Saturday, April 02, 2005
The face of the soul.
Some say a new reality emerges. It's called diaphaneity.
It means to show through, to be transparent. Like transparencies used on overhead projectors for lecture presentations, one transparency is laid over another and over others so that each one shows through with their particular imprint to reveal a whole for all to see.
Seeing the evolution of events,
Keep to the source.
Fixing the attention internally,
Understand calamity and fortune
In the context of unity.
Sit unconscious of doing anything,
Walk unconscious of going anywhere.
- Lao tzu
The source is light. The activity is attention.
What concerns us about death? There is, of course, the sense we are losing something, the familiar is disappearing, and we are uncertain -- we plain don't know -- what, if anything, follows. Even for those with faith, life after death is a dimensional leap of consciousness more easily speculated about than part and parcel of confident experiential facticity. There's just not much verifiable data. But then what's faith for if certainty presides?
You have been taught and you are firmly convinced that what looks and tastes like bread and wine is not bread and wine but the body and the blood of Christ. You know also how David referred to this long ago when he sang: Bread gives strength to man’s heart and makes his face shine with the oil of gladness. Strengthen your heart, then, by receiving this bread as spiritual bread, and bring joy to the face of your soul.
(From the Jerusalem Catecheses, Office of Readings, Easter Saturday)
This Easter Saturday a foggy chill rain in Maine. Even here, in the very sentence written, you can have the name of a feast (Easter) a day of the week (Saturday), an atmospheric condition (fog), a watery transfer from sky to ground (rain), and a geographical locale (Maine) where, signs proclaim, it is "The way life should be." Each of these distinct bits of information, description, or wishful thinking are in themselves distinct yet interconnected in portraying a picture of reality no one of them alone could convey.
THE INNOCENCE
Looking to the sea, it is a line
of unbroken mountains.
It is the sky.
It is the ground. There
we live, on it.
It is a mist
now tangent to another
quiet. Here the leaves
come, there
is the rock in evidence
or evidence.
What I come to do
is partial, partially kept.
(poem by Robert Creeley)
Bread is bread as wine is wine. Body is body as blood is blood. Jesus is Jesus as Christ is Christ. The seeing-through of each is and as brings diaphaneity and transparency revealing a picture no one could, isolated, convey.
The underlying reality of this existence might just be the conveyance of what-is-called Father, through the Spirit-field of Itself, revealing what-is-called Christ in-is-as each one of us, in-is-as each and every sentient being, elemental matter, and nascent aspect of becoming.
For the time/being/becoming within which we experience in/is/as let us wander through this curious new word as we wander to this Easter new reality.
This new reality dissolves the too much anger that hides, enclosed and incommunicado, behind walls of not-supposed-to-feel-what-you-feel. As this new reality the diaphanous feels its way through to the open. For too long stifled feeling has suffered stiff compacting critical time-bomb status with igniting fuse naked to both self or other spark.
6
All you say you want
to do to yourself you do
to someone else as yourself
and we sit between you
waiting for whatever will
be at last the real end of you.
(final stanzas from poem, ANGER, by Robert Creeley)
It is not certain that death is the real end of us. The "real end of you" might be what yearns to be revealed through such seasons as Easter.
In is as: What is within is transformed as revealing diaphaneity. Source is presence; Itself is field of conveyance; Light is evidence.
"Inisas" becomes a new meditation within a new reality. One could say it has always been this very reality in which we dwell, only absent our awareness. Throughout human history a rare few have seen and been enlightened with this conveyance of light; these have tried to teach and embody what they have received to pass on.
It is what we long to see. It is the joy that does not disperse.
For all who this day approach final breath in this dimension -- we pray -- as we do every day, for your conveyance to your source.
It is the face of your soul.
The context of unity.
Inisas.
Some say a new reality emerges. It's called diaphaneity.
It means to show through, to be transparent. Like transparencies used on overhead projectors for lecture presentations, one transparency is laid over another and over others so that each one shows through with their particular imprint to reveal a whole for all to see.
Seeing the evolution of events,
Keep to the source.
Fixing the attention internally,
Understand calamity and fortune
In the context of unity.
Sit unconscious of doing anything,
Walk unconscious of going anywhere.
- Lao tzu
The source is light. The activity is attention.
What concerns us about death? There is, of course, the sense we are losing something, the familiar is disappearing, and we are uncertain -- we plain don't know -- what, if anything, follows. Even for those with faith, life after death is a dimensional leap of consciousness more easily speculated about than part and parcel of confident experiential facticity. There's just not much verifiable data. But then what's faith for if certainty presides?
You have been taught and you are firmly convinced that what looks and tastes like bread and wine is not bread and wine but the body and the blood of Christ. You know also how David referred to this long ago when he sang: Bread gives strength to man’s heart and makes his face shine with the oil of gladness. Strengthen your heart, then, by receiving this bread as spiritual bread, and bring joy to the face of your soul.
(From the Jerusalem Catecheses, Office of Readings, Easter Saturday)
This Easter Saturday a foggy chill rain in Maine. Even here, in the very sentence written, you can have the name of a feast (Easter) a day of the week (Saturday), an atmospheric condition (fog), a watery transfer from sky to ground (rain), and a geographical locale (Maine) where, signs proclaim, it is "The way life should be." Each of these distinct bits of information, description, or wishful thinking are in themselves distinct yet interconnected in portraying a picture of reality no one of them alone could convey.
THE INNOCENCE
Looking to the sea, it is a line
of unbroken mountains.
It is the sky.
It is the ground. There
we live, on it.
It is a mist
now tangent to another
quiet. Here the leaves
come, there
is the rock in evidence
or evidence.
What I come to do
is partial, partially kept.
(poem by Robert Creeley)
Bread is bread as wine is wine. Body is body as blood is blood. Jesus is Jesus as Christ is Christ. The seeing-through of each is and as brings diaphaneity and transparency revealing a picture no one could, isolated, convey.
The underlying reality of this existence might just be the conveyance of what-is-called Father, through the Spirit-field of Itself, revealing what-is-called Christ in-is-as each one of us, in-is-as each and every sentient being, elemental matter, and nascent aspect of becoming.
For the time/being/becoming within which we experience in/is/as let us wander through this curious new word as we wander to this Easter new reality.
This new reality dissolves the too much anger that hides, enclosed and incommunicado, behind walls of not-supposed-to-feel-what-you-feel. As this new reality the diaphanous feels its way through to the open. For too long stifled feeling has suffered stiff compacting critical time-bomb status with igniting fuse naked to both self or other spark.
6
All you say you want
to do to yourself you do
to someone else as yourself
and we sit between you
waiting for whatever will
be at last the real end of you.
(final stanzas from poem, ANGER, by Robert Creeley)
It is not certain that death is the real end of us. The "real end of you" might be what yearns to be revealed through such seasons as Easter.
