What would you say is happiness?  Is it just getting our way?  Is it being able to buy anything to which we are attracted?  Is it not having to work?  I would posit that happiness is a certain contentment with one’s life which is dependent upon an acceptance of where we are right now.  This does not imply passivity or the lack of a dream for one’s life or of having nothing left to accomplish.  It means being at peace with where you are right now no matter where that is or how you got there.

The fact is that happiness is not exterior to the self or dependent upon circumstances.  It is not a commodity to purchase in a store or online.  Happiness is found within the self, within the heart.  Happiness is an orientation of the heart.  An interviewer once made the comment to the blind Helen Keller, “Ms. Keller, it must be hard being blind.”  Her response was a revelation: “It would be if I had no Vision because we really see with our hearts.”

The key to Ms. Keller’s wisdom was having accepted that her eyes did not work as they should and not wasting time railing against the sight that she lacked, but instead to determinedly grow in happiness with what she had.  What she shows us is that happiness is a choice.  Happiness is based upon acceptance of where we are even when there is further to go, of how we are even when there is further to grow and of who we are even when there is more to know.  Did you choose to be happy today?

Kahuna-pule Kimo

I don’t pretend to be engaged in all possible artistic expressions.  I am keenly aware of areas in which I have no experience.  In fact I sometimes venture into those areas in order to give myself a bit of technical experience as well as to just see what will happen!  My involvement with the artwork and art process is an involvement with the discovery of what wants to be, of what wants to come out, of finding out what is poised on the edge of coming into being!  Over time I have found that I most like artistic processes which involve the loss of a certain degree of control, processes which involve co-operating with the element of chance as a piece is coming into being!

An example of this would be my “Poured Paintings” which actually involve pouring diluted paint onto the canvas, manipulating the canvas and the paint and then at some point “freezing” the pour through the use of a hair dryer.  The excitement that I feel as colors blend and flow is beyond anything that my words can describe!  It is an intense moment of feeling incredibly alive and present to the moment!  At the end of such a process the finished piece is much more than what my limited vision might have had in mind for it when I began!

We need to develop the willingness to step outside the boundaries that we erect in our life… art-wise and otherwise.  On January 29^th, 1989 when an editor-friend asked me to do some artwork for her magazine I experienced a crucial moment of terror!  My first impulse was hearing an interior voice saying, “But I’m not a professional artist, I can’t do that kind of work, I’ve never had the training!”  Immediately upon the heels of this came another voice asking, “How do you know?  Are you still a 16-year-old in high school art class?  Why not try it and see what your newly-birthed 40-year-old self can do?”  To my astonishment within mere months that assignment lead to a gallery show, covers for a few publications, entering national competitions and receiving awards!  Now 23 years later I no longer tell myself what I can’t do in either art or life, but automatically ask myself, “Why not?”  Try it!  You too might come to like it!

Kahuna-pule Kimo

Because I deal with relationships as a spiritual counselor I am often searching for the influences which affect how we deal with one another.  One of those influences is that we live in a “disposable society.” When we are done with something then we throw it away and simply buy another to replace it.  Such a mindset does not foster finding reasons for holding onto something.  With such a disposable mindset when we are aggravated with someone we are tempted to simply get rid of them as well!  A hallmark of our disposable culture is that of convenience, of being able to replace one object with another with relative ease.  Being involved in counseling people I often see this insidious “disposal/convenience” mindset manifesting itself as a source of conflict in relationships, especially as the relationship moves into the more mature requirement of faithfulness to the other person.

When a relationship begins it can feel as if our past life has been erased or forgiven.  We cherish the person who has brought such a miracle of mercy!  We sometimes confuse our inner emotional needs with love leading us to “fall in love” not with the other person but with who we want them to be.    When infatuation, like an early-morning fog, burns off a couple is often ambushed by strange feelings about their beloved as faithful- ness in their relationship demands that they embrace inconveniences.  Where previously no task was too great to perform for the other, now requests from the other seem to be increasingly unreasonable.  When one’s response becomes “Whatever” then the relationship comes to a fork in the road. Will they choose another road together?  Will each choose a separate road?  Will “disposability” win out?  Will “Whatever” be the rock upon which the relationship wrecks?

