Hello, my name is Rodger Ricketts, I’m Steph’s dad and she asked that I make a few remarks as an elder about marriage.
I begin with the magical word love. We are all here on this happy occasion because of love; these two love each other and our love for them.
Marriage is a living experience that needs to be constantly sustained and nurtured, otherwise, it can falter and vanish. Just like tending to a treasured garden, a happy marriage requires certain regular conscious actions to keep it beautiful and healthy.
Let me make a few points
Love, care and compassion create happiness. This union/ relationship is founded on love, concern, and kindness and these divine emotions are a basis for all positive actions. With each other, express your love directly through not only gentle words but also actions. Always be supportive, not aggressive.
Patience and respect for each other helps find the correct balance between achieving your wants as well as the other’s. Listen carefully to understand each other.
Marriage requires sometimes sacrifice, not out of resignation or duty, but love.
Finally, as a union together, you are stronger and wiser. As you support each other, always look for a win-win solution to problems and concerns. Laugh/cry together in your life and share happiness through and to each other.
Live and love your life, this mysterious thing called life, together.
May you and all here be happy, well and safe in your life.
The majority of individuals remain unaware that an alternative mode of living exists. They fail to recognize that contemporary society has compelled us to make a detrimental choice: by embracing an artificial environment, we ultimately diminish our capacity to connect with the vital energy of life. Many do not perceive this as a loss, as they are unfamiliar with this innate ability or the boundless potential and exceptional well-being it can provide. Regrettably, artificial stimuli now surpass natural positive signals. For example, a restful night’s sleep offers us positive natural stimuli that nurture our life energy. Similarly, for example, contact with the Earth, exposure to sunlight, consumption of natural foods, and the internal sensations of the body all convey positive signals that help sustain the connection with life energy. Unfortunately, these positive signals are increasingly overwhelmed by artificial and negative stimuli, resulting in a diminished natural sensation and disconnection from energy.
But recently — watching my children, watching your children, watching all of us — I realized we’re falling into a different kind of abyss: the collective digital septic pit.
Right now, as you read this, feel the weight of your body wherever you are and whisper this: Without this body, I do not exist as a human being. Without this body, I cannot experience life. Without this body, my pure connection with the divine cannot evolve in this lifetime. Feel that truth — until it lives as presence.
Today we live in three worlds: – The mental world (in your head) – The digital world (hijacking your attention) – The real world — your body (where you spend maybe 10 percent of your day)And with any more reduction of time living in our bodies? We are committing slow, peaceful suicide.
When we live cut off from the body, the cost is everywhere — in our health, our emotions, and our children. The numbers are staggering: the CDC reports that 60 percent of teenage girls experience depression, 40 percent consider suicide, and nearly one in three have attempted it. More than statistics, these are signals from a world that has drifted too far from embodiment — from the simple, sustaining connection with life that begins in the body. This isn’t only about our kids. It’s about all of us.
With T’ai Chi we can again experience what it feels like when the mind quiets, the body reawakens, and energy begins to flow freely again.
The acceptance of a creative force or source can only bring us to a conclusion of an inherent acceptance of ourselves as being a part of the Divine itself. If the Divine energy creates the great oneness of all things; physical beings, sentient beings, universes, dimensions, even the space that exists between planets, universes and dominions, then we as human beings are an expression of the Divine and this beautiful love-energy. We are not separate from it. We are here to play our part in the work in the great oneness. This beautiful divine thought of creation. Shaolin Buddhist Temple, Slane, Co. Meath, Ireland
Therefore, the body is deeply sacred indeed. The body is a beautiful expression of the spirit come to life. This view about body and spirit has been described by Jorge N. Ferrer, professor of religious psychology as “embodied spirituality.” He wrote that:“Embodied spirituality regards the body as subject, as the home of the complete human being, as a source of spiritual insight, as a microcosm of the universe and the Mystery, and as pivotal for enduring spiritual transformation. The body is not an “It” to be objectified and used for the goals or even spiritual ecstasies of the conscious mind, but a “Thou,” an intimate partner with whom the other human dimensions can collaborate in the pursuit of ever-increasing forms of liberating wisdom.”
For Ferrer the body is the home of the complete human being. It is the physical reality in which we live. It is through the body that we both literally and metaphorically walk our own unique path. The mistake that so many religious understandings have made is that they have seen the body as the prison of the soul. Something that the spirit or soul needs to be liberated from. He claims that the mystery of incarnation never suggested that spirit entered into the body but that the spirit became flesh. To quote John’s Gospel “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was God…And the Word became flesh.” Through our bodies, our lives, the way we live our lives the spirit comes to life. We are here for a reason, life truly means something and it is our task to bring that something to life, through our lives, through our bodily existence.
Embodied spirituality is about fully inhabiting our lives, our thoughts, our feelings our relationships with ourselves, our lives, each other and the mystery that connects all life. It’s about being fully present in our bodies and lives and therefore fully experiencing our potential, being fully alive. The body is not just a suit that clothes our being. It is through the body that we experience what it is to be fully alive. They say “listen to your body”, sage wisdom indeed. For me the body is not a separate entity to spirit, I cannot agree with this dualistic view, it seems to me that it is through the body that spirit comes alive and further through the body that the spirit is fed.
Embodied spirituality views every aspect of our humanity, whether that be body, spirit, heart, mind and consciousness as equal partners in bringing the self, community and world into a fuller alignment with the mystery that brings into being all life, while at the same time connects all life. I suspect it’s a kind of panentheism, that sees all life as being in God and that God is in all life and that little or perhaps infinite more. It sees the full engagement of the body as being vital to spiritual growth and transformation.Rev. Danny Crosby
We are all Interconnected even with the Universe 