In is as: What is within is transformed as revealing diaphaneity. Source is presence; Itself is field of conveyance; Light is evidence.
"Inisas" becomes a new meditation within a new reality. One could say it has always been this very reality in which we dwell, only absent our awareness. Throughout human history a rare few have seen and been enlightened with this conveyance of light; these have tried to teach and embody what they have received to pass on.
It is what we long to see. It is the joy that does not disperse.
For all who this day approach final breath in this dimension -- we pray -- as we do every day, for your conveyance to your source.
It is the face of your soul.
The context of unity.
Inisas.
Friday, April 01, 2005
The Pope is making inquiry. We pray for him as he dies.
From the old temple
On Cold Mountain
A soft breeze carries
The sound of a far bell.
The tolling subsides
In the stirring of moonlit trees;
Dies in the frost-streaked sky.
In this long night
Of Zen meditation,
When the clear bell sounded
It was my mind.
- Chiao- jan (730-799)
This Easter Friday in Rome and churches everywhere bells wait in silence for tomorrow morning's toll. The bells will toll for John Paul. His given name will be called three times -- Karol? Karol? Karol? When the Pope dies, the Cardinal Camerlengo must verify the death, traditionally by calling the Pope three times by his name without response.
Here in Maine, draped over a roadside sign down from a church on Route 17 in Rockland is the word "Rejoice." Showing from under the yellow banner is line on original sign that says "For additional information inquire within."
Within, tonight, Pontiff inquires who might be calling, and why he makes no response.
We're told to "Rejoice" at birth and death.
Bell sounds through silence in mind.
Yes! Yes! Yes!
Resonant silence.
Viva il Papa!
From the old temple
On Cold Mountain
A soft breeze carries
The sound of a far bell.
The tolling subsides
In the stirring of moonlit trees;
Dies in the frost-streaked sky.
In this long night
Of Zen meditation,
When the clear bell sounded
It was my mind.
- Chiao- jan (730-799)
This Easter Friday in Rome and churches everywhere bells wait in silence for tomorrow morning's toll. The bells will toll for John Paul. His given name will be called three times -- Karol? Karol? Karol? When the Pope dies, the Cardinal Camerlengo must verify the death, traditionally by calling the Pope three times by his name without response.
Here in Maine, draped over a roadside sign down from a church on Route 17 in Rockland is the word "Rejoice." Showing from under the yellow banner is line on original sign that says "For additional information inquire within."
Within, tonight, Pontiff inquires who might be calling, and why he makes no response.
We're told to "Rejoice" at birth and death.
Bell sounds through silence in mind.
Yes! Yes! Yes!
Resonant silence.
Viva il Papa!
Thursday, March 31, 2005
As it is, just the way it is, the fact of it.
Theresa Marie Schiavo dies. Pope John Paul will soon die.
Poet Robert Creeley, who wrote:
One thing
done, the
rest follows.
-- also died far away from New England in a re-write named Texas.
It is a tricky question, a kind of Zen Koan, to ask someone what they really want, what they are willing to ask for.
and the old couple,
shaken with understanding,
bowed down--
but still they asked for nothing
but the difficult life
which they had already.
And the gods smiled, as they vanished,
clapping their great wings.
(From poem "Mockingbirds," by Mary Oliver)
Then I'll die. You will too. And the people we pass on the street.
It is Easter Thursday. It is a good day to die. As is tomorrow. As will be the day following.
That's just the way it is.
The fact of it.
Now, then...
About Easter--
Theresa Marie Schiavo dies. Pope John Paul will soon die.
Poet Robert Creeley, who wrote:
One thing
done, the
rest follows.
-- also died far away from New England in a re-write named Texas.
It is a tricky question, a kind of Zen Koan, to ask someone what they really want, what they are willing to ask for.
and the old couple,
shaken with understanding,
bowed down--
but still they asked for nothing
but the difficult life
which they had already.
And the gods smiled, as they vanished,
clapping their great wings.
(From poem "Mockingbirds," by Mary Oliver)
Then I'll die. You will too. And the people we pass on the street.
It is Easter Thursday. It is a good day to die. As is tomorrow. As will be the day following.
That's just the way it is.
The fact of it.
Now, then...
About Easter--
Wednesday, March 30, 2005
One Rising! We think Easter is about the Risen One. And it is. But the Rising One? Are we almost ready?
Such was the prayer Christ made to the Father while he was still on earth: Father, I desire that where I am they also may be, those who have come to believe in me; and that as you are in me and I in you, so they may abide in us.
(From an Easter homily by an ancient author, Office of Readings, Easter Wednesday)
Almost.
First we have to drop all the reasons why the Christic Reality is beyond ordinary people. There's a solipsism in limiting access to some privileged few who know secret password and special handshake. Jesus thought his teaching had deflated such elite puffery. He'd prefer we'd just try to walk into and through his words to the silent beauty of the Rising One.
The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting.
It has been found difficult; and left untried.
(from chapter V, The Unfinished Temple, PART ONE: THE HOMELESSNESS OF MAN, in WHAT'S WRONG WITH THE WORLD, by G.K. Chesterton,
1910)
"Don't go there," is the warning of those who would never think of going there. Christ is there.
My hut's on Redcloud Summit
Few visitors brave the cliffs
I haul wood to market and slip where there's moss
Drip with sweat lugging rice back up
With no end to hunger less is better
And limited time why be greedy
I don't want to spoil your fun
Only help you let go.
- Stonehouse
It is Easter Wednesday. There is no battle nor any crusade necessary for us to don armour. That's the illusion introduced to deflect us from the Way. Rather, dona amor, give love! Give what you are until there is nothing left.
What happens when there is nothing left?
Is it difficult? Or easy? Try it.
Don't make difficult, and don't make easy.
Try it.
Easter the silent beauty of the Rising One.
Such was the prayer Christ made to the Father while he was still on earth: Father, I desire that where I am they also may be, those who have come to believe in me; and that as you are in me and I in you, so they may abide in us.
(From an Easter homily by an ancient author, Office of Readings, Easter Wednesday)
Almost.
First we have to drop all the reasons why the Christic Reality is beyond ordinary people. There's a solipsism in limiting access to some privileged few who know secret password and special handshake. Jesus thought his teaching had deflated such elite puffery. He'd prefer we'd just try to walk into and through his words to the silent beauty of the Rising One.
The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting.
It has been found difficult; and left untried.
(from chapter V, The Unfinished Temple, PART ONE: THE HOMELESSNESS OF MAN, in WHAT'S WRONG WITH THE WORLD, by G.K. Chesterton,
1910)
"Don't go there," is the warning of those who would never think of going there. Christ is there.
My hut's on Redcloud Summit
Few visitors brave the cliffs
I haul wood to market and slip where there's moss
Drip with sweat lugging rice back up
With no end to hunger less is better
And limited time why be greedy
I don't want to spoil your fun
Only help you let go.