Kahuna-pule Kimo

What inner dynamics drive the way in which we are living out our life?  We have all had the suspicion that something is amiss in our inner life and yet been unable to figure out what the complicating factor is.  Perhaps the flavor of our life has to do with the way in which we deal with what life presents to us.  Procrastination is a good example.  Something feels too difficult, so we put off dealing with the difficulty by saying that we will get to it tomorrow.  The problem is that when tomorrow comes what was difficult yesterday is still difficult today.  So we put it off again.  Eventually we fear our tomorrows knowing that they too will feel too difficult for us to address.

Perhaps we crave stability and yet yearn to break free of a smothering sameness.  We instinctively know that there is more for us to be and to become.  At the same time we wax romantic about the past and how wonderful it was… how much more wonderful it was than today is.  How much time do we spend in looking backwards instead of facing what is in front of us?  Perhaps we sometimes wonder what the world will be like without us in it?  Will we be missed?  Will life, for those living it, be somehow less life-filled because of our absence from it?  Are we actually present today or do we fantasize about being anywhere else but here?  Are we thriving or just making do?  Does the way in which we live enable us grow or does our life feel as if we’re just treading water?

Kahuna-pule Kimo

How like the tiger we sometimes are!  There is a song which says, “You always hurt the one you love.”  Sometimes we don’t fully see or understand how we have hurt or neglected the one we love until they’ve died.  When we pick up the phone to call them then we realize where they are AT&T is of no help!  You become painfully aware of things that you meant to say and of things that you wish you hadn’t said.  The loss of them can cause our emotions to bounce around like a pinball machine gone berserk, leaving us confused.

I remember saying to someone that I was afraid to love them as much as I did because then I would miss them when they were gone.  And it has now come true.  My friend’s response was, “You can’t truly be alive without loving, even knowing that one day you will lose the one you love.  When that loss occurs, you take that relationship and invest it in another person.”  Such advice can be difficult to remember when in the midst of profound loss.  What has helped me has been to remind myself that I loved as best I could at that time.  Today I will love better.  I will remember and reinvest what I learned about love into someone else.  Lord knows, there are plenty of people around needing some love!

Kahuna-pule Kimo

We all seek to be known, to be seen.  And yet at the same time we fear the vulnerability involved in this.  Will they accept who they come to see?  Will they reject me if they know me too well, and what would that rejection do to me?  To safeguard our hearts we should approach intimacy carefully and not casually.  Intimacy allows another into the depths of our inner self.  Intimacy is not possible without vulnerability.  Sex that is no more than the physical coupling between two beings does not enable intimacy.

Can we have sex and not pay a price?  Without using sex as the door to a deeper intimacy, indiscriminate sex can actually harden the heart and prevent us from actually loving.  When we do not engage in loving others we experience an existential aloneness that no amount of coupling can fill.  How ironic that the impulse given to help draw us to one another, if misused, can close us off from the very intimacy for which we yearn!  It is possible to have sex without being at all vulnerable, like two animals that couple and then each go their own way.  After all, “It’s just sex! What’s the big deal?”

Kahuna-pule Kimo

So how can we go about exploring our heart’s interior terrain?  To greater or lesser degrees some solitude is required.  Unfortunately we live in a culture which works to make solitude in our daily life unattainable! Endless music in stores, buildings with hundreds of people and a fast-paced life that doesn’t allow for just stopping. If we are honest with ourselves we will also admit that solitude frightens us, that we view it as an “absence”.  The fact is that solitude is a presence, it is where we meet ourselves and can hear our hearts murmuring and become acquainted with its desires… both good and not so good!

