really / the biggest

At Sunday Evening Practice we read from Tony Parsons book, As It Is, The Open Secret of Spiritual Awakening.

His words wove through candlelight. They sat us down where we were.

Then cummings:

let it go 

let it go – the
smashed word broken
open vow or
the oath cracked length
wise – let it go it
was sworn to
go 

let them go – the
truthful liars and
the false fair friends
and the boths and
neithers – you must let them go they
were born
to go 

let all go – the
big small middling
tall bigger really
the biggest and all
things – let all go
dear 

so comes love

   (--poem by, e.e. cummings, in Complete Poems, 1904-1962) 

There’s no guru but life.

No subject, no object.

Gazing through.

What is. 

écoutez bien

The Christian metaphor begins Lent.

Mystics long to listen to God.

Sun shines. 

Faith, says a rabbi, is the willingness to live with uncertainty.

Time changes.

Two Haiku

(--for Okie)

Oh! He’s gone!
But not in the eyes --
   yours, his
                         
                          (wfh)


(--for Bob)

His smile reaches us
through photo there --
sun glints off snow
facing us . . . here
                       
                          (sh)

“abortive offspring of the unthought rational”

We spoke of Nietzsche Friday night.

But, here’s Heidegger:

Occasionally we still have the feeling that violence has long been done to the thingly element of things and that thought has played a part in this violence, for which reason people disavow thought instead of taking pains to make it more thoughtful. But in defining the essence of the thing, what is the use of a feeling, however certain, if thought alone has the right to speak here? Perhaps, however, what we call feeling or mood, here and in similar instances, is more reasonable—that is, more intelligently perceptive—because more open to Being than all that reason which, having meanwhile become ratio, was misinterpreted as being rational. The hankering after the irrational, as abortive offspring of the unthought rational, therewith performed a curious service. To be sure, the current thing-concept always fits each thing. Nevertheless, it does not lay hold of things as it is in its own being, but makes an assault upon it.” (pp. 150-151, Martin Heidegger, in What is Called Thinking) 

At memorial service thursday for Jim’s brother Tony, the pastor commented that so many people today are bible-illiterate. It was a soft jab.

Sitting is back pew I thought: Nope, I’m bible-illiteral.

That felt like a successful bob-and-weave.

here of a friday morning

Emptiness intersecting nothing there.

brush drawing by Thomas Merton
(image size: 8 1/2 h x 5” w, on gray card)

Dom Aelred Graham wrote about Zen Catholicism.

Thomas Merton felt the Celtic cross a reflection of it.

Nothing there is here diaphaneity.

another taxi will come along

He suffers from hope. He thinks someone will help him in the craziness of prison life. He doesn’t feel he belongs there. An insane place. Cruel uncaring people. “Help or go back to your spiritual dope.”

He’s right. Which brings little joy. Being right. When everything is wrong. Try again. No hope from dope.

Via Negitiva: A way of describing something by saying what it is not, especially denying that any finite concept of attribute can be identified with or used of God or ultimate reality.

No help.

No hope.

No dope. 

Wednesday, ashfall

Dust

Remembers

Ground

Fat Tuesday (haiku)

Yellow sponge

high and dry

outside empty tub

Elgar Cello Concerto, 1st mvmt

Walter White told his wife in Breaking Bad he did it for himself. He was good at it. He liked it. He felt alive.

We should all be so lucky.

Still, his story is not without its massive complications.

Then, there’s real life.

WARREN — The death of inmate Micah Boland Friday evening at the Maine State Prison in Warren has been classified as a homicide, according to the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner. http://knox.villagesoup.com/p/inmate-death-ruled-a-homicide/1135798

When I walked through crosswalks between prison industries and cellblocks hours earlier that morning had he seen me, had I seen him?

What was he good at? What did he like? Did he feel alive those final few hours?

Like the dawn leaving my first hospice midnight to 7am sitting vigil with the dying musician many years before, when to buy a cup of coffee and donut in streaming sunlight felt like the most liberating gift ever -- I returned to the same place by the pond, filled paper cup with coffee, took two donuts in brown bag, and sat in car across from Habitat for Humanity just looking out at what is good, what is liked, and what feels alive.

Complications.

It’s all about complications -- isn’t it?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RM9DPfp7-Ck

What really is

enlightenment?

Seeing and hearing
what really is --

nothing
no more

Here's your hat, there's the door; what's your hurry?

Russia visits Crimea.

U.S. left some baggage behind in Iraq after it's long visit.

God left by back broken door his visit with humanity.

Let's see -- where's my walking stick?

No violation

We really do want to trust those with badges and guns.

And worthiness would make that trust easier.

HaShem - יהוה

The name

No name.

What is there.