- Stonehouse
It is Easter Wednesday. There is no battle nor any crusade necessary for us to don armour. That's the illusion introduced to deflect us from the Way. Rather, dona amor, give love! Give what you are until there is nothing left.
What happens when there is nothing left?
Is it difficult? Or easy? Try it.
Don't make difficult, and don't make easy.
Try it.
Easter the silent beauty of the Rising One.
Tuesday, March 29, 2005
Easter Tuesday. Raw rain slows as snow melts from hillside beyond kitchen window.
Solitude takes hostages this side of window. Mu-ge rolls on rug by refrigerator, scratches at papers by door complaining that now he’s eaten he’ll return to the barn, thank you! Sando stretches on daybed under window. Cesco keeps counsel quietly in winter zendo under Paschal Candle beside white-draped bronze tree-cross.
Hostage isn't the right word. We're not kept here against our will. Maybe sanctuary or consecration are better words. Then: Solitude takes sanctuary; Solitude takes consecration. Nevertheless, everywhere, Swat-Teams surround solitude attempting to break through antechamber in order to extricate from sanctuary or consecration someone considered to be wrongly ensconced.
Finding one's true place is fraught with diversion.
"God has to work pretty hard sometimes before we recognize what he's trying to do and begin to cooperate. First he has to get through to us so we listen to him. Second, he's got to help us turn off everything our society will say in opposition."
In his experience as vocation director and as abbot, Mac had frequently witnessed this struggle when a monk-to-be first became aware of his vocation. The "call" itself was often as vague and difficult to describe as it was compelling. (In fact, Mac believed the vague calls were the strongest vocations, the ones likeliest to survive.)
(p. 27,Voices of Silence, Lives of Trappists Today, by Frank Bianco, c.1991)
The more time we spend at Maine State Prison the more the metaphor of monasticism arises. Last week a former inmate stopped by shop and spoke about his time inside. I asked about the metaphor. Without hesitation he affirmed he felt like a monk -- writing, thinking, time in segregation, even praying (if latitude is given to 'prayer'). We agree we'd both choose not being an inmate in prison. He's still writing about his time. We're still visiting those doing time.
Are new forms of monasticism extending beyond cloister? Sure they are. But, like the demons of desert father Antony and the distractions haunting modern souls, we are besieged by forces intent to drag us off into noise and social pressure -- into the dispersion and diversion the so-called 'world' incites. That world has the capacity to aim at commonweal, should the effort be so directed. It is, it seems, a direction not easily traveled.
The world needs monastic presence. It is an idiorhythmic presence. It can take root and flower anywhere. This presence offers silence, prayer, interior insight, meditation, contemplation, empathic understanding, and simple hospitality. Monastic presence and contemplative life do not battle the world; they disappear into the world and invite the source of life to flow through them into that world.
The work of God the Father and our cooperation with it take place in the "now" of the present, as well as in the "not yet" of openness to the future. The Father is already at work, which explains the urgent importance of the present moment. However, his action has not yet displayed all its power, since this will only be shown when the Risen One breaks into human history and establishes his full kingdom once and for all. The utopia of Christian and monastic life is situated between these two moments. It opens out toward the future promise from the realism of the here and now.
I conclude by recalling for you the words of Pope John Paul, when he described the Church's program for the new millennium: our Christian communities must become genuine "schools" of prayer, where the meeting with Christ is expressed not just in imploring help but also in thanksgiving, praise, adoration, contemplation, listening and ardent devotion, until the heart truly "falls in love."... Christians who have received the gift of a vocation to the specially consecrated life are of course called to prayer in a particular way: of its nature, their consecration makes them more open to the experience of contemplation, and it is important that they should cultivate it with special care. (Novo Millennio Ineunte 33-34).
The Our Father, when it is prayed in spirit and in truth, is a seal of the person's Christian identity. It is the meeting place of prayer and action, the source of evangelization, the antechamber of what we hope for, the threshold leading into mysticism. This prayer of the Lord lets us taste the joy of witnessing to the Good News of the Kingdom and escorts us into the mysteries of the King.
With deepest fraternal affection in Mary of St. Joseph, Bernardo Olivera, Abbot General O.C.S.O., January 26, 2005, CIRCULAR LETTER 2005, Cistercian Order of the Strict Observance {Trappists)
The Trappists hold dear the space for the rest of us to glance at and visit. Hermits provide the same inspiration, only less visibly. Both practice living with a broad community of beings spanning depths of nature, and depths of prayer -- whether cataphatic or apophatic. Their way is to live, simply, contemplative life.
Meetingbrook is grateful for all contemplatives. We ask for the grace to participate, alone or with others, in contemplative dwelling. We ask, in our wording, to be dwelling place for contemplative practice, conversation of presence, and correspondence between variety of paths seeking wholeness of life. Whether this grace is to be carried out alone or with others remains in prayer.
The Our Father asks for daily bread. We ask for open hearts and minds to respond to this grace. If resurrection, sanctuary, and consecration were to be gifted and welcomed, then let courage also attend.
Perhaps the reason resurrection is such a pivotal mystery is that the only way it is recognized is by fruits of healing, "thanksgiving, praise, adoration, contemplation, listening and ardent devotion, until the heart truly 'falls in love'...." We like these words. We note an additional caveat: these fruits cannot be owned or manipulated -- they are only tasted when authentic humility and mere presence gift them.
Is this the singular assertion of Christ moving through the event we've come to call Resurrection? Is this what the ineffable mystery is -- an unnameable Wholeness of life...Being here...As we are...Now?
No wonder embodiment of God, at root the Christian Incarnation, has been forgotten; along with the Christing of human beings, the revelation of Resurrection. If we were to emerge the Risen One -- in our midst -- both birth and death would drop off, fall away, and we would "fall in love."
It is Easter Tuesday. There's fire in wood stove. Some coffee left in pot. On hillside, wind shimmies remaining oak leaves hanging, resolutely, to their source of life, all the way through this hard, long, winter.
Like dreams and death -- some go early, some go hard, and some continue on beyond expectation.
Solitude takes hostages this side of window. Mu-ge rolls on rug by refrigerator, scratches at papers by door complaining that now he’s eaten he’ll return to the barn, thank you! Sando stretches on daybed under window. Cesco keeps counsel quietly in winter zendo under Paschal Candle beside white-draped bronze tree-cross.
Hostage isn't the right word. We're not kept here against our will. Maybe sanctuary or consecration are better words. Then: Solitude takes sanctuary; Solitude takes consecration. Nevertheless, everywhere, Swat-Teams surround solitude attempting to break through antechamber in order to extricate from sanctuary or consecration someone considered to be wrongly ensconced.
Finding one's true place is fraught with diversion.
"God has to work pretty hard sometimes before we recognize what he's trying to do and begin to cooperate. First he has to get through to us so we listen to him. Second, he's got to help us turn off everything our society will say in opposition."