We are sometimes betrayed and kidnapped by the things our heart wants and by the actions that are born out of that wanting like rage, jealousy, lashing-out, tantrums and “just kidding”.  We are often stunned by what pours out of our inner life so it is no wonder we avoid looking too closely at it in solitude.  But what is in the heart will leak out one way or another so perhaps our “just kidding” moments indicate something more important than is at first apparent… something that we need to investigate?

Kahuna-pule Kimo

It is all too possible to engage in religious practices and yet remain unchanged by those practices, as if the simple performance of the rites and rituals will automatically turn us into being “holy.”  Well, it doesn’t work that way!  Holiness is not about walking on water, levitating or foretelling someone’s future. Holiness is about wholeness, about struggling to unite our inner and outer lives and to come into harmony with spiritual and Divine realties.  The struggle for holiness demands that we come to know and admit to our heart’s secret thoughts, as well as fostering a willingness to unflinchingly look at how our living reflects and expresses whatever desires feed and lock us into our isolated self-centeredness.

The problem that I have with religious evangelism is that for the Evangelizer the emphasis is on changing the other into how we think they should be.  Rather than going door-to-door trying to sell religion on behalf of the Divine, promoting on Facebook how good their life will be if they will come to such-and-such church, or how bad Hell will be unless they change their behaviors immediately, how about if we expend that energy on taking stock of our own inner life and work to address our selfish self-centeredness?  How about if when a videotape, an apple or life shocks us that instead we investigate what that shock says to us about ourselves?

Kahuna-pule Kimo

“…can’t you just for once put the cap back on?…”

“…why are there cat hairs in my coffee?…”

“…when did we order that? WHY did we order that?…”

“…you put WHAT in it?…”

“…HOW much?!…”

“…how could you think that?…”

“…surprised?!…”

“…your mother was right!…”

“…a ferret. Yes, that’s what I said. A ferret!…”

“…you must be mistaken…OW!…”

“…because he knows she doesn’t read his Facebook page…”

“…do WHAT?!…”

“…When? I asked you WHEN?!…”

“…so he buys this gigantor plunger and…”

“…you do what with it? Oh no you’re not!…”

“…and when we found her it was too late…”

“…and then, panting like a dog, he said…”

“…where? When? Why? No!…”

“…well who cares! Who’s to know?…”

“…damn it, I said I didn’t!…”

“…where do keys go when you flush them?…”

“…of course you can add jellybeans but…”

Kahuna-pule Kimo

A Westernized, non-Hawaiian way of thinking presumes that the pursuit of a serious relationship with the Divine requires a withdrawal from people.  This approach views contact with others as an interference with our relationship with the Divine.  The Hawaiian approach goes in the opposite direction!  To meet the Divine we must look more deeply into the world, into the ʻāina (the land) and into other people.  In our relationships the real difficulty is never others but the mistaken way in which we view others, especially our tendency to make “me” the focus in our relationships.

We project our fantasies about the Divine, viewing it as judge, friend, parent, or enemy… thereby viewing the Divine solely from our me-centered end of the relationship.  The reality of the Divine is one to be encountered on its own terms, not ours.  The most profound problems in our relationships arise out of our projection onto others that they are to fulfill “my” needs! This is not love but a way of using others.  We can understand others the most when we are not being driven to possess them like a commodity or to use them to meet our needs.  How to change this?  Sit.  Listen.  Be.  The Divine and others are always speaking to us.  In order to hear them the time is now we have to stop projecting.

Kahuna-pule Kimo

Someone we love dies.

Unfortunately if we are accustomed to making decisions according to our feelings we can find it difficult to do something positive when we don’t feel like doing it.  If this has been our usual way of making decisions, pain by definition cannot possibly “feel” good… can come to feel like a maze out of which we cannot seem to find our way.  What to do?  A long time ago I learned that when I felt depressed I also tended to wander into being immobilized by that feeling.  I don’t remember how it happened but I eventually stumbled upon a way to deal with my depression in-specific and pain in-general: stop focusing upon myself and my feelings and go out and deliberately do something for someone!  I found that by embracing the asceticism of inconveniencing myself on behalf of someone else I slowly forgot about my own misery!

