Taking a Leap of Faith

The phrase is used so often -- a leap of faith.  We're told that life -- and particularly the spiritual life -- requires us to take a leap of faith.  It's not entirely clear, though, just what people mean by doing that.  And it can be really hard to do something if you don't know, really, where you're going.

In his classic book Thoughts in Solitude, the Trappist monk Fr. Thomas Merton wrote a poem which I have always thought to be one of the most fully honest prayers I've ever heard.  (Alongside Meister Eckhart's famous assertion about the two word prayer "Thank you.")  Here's what Merton had to say:

"My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going.  I do not see the road ahead of me.  I cannot know for certain where it will end.  Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so.  But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you.  And I hope I have that desire in all I am doing.  I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire.  And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road, though I may nothing about it.  Therefore I will trust you always, though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death.  I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone."

I have no idea where I am going.  How's that for an honest prayer?  I have no idea where I'm going, which is true for all of us, isn't it?  Even when we think we know where we're going, the truth is that we really don't.  As the Scottish poet Robert Blake famously put it in this poem, "To A Mouse, On Turning Her Up In Her Nest With The Plough" -- "the best laid schemes o' Mice an' Men, / Gang aft agley."  That translates as, "the best laid plans of mice and men often go astray," and, as they say, ain't that the truth!

So ... where we know it or not, whether we're willing to acknowledge it or not, every choice we make is a leap of faith.  We never really know what'll come next.

Yet there are times when we know we're taking the kind of leap for which that phrase is usually used.  We can clearly see the chasm before us, and we can't see the other side.  Truth be told, we aren't even entirely sure that there is another side, or, if there is, that it's within jumping distance.

Bridges are good for this.   At the congregation I serve we have an annual "Bridging Ceremony" at which we recognize our graduating high school seniors, and mark their transition from "youth" to "young adult."  I've shared reflections about bridges, noting that bridges are good for getting us from here to there in our lives.  I've shown the picture of the Golden Gate Bridge at the top of this post, with its far side obscured by fog.  You know it's there, of course, yet from what your senses show you, you could be forgiven for not really knowing for sure.  This adds to the power of the bridge metaphor.  Not only can a bridge get you from here to there, not only can it provide a way to cross an perhaps otherwise uncrossable chasm, often you have to start across it on faith.

In the Jewish tradition there is a midrash on the story of the Israelites crossing the Red Sea to escape their Egyptian oppressors. It is said that when Moses raised his staff and commanded the waters to part, nothing happened.  At least that's what the Israelites saw.  Moses told them that the waters had parted, that there was now dry land they could safely cross to the other side, but it seems that he was the only one who could see it.  Out of the crowd, a child came to stand at the edge of the water.  She trusted Moses, and if he said the water had parted, she believed him even if she couldn't see it herself.  So she took a step, and felt the water sloshing around her ankles.  She took another step, and then another, yet all she could see, and feel, was the water reaching up to her knees.  With another step it was up to her waist.  In no time it was up to her chest, then her neck, the over her chin and just under her nose.  The people on the shore were shouting at her to stop her madness, but Moses encouraged her to go on, and she trusted Moses.  She took one more step, now even her nose was submerged, when suddenly everyone could see the waters parted and the dry land path Moses had told them about.  It was her faith, her willingness to take step after step without knowing for certain where those steps were taking her, that was the real miracle performed that day.

Having faith that the bridge -- or dry land -- is there even when you don't see for certain where it's taking you (or even if it is taking you somewhere) -- can be hard.  Acting on that faith is harder still.  Yet if you trust the bridge (either literal or symbolic), even though it's scary to do so, you can take that step.  Using a different metaphor, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said, "Take the first step in faith.  You don't have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step."  Here too, an encouragement to trust the bridge, or staircase, even if you can't see the whole thing.

My Lord God, I have no idea where I'm going, but I trust that I am not going alone.  However you may name or know the Love that Merton called "God," his prayer may well describe the heart of the spiritual journey.

Pax tecum,

RevWik

Meditation for People Who Don't Like to Meditate (pt. 3)

This is the third in a series of posts looking at the challenges people often cite when explaining why they haven't been able to stick with a meditation practice, or who've never started one because they knew they would face these challenges and couldn't imagine a way around them.  On Monday we looked at the issues of "not having enough time" and "physically not being able to sit still that long."  On Wednesday the focus was on the issue of being "too easily distracted."  Today, let's consider the complaint which, it would seem, the younger monk must have just raised with his elder:  "What happens next?"