In his experience as vocation director and as abbot, Mac had frequently witnessed this struggle when a monk-to-be first became aware of his vocation. The "call" itself was often as vague and difficult to describe as it was compelling. (In fact, Mac believed the vague calls were the strongest vocations, the ones likeliest to survive.)
(p. 27,Voices of Silence, Lives of Trappists Today, by Frank Bianco, c.1991)
The more time we spend at Maine State Prison the more the metaphor of monasticism arises. Last week a former inmate stopped by shop and spoke about his time inside. I asked about the metaphor. Without hesitation he affirmed he felt like a monk -- writing, thinking, time in segregation, even praying (if latitude is given to 'prayer'). We agree we'd both choose not being an inmate in prison. He's still writing about his time. We're still visiting those doing time.
Are new forms of monasticism extending beyond cloister? Sure they are. But, like the demons of desert father Antony and the distractions haunting modern souls, we are besieged by forces intent to drag us off into noise and social pressure -- into the dispersion and diversion the so-called 'world' incites. That world has the capacity to aim at commonweal, should the effort be so directed. It is, it seems, a direction not easily traveled.
The world needs monastic presence. It is an idiorhythmic presence. It can take root and flower anywhere. This presence offers silence, prayer, interior insight, meditation, contemplation, empathic understanding, and simple hospitality. Monastic presence and contemplative life do not battle the world; they disappear into the world and invite the source of life to flow through them into that world.
The work of God the Father and our cooperation with it take place in the "now" of the present, as well as in the "not yet" of openness to the future. The Father is already at work, which explains the urgent importance of the present moment. However, his action has not yet displayed all its power, since this will only be shown when the Risen One breaks into human history and establishes his full kingdom once and for all. The utopia of Christian and monastic life is situated between these two moments. It opens out toward the future promise from the realism of the here and now.
I conclude by recalling for you the words of Pope John Paul, when he described the Church's program for the new millennium: our Christian communities must become genuine "schools" of prayer, where the meeting with Christ is expressed not just in imploring help but also in thanksgiving, praise, adoration, contemplation, listening and ardent devotion, until the heart truly "falls in love."... Christians who have received the gift of a vocation to the specially consecrated life are of course called to prayer in a particular way: of its nature, their consecration makes them more open to the experience of contemplation, and it is important that they should cultivate it with special care. (Novo Millennio Ineunte 33-34).
The Our Father, when it is prayed in spirit and in truth, is a seal of the person's Christian identity. It is the meeting place of prayer and action, the source of evangelization, the antechamber of what we hope for, the threshold leading into mysticism. This prayer of the Lord lets us taste the joy of witnessing to the Good News of the Kingdom and escorts us into the mysteries of the King.
With deepest fraternal affection in Mary of St. Joseph, Bernardo Olivera, Abbot General O.C.S.O., January 26, 2005, CIRCULAR LETTER 2005, Cistercian Order of the Strict Observance {Trappists)
The Trappists hold dear the space for the rest of us to glance at and visit. Hermits provide the same inspiration, only less visibly. Both practice living with a broad community of beings spanning depths of nature, and depths of prayer -- whether cataphatic or apophatic. Their way is to live, simply, contemplative life.
Meetingbrook is grateful for all contemplatives. We ask for the grace to participate, alone or with others, in contemplative dwelling. We ask, in our wording, to be dwelling place for contemplative practice, conversation of presence, and correspondence between variety of paths seeking wholeness of life. Whether this grace is to be carried out alone or with others remains in prayer.
The Our Father asks for daily bread. We ask for open hearts and minds to respond to this grace. If resurrection, sanctuary, and consecration were to be gifted and welcomed, then let courage also attend.
Perhaps the reason resurrection is such a pivotal mystery is that the only way it is recognized is by fruits of healing, "thanksgiving, praise, adoration, contemplation, listening and ardent devotion, until the heart truly 'falls in love'...." We like these words. We note an additional caveat: these fruits cannot be owned or manipulated -- they are only tasted when authentic humility and mere presence gift them.
Is this the singular assertion of Christ moving through the event we've come to call Resurrection? Is this what the ineffable mystery is -- an unnameable Wholeness of life...Being here...As we are...Now?
No wonder embodiment of God, at root the Christian Incarnation, has been forgotten; along with the Christing of human beings, the revelation of Resurrection. If we were to emerge the Risen One -- in our midst -- both birth and death would drop off, fall away, and we would "fall in love."
It is Easter Tuesday. There's fire in wood stove. Some coffee left in pot. On hillside, wind shimmies remaining oak leaves hanging, resolutely, to their source of life, all the way through this hard, long, winter.
Like dreams and death -- some go early, some go hard, and some continue on beyond expectation.
Monday, March 28, 2005
Ask a hermit for directions to uncertainty, and the answer they give is "Pull up a chair."
Ask a mirror to verify your presence and what you get is reflective silence.
"This is what you must say, 'His disciples came during the night and stole him away while we were asleep'."
(from Matthew 28)
A cold rain falls in Mid-Coast Maine.
Resurrection, rain, and mirror embody a shared reality -- about which nothing in particular is said.
If anyone is looking for the body of a man believed to have been killed two thousand years ago there's no indication where they are looking. There's six days until the Final Four college basketball teams meet in St. Louis. Fewer days until Terri Schiavo breathes her last in Florida. And in Italy the Pope's days linger uncertainly in front of him. When a hermit passes a mirror he looks into it to see if anything's still there.
Back then, after Jesus' death, the phrase "habeas corpus" ("you have a body") was hard to come by. It took decades for the official investigation to issue reports. These reports did not close the question. Ask any mirror. Your question will yield silence. Does the mirror "have" your body?
Mirrors only have and hold as long as what they are given keeps giving. Otherwise, mirror goes blank, content to mindlessly return what is mindlessly there as background surrounding. Jesus had an odd relationship with mirrors. His mirrors were the children, men and women who came before him, those before whom he showed.
Rain, too, has a mute relationship with the earth. It falls, saturates, sinks to unseen levels, finds its way to "mer" "mare" "maria" -- by any other name, sea.
Mary births; Mary attends; Mary hears name called.
What of resurrection? The same nascence, silence, watchfulness, and listening? Of course.
For Christ's sake, say you were asleep if you saw nothing, heard nothing, felt nothing, or gave nothing to reflection. Take a bribe. Skew the report. Spin the data. Close tight ranks around whatever power you claim is yours. Ice-out opposition.
It is Easter Monday. If you are unwilling to let mirror, rain, or resurrection seep into your being -- then, make up a story and go on with it.
But if you have any passing familiarity with a hermit, take a cue from what hermits do.
Don't walk past a mirror and look in -- rather, step into the mirror and disappear.
Don't look at the rain and wish for sunshine -- instead, lose yourself in the sound saturating your being.
And don't wonder about the metaphysics and theology of resurrection -- alternately, turn every which way and see what you see.
