Dear Pneuma,

This project began as a bit of a "message in a bottle."  If you have been getting these letters, I hope they have communicated something with you.  I have turned my attention and intention another direction for a while.  If you get lonely, and want me to drop a line, I would love to hear from you.  Until then, you are in my praying and my dreaming,

Love Always,
Cobalt Dreams

Dear Pneuma,

I seem to be recovering nicely from my soul anemia: thank you.  Unfortunately, I am not back to full health just yet.  Last night, I sat next to a woman so deeply fallen into love that light was blazing from her fingertips, and I found myself pulling away from her.

This morning, asking myself why, the only answer that satisfies is a fear of that blaze.  Really?  Didn't I, myself, blaze in just such a way when I found my Beloved?  Don't I still?  Why should I cringe away from that light in another person?

Soul sickness-a soul recovering from such a twisted and inward focussed energy, it shuns that which is open, embracing and transcendent.  Like an old willow, a soul can grow around a base, seeking relief from pressures and disadvantageous winds, and become twisted and gnarled-wrapped tightly around old wounds, so that the sap, water, nutrients and life cannot flow freely from root to leaf.    That kind of tree might bend away from the sun.  That kind of soul backs away from the light.

I wish for that woman the blaze of love-may she find herself in it.  I wish for myself continued recovery so that my soul recognizes the good and yearns toward it, rather than conservation that shies away.

Asking You,
Cobalt Dreams

Dear Pneuma,

Feelings blossom like the plants outside.  Tomato, oregano, dill, wild bluebells, sunflowers, daylilies, and coriander are all run amok in my garden, blooming wildly different colors, shapes and scents.  No two plants seem to attract the same kinds of bees, and the whole of it glistens and hums like a Liberace tune.

My feelings mimic my garden.  Some spiky, some tall, some small and delicate, others lush and full as the figure of Het Pelskin.

Cobalt Dreams

Dear Pneuma,

I had this thought today: I do not think many of us truly admire success.  If we did, the successful creatures would be our work: starlings, cockroaches, weeds.  Instead, it seems many of us tend in the desire to exert control and power.  We tend the weak, difficult and displaced, not out of a desire that they should succeed, but rather out of a desire that they conform to our notions of design and aesthetics.  Control, not care, guides our gardening.

To be fair, when growing food, and nurturing those things necessary for our life, it is important to protect them from competitors.  We can preference those things in our environment which will enhance our survival.  We cooperate.  Still, in my day to day, I cannot truly comprehend why I work so hard to kill out those that succeed, for the benefit of the grass.  Why lawn instead of dandelion?  Why songbird over cawing competitor?

Taking the thought further, I imagine the lives of women, and I see, perhaps a reason that we try so hard to keep women down.  When I ask myself why we do not include homeless, undereducated and drug-addicted persons in the plans for their salvation, I begin to see a possible answer.  When I wonder why our American society, as a whole, seems so adamant to protect the rarer persons, the already rich and powerful, I think it is that we do not actually enjoy another's success.

I think we like to trim, treat, feed, fertilize and prune into shapes pleasing to us.  I think we joy in creation, because it evidences an ability to influence, mold, change and utilize the world around us.
When life in that world thrives on its own, it needs to be chopped out, hacked up and poisoned out of being.  It obviously does not belong to us.  It is obviously something that does not need our control.  I believe that is a separate question entirely from whether or not it is something that needs our care.

Just thinking some new thoughts.  Do you have any you would share?

Cobalt Dreams

Dear Pneuma,

Release.  Letting go.  Life seems like a long fall.  As I hurtle toward the unknown below, I reach out for vines, and rocks, for promontories and netted connections to slow my fall and end the rush.

Wrapping the roots of old trees around me, I begin to think I have always been what and where I am.  I wake strangling, unable to move.  I realize I was never the root of an old tree.    

Slamming hard to the rock-face surface, I gasp thanks for the stop.  Here, I can breathe, but I have no place to go.  I cannot pace my prison nor reach another hand-hold to climb.  Safe maybe, but not free.