What do I mean by inconveniencing myself?  I don’t feel like doing anything and yet I make myself go food shopping for a shut-in.  Go work in a food kitchen for the homeless.  Go drive someone somewhere who doesn’t have a car.  In short, GO!  The secret is to stop idolizing our own pain!  I know this is easy to say and not so easy to do especially when we are enrobed in pain.  And yet we need to remember that it is all too possible to become addicted to being miserable!  Some people are never so happy as when they are making themselves  and others  miserable, which doesn’t sound healthy at all!  In the end, especially when we don’t feel like it our own pain diminishes when we turn around and deliberately work at making some happiness for others.

Kahuna-pule Kimo

To some degree one can’t blame people who reject religious teachings since their followers are often the worst possible advertisement for the beliefs expressed by those teachings!  We preach peace even while repeating rumors that harm another’s reputation.  We espouse compassion while leaving the homeless to their misery.  We speak eloquently of our love for the Divine even while denigrating those different from ourselves.  We speak of love and gloat at another’s misfortune.  Is it any wonder some people reject all teaching from the past?

Frankly I am not so much interested in what you believe!  It is all too easy to memorize and recite theology!  How you live and relate to me speaks eloquently of what is really in your heart, which is much more important to me than what is in your head!  By the very dignity of our humanity we are called to be the hands and the lips of the Divine, conduits of mercy poured out upon others and upon our times.  When we are not doing that then we are the cause for unbelief!  How about if we who call ourselves “believers” take some responsibility for the non-belief afoot in the world and stop pointing our fingers?

Kahuna-pule Kimo

The desire to be good is as Hawaiians have long-understood the desire to be in harmony with the Divine reality and what it asks of us.  And yet there exist individuals who resist any constraints on their inclination towards badness.  Hackers come to mind along with the mayhem they wreck in the lives of their victims.  When my mother was still working it was discovered by her supervisor that a fellow-worker had taken Mom’s confidential information from the files in the office, opened various accounts and credit cards in Mom’s name and was on a wild spending spree.  It was also discovered the woman had done this to several other co-workers in the store.

The transgressor was eventually arrested and convicted but the damage had been done. Mom had to spend many nervous months closing accounts, canceling cards and generally keeping a relentlessly vigilant eye on demands for payments lest her credit rating be ruined due to the actions of the other woman.  Mom kept asking, “Why would someone do such a hurtful thing to someone who had never harmed her?”  The evil spewed on Mom’s life was conceived in the woman’s heart before she ever gave birth to her immoral acts.  What constitutes our goodness is not found in what we eat or don’t eat, what we believe or don’t believe, but is found in how we live out our relationships each day.  How we do that is affected by the fruit growing in our heart.  For us to ponder… “Is my heart growing fruit which is sweet in goodness… or the bitter taste of evil fruit?”

Kahuna-pule Kimo

The homeless, however, are not the only ones who view themselves as hopeless failures; many of us do as well.  Because our lives are littered with mistakes and broken relationships, and because many “officially religious” preach that we are called to be perfect, some experience a sense of hopelessness that has nothing to do with living in a tent or on a park bench.  The fact is that only God is and can ever be perfect.  The rest of us must strive to become more like God.  “Perfection” is simply not the point of our spiritual struggle… transfiguration is the point.  Transfiguration requires seeing ourselves as we are in order to move away from our self-destructive habits and become more “good”, as God is.

EVERY DAY IS A NEW BEGINNING

When we speak of perfection we imply that there is a goal to reach.  Rather, spiritual struggle is about the journey away from a self-destructive and selfish orientation, a journey towards a forgiving God.  “Perfection” is simply not the point, and a wrong way to approach the work that our spiritual transformation requires of us.  Part of that transformation has to do with the willingness to start over.  One moves into maturity when one stops using past mistakes as an excuse for current inaction.  Whether or not one lives in a tent in Hawaiʻi, Life demands that we either grow up or give up.  The choice is ours.