In contradistinction to Maine scuttlebutt which says, "You can't get there from here," -- you might hear a hermit say, "There's nowhere to go."
A local man charges one hundred twenty dollars an hour to consult with him about matters he knows some about. A local woman is beginning her run down this road announcing she has an introductory offer of sixty dollars for ninety minutes of conversation. You gotta admire their ingenuity. Soon folks will be charging by the word.
I'm glad to dwell at the cross-section of solitude and silence.
Hear here -- it rains.
Small mirror atop bookshelf sits empty -- eye-wash and eye-drops stand in lower right.
Word that found itself resurrected through deep and diaphanous night turns and turns by threes and sees what is there to see.
Ask a mirror to verify your presence and what you get is reflective silence.
"This is what you must say, 'His disciples came during the night and stole him away while we were asleep'."
(from Matthew 28)
A cold rain falls in Mid-Coast Maine.
Resurrection, rain, and mirror embody a shared reality -- about which nothing in particular is said.
If anyone is looking for the body of a man believed to have been killed two thousand years ago there's no indication where they are looking. There's six days until the Final Four college basketball teams meet in St. Louis. Fewer days until Terri Schiavo breathes her last in Florida. And in Italy the Pope's days linger uncertainly in front of him. When a hermit passes a mirror he looks into it to see if anything's still there.
Back then, after Jesus' death, the phrase "habeas corpus" ("you have a body") was hard to come by. It took decades for the official investigation to issue reports. These reports did not close the question. Ask any mirror. Your question will yield silence. Does the mirror "have" your body?
Mirrors only have and hold as long as what they are given keeps giving. Otherwise, mirror goes blank, content to mindlessly return what is mindlessly there as background surrounding. Jesus had an odd relationship with mirrors. His mirrors were the children, men and women who came before him, those before whom he showed.
Rain, too, has a mute relationship with the earth. It falls, saturates, sinks to unseen levels, finds its way to "mer" "mare" "maria" -- by any other name, sea.
Mary births; Mary attends; Mary hears name called.
What of resurrection? The same nascence, silence, watchfulness, and listening? Of course.
For Christ's sake, say you were asleep if you saw nothing, heard nothing, felt nothing, or gave nothing to reflection. Take a bribe. Skew the report. Spin the data. Close tight ranks around whatever power you claim is yours. Ice-out opposition.
It is Easter Monday. If you are unwilling to let mirror, rain, or resurrection seep into your being -- then, make up a story and go on with it.
But if you have any passing familiarity with a hermit, take a cue from what hermits do.
Don't walk past a mirror and look in -- rather, step into the mirror and disappear.
Don't look at the rain and wish for sunshine -- instead, lose yourself in the sound saturating your being.
And don't wonder about the metaphysics and theology of resurrection -- alternately, turn every which way and see what you see.
In contradistinction to Maine scuttlebutt which says, "You can't get there from here," -- you might hear a hermit say, "There's nowhere to go."
A local man charges one hundred twenty dollars an hour to consult with him about matters he knows some about. A local woman is beginning her run down this road announcing she has an introductory offer of sixty dollars for ninety minutes of conversation. You gotta admire their ingenuity. Soon folks will be charging by the word.
I'm glad to dwell at the cross-section of solitude and silence.
Hear here -- it rains.
Small mirror atop bookshelf sits empty -- eye-wash and eye-drops stand in lower right.
Word that found itself resurrected through deep and diaphanous night turns and turns by threes and sees what is there to see.
Sunday, March 27, 2005
Footprints in snow by Ducktrap River. Once Saskia had a dream about the rock in river by monastic learning center. Today three dogs wandered length of late afternoon learning flow.
Some ask whether Jesus rose from the dead. I have no idea. I'm told that's what faith is -- continuing to look through uncertainty while holding at bay judgment and conclusion. Ice melts as river passes through.
"A work is never completed except by some accident such as weariness, satisfaction, the need to deliver, or death: for, in relation to who or what is making it, it can only be one stage in a series of inner transformations."
-- Paul Valéry (1871-1945), French poet, essayist. "Recollection," Collected Works, vol. 1 (1972).
Today, wandering inconclusively through dream of transformation; Christ!
A very silent, very still, resurrecting breath dreams through this Easter mind.
Some ask whether Jesus rose from the dead. I have no idea. I'm told that's what faith is -- continuing to look through uncertainty while holding at bay judgment and conclusion. Ice melts as river passes through.
"A work is never completed except by some accident such as weariness, satisfaction, the need to deliver, or death: for, in relation to who or what is making it, it can only be one stage in a series of inner transformations."
-- Paul Valéry (1871-1945), French poet, essayist. "Recollection," Collected Works, vol. 1 (1972).
Today, wandering inconclusively through dream of transformation; Christ!
A very silent, very still, resurrecting breath dreams through this Easter mind.
God our Father, creator of all,
today is the day of Easter joy.
This is the morning on which the Lord appeared to men and women
who had begun to lose hope
and opened their eyes to what the scriptures foretold:
that first he must die, and then he would rise
and ascend into his Father's glorious presence.
May the risen Lord
breathe on our minds and open our eyes
that we may know him in the breaking of bread,
and follow him in his risen life.
Grant this through Christ our Lord.
(Alternative Prayer, Office of Readings, Easter Sunday)
today is the day of Easter joy.
This is the morning on which the Lord appeared to men and women
who had begun to lose hope
and opened their eyes to what the scriptures foretold:
that first he must die, and then he would rise
and ascend into his Father's glorious presence.
May the risen Lord
breathe on our minds and open our eyes
that we may know him in the breaking of bread,
and follow him in his risen life.
Grant this through Christ our Lord.
(Alternative Prayer, Office of Readings, Easter Sunday)
Saturday, March 26, 2005
I who am life itself am now one with you.
Saskia has placed a stone on center altar at window to mountain view in winter zendo. A vigil candle with single attending flame in front of stone. Silence, but for bird sound, surrounds the stone. The resident bronze cross -- one side body of Jesus, other side tree of life -- is gone. Gone from view. As is so much today.
Rise, let us leave this place. The enemy led you out of the earthly paradise. I will not restore you to that paradise, but I will enthrone you in heaven. I forbade you the tree that was only a symbol of life, but see, I who am life itself am now one with you. I appointed cherubim to guard you as slaves are guarded, but now I make them worship you as God.
(From an ancient homily for Holy Saturday, in Office of Readings)
No special deal being God. Not any more. Hard to understand those who want to "play God." They think it is about power. It's not. It's about street talk, about "being played." Those wanting to play God want to play us -- just to get their way. Naive play has been stolen by cynics and become a spectacle of minds deteriorating in quest of fruitless power. Often they get their way -- causing so much suffering.
Holy Saturday invites us to look at the mind of God. When the cycle of this day completes itself, we will be compelled to look as the mind of God. This odd viewpoint, (it must be acknowledged), is nothing special, is no special deal. In fact, to tell the truth, we'd probably say it would be better if God kept God's own mind and left us alone.