All that keeps me from the fall is fear.  Not-knowing.  Insecurity.  Isolation.  I hate that I so often live out my inner coward.   I have a tendency to believe the worst, but I have the capacity to imagine the best.

The best is that the fall is fun.  The best is that the bottom is not a stone.  The best is the possibility of flight.    Maybe, if I just give myself permission to scream, I can let go of this ledge, and stop trying to twine myself into the same-shaped curtain of vines that has held me before.

Knowing Love,
Cobalt Dreams

Dear Pneuma,

I am in that state of loneliness that leads to self-determination.  I don't understand how it is that other people don't seem to end up here.  It is a state of being where I wait for my inner self to spur me in some direction. The voices of others, duties, obligations, even enthusiasms don't carry any weight here.  Surrounded by oughts, shoulds and needs, my body/mind refuses to move.

This is a place of anticipation.  I have an expectation that when I do move, it will be toward something wonderful.  Yet, I am also impatient.  My conscience would rest easier if I could just stay busy during this waiting time-plant that garden, or finish that big project at work.  If I knew I was accomplishing something-completing or contributing- but all my energy is inward focussed, and I have nothing extra except the desire to sit in my yard and be.

In this state, I know myself as separate from everyone else.  I, being fully in myself, realize that hardly anyone actually sees me.  They see reflections of their desires and frustrations, lived out through my actions and inactions.  There is judgment of motive and worth based on something outside my control and actual participation.

This is both glorious and tragic.  I suddenly have deep ideas I wish to communicate and deep feelings I wish to share, but I haven't found people that understand.  There is intellectual engagement without commitment, and there is touching without tears.  As people respond differently from my expectations, I fear speaking.  I have an urge to pull away and shut up.  Showing my true face and having people look past it hurts.

As I said, this is a place of loneliness.  Yet, it is a good place for me to be.  Real stuff is born here.  This is where I learned God.  This is where I learned Love.  This is where I learned Connection in its deepest roots.  This is where I learned that all that is born in my life is decided by me.

Love, Guilt, Purpose: I cannot look outside myself for these things.   They don't come from anyone else.  They come from inside.  They come from that place in the core of me that I cannot fathom or know, that place beneath words that cannot be moved, and which arguments cannot sway.  They come from something outside any concept of self that can be conditioned, trained or therapied into reason.

I believe that is the place where God resides, and the motives that are born there are God motives.  Still, through some process I don't understand, the world teaches me to ignore that inner motive, to distrust and push it aside for more practical considerations.  The imagery of the outside presses itself against me.  It shapes and molds my expressions.  It squeezes and contains my being.  It tries to exert itself as truth, and I am left naked in myself, to choose one set of motives over the other.

Naked, insecure and alone.  Lonely.

Knowing everything is going to be all right,
Cobalt Dreams.

Dear Pneuma,

It's love.  

I recently heard a sermon in which the well-meaning speaker suggested that love, in marriage relationships, fades, and only commitment and trust remain.  I wondered what was meant by the word love.  

I recently read a book titled The Art of Loving by Erich Fromm.  The author claimed that love is a discipline that must be practiced, conditioned and constantly applied.  I wondered how all of that activity left room for love to be received. 

I recently attended worship at a church with the words God Is Love painted on its sanctuary wall.  The congregation confessed its vileness and worthlessness to this love.  Then it left that sanctuary to share something with the world outside.  I couldn't help but wonder what that would be.

An anarchist suggests resistance to the status quo by daring to love.  A Jesus freak says love the sick, despairing, ulcer-ridden masses.  A professor suggests there is no such thing as love.  The Beatles say, "all we need is love."  Despots tremble in fear when love has come to reign.

In these ideas, it seems to me that love is quixotic, faithful, elusive, powerful, and free.  Therefore, we fear it.  We try to control it by using it for our own satisfactions.  We try to tame it by picking apart its limbs and organs.  We try to contain it, by limiting its bounds.  We try to own it by claiming it a product of our achievement.  We try to deny it by dressing it poorly, and refusing its advances.  We try to kill it by burying it deep. 