Kahuna-pule Kimo

A THRILLING FIRST-TIME SURPRISE !!

I came across Arnel’s blog All Things Boys in my quest to better understand the challenges faced by parents who have children on the autism spectrum.  Her lighthearted, carry-no-excess-baggage approach to Life, Family and Living Well resonates so much with me, and her photography posts are something I look forward to each week!  I think you will find something wonderful at All Things Boys as well !!  Because we all struggle to understand our lives I am especially happy to know that something I have written is of use to others.  Thank-you, Arnel !

The award has three simple rules:

1) Thank the blogger who nominated you with a link to their site.

2) Write seven things about yourself that other bloggers don’t know.

3) Nominate fifteen other deserving blogs.

Seven Things About Me (Yikes!)

1) I can cook well and have at times cooked for as many as 50 people at one sitting with anywhere from four to seven courses!

2) I’m a self-taught artist with a painting in the permanent collection of the Wiregrass Museum in Dothan, Alabama.

3) I’ve been a (Orthodox Christian) monk for approximately 40 years!

4) I’ve been told that I have an intuitive insight into people

5) Color is such a keen sense for me that I sometimes find myself thinking in color!

6) I once received a ten-minute phonecall from Farah Pahlavi, Empress of Iran!

7) Maurice Sendak, author of “Where The Wild Things Are” and several other childrens’ books, was a good friend of mine.  He recently passed on this year and I wrote two posts to commemorate his life (“In Memoriam: Maurice Sendak” and “The Day After”)

Nominations of Blogs You Might Enjoy!

1) Life isn’t so much a puzzle as it is a plan – (this link usually takes a little bit to come up… slow connection to the Philippines, I think) Interesting and playful observations from a young guy in the Philippines… beautiful photography of exquisite beaches!

2) Emotional Chaos Builds Character??? – The incredibly thoughtful observations of a mother whose teenage son is growing up in spite of autism challenges.  Whimsical stories to brighten any day and realize that we’re not all experiencing the same things.

3) The Art of Ecarlatte Alexandre Straub – Survivor of the traumatic 2010 Earthquake in Haiti, this self-taught painter captures her memories of peaceful countryscapes with a penchant for vivid colors!

4) Live, Explore, Learn, Remember – A young couple hailing from South Africa who live in Korea and share stories of sightseeing and day-to-day adventures from young peoples’ viewpoint!

5) It’s a Wunderful Life – Ray and Jenny Wunder raising “high-functioning” autistic five-year-old twin boys who reveal the deeper meanings of Life to their parents one noisy day at a time!  Priceless stories!

6) Darrell Hill, Painter – A bold impressionist oil painter living in Hawaii whose art will liven up your life!

7) HawaiiTwins – Breaking away from a diagnosis! – A new blog from a Mother with twin boys, one with Down Syndrome… the challenges she face while searching for what her son needs to keep up in school and not get left behind.

8) J.Ricci Energy – Uplifting quotes and stunning images as food for thought.  Typically a daily post but taking a short summer break… worth bookmarking!

9) that cynking feeling – Documenting the curious days of a three-year-old autistic boy who sees thing differently… as told by his amazingly patient and observant Mom!  I learn things about myself by considering things his way!

10) Gerry Straub’s Blog – A successful film producer and director in California deeply ponders the essence and breadth of Christianity in today’s high-speed yet disorienting world.

11) Photo Nature Blog – Daily postings of Michigan’s beautiful outdoors and surprisingly colorful closeup shots of winged insects you never get to see unless you take a trip to the country!

12) Cast Light – Frequent posts to lift up your day, which always seem to arrive at just the right time!

13) Clare Flourish – An ever-evolving, visually intriguing and passionate exploration of female-identifying transgendered person living in a sometimes less-than-understanding world.  Stories and fine art to make you consider your own life.