Instead, God does not leave us alone. The mind of God is this moment revealing itself. If we dare enter this moment, we enter the mind of God and we are what is being revealed.
The Goose
Do you want to know why I am alive today?
I will tell you.
Early on, during the food-shortage,
Some of us were miraculously presented
Each with a goose that laid a golden egg.
Myself, I killed the cackling thing and I ate it.
Alas, many and many of the other recipients
Died of gold-dust poisoning.
(Poem: "The Goose" by Muriel Spark)
The poet reveals a mysterious liturgy. Eat body, drink blood -- do not seek the fruits. Become the reality; do not attempt to benefit from or manipulate the reality.
Another ancient writing said we should have in us the mind that was in Christ Jesus:
5 Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus:
6 Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God:
7 But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men:
8 And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.
(from Philippians 2)
This is what went wrong with golden-egg-seeking politicians. As Terri Schiavo's life (sorrowfully, in our mind) approached death, they wanted the egg; they did not want to become one with the goose. They thought they could rob death, restore life, and benefit their coffers with golden rewards.
Paradoxically, they (we?) have left Terri Schiavo alone. We treat her as an object, a cause, an agenda -- she is not seen as who she is right now in the moment of her transformation. We keep our own minds, staying in the thought we could play God -- "give life/take life, condemn to death/punish others" -- this is what our thoughts say God is about.
Instead, as it is, this empty Holy Saturday, a greater, more mysterious reality is unfolding. Even as we long for life and cling to life, we are longing and clinging to life as we think it is. Meanwhile death, as it is, occurs.
We must become Terri Schiavo in her ambiguous unfolding reality. Seeing as God, we must see her through.
Seeing through means penetrating birth/death to what is beyond.
Those who wish to make judgmental comparison of Terri Schiavo with Jesus of Nazareth fail to see the comparative reality through. The judgmental mind wishes to condemn and punish those perceived as the enemy; those on both sides of the comparison considered to be doing something wrong. But what is this mind missing? Is there a place we are invited to go beyond dualistic thinking that operates along lines of judgment and comparison?
Is there a reality, a sacred reality, beyond comparison, beyond judgment? Is there a way of seeing and dwelling that transcends calculation, that does not negotiate the world into an either/or choice? If we consider this question for even a little while -- our minds go blank, we come up empty. We might mutter formulas and rote statements learned in religious education or during other intellectual inquiry -- but, mostly, we don't know. If we authentically investigate, this "don't know" is where we are likely to arrive.
Spending any time in this "don't know" we are likely to feel empty and unmoored. Some call this -- "emptiness." In our minds and in our culture we are uncomfortable with emptiness. We think it contradicts everything held valuable in our upbringing -- namely, certitude, security, positive comprehension, affirmative identification, and something material and solid that is there to hold us up.
Jesus emptied himself. Self-emptying is at the heart of the Sacred Triduum. Emptiness opens to the Itself; to no-other. This Kenosis (self-emptying) is what is between Friday and Saturday. There is no Sunday without this long, empty, unknowing Saturday.
We look and look for something to carry us beyond this awkward ambiguity. We look for something to see us through. Is emptiness that which we must get through? Or is emptiness that which sees us through?
This Holy Saturday is emptiness itself. It is a between of no mind, no moment. The death of Jesus, in this metaphor, is the revelation of Christ. Between Jesus and Christ is no moment. It is pause of emptiness.
Christ is now. There's no special deal here. Christ now is what is becoming of God.
This is the emptiness of today. Today is the between. Between Jesus and Christ. Between God and us. Between then and now. Between birth and death. Between death and birth. Between life and life-itself.
So empty -- this between!
Emptiness is what is now revealing itself as it is.
Gone is what we know. Gone is what once was. Gone is the convenience of something other to blame, someone other to cling to. Gone, gone, gone.
Beyond?
Emptiness?
What is beyond emptiness?
I who am life itself am now one with you.
Saskia has placed a stone on center altar at window to mountain view in winter zendo. A vigil candle with single attending flame in front of stone. Silence, but for bird sound, surrounds the stone. The resident bronze cross -- one side body of Jesus, other side tree of life -- is gone. Gone from view. As is so much today.
Rise, let us leave this place. The enemy led you out of the earthly paradise. I will not restore you to that paradise, but I will enthrone you in heaven. I forbade you the tree that was only a symbol of life, but see, I who am life itself am now one with you. I appointed cherubim to guard you as slaves are guarded, but now I make them worship you as God.
(From an ancient homily for Holy Saturday, in Office of Readings)
No special deal being God. Not any more. Hard to understand those who want to "play God." They think it is about power. It's not. It's about street talk, about "being played." Those wanting to play God want to play us -- just to get their way. Naive play has been stolen by cynics and become a spectacle of minds deteriorating in quest of fruitless power. Often they get their way -- causing so much suffering.
Holy Saturday invites us to look at the mind of God. When the cycle of this day completes itself, we will be compelled to look as the mind of God. This odd viewpoint, (it must be acknowledged), is nothing special, is no special deal. In fact, to tell the truth, we'd probably say it would be better if God kept God's own mind and left us alone.
Instead, God does not leave us alone. The mind of God is this moment revealing itself. If we dare enter this moment, we enter the mind of God and we are what is being revealed.
The Goose
Do you want to know why I am alive today?
I will tell you.
Early on, during the food-shortage,
Some of us were miraculously presented
Each with a goose that laid a golden egg.
Myself, I killed the cackling thing and I ate it.
Alas, many and many of the other recipients
Died of gold-dust poisoning.
(Poem: "The Goose" by Muriel Spark)
The poet reveals a mysterious liturgy. Eat body, drink blood -- do not seek the fruits. Become the reality; do not attempt to benefit from or manipulate the reality.
Another ancient writing said we should have in us the mind that was in Christ Jesus:
5 Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus:
6 Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God:
7 But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men:
8 And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.
(from Philippians 2)
This is what went wrong with golden-egg-seeking politicians. As Terri Schiavo's life (sorrowfully, in our mind) approached death, they wanted the egg; they did not want to become one with the goose. They thought they could rob death, restore life, and benefit their coffers with golden rewards.
Paradoxically, they (we?) have left Terri Schiavo alone. We treat her as an object, a cause, an agenda -- she is not seen as who she is right now in the moment of her transformation. We keep our own minds, staying in the thought we could play God -- "give life/take life, condemn to death/punish others" -- this is what our thoughts say God is about.
Instead, as it is, this empty Holy Saturday, a greater, more mysterious reality is unfolding. Even as we long for life and cling to life, we are longing and clinging to life as we think it is. Meanwhile death, as it is, occurs.
We must become Terri Schiavo in her ambiguous unfolding reality. Seeing as God, we must see her through.
Seeing through means penetrating birth/death to what is beyond.
