing/relating.
To cave to
cultural preference and pressure
causes an unnaturalness that drags
an introvert into
the lie of a False Self.
It would be like
trying to fly a plane
through a railroad tunnel -
crash and chaos.
I know of what I speak here.
On the Myers Briggs
Personality Profile
I am an INFJ,
and each to the extreme.
We INFJ's account for
a whopping one percent
of the population,
a real minority.
It's taken a lot of
gutsy courage
TO THINE OWN SELF
BE TRUE
for me!!
In the spiritual realm there are
"a variety of gifts...
services...activities "
I Corinthians 12:4-6.
One size does not fit all.
For me that means
connecting God and people
through preaching, pastoring,
teaching, spiritual direction,
writing.
Could have made
a lot of money otherwise,
but it just didn't add up.
How about you?
What are your gifts of soul?
A good help here is the free, online:
Spiritual Gifts Assessment -
The United Methodist Church.
PONDERABLES:
"You do you."
*****
"Your time is limited,
so don't waste it living
someone else's life."
Steve Jobs
*****
"Here is where
our real selfhood
is rooted,
in the divine spark or seed,
in the image of God
imprinted on the human soul.
The True Self
is not our creation,
but God's.
It is the self
we are in our depths.
It is our capacity for
divinity and transcendence,"
Sue Monk Kidd
"Each mortal thing does
one thing and the same;/
Selves-
goes itself;
myself it speaks and spells,/
Crying what I do is me:
for that I came."
Gerard Manley Hopkins
"As Kingfishers Catch Fire"
Here's to you,
the real you,
your
True Self.
In God's Dear Love
John Frank
*****
It would be greatly appreciated
if you would share word about
"frankly speaking"
spirituality for the street
with family, friends, associates
in person
and through
your preferred social media.
Thanks!!
New folks have recently joined in
with us from The Seychelles
and the United States.
Welcome !
Thanks for the gift of your company.
" frankly speaking "
spirituality for the street
is
- posted each Friday online at
johnfrankshares.blogspot.com
(easily bookmarked for ready access )
- available for automatic email delivery
each Saturday. Sign up at
the top right of the online version
-Past Postings available at
BLOG ARCHIVE,
available at online version
THANK YOU !
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