HaShem is the Hebrew word which many pious Jews use instead of the yod-hey-vav-hey (יהוה– YHVH^[1]) name, in casual conversations, and literally means The Name. When they encounter this name during prayers or when reading from the Torah, they visualize יהוה and say Adonai. HaShem is used 7484 times in the Tanach^[2]. Neither HaShem, nor it’s Greek equivalent^[3] is ever used in the Nazarean Codicil.^[4] The first use, of HaShem, is in: Bereshit (Genesis) 2:4 This is the account of the heavens and the earth when they were created. When HaShem God made the earth and the heavens -- The yod-hay-vav-hay name means “self existent” or “eternal”, according to Strong’s (3068). When HaShem revealed His name to Moses, He added “this is my name forever (leolam)”. The word leolam is written in the Torah without a “vav -ו”, and can be read lealeim which means to hide. The Gemara learns from this that the name of HaShem is not to be read the way it is written.

http://www.betemunah.org/hashem.html

comes cosmos

The past, Shakespeare wrote in The Tempest, is prologue.

Word comes before word.

Through silence.

Haiku

Zero, cold outside --

steps on stairs running cats’ feet

circle... of friendship

walking stick leans against rear seat

Let these be my final words: I am happy to be here!

Reading student papers in parking lot of Bangor hospital offices.

Really, I’m happy to be anywhere.

Right now I am here.

And yet, if you think about it, only here is what is.

What is here is what I am.

Happy.

About.

why the world is ethically bereft

"A true friend can act like a mirror and show them what their action looks like from the outside.” (CM, ethics student, writing about Enkidu and Gilgamesh)

...

I like this imaging relationship of friend to friend.

In addition, it suggests something about ethics and friendship -- namely -- authentic relationship might be the criteria of authentic ethics.

Does this suggest that without friendship there is no groundwork for ethics?

It suggests to me that to be ethical is to welcome both the stranger and the intimate into a circle of friendship in order to live together a meaningful creative life in the world.

Shema

Good words.

“The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement. But the opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth.”  (--Niels Bohr)

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks points out that, “Greek thought is logical, whereas Jewish thought is chronological and dialogical.” (In his Feb.2014 talk at NYU,  “Dignifying Difference: The Next Generation of Multifaith Leadership”) http://www.rabbisacks.org/dignifying-difference-next-generation-multifaith-leadership/

This Sunday afternoon, between practice and practice, listening.

Putting aside the rules of logic.

For hearing.

Death drones

I've been thinking about drones killing and maiming ordinary people in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Yemen.

I've thought about the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces of the United States receiving a Nobel Peace Prize.

I don’t know what to think about (the what seems to be) absurd paradoxes in the contemporary world.

Yesterday, on his way to work on route 17 enroute to Augusta, a 20 year old young man crossed into the opposite lane losing control of his car in falling snow, crashed into a truck, and died. (A sad event.)

It wasn't a drone.

How lucky we still are.

This ironic and unrooted time!

What is not being noticed

Heidegger asked, “Was Heisst Denken?” (What is Called Thinking?)

Is “what is” called “thinking”?

He also said that “The most thought-provoking thing in our thought-provoking time is that we are still not thinking.” (Martin Heidegger, in What is Called Thinking?)

If “thinking” is “what is” -- then the most thought-provoking thing is that we are still not “what is.”

What can this mean?

How has this separation not been noticed?

Can "not being" be noticed?

It is a thought-provoking question.

Practice

Buddha's shadow is entering the fireplace.

Francis' head is lifting itself from the snow.

One dog outside door, one inside door.

We leave our seats.

What is as it is?

Yes, just that.

Reading; poetry

The 93 year old man read Amy Lowell's poem in memory of his wife's one year anniversary of her death.

A Fixed Idea  

What torture lurks within a single thought    

When grown too constant; and however kind,    

However welcome still, the weary mind 

Aches with its presence. Dull remembrance taught    

Remembers on unceasingly; unsought    

The old delight is with us but to find    

That all recurring joy is pain refined,    

Become a habit, and we struggle, caught.    

You lie upon my heart as on a nest,   

Folded in peace, for you can never know    

How crushed I am with having you at rest    

Heavy upon my life. I love you so 

You bind my freedom from its rightful quest.    

In mercy lift your drooping wings and go.   

(Poem by Amy Lowell, “A Fixed Idea” from The Complete Poetical Works of Amy Lowell. © 1955)

He got choked up. We all kept silent. Then thanked him.

What then...

Reading learns me.

Reading studies me.

Reading teaches me.

That...

There is no me.