Those who wish to make judgmental comparison of Terri Schiavo with Jesus of Nazareth fail to see the comparative reality through. The judgmental mind wishes to condemn and punish those perceived as the enemy; those on both sides of the comparison considered to be doing something wrong. But what is this mind missing? Is there a place we are invited to go beyond dualistic thinking that operates along lines of judgment and comparison?
Is there a reality, a sacred reality, beyond comparison, beyond judgment? Is there a way of seeing and dwelling that transcends calculation, that does not negotiate the world into an either/or choice? If we consider this question for even a little while -- our minds go blank, we come up empty. We might mutter formulas and rote statements learned in religious education or during other intellectual inquiry -- but, mostly, we don't know. If we authentically investigate, this "don't know" is where we are likely to arrive.
Spending any time in this "don't know" we are likely to feel empty and unmoored. Some call this -- "emptiness." In our minds and in our culture we are uncomfortable with emptiness. We think it contradicts everything held valuable in our upbringing -- namely, certitude, security, positive comprehension, affirmative identification, and something material and solid that is there to hold us up.
Jesus emptied himself. Self-emptying is at the heart of the Sacred Triduum. Emptiness opens to the Itself; to no-other. This Kenosis (self-emptying) is what is between Friday and Saturday. There is no Sunday without this long, empty, unknowing Saturday.
We look and look for something to carry us beyond this awkward ambiguity. We look for something to see us through. Is emptiness that which we must get through? Or is emptiness that which sees us through?
This Holy Saturday is emptiness itself. It is a between of no mind, no moment. The death of Jesus, in this metaphor, is the revelation of Christ. Between Jesus and Christ is no moment. It is pause of emptiness.
Christ is now. There's no special deal here. Christ now is what is becoming of God.
This is the emptiness of today. Today is the between. Between Jesus and Christ. Between God and us. Between then and now. Between birth and death. Between death and birth. Between life and life-itself.
So empty -- this between!
Emptiness is what is now revealing itself as it is.
Gone is what we know. Gone is what once was. Gone is the convenience of something other to blame, someone other to cling to. Gone, gone, gone.
Beyond?
Emptiness?
What is beyond emptiness?
I who am life itself am now one with you.
Friday, March 25, 2005
Who will die today?
So many possibilities. Will Terri Schiavo's heart give out? Will an Iraqi woman wander too close to frightened soldiers or determined insurgents? Will a man in Palestine be falsely tried and condemned for insights neither state nor religious authorities wish to consider. Will it be an African child with AIDS? Will it be you? Will it be me?
In the stillness
A hawk cries
From the apricot trees.
In the deserted
Peach orchard,
A dog barks
I stroll
Among fragrant plants
And fallen flowers,
Then find, among ten thousand
Valleys and a thousand peaks,
Your closed door.
- Liu Chang-Ch’ing (710-787)
The death of Jesus is singled out this Friday. No one is sure why. Some think Jesus was the creator of all creation born in human form. Some hold he was God incarnate come to show humankind the way to live true life. Others contend he was some sort of willing hostage in a ransom drama exchanging sin and suffering for payoff forgiveness and escape to heaven for grateful unworthies.
Jesus is an inkblot test that every variety of perception draws interpretative conclusions based on either personal insight and experience or prejudiced unawareness and ideology.
There are few interpretations worth attention. Fewer still worth imitation. Hardly one worth killing for. None worth the hatred, intolerance, and ignorance associated with claiming to know the mind of God.
We do not know the mind of God. Jesus didn't. Something else is called for. Especially today. This Friday -- the first of a three day meditation.
The mind of God is this moment revealing itself. There is no knowing it. There is only attending the reality revealing itself in our presence and awareness. Attending with awareness and presence is the transfiguration of one and another into one and another.
I attend Terri, the soldier, the Iraqi woman, the insurgent, the African child, the Palestinian man standing silently before his executioners.
Their names, all their faces, deserve our attention. Sit, kneel, or stand as they pass through our awareness. Allow yourself unknowing reverential participation in the reality we are.
We are each one of them -- each one of one another.
People kill for ignorance of this. People go mad for absence of this awareness.
Today, Friday, let us practice together.
Practice together silently, without knowing, the mind of God.
With whole hearted gratefulness.
So many possibilities. Will Terri Schiavo's heart give out? Will an Iraqi woman wander too close to frightened soldiers or determined insurgents? Will a man in Palestine be falsely tried and condemned for insights neither state nor religious authorities wish to consider. Will it be an African child with AIDS? Will it be you? Will it be me?
In the stillness
A hawk cries
From the apricot trees.
In the deserted
Peach orchard,
A dog barks
I stroll
Among fragrant plants
And fallen flowers,
Then find, among ten thousand
Valleys and a thousand peaks,
Your closed door.
- Liu Chang-Ch’ing (710-787)
The death of Jesus is singled out this Friday. No one is sure why. Some think Jesus was the creator of all creation born in human form. Some hold he was God incarnate come to show humankind the way to live true life. Others contend he was some sort of willing hostage in a ransom drama exchanging sin and suffering for payoff forgiveness and escape to heaven for grateful unworthies.
Jesus is an inkblot test that every variety of perception draws interpretative conclusions based on either personal insight and experience or prejudiced unawareness and ideology.
There are few interpretations worth attention. Fewer still worth imitation. Hardly one worth killing for. None worth the hatred, intolerance, and ignorance associated with claiming to know the mind of God.
We do not know the mind of God. Jesus didn't. Something else is called for. Especially today. This Friday -- the first of a three day meditation.
The mind of God is this moment revealing itself. There is no knowing it. There is only attending the reality revealing itself in our presence and awareness. Attending with awareness and presence is the transfiguration of one and another into one and another.
I attend Terri, the soldier, the Iraqi woman, the insurgent, the African child, the Palestinian man standing silently before his executioners.
Their names, all their faces, deserve our attention. Sit, kneel, or stand as they pass through our awareness. Allow yourself unknowing reverential participation in the reality we are.
We are each one of them -- each one of one another.
People kill for ignorance of this. People go mad for absence of this awareness.
Today, Friday, let us practice together.
Practice together silently, without knowing, the mind of God.
With whole hearted gratefulness.
Thursday, March 24, 2005
The form of a slave.
If you want to understand Zen,
Understand it right away without deliberation,
Without turning your head this way or that.
Zen teaches us to go beyond logic
And not to tarry even when we come
Up against the things which are not seen.
- D.T. Suzuki
I've never seen God.
So I serve human beings.
Do this, remember this, said Jesus. Don't hold on to what you think I am, he said.
Christians don't hold on to Jesus. Christians do what any authentic human being does -- serve one another.
Noli me tangere -- Don't cling to me, said Jesus to the woman in the garden, I've not yet returned to the Father.
Wholeness longs for Itself. Jesus, coming through death, knows what he didn't know.
Form, emptiness -- not two.