Is that all that meditation is about?  Sitting on a cushion (or chair) and counting your breaths or saying a mantra over and over again?  Isn't something supposed to happen?  The Buddha, we're told, sat in meditation for seven days under the Bodhi tree, after which he "awakened" and saw through to the depths of reality, the underlying Truth of existence, which he then taught as the Four Noble Truths.  The term "Buddha" means "the awakened one," and there is a story that the Buddha was once walking down a road.  A man he met asked what manner of being the Buddha was -- an angel, a demon, a God, and so on.  The Buddha replied, "I am awake."

This state of "awakeness," of seeing through to the heart of reality, is what most people think of when they think of "enlightenment."  And enlightenment is what most people think is the purpose of meditation.  When asked why they think meditation is important, or something they "should" be doing, folks often say that it will make them more peaceful, more calm, more easy going, more aware, more healthy, etc.  Yet nearly everyone knows that one of the results that's usually claimed for meditation practices is "enlightenment."  Yet whether it's purely for relaxation, or for some kind of spiritual deepening, most people think that meditation is going to do something for them.

Within the Zen tradition(s), at least, doing meditation in order to accomplish or achieve something is to fundamentally misunderstand the practice of meditation.  In fact, one might say that the extent to which you practice in order for something to happen, the less you are truly meditating.  As the senior monk in the cartoon says, "Nothing happens next.  This is it."  The purpose of sitting on your cushion, it's been said, is to sit on your cushion.  Nothing else.

There's a wonderful story told about Ludwig van Beethoven.  It is very likely apocryphal, but the story is that after playing one of his piano sonata's at some fashionable soiree, as he did, a woman said, "That was marvelous, Herr Beethoven ... but what did it mean?"  Beethoven is said to have sat down at the piano again and played the piece through one more time.  When he was finished, he looked at the woman and said, "That, Fraulein, is what it means!"

The Thing In Itself.   The music exists for its own sake; it has no meaning or purpose.  It doesn't exist so that ... anything.  It exists because it exists.  I'm put in mind of what the character of God gives to Moses when they meet at the burning bush and Moses asks God's name:  "I am that I am."  (Interestingly, the Hebrew can also be translated as "I was what I was," "I will be what I will be," or any combination.)  In other words, the name, the underlying reality of God, is "is-ness," is existence.  God is, and that's all that matters.

And that's true of us, also.  At least, if you look at life through the lens of in-this-moment mindfulness.  If this moment is really the only moment that exists, then I am not typing these words in order for you to read them.  I'm typing them because I'm typing them.  I'm typing them to type them; there is no other purpose.  If I were typing them so that you could read them, and something goes wrong with my computer and the file is erased, then I would have wasted this moment.  I don't mind if you do read them, of course.  In fact, I hope you will.  But if I am truly living with the awareness that this moment is the only moment, then I can't write them for any other reason than the writing of them.

Now, note that I said, "if you look at life through the lens of in-this-moment mindfulness."  One of the things the Abbot of Zen Mountain Monastery, John Daido Loori, used to say was that when you're sitting in the meditation hall you are aware that all things are interconnected, that nothing exists independent of anything else, that, "you and I are one."  However, he would say, when you're crossing traffic you need to remember that you and the car coming at you are different!

So yes, of course, as I'm sitting here writing this post I am doing so, at least in part, in the hopes that you'll read it, and that there'll be something in here that'll be worth your time.  That is, if you will, the way we look at things in "ordinary time."  Yet just as practicing scales is an exercise a musician does to be able to play their instrument more beautifully, or working out at the gym is a kind of peculiar time set aside to prepare one's body to function more healthfully and effectively, so, too, the time spent in your meditation practice is sort of a time set apart from "ordinary time."  It is, if you will, a time during which you train yourself to be mindful so that, in the moment-to-moment realities of our lives we can be more mindful.