Yet, each of these techniques ends up disproving itself over and against love.  Fulfilling our own satisfactions soon causes dissatisfaction.  Love's components don't seem to add up to an easy universal.  Lovers continually cross borders.  Our achievements are rewarded handsomely by all that the world gives, but love is not there.  Buried love just calls and calls to us, pulsing and aching, a constant reminder that there is a vacuum within.

I think we do not like to be smaller than anything else.  We like the things we build.  We like the worlds we control.  We like predictably patterned days with obvious rules and expectations. 

We fear the landslide.  We fear the muscle-bound other.  We fear a reality that suggests we are not all that matters.  Yet, the mountain crushes us without feeling.  Death defeats us without our consent.  Life refuses to follow our directions.  

And then there is love-it crushes us with feeling.  It defeats us only with our consent. It changes our minds about where we want to go.  Love is bigger than the mountain.  Love is strong as death.  Love rides the currents of life.  We don't like to believe that anything is bigger, stronger or more adept than we.  Yet, to crush the mountain, to flip the bird at death, to dance the unknown paths of life, we must surrender first to that which is greater than them all.  

Ruminating,

Cobalt Dreams

Dear Pneuma,

I am perplexed.  Do we as humans desire completeness or oblivion?  Do we yearn to connect to other, or do we yearn lose sense of self?  Do we want to know the why of our beginning, or the what of our ending?  Is there a system which supplies all of these answers?  Is it answer we seek, or the joy of question?

I'd love to know your thoughts,
Cobalt Dreams

Dear Pneuma,

Ideas are born into human brains.  Then, the human chooses to share, create or discard the idea.  Ideas become experiential reality when the necessary resources are brought together and arranged in particular ways outside of the human brain.

So, the idea has first to be thought, then to be understood so as to be either shared with others or deconstructed into component pieces, and then (re)constructed in experiential reality.

What is the best way for human beings to organize themselves so that ideas can be brought into experiential reality?  Some of us are very good at birthing ideas.  Some of us are very good at communicating.  Some of us are very good at breaking large things into small things.  Some of us are very good at putting small things together and making big things.  Some of us are very good at perceiving the potential value of created ideas.  Some of us are very good at perceiving the potential harm of created ideas.

It seems that a quality of leadership is the ability to facilitate the growth and creation of ideas, by aiding in the organization of resources.  It seems that a quality of leadership is the ability to weigh benefits and consequences for the creation of ideas.  It seems that a quality of leadership is the ability to communicate ideas from one human brain to other human brains.

What happens to us when we believe each individual is responsible for each part of the realization of ideas: from birthing the ideas to gluing the pieces together?   What are various methods of organizing people so that strengths and weaknesses in the various aspects of idea realization can be accommodated?

Just pondering,
Cobalt Dreams

Dear Pneuma,

In the movies, the hero often defeats fear by killing it.  Rage takes over and he destroys the vile, putrescent thing utterly.  In the movie Pan's Labyrinth, the heroine resists evil by loving herself and others, and though it kills her, she is transformed, as is the world around her, into something more vital, more alive.

As I read articles online, watch the morning news, and listen to the pundits, fundits and ondits, I pick up fear and rage.  I pick up distrust and posturing.  I pick up hopelessness and defeatism.  People are wearing spikes and spitting daggers at one another.  I hear imagery of rape and destruction being used as a release valve for the frustrations and impotencies people are experiencing.  People shout names and hang slogans on one another-as though the playground rules society.

In their fear of drowning, my neighbors try to out-scream one another for rescue, while never once testing the depth of the water.  Voiceless people, tired of living in shame and defilement, find comfort and solace in the idea that death is the greatest equalizer in world, and as they step wired onto trains and busses, nothing seems to be telling them anything different.

After that movie where the hero/ine minces evil into tiny pieces, there is always a sequel: some part of the monster always survives to wreak havoc on the future.  After that movie where resistance to dehumanization transforms the hero/ine, there is only peace, and the future is an open sky.