14) Beach Treasures and Treasure Beaches – Playful stories and photos about seashells, beaches and the beautiful outdoors which give you a moment to pause and relax from the busy day-to-day lives we live!

15) Canadian Hiking Photography – Tremendously beautiful photographs of well-planned hiking adventures… things you don’t ordinarily get to see!

Kahuna-pule Kimo

The overthrow of the Hawaiian Monarchy

Each day can be either a blessing or a curse depending upon how we interact with it… which is of course dependant upon how aware we are of our inner life.  Do we basically fear life or do we generally embrace life?  I once had someone come for counseling who justified his generalized fearfulness by saying, “But anything can happen!”  Which caused me to point out, “But that means that good things can also happen!”  What does it say about us if we are more eager to believe in a God who punishes us than to believe in a God who doesn’t judge our mistakes?  The way in which we approach the Divine and Life has to do with this issue of fear.  Are you being possessed by it or being free of it?

Yes there are things to be fearful about.  Suffering is simply a part of life.  Part of the pain of suffering is that it causes us to be aware of our vulnerability which can give rise to fear.  But if we choose to make fear our God then we will find grounds for it everywhere… fear of making mistakes, fear of disapproval, fear of failing… fear, fear, fear.  What we focus on becomes who we are.  Humility offers us another option to fear.  Part of our knee-jerk reaction to this issue of “humility” arises from our non-Hawaiian insistence that we do not have to comply with anything.  In that case go right ahead and jump off a cliff and see if you don’t have to fall down and kill yourself!  There are things in life with which we must comply, like it or not!  The point is that if we fear life then we put ourselves in opposition to it!  Humility offers us another way of thinking about life!

I would like to suggest that humility is not some perversion of the human spirit.  It’s not a “giving up” but a healthy “giving in” to what the Divine is asking of us!  Humility is more akin to an alertness than to a deadness.  Humility is actually about flexibility.  When bad things happen then do an end-run around unhappiness and enjoy a good meal, sing with some friends, find something or someone to celebrate.  In short, throw a luau for others!  Fear is not the only option for daily living!  As Hawaiians constantly show us with their healthy humility, Life gives us the opportunity to be happy each day.  Only we let events take that happiness away from us by living in fear.

Kahuna-pule Kimo

Hawaiʻi’s’ values are so different from the Mainland’s because of Hawaiʻi’s understanding that although we live in the present, were it not for the past and those who went before us there would be no present for us now.  On the Mainland many act as if they owe nothing to anyone!  One can see this sense of “belonging” in the Hawaiian interests of genealogy, arts and practices from the past such as hula, lei-making, mele chants and more.  For Hawaiians relationship is communion, not obligation.  I am always amazed to see whole family clans on the beaches set up in interlinked tents for the entire weekend… on any ordinary weekend as well as on holidays!  Hawaiians have a genius for making any day together into a holiday, a celebration simply by being ʻohana together!

I suspect that the loneliness so prevalent in modern-day culture is an expression of a sense of being disconnected… from others and from the past.  This leaves us unsure as to who we are today.  One thing I hope to understand more deeply once I live in Hawaiʻi is the extent to which Hawaiian relationships bloom out of the past and thus create a greater present moment.  The first thing I’m going to do when I move to the Big Island in June 2019 is to buy myself a big tent!  The second thing I will do is start the barbecue and invite everyone to become my new ʻohana!

Kahuna-pule Kimo

BLUE STRIPES OF DIFFERENT COLOR

FAMOUS KONA ARTIST DARRELL HILL HOSTING ME ON MY FIRST VISIT IN 2004

SOOTHING REFLECTION IN CALM WATERS

CARVED KI’I LOOK PRETTY FIERCE TO ME!

THE HEIAU AT CITY OF REFUGE WHERE FORGIVENESS IS RECEIVED

GORGEOUS YET DELICATE ORCHIDS

VIEW FROM BEHIND THE HEIAU

EVERYTHING FEELS SO STILL HERE !!

MORE TERRIFYING KI’I

PALM FRONDS BLOWING IN THE BREEZE

I COULD SIT HERE FOREVER !