As noted last week, meditation is a four-fold practice:  Focus.  Become Distracted.  Recognize that we've become distracted.  Make the decision to return to our original focus.  While in the middle of doing this practice, there is no reason for doing so except for the doing of it.  If you're doing it in order to become more peaceful, then that intention is, itself, a distraction from the focus on, for instance, counting your breaths.  If you're training yourself to focus only on the thing you've chosen for your focus -- your breathing, a mantra, a candle's flame -- than anything else you bring with you into your time of meditation is a distraction.

It is very likely -- extremely likely, in fact -- that if you engage in a meditation practice (or, for that matter, any spiritual practice) you will experience some "results."  Chances are you will feel more peaceful, calm, serene, relaxed, healthy, focused, etc., etc., etc.  You might even gain enlightenment and see through to the "really real."  Yet during the time you've set aside for meditation, you probably shouldn't feel as though anything is happening.  In that moment, there should only be the sitting.

Pax tecum,

RevWik

Meditation for People Who Don't Like to Meditate (pt. 2)

Last week I began to write a bit about meditation.  I noted that there seem to be three kinds of folks when it comes to meditation -- those who've tried to meditate but ran into too many challenges, people who've never tried to start a meditation practice because they thought the would run into too many challenges, and those who have a meditation practice (no matter how spotty) and who are committed to deepening it.

When asked about the challenges people have run into, answers tend to fall into three categories:  not enough time, can't quite our restless minds, and it's hard to keep the practice alive because nothing seems to be happening (i.e., it's boring).  Having looked in the last post at the question of time, I want to address the issue of what Buddhists sometimes call "monkey mind."

Everybody knows that meditation is about sitting still and quieting the mind so that you are not distracted by the usual inner monologue(s), right?  That's the point, isn't it?  A quiet, serene mind?

Well ... I don't really think so.  In fact, I'd go so far as to say that those distractions are actually essential for meditation. Rather than a problem, they are at the heart of the practice.

I have studied a number of different meditation techniques over the years.  (I've even practiced some!)  And just like I believe that there are core elements in prayer that transcend any religious tradition's particular dressing, I believe that there are four phases in any meditative practice.

1. Choose a focus
2. Become distracted
3. Recognize that you've become distracted
4. Choose to return to the focus

1.  Choose a focus:  in some traditions you count your breath, one count for each in-breath and each out-breath -- "breathe in, one; breathe out, two; breathe in, three; breathe out, four" -- continuing until you've reached ten, and then start over.  In other traditions, the focus is a word or a phrase, a mantra.  Sometimes you're encouraged to look at a candle flame, or an icon.  Yet despite the apparent differences between traditions, nearly all at least begin by suggesting that you focus your mind on something.  Zen practitioners sometimes refer to this as, "feeding the hungry tiger," because besides being like a money (jumping from thing to thing) our minds are also like tigers which, if they don't get something to eat, become voracious.  Just emptying the mind of all thoughts, then, is a pretty advanced technique.  We novices need something on which to focus the mind, so that we can then let everything else go.  (Another metaphor could be that the focus we use is like the rodeo clown that gets the attention of the bull so that the other people in the ring can get free.)  In choosing a focus, we are choosing to engage with an exercise.

2.  Become distracted:  This is the part of the practice of meditation that causes a lot of people to quit, or not to begin in the first place.  Because we have this notion that meditation is about having a still and quiet mind, the fact that our minds seem to become even more cacophonous when we try to meditate is incredibly frustrating.  Some people believe that they just aren't able to meditate because they just can't get their minds to quiet down.  "Breathe in, one; breathe out, two; breathe in ... what am I going to cook for dinner tonight?  Did I remember to close the door?   Oh why didn't I stand up to my boss this morning?  Oh crap ... Breathe in, one; Breathe ... I'm a lousy meditator.  I can't do this.  What's the point?  Breathe in, one ..."  Some of us get further along in our counting than this, others don't even get this far, but the monkey mind always seems to reassert itself.  This isn't failure, though.  If we didn't get distracted, we'd have nothing to work with.

3.  Recognize that we've become distracted:  This is key.  If in our meditation we didn't have this opportunity to recognize when we've become distracted, there would be no practice.  It'd be like going to the gym without ever picking up a weight or getting on the stair climber.  At a certain point we realize that we've forgotten our decision to focus on one thing as a way of allowing all of our other thoughts to drop off.  We can, of course, berate ourselves when we discover that our mind has wandered, and many of us do.  This is why some of us quit trying to meditate.  On the other hand, we can see this recognition of our distractedness as a good thing.  It is a major step toward that goal of a still and quiet mind.