Christ in you claims transformation over domination.  Christ in you claims belief in the ground over the depth of waters.  Christ in you knows that liberation from captivity can transform this time.  

Christ in us impels a response.  Christ in us says redeem the shamed, love the defiled, comfort those who mourn.   Christ in us says walk out the open door.  Christ in us says tomorrow is the better day.  Christ in us says we are not alone.  Christ in us says we are each others'.  Christ in us says act in trust.  Christ in us says choose relationship with our neighbors over possession of our own fields.  Christ in us says be willing to die thus-knowing that is how we live.

Dear Pneuma,

The world revealed as greedy hands, pulling, reaching, needing, grabbing.  People seen as believing they own me and the gifts I bring.  Cool Hand Luke screaming "stop feeding off me," Ted Neeley in the midst of wailing lepers, overwhelmed by not enough me, too much everyone else.


Is there a difference between pouring out my cup and being drained dry, or are they the same?  To whom am I slave?  From which am I free?  If I live for others is there still space for me, or can I even live for others until I lose myself completely?  


What solution do I want to this?  Approbation?  Acknowledgement?  Reverence?  Pride is the most frightening thing to lose.  Shame the hardest gaze to face.  I fear losing self more than I yearn for emancipation.


Yet how else to live free?  Free from the tongue lashes of why haven't you yet served me, and I know you have time coming, but I need you now.  Free to know my offering is perfect as it is, to resist the image of never good enough, to live accepting less of myself?  To live the life I've been given believing I am using it as intended? 


What is the answer in the symbol Christ?


It is through death with no fear.  It is surrender, immersion, completion.   It is to life, "Into your hands I commend myself."  It is to others, "Make me."  It is to self, "I love and trust you."  It is to Beloved, "I shall love as I am loved."  It is believing God is only ever Good.    


Asking for Faith,
Cobalt Dreams

Dear Pneuma,

In the movies, the hero often defeats fear by killing it.  Rage takes over and he destroys the vile, putrescent thing utterly.  In the movie Pan's Labyrinth, the heroine resists evil by loving herself and others, and though it kills her, she is transformed, as is the world around her, into something more vital, more alive.

As I read articles online, watch the morning news, and listen to the pundits, fundits and ondits, I pick up fear and rage.  I pick up distrust and posturing.  I pick up hopelessness and defeatism.  People are wearing spikes and spitting daggers at one another.  I hear imagery of rape and destruction being used as a release valve for the frustrations and impotencies people are experiencing.  People shout names and hang slogans on one another-as though the playground rules society.

In their fear of drowning, my neighbors try to out-scream one another for rescue, while never once testing the depth of the water.  Voiceless people, tired of living in shame and defilement, find comfort and solace in the idea that death is the greatest equalizer in world, and as they step wired onto trains and busses, nothing seems to be telling them anything different.

After that movie where the hero/ine minces evil into tiny pieces, there is always a sequel: some part of the monster always survives to wreak havoc on the future.  After that movie where resistance to dehumanization transforms the hero/ine, there is only peace, and the future is an open sky.

Christ in you claims transformation over domination.  Christ in you claims belief in the ground over the depth of waters.  Christ in you knows that liberation from captivity can transform this time.

Christ in us impels a response.  Christ in us says redeem the shamed, love the defiled, comfort those who mourn.   Christ in us says walk out the open door.  Christ in us says tomorrow is the better day.  Christ in us says we are not alone.  Christ in us says we are each others'.  Christ in us says act in trust.  Christ in us says choose relationship with our neighbors over possession of our own fields.  Christ in us says be willing to die thus-knowing that is how we live.

Claiming Christ,
Cobalt Dreams

Dear Pneuma,

What is it about my nature that I continue to enslave myself to others' expectations?  Be concrete: I go to work and I succeed there, but at the goals others are setting.  I adjust my methods and conform my time in response to co-workers' distresses, client's hopes and the system's habits of operation. 

Today, I stop to ponder my own hopes, distresses and habits, and I cannot seem to name them.  "To have people like and admire me" seems to be a phony and fear-based motivation for action. 