LOOKING BACK TO THE ENTRY COVE FOR THE REFUGE

Many think that if they won the lottery their lives would be so much better than it is right now.  I recently watched a documentary which made clear that this is not how it always turns out for lottery winners.  Most winners become besieged by sacks of mail on a daily basis filled with letters from people asking for money.  Some winners have been able to use their winnings wisely and enabling the money to work for them long-term.  Some winners went on impulse shopping sprees before coming to their senses and dealing with their winnings in a more prudent manner.  One individual made spectacularly bad decisions with his 5.5 million dollar winnings! Within two years he had to start selling all that he had bought in order to have some money.  After just a few years he was flat broke and living in a small storage room at the back of a friend’s plumbing company store!  One friend commented on the man’s behavior by saying, “Winning the lottery is like throwing Miracle Grow on your character defects.  Everything is magnified!”

An interesting exercise might be to ask ourselves, “What characteristics about myself would I really NOT want to become any worse?”  Given enough Miracle Grow, the tendency to secretly judge others might grow into public in-your-face scorn.  No longer needing to earn money to pay the bills, an impulse to lethargy may well bloom into a full-fledged life of laziness and an early death.  With no monetary constrictions, an impulse to collect may well turn into full-fledged hoarding.  Perhaps what we need right now is what we already have?  Perhaps we are being saved from our own foolishness?  Perhaps Money isn’t even the point?!

Kahuna-pule Kimo

Some have been tempted to view a plethora of possessions as proof that the Divine approves of us and that we are alright with the Divine.  Even as the Divine can be completely present while being completely transcendent, so too it is possible for our life to be chock-full of “things” even while inside our relationship with the Divine is one marked by impoverishment.  There is no true correlation between the amount of the “things” that we possess and the happiness of our interior life.  To make this point throughout history in various religious traditions there have even been individuals who have had few possessions but who many have called rich in happiness.

Complicating this issue of happiness and possessions is that we live in a culture which indoctrinates us to always want more and as a result of this orientation we do not appreciate what we have.  When we focus on what we don’t have then what we do have becomes invisible to us.  As in so many issues relating to our interior life when we go to purchase something we should ask ourselves whether we actually need the item or do we just want it?  And if the answer is that we just want it then a rich vein for us to mine would be to ask ourselves why.

Kahuna-pule Kimo

The funny thing about change is that while we want things to be different we often want them to be different in the same old way.  The older we become the more we resist change.  When I was around 16 years old my great-Aunt Alice who was around 80 at that time (she lived to be 103) had to move from the family home in which she had lived for 65 years.  She sold the house, rented a 7-room apartment in the same neighborhood and had my father and I spend an entire weekend painting every single room the same salmon pink color that had been everywhere in the old house!  To this day I automatically recoil when I see that color!  The point is that even though life was making her change address she simply turned her new life into a copy of the old one!

A crisis is the moment when you realize that things are going to change whether or not you change along with them!  Most of us view a crisis as something bad, as the sign that something is going very wrong.  However another approach is to view a crisis as an opportunity.  A crisis is the opportunity to stop being who we have become used to being and to become who we have always dreamed of being!  A crisis is the chance to establish new routines which will take us in the direction which we have yearned for such a long time.  A crisis can be the moment when everything, including you, becomes new again!  When our life hurts enough we will hear crisis knocking at our door.  Take a deep breath and open it!

Kahuna-pule Kimo

Hawaiʻi

Have you ever tried to introduce a baby to its first taste of baby-food?  You get a spoonful in their mouth and they spit it out.  You try to get a second spoonful in and they twist, turn, shriek and carry on like they’re being slaughtered.  Like babies sometimes what we need is what we don’t want.  For example if we don’t want to feel bad about ourselves then we flee any input that indicates the way we are is not so hot.  The problem with this avoidance is that if the way that we are or think is preventing our growth… and therefore our happiness… the very happiness for which we yearn requires that we see ourselves as we really are! We can only grow from where and who and how we really are!