4.  Decide to return to your focus:  As I said, we could choose to self-flagellate when we recognize that we've strayed "from our meditation," or  we can accept this as part of the practice, each part of which is essential.  If we could choose a focus and then actually stay focused with no other thoughts intruding on our single-pointedness, we wouldn't actually be meditating.  And whether you need to return to your focus one hundred times during your practice or just once (right at the even because you hadn't even noticed that you'd been distracted the entire time!), each phase of this four-phase pattern is necessary.

Whatever the goal of meditation may be, as understood through the lens of any particular tradition's teachings, that practice itself fundamentally consists of these four steps:  choose to focus your mind on one thing so that you're fully and intentionally aware of it; lose track of that one thing in the flurry of the thousand and one things that we're usually swimming in; become aware that we've stopped being fully aware of what we've decided to do during this time; and make the conscious choice to return to our original focus.

One more thought -- there is a meta-dimension to this four-fold schema.  If you, like me, find your practice to be  ... spotty ... take hope.  The fact that you can't seem to maintain a daily meditation practice is analogous to the difficulty of maintaining focus.  Let's say you decide to meditate daily.  And you do, for a while.  But then life encroaches and you soon realize that you haven't meditated for days or weeks.  (Or, as has been true for me more than once, months.)  This is like choosing a focus and then becoming distracted.  So, just as within a particular period of meditation, notice that you've become distracted, and when you recognize that you've not meditated in a while, choose right then to return to your original decision to engage this practice.  See the parallel?  Make a conscious choice; loose sight of that decision; recognize that you've forgotten your commitment; recommit yourself.

So ... there's a way of looking at the distractions of your hyper-active minds that might just eliminate that as a hurdle to engaging in a meditation practice.  (Or that can support you in sticking to it.)  On Friday we'll tackle the last of the most frequently named challenges -- boredom, the experience that nothing seems to be happening.

Pax tecum,

RevWik

Meditation for People Who Don't Like Meditation (pt. 1)

Meditation.  It's one of those spiritual things we're supposed to like to do.  It's important.  Everyone tells us that it's important.  Yet a lot of us don't do it.  (Like flossing -- we know it's supposed to be good for us, but, well ...)

The other night I led a class at the congregation I serve which had the same title as this post -- "Meditation for People Who Don't Like to Meditate."  I began by asking people to introduce themselves, including a little something about what had brought them to the class.  I suggested that people seem to fall into one of three groups:

• People who've tried meditation in the past who've just found it too hard for one reason or another;
• People who've thought about trying to meditate, yet haven't, because they assume that they are going to find it too hard for one reason or another; and,
• People who've got a great meditation practice going, and who come to things like this class because they just really love talking about meditation.

Virtually no one identified as belonging in that third group.

When I asked people what the reasons were that people'd found meditation challenging (or figured that they would), there were some common responses:

• My mind wanders too much;
• I don't have time for it;
• My body hurts if I sit still for too long;
• Nothing happens.

In the next two posts this week I'm going to look at the wandering mind and the lack of "results."  Today I want to address the concerns about how to make room for a meditation practice, and what to do about a complaining body.

The Vietnamese poet, peace activist, and Buddhist monk the Ven. Thich Nhat Hanh says in one of his books that if you want to engage with a meditation practice you should set aside 30 minutes morning and night.  Unless you can't.  If you just can't manage to carve out that much time from your day, then try 15 minutes morning and night.  Unless you can't do that, either.  If not, do 10 minutes in the morning.  You guessed it -- unless you can't.  He keeps reducing the mandatory time needed for meditation to simply smiling a real, true smile when you wake up in the morning.  If that's all you can do, he says, then do that.

Other teachers would disagree, of course.  Yet Nhat Hanh's point is that if the purpose of meditation is to train us to be mindful of the reality in which we're living in at this very moment, then shouldn't one true, fully aware, fully present smile each day also accomplish that?  After all, being present is being present, whether it's for an hour or a moment.  As he says in one of his breath prayers (or gathas), "Breathing in, relax body and mind; breathing out, I smile.  Dwelling in the present moment, I realize this is the only moment."  This is the only moment and, so, being present to this moment -- that moment during which you smile a deep, real smile -- is the only moment you can be present.

