I received a message during Quaker Meeting for Worship today. About 20 minutes into the Meeting, a door opened and someone walked in late and, in my mind, I heard “Radical consistency.” I sat with that phrase for another 10 minutes and then thought, “That’s what I’m moving towards.”

It’s not about white knuckling. It’s about noticing a door open and surrendering to what Deeper Wisdom, Inner Light, Creative Force really wants for me. Radical consistency is about when and how I wake up, walk the dog, meditate, cook, sit for meals, and how I am in relationship to my self, others, and Basic Goodness. 

After the Meeting, a Friend approached me and said that her Bhuddist teacher would call “radical consistency” Nibbana (Nirvana in Sanskrit). My understanding of Nibbana is freedom. Yes! For me, radical consistency is freedom.

This evening, my sponsor said to me, “I was trying to think how that might translate into other traditions, and found it interesting that your Buddhist friend so readily saw the transcendental meaning in it. A door opens … who knows what it brings. Maybe the prophet is coming to sit at the table, since you laid a place for him… I am considering the concept of order in our Recovery life. Not just weighing and measuring our food, but allowing ourselves to be aligned with the benign order that weighing and measuring represents. Maybe it is a matter of alignment – surrender, if you will – just removing resistance. In tai chi class, we learn to just let go and find our balance with every movement. No exertion, just ‘going with the flow.’ As a martial art, it means letting the other forces coming at you do their thing as you effortlessly let them lose their balance. Well, something like that.”

Yes, something like that.

Love & Light,

Valerie

Photo: From a visit today to Schleppinghurst, a Japanese Zen garden in Lincolnville, Maine.