Self-help ideology suggests only the goals I find from myself are valid.  Christianity suggests that only Christ's goals are valid.  I am conflicted between "live and die for others," and "live and die for Christ."  I am conflicted between "reject the ways of the world," and "change the world," between "be the change you want to see," and "deny yourself and follow."

How do you respond to this conflict?

Seeking to Transcend,
Cobalt Dreams

Dear Pneuma,

I think I am mine.  I live as though I gave life to myself.  I continue to make choices to protect and promote "me," as though I need some sort of manager or advertising executive in charge in order to exist.

Here are some things I want:
As the song says: "To keep my heart wide open. To love and have no fear."
To feel peace and satisfaction.
To live a purposed life connected to other people.
To explore my potential abilities.
To make choices from my character.
To trust myself.

Here are some other things I want:
Status in my social group
To be admired by many
To have a major impact on world events
To be physically strong, resilient and inexhaustible
To be removed from messy emotions, unsuccessful projects and people who cannot think as fast as I
To be self-sufficient

Yet, under and around each of these things is a smallness.  They aren't very imaginative.  They don't include any number of experiences, opportunities, and realities.  They are narrow, individually focussed ideas.  The achievement of none of them will even touch the purpose of life itself.

In the context of Life, there are an eternity of lives.  There is an infinity of life-forms.  All lives become significant in their impact, and each life becomes insignificant in its individual intents and desires.

Something I believe: God doesn't lose sleep about the "me" I create (the clothes I wear, the people with whom I sleep, the promises to which I live up, the debts I leave unpaid).  God is concerned with the "me" I am.  That which is my sum total.  That which I was at the beginning and will be when I am no more.  God knows what that is and intends it for some reason absolutely beyond anything "I" want.  Something else I believe: God is good, and that which God intends for my being is better than anything I can imagine for myself.

That is the only "I" and it is joined by all the other "I's" of existence and the amoeba bears as much guilt and glory as the human being.  Which brings me back to my wants and my desires.  Which brings me back to that place where my desire to "be good" outwits my ability to believe I am exactly as God would have me be.  It brings me back to the place where I feel I am entitled to simplicity and ease just because I followed the appropriate diet, spoke the polished words, crossed all "t's" and tried to be kind.

God is not a set of superstitions and rituals.  God is not the buffer between me and what is.  God is not an escape from the times.  God is not hibernation for broken hearts, shattered dreams, and human chaos.

Instead, God is the language with which I name myself and what is, extended backwards to the beginning of all things, extending forward beyond time.  If I can learn how to sing in that language,  maybe some of those things I want will happen or disappear.

Practicing,
Cobalt Dreams

Dear Pneuma,

Lost in angry.  Lost in empty.  Lost in control.  Exert power?  Back off?  Allow them the freedom of choice, even when I know the choice they made is not better for them?  Convince?  Cajole?  Accept?  

The only way is forward.  

Take Care,

Dear Pneuma,

Suffering has been on my mind.  Doubt has been in my spirit.  Anger has been in my heart.  I suffer the illnesses of entitlement.  I am ashamed.

In the endless eternal ocean of life and lives, I am very small.  When I go down to die, billions of people will never know that I lived.  Space will swallow whatever ripples my physicality caused.  My loves and hates, my failures and successes, my born-ing and my dying will diffuse and dissipate in the currents of time.

Truth.

Yet, what did I do to deserve life in the first place?  What am I that I was given such a gift as this: a being for living, for breathing, for loving, for hating, for helping, for hurting, for hoping, for caring, for losing, for dying?  Was I accidental, or was I inevitable?  

I live.  Why then do I cry for the bumps and scratches?

I breathe.  Why then do I fear loss and consequence?

I trust.  What is eternal in my material prosperity?

I hope.  What is eternal in my poverty?

I try. What is eternal in my triumph?

I change. What is eternal in my fall?

To be human is to drink the full cup of suffering and death, but to be human is also to share bread and drink the full cup of life.  If I choose to refuse the one cup, I refuse the other.

