Hello,  today I am sharing my thoughts about how I am learning to balance my spiritual life with my worldly life with the hope that you will gain insight from my writing and make good decisions in your daily life.  Balance is critical to our health and wellness. Balance is critical to our spiritual development. When we are balanced we thrive.

My approach to learning spiritual/life balance is from an educational perspective. You know the saying

” Give a person a fish they will eat today, teach them to fish and they will eat for a life time.”

Once you learn to fish you still need to discern which catches to reject and throw back and which to keep and [eat] use. Learning this promotes balanced function in you and in the world. When we are balanced we are happy, compassionate, and function well in our individual lives and the community.   Individuals find this balance in their lives by identifying the [catches] various internal and external systems (beliefs, people, organizations, etc.) that support their life, including work, family, friends, faith based organizations and learning resources then consciously strive to attend to these systems by caring and supporting them.  Avoid your feelings and get it done. A good strategy for keeping on task and not letting our feelings sidetrack us is by reviewing The Constructive Living Maxims by David Reynolds. These sayings, used as a thoughtful break from possible down sliding and/or overwhelming thoughts, will help you overcome the feelings and take your next step to achieving balance in your life, community and workplace. Taking time for silence also helps. Some good sources for learning about silence include the monastic tradition of St. Maron, the Desert Fathers, St Sharbel, and Poustinia as well as Holy Silence as described by author J Brent Bill in his book  Holy Silence.

The internet is also a great resource and has the potential for provide enormous, inspiration opportunity and insight. I believe the internet is a physical, or at least a metaphorical, manifestation of Carl G. Jung’s collective unconscious. Which includes all the good and unfortunately the not so good of humanity’s conscious and unconscious thought, values, behavior and spiritual awareness. We must discern the difference as we explore the internet and stay true to our Creative Source which supports and encourages our life. For me this is best manifested in the Eastern Christian Maronite tradition.

Human cooperation will increase when the bridge between traditional, conventional thinking and progressive thinking is strengthened. This melding includes practices regarding individual healing, community and economic development, spirituality and education. We are all humans on this earth. We each have individual needs and differing approaches to meeting those needs. Failing to work through these conflicting views in a collaborative and peaceful way can destroy community living. There seems to be a prejudicial gap among various groups that is keeping our communities from seeking this collaboration. In spite what some think these differing groups are not mutually exclusive. This is not an either or, black or white, kind of debate or discussion. Every individual has their own perspective. Promoting and expanding our differences causes more conflict and discord. We certainly must understand and respect our differences. But that is where it should end. We should pay attention to the concepts that bring us together. This page promotes a collaborative mission encouraging a democratic and ecumenical tolerance for people with different cultural, community, economic, religious and personal values. It supports and embraces all the common core values of being human. This perspective will help sustain your balance.

Some of the common core values that we all strive for include an individual vision to live a peaceful and secure life filled with human cooperation, love and joy. And…gratitude Creation which helps maintain and nurture this view.

Another important part of living on earth is economic opportunity, people all over the world must have a reasonable way to make a living in the community they live. The source of this economic opportunity must be ethical and transparent. It must maintain human dignity. Only then will it sustain the individual, the community and the world.

We each must feel secure physically, economically, emotionally and spiritually. A significant part of this philosophy is that individuals take personal responsibility for the development of our local communities, workplaces and themselves. Working in your local community is a great start. Volunteer in your local community or place of work to make it a better place.

This strategy is primary for individual human development that then impacts our communities.  These concepts are universal and can be applied by any human being, community or workplace that is striving towards more balance and continuity with the environment they exist it. This awareness creates a paradigm shift, which occurs when this practice becomes part of everyday choices. It then moves each individual entity from an isolated self preservation perspective to a local and world community preservation perspective. We realize we are all connected in some way. We center our self, then, when we cooperate with and attend to the systems that sustain and support our existence, individual, community and global balance is achieved because we each cooperate with multiple systems and ultimately the source of creation. These systems, including our own thrive. Community and the individual is born, balanced and sustained through individual focus and effort and community cooperation

Thanks for visiting my web page. Stay in touch

Keep the Faith

 We are the People Makers

WE frown they hide their heads,

We smile they come alive
WE hurl belief at them
and,… they come forth from dungeons and succeed.

“Take care of yourself by caring for humanity”
Subdeacon Stephen
Copyright (C) 1997 – 2017 Stephen C. Crate, CRC
Permission is granted for academic use of this material if cited appropriately.

The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.
Mohandas Gandhi