The fact is that what frightens or saddens us about ourselves can be accepted by us as a motivator for our change and our growth.  It is possible for our half-empty and faulty self to be seen as half-full, to see that how we are is simply the ground out of which our mature self can emerge.  Unless we give up then there is always a chance for us to grow and change.  Yes, we have weaknesses, faults and deficits… but so what?  These only define us if we refuse to use what we see about ourselves as the standard against which we measure who we no longer want to be!  We can either choose to grow or we can lick our wounded ego and remain the source of our own misery!

Kahuna-pule Kimo

Currently the blogs are being read in 44 states in the U.S. as well as in the United Kingdom, Canada, South Africa, Philippines, Ireland, Botswana, Hong Kong, Germany, Hungary, Estonia, Netherlands, Poland, Switzerland, Russian Federation, Australia, France, Taiwan, Brazil, Kenya, Pakistan, Republic of Korea, Romania, Turkey and Slovenia to name a few (32 countries in total)!  Thus far there have been more than 7,100 readings of the postings! (red dots are cities worldwide where blogs have been read)

In addition I am the Pastor of a parish in Georgia with a lively, growing congregation which comes first of all my duties.  I also take two long trips each month ministering to another small parish and a small monastery of Nuns.  It has become clear that we don’t have enough time any longer to sustain this daily format as numerous other responsibilities have continued to surface!  From the posting of this entry we’re going to shift to a twice-weekly format, typically between Mondays and Thursdays… maybe some photos on weekends once in awhile.

It is our hope that this schedule will enable us to continue to publish these blogs for several years to come, or at least for as long as people find them useful.  Your kind consideration and your feedback are always welcome!

Kahuna-pule Kimo

Sometimes unexamined issues within our inner life run in the background like a default program influencing our choices.  For example some people today seem to be primed for outrage.  Something happens and their response is disproportionate to the incident.  Why?  Is what looks like rage actually an expression of fear?  If we simply resort to “That’s just me” then we will never really come to know what’s at work deep within.  We need to go beyond the same old easy answers in order to understand ourselves.

Everything that is alive grows and changes.  If we are still reacting to people and events in the same old life-complicating ways then perhaps some taking stock of our inner life is needed.  Our feelings and thoughts are the parents to our actions.  Even if our inner life frightens us we have to be willing to sit and listen to what at first seems like chaos inside ourselves.  We needn’t sit with prepared answers… sometimes just sitting and listening is enough.  Being still and being focused sometimes allows amazing insights to come gently forward into our consciousness… insights about ourselves which enable us to come unstuck and to step out of the mirror.

Kahuna-pule Kimo

Of all the mysteries for Mainlanders about Hawaiʻi perhaps the most inscrutable is poi. Since I want to be a member of the Hawaiian family and not simply a guest in the house, on one of my early trips I was determined to taste the mystery of poi.  After tasting it a few times I honestly didn’t know what to make of it!  I neither like it nor dislike it!  And then during a lūʻau a Hawaiian told me that many Hawaiians use poi like a condiment.  A light-bulb went on for me and I began to watch Hawaiians and their relationship with poi.  I began to feel that my own approach to ketchup seemed to be similar to that of Hawaiians to poi, meaning that food is simply a means for conveying ketchup/poi to the mouth!  The more the better!

When I moved down South to Georgia I became exposed to grits, a food staple which puzzled me as much as poi does for Mainlanders.  I couldn’t see the point of it yet I was determined to try and understand what people here see in grits.  I ate it every so often but it wasn’t until I made a recipe of cheese-grits with a spicy shrimp and mushroom mixture over it that the grits suddenly made sense to me! Alone it was like eating cream of wheat but paired with something spicy it became the perfect contrast to the spiciness!  The fact is that if we are determined to dislike something then we will.  If we are determined to embrace what someone loves whom we love then we will.  I will embrace poi!

Kahuna-pule Kimo