Coming south from catholic county

The all-golden vessel,  

the most delectable sweetener of our souls,  

she who bears the manna which is Christ, l 

and uncultivated,  

field unploughed,v 

ine streaming with fecundity,  

vessel most delightful, spring that gushes forth,  

the treasure of innocence  

and ornament of modesty 

--Byzantine sermon

(Eighth-century Eastern sermon in praise of Mary is thought to have originated in Jewish and Christian Wisdom literature. The personified figure of Wisdom...who is Hochma in the Hebrew Scripture and Sophia (Greek for "wisdom") in the Christian Scripture, came to be applied to Jesus, while they even more became connected to Mary. 

(--from P.214, Spiritual Writings on Mary, selected and annotated by Mary Ford-Grabowsky)

Tuesday; unveiling

From minus -16degrees at dawn to +22degrees at 2:48pm in Fort Kent at Canadian border.

Rokie and his companion walk the periphery of snow plowed bank and marvel at the late evening and early morning ability to walk and feel and look -- to squeak underfoot roadsnow at vacation shuttered University of Maine campus by St. John River.

Prayer wheel spins in sunlight. It says: "See what is revealing itself within!" Round and round in uncomprehending mind it's exhortatory prayer.

I read Karen Armstrong who writes on page 65 of her "The Bible, A Biography" (2007), the Greek word Ἀποκάλυψις, (apokalypsis), "a 'revelation' or 'unveiling' of a reality that had been there all along but had not been seen clearly before...."

So we look at things and look as no thing trying to see what is hidden seeking light of day, consciousness, and liberation.

Apocalypse is not doom and destruction.

It is Tuesday.

not refusing

A friend's family member is in a psychiatric ward. He writes requesting prayer.

A word replying:

In Fort Kent tonight we receive your news. And from Fort Kent we send you promise of prayer and watchfulness. 

Last night at practice we read Thomas Merton: 

If you want to know what is meant by “God’s will” in man’s life, this is one way to get a good idea of it. “God’s will” is certainly found in anything that is required of us in order that we may be united with one another in love.  
(--from New Seeds of Contemplation, chapter entitled “A Body of Broken Bones") 

Your presence at this time with love there with your loved-one sounds like what Merton was telling us at practice. 

The pain of reunion, said Merton, is love not refused. 

We wish each of you . . . well. 

 We are fragile.

And so...

We long for one another’s clear health.

storied; unread

Maybe it’s true.

The story seems impertinent and preposterous. The breath of God, the word of God, the body of God is made present in this cosmos, this earth, this communication, this moment.

 Could Have

             by Wislawa Szymborska

It could have happened.
It had to happen.
It happened earlier. Later.
Nearer. Farther off.
It happened, but not to you. 

You were saved because you were the first.
You were saved because you were the last.
Alone. With others.
On the right. The left.
Because it was raining. Because of the shade.
Because the day was sunny. 

You were in luck -- there was a forest.
You were in luck -- there were no trees.
You were in luck -- a rake, a hook, a beam, a brake,
A jamb, a turn, a quarter-inch, an instant . . . 

So you're here? Still dizzy from
another dodge, close shave, reprieve?
One hole in the net and you slipped through?
I couldn't be more shocked or
speechless.
Listen,
how your heart pounds inside me.

(Poem from View With a Grain of Sand, trans. Stanislaw Baranczak and Clare Cavanagh (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1996) 

 I don’t know.

Dwelling in that nescient space is a little like...like...

Nope.

Not like anything.

Just absurd and, in mythopoetic dream, likely.

Storied.

Sunday morning

Readiness

Should anyone wish

To remember what is hidden

In the middle of everything

Winter Saturday afternoon, February

Fallen branch leans against cabin porch screen.

In yurt, empty roundness with silent furnishings.

Bookshed, barn, house, and mountain settle before coming heavy snow tonight.

Orange ball is center of universe,

The stillness.

Standing trees.

Prayer flags in distance.

The intimacy of it all!

No

Tell me: Have you heard that freedom means coming home to where no one else lives?

Home?

Yes. Where no other person lives.

And that is freedom?

I don't know. I've heard as much.

You tell me.

Hello? Anyone there?

the eve it is

Ambient light from night skiing at Snow Bowl lets us walk Hosmer Pond and Ragged Mountain in driving snow, our snowshoes topping fresh several inches with measured gate.

A Ghost 

erodes the line between being and place becomes the place of being time and so

the house turns in the snow is why a ghost always has the architecture of a storm

The architect tore down room after room until the sound stopped. A ghost is one

among the ages at the edge of a cliff empty sails on the bay even when a ship

or the house moves off in fog asks you out loud to let the stranger in

(Poem by Cole Swensen, b.1955, from Gravesend, c.2012)

Storms let us wander aimless through troughs and tendrils of northeast blow, free of memory, no worn trail but the steps we make surrounded by laden branches and open edges off-ice where houselights shoulder through wet flakes swirling.

If you think, ‘I love this,’ it is ok, it being the eve it is.