I am ashamed that I often choose my own voice of wanting over the counsel of peace.  May I remember whose I am.

Contrite,
Cobalt Dreams

Dear Pneuma,

Let me just say that I love the Old Testament.  There are so many challenges in it for us complacent modern Christians.  The joy of having been a staunch agnostic is that I have always thought the Bible was full of craziness, so its craziness doesn't challenge my belief.  I believe in God despite the Bible, rather than because of the Bible-and I mean your standard King James, New Standard Revised Version,  or New International Version of Bible, just to clarify.  

Sometimes, I feel a bit sorry for those I know have always been Christians and whose belief systems are founded in the Scripture and Tradition of their childhood.  They often seem to have the difficult task of trying to make the "God They Know," fit the description of the "God They Were Taught."  Because I spent a great deal of my youth daring God to strike me dead with bolts of lightening, I don't really fear to challenge the ideas and images of Christianity.  If Christ proves false, Christ is not the Christ.  If God proves Not God, then I have nothing to fear.

I know God, but I do not understand God.  I know Christ, but I do not understand the Christ.  I find the Bible, religious discourse, church activity, and active participation in spiritual disciplines such as prayer, sacrifice and self-control strengthen my relationship with God and the Christ.

Nevertheless, when I confront Bible verses that claim exposing a woman to gang-rape, bodily mutilation and incitement to war are correct actions [Judges 19-20], I don't have to hold on to the "inerrancy" of the Bible.  I can require that the Bible prove itself to me.  I can require that the Bible prove itself worthy of God, and if it doesn't, I know which of the two has my vote.

Anyway, just some thoughts I have this Monday morning

Yours in Peace and Joy,
Cobalt Dreams

Dear Pneuma,

What do you want from me?

Cobalt Dreams

Dear Pneuma,

Today has produced a great deal of anxiety.  I decide to let anxiety flow through me.  I  choose not to respond.  I will restraint from acting.  I sit still with it, and know it is wrong about the sure outcomes.  Anxiety produces no peace.  Worry does not lead to well-being.  Control is not a practice of compassion.

I ask for peace in my coworkers' hearts.
I ask for well-being in the houses of my friends.
I ask for compassion in my conversations.

Joy and Peace on You,
Cobalt Dreams

  

Dear Pneuma,

I intended a rant today, but I find I cannot. I asked for some help, and I got it. A little book called The Color Code helped me communicate some needs, and I was finally able to put words to a restlessness and discord that has been messing with my inner ear. Last, the All Wise finally spoke up and gave me an indication of where I can best serve. So, no rant. All is very well today. Here are the things I did that released the log jam:

1. Admitted I was having problems with depression, anxiety and anger-management.

2. Admitted weakness to the Divine and asked for help; I submitted myself to the "will" of the All Wise.

3. Took a risk and named a source of my dissatisfaction: my relationship with My Beloved.

4. Let My Beloved know I was having problems

a. I shared the rationale for some of my behaviors and took responsibility for them

b. I had faith that (believed that) My Beloved would hear me.

5. Went to the library and checked out 6 different books on subjects related to (in my case) relationships and life change.

6. Read the books, and shared relevant bits with My Beloved.

a. This was true sharing, which means I stayed open to My Beloved's concerns and

b. Committed to change my actions and attitudes where necessary

c. My Beloved heard my concerns and

d. Committed to change actions and attitudes where necessary

7. Chose to believe that certain "coincidences" over the last week add up to a very strong message to take a very simple action in service to the All Wise.

So there it is: my formula for dissolving clogs and getting life juice to flow.

Peace and Joy be yours,

Cobalt Dreams

Dear Pneuma,

I just read an interesting suggestion for figuring out "what I want to be when I grow up." Write my obituary. The suggestion is to write down what I want people to remember and know about me as a way to get in touch with what really matters to me. I think I will try it. I will let you know how it turns out.

Yours,

Cobalt Dreams

P.S. This note is just fair warning so you won't freak out that I may be suicidal or something if I send you "My Obituary." I know you worry.