The longer times are recommended because, as I've noted elsewhere, spiritual practices are just that -- practices. I like the analogy to playing a musical instrument:  if you only pick it up once in a while, or only for a few minutes, you can make sound, but you won't make real music.  And that's true.  So 30 minutes in the morning and 30 minutes at night -- with periodic times of even longer periods, such as during a retreat -- gives you more of a chance to practice.  Still, one of the most exciting sax solos I've ever heard is in the Miles Davis classic, In a Silent Way, when the incomparable Wayne Shorter plays just two notes.  But they are the perfect notes, in the perfect place.  You don't need to play an entire symphony -- a note or two can be music.  You don't need decades of dedicated meditation practice -- a moment or two of clear mindfulness is not to be sneezed at.

Now, what about that persnickety body?  After 10 minutes of sitting your lower back starts to ache, or your legs fall asleep.  Almost immediately after you start your meditation your nose starts to itch.  What can you do about that?  The first Zen retreat I attended at Zen Mountain Monastery in New York, I was a zazen rockstar.  I sat strong and still ... and I paid for it.  On the last day we each went to sit knee-to-knee with the Abbot, John Daido Loori.  We had the opportunity to ask him any question, but when I kneeled, I was flooded with white hot pain, so all I could say was, "I'm in too much pain to think."  "Well," the Abbot responded, "why didn't you sit in a chair?"  He went on to say that you should not let aches and pains distract your during your practice, yet neither should you intentionally set yourself up for pain.

It's true, there are all sorts of teachings about how one should sit, perhaps especially within the Zen tradition.  And sometimes these instruction include esoteric meanings in the postures -- this represents the teaching of non-duality; this other thing represents holding the cosmos; etc.  Fundamentally, though, there are some pragmatic explanations for why you do what you do.

Sitting on the front ends of a cushion, with the legs folded in full lotus, it was explained to me, is an extremely stable position.  You are grounded, unlikely to move.  (One monk said that it was really so that monks wouldn't fall over and knock each other down if they fell asleep during those early morning sittings!)  So, whether you sit on the ground, or in a chair, do so in a way that's sold and stable.  The same is true for just about every other traditional teaching about meditation posture -- taken as a whole their purpose is to help the body to remain as still as possible, since Buddhists new thousands of years ago that a restless body and a restless mind generally go together.

So when you sit, sit comfortably, yet solidly.  Don't let yourself be so comfortable that you'll slouch (which is actually an uncomfortable position to hold for too long), and so that your body can remain still yet alert in the same way you'd like your mind to be.  Thich Nhat Hanh even speaks to the proscription against moving while meditating with his profound gentleness.  He says that if your nose itches, why not go ahead and scratch it?  Just do so with intention and awareness.  And if your leg falls asleep and you'd like to move it, go ahead -- just be as aware of that decision and its concomitant movement as you are of your breath.

So ... there you go.  Time and body aches need no longer be a hurdle.  On Wednesday let's look at that wandering mind.

Pax tecum,

RevWik

A Modern Prayer Bead Practice (conclusion ... part 2)

Okay.  So we established last time that there is no "wrong" way to pray, and that even though I wrote a whole book about it -- Simply Pray: a modern spiritual practice to deepen your soul -- and have spent several weeks looking at this prayer bead practice in some detail, I don't assume that I know how you should do it.  You shouldn't assume that, either.  In one of my favorite of the stories about Giovanni di Pietro di Bernadone, otherwise known as Saint Francis of Assisi, while on his deathbed his friends asked what they were supposed to do once he'd gone.  It is remembered that he said to them -- and I imagine he said it with a compassionate and somewhat bemused smile -- "Friends, I have done what was mine to do, may Christ teach you what is yours to do."

All that said, though, I'm going to venture to say a few more words about this "modern spiritual practice to deepen your soul."

As with most spiritual practices, I'd recommend that you try to do it daily and, if possible, at the same time.  Most of the great spiritual teachers have suggested that it is important to make a habit out of your practice, and that you make it something you can depend on.  Doing it daily is one way of making your practice a habit, and doing it at the same time helps you to know that it will be there for you.  If it's something that you "get around to" when you can, it will be all too easy for it to become something that at the end of the day you regret not having done.  I once heard an experienced Catholic priest recommending to seminarians that they put on their calendar, "Appointment With God," just as they would put "Board meeting," or "pastoral visit with so-and-so."  "Make it an appointment," he said.  "Make a commitment to it.  Make it a priority."

How long should you make that appointment?  I find that it is possible to work my way through the entire bead cycle in about 15 minutes.  At that pace I'm not especially rushed, but I am able to easily fit that into my day.  You can take less time than that, of course, or a great deal more.  As an analogy, the acclaimed martial arts teacher Dr. Yang, Jwing-Ming says that it normally takes 18-20 minutes to run through the entire Yang Style Taijiquan form.  Some students, though, seek to slow it down, to go deep into the meditative aspects of the practice, and that for such students that same 18-20 minute set of movements can take a full hour to perform.  Conversely, there are those who want to bring out the martial aspects of taijiquan, and so they work to do the movements faster and faster (because, as he says, "In a fight, speed is important.  You cannot say to your enemy, 'Slow down, you're too fast.'").  For these students, the 18-20 minute set of movements, which some can expand outward to take an hour, can be done in about three minutes.

I'm not sure exactly what the "martial" aspects of this prayer bead practice might be, but I know that for some people, 15 minutes is more time than they have.  You could certainly consider stopping only for the briefest of times at those medium-size beads.  Just as you simply touch the small Breath Prayer beads and move you, you could touch the Listening bead, for instance, and say to yourself, "I would like to be open to listening for the voice of quiet stillness within me," and when you get to the Loving bead simply say, "I send out my love to all things in the cosmos."  I would imagine that you could move through this practice in that way in a couple of minutes.

Another way to shorten the time, if you need to, is to separate the practice into different sections.  So, for instance, when you first wake up you take out your beads, do what you do with the large Centering bead and the four Entering beads, and then do your Naming.  A little later in the day, when you can again set aside some time, begin with the five small Breath Prayer beads that follow the Naming, and do your Knowing.  Later, you can do the next five Breath Prayers and then spend a little time Listening.  Finally, just before bed, perhaps, you could do the last five Breath Prayers, your Loving, and then use the four small Departing to bring a close to both your practice and your day.

An even simpler form of this practice -- which I'd suggest doing in addition to some way of regularly engaging with the whole practice -- is to carry the beads in your pocket and when, at any point in the day, you're feeling particularly grateful and full of joy, put your hand into your pocket and finger the Naming bead.  Similarly, if you're stuck on a long line in the grocery store, let's say, and you find yourself beginning to get irritated, you could reach into your pocket and touch the Listening bead (or the Breath Prayer beads) as a way of helping yourself to relax.  You could also touch the Loving bead, if you're up for it, and send loving thoughts to those people who've brought 21 objects into the 15 Objects or Less line.

Two final thoughts:

I should have said this earlier, when writing about the Loving bead, but I will say now that it is important that you include yourself in your loving prayers.  Within the Christian tradition, Jesus is remembered as saying that we are to "love your neighbors as yourself."  And within the Buddhist traditions there are loving-kindness meditations which begin with ourselves, move on to others, and then embrace all sentient beings.

The last thing I'll say (for now!) about this practice is that I would absolutely LOVE to hear from you with your thoughts, questions, and experiences.  I have received pictures of people's beads from around the country, and it's thrilling to hear how others have interpreted these ideas.  (I once heard from a military chaplain who'd been serving in Afghanistan, and who found Simply Pray to be writing in an open and inclusive style which allowed him to share it with soldiers who did not fit comfortably into any of the more rigid religious identities.  He told me that one day one of these soldiers gave him a set of the prayer beads that he'd made by tying knots into some paracord.  Some time later, this chaplain was being introduced to a local Imam.  Since custom dictated the exchanging of gifts, the chaplain reached into his pocket an brought out the paracord prayer beads.  He was writing to tell me that somewhere in Afghanistan there was a Muslim holy man carrying a set of "my" beads.)

I've turned on the comments for this post, and you can also reach me via the "Make a Connection" form on the right side of the page.

As always,

Pax tecum,

RevWik