Remember?
If you want to understand Zen,
Understand it right away without deliberation,
Without turning your head this way or that.
Zen teaches us to go beyond logic
And not to tarry even when we come
Up against the things which are not seen.
- D.T. Suzuki
I've never seen God.
So I serve human beings.
Do this, remember this, said Jesus. Don't hold on to what you think I am, he said.
Christians don't hold on to Jesus. Christians do what any authentic human being does -- serve one another.
Noli me tangere -- Don't cling to me, said Jesus to the woman in the garden, I've not yet returned to the Father.
Wholeness longs for Itself. Jesus, coming through death, knows what he didn't know.
Form, emptiness -- not two.
Remember?
Wednesday, March 23, 2005
Love the contemplative life?
David Whyte tells the story: “Why are you unhappy?” asks the ancient Chinese poet Wu Wei We. And he answers his own question: “Why are you unhappy? Because 98.98% of everything you do and all that you say is for yourself, and there isn’t one.”
At Wednesday Evening Laura Conversation at the bookshop tonight it was suggested that when we arrive at authentic question, it contains its own answer. When answer breaks through, question is abandoned.
Love -- the contemplative life.
So too, self. When self is authentically arrived at, it contains within itself everything it is. When this inner expanse is seen and realized, self disappears. It is as though what we call "self" never existed -- but to reveal all that is arising within.
When Jesus came to the end of his days -- comes to the end of his self -- Christ is revealed.
It is a long curiosity why Christians cling to Jesus. Is it similar to the act of clinging to self?
As the week follows itself day by day into Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday -- we step into metaphor and mystery so intimate we forget our own name.
It is the 1.2% invitation.
One's passion.
Inside out.
David Whyte tells the story: “Why are you unhappy?” asks the ancient Chinese poet Wu Wei We. And he answers his own question: “Why are you unhappy? Because 98.98% of everything you do and all that you say is for yourself, and there isn’t one.”
At Wednesday Evening Laura Conversation at the bookshop tonight it was suggested that when we arrive at authentic question, it contains its own answer. When answer breaks through, question is abandoned.
Love -- the contemplative life.
So too, self. When self is authentically arrived at, it contains within itself everything it is. When this inner expanse is seen and realized, self disappears. It is as though what we call "self" never existed -- but to reveal all that is arising within.
When Jesus came to the end of his days -- comes to the end of his self -- Christ is revealed.
It is a long curiosity why Christians cling to Jesus. Is it similar to the act of clinging to self?
As the week follows itself day by day into Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday -- we step into metaphor and mystery so intimate we forget our own name.
It is the 1.2% invitation.
One's passion.
Inside out.
Tuesday, March 22, 2005
"I'm tired," Saskia says as she herds the dogs out door through barn to go for walk with Annie and her dog. She is tired; and the bag of birdseed has not been taken from back of car. The one-dog-too-many staying with us these three weeks creates dyadic crabbiness.
Sun arrives earlier, stays later, is warmer. On zafu during quiet this morning spectral light dots room through hanging glass sliced into triangular segments of globe at window.
David Steindl-Rast converses with Ken Wilber about Gratefulness as Great Fullness.
Belonging is established with gratitude and trust.
Before the feast of Passover, Jesus knew that his hour had come to pass from this world to the Father.
(John 13:1)
There is often ambivalence about "this world." Stay or go? Good or bad? Save or let rot? Use up or respectfully preserve? In the text we are told Jesus knew his time in this world was at its end. The text says "to pass...to the Father."
Passing to the Father is passing through this world with gratefulness. "Father" -- however else we conceive that referential word -- is perfect equanimity.
Wilber says, "The mirror loves all of its objects equally."
Like the mirror mind -- we love equally what presents itself before us -- seeing each as is.
The worthies of old all had
means of emancipating people.
What I teach people just requires
you not to take on the confusion of others.
If you need to act, then act,
without any further hesitation or doubt.
- Lin Chi (d 867?)
Loving each as is -- equaling what is in our seeing.
Jesus is the mirror. Christ is the mind.
Mirror mind looks out through us.
Be nowhere to be found.
No confusion.
Act.
Sun arrives earlier, stays later, is warmer. On zafu during quiet this morning spectral light dots room through hanging glass sliced into triangular segments of globe at window.
David Steindl-Rast converses with Ken Wilber about Gratefulness as Great Fullness.
Belonging is established with gratitude and trust.
Before the feast of Passover, Jesus knew that his hour had come to pass from this world to the Father.
(John 13:1)
There is often ambivalence about "this world." Stay or go? Good or bad? Save or let rot? Use up or respectfully preserve? In the text we are told Jesus knew his time in this world was at its end. The text says "to pass...to the Father."
Passing to the Father is passing through this world with gratefulness. "Father" -- however else we conceive that referential word -- is perfect equanimity.
Wilber says, "The mirror loves all of its objects equally."
Like the mirror mind -- we love equally what presents itself before us -- seeing each as is.
The worthies of old all had
means of emancipating people.
What I teach people just requires
you not to take on the confusion of others.
If you need to act, then act,
without any further hesitation or doubt.
- Lin Chi (d 867?)
Loving each as is -- equaling what is in our seeing.
Jesus is the mirror. Christ is the mind.
Mirror mind looks out through us.
Be nowhere to be found.
No confusion.
Act.
Monday, March 21, 2005
President Bush relents and repents. He begins to see beyond ego and beyond politics.
The Congress and President have passed legislation to keep a woman in Florida alive. "Culture of Life" is their way of saying that all life is sacred and should not be taken away.
I like this notion.
President Bush will soon announce that he was wrong to allow over one hundred executions of death-row inmates while he was governor of Texas. He will apologize for bombing and killing innocent men, women, and children in Afghanistan and Iraq. He will sign a letter of sorrow stipulating he did not know what he was doing when he authorized the taking of life from poor disabled persistive vegetative people in Texas; the taking of anywhere from 10,000 to 100,000 civilian lives in the Middle East; and the taking of life in the name of interrogation at holding facilities during America's time of honoring the 9/11 victims.
He and his newly awakened political colleagues are a courageous flock. His remorse and their conversion come during a holy week in the Christian faith.
Kuei-shan was asked, "Is there any further cultivation for people who have suddenly awakened?" He replied, "If they awaken truly, realizing the fundamental, they know instinctively when it happens. The question of cultivation or not is two-sided. Suppose beginners have conditionally attained a moment of sudden awakening to inherent truth, but there are still longstanding habit energies that cannot as yet be cleared all at once? They must be taught to clear away streams of consciousness manifesting habitual activity. That is cultivation, but there cannot be a particular doctrine to have them practice or devote themselves to."
- Kuei-Shan (771-854)
By clearing away longstanding habit energies whose activitiy kills those who are alive, I am confident that President Bush, as witnessed by his signing of the Schiavo Law, is setting a long needed example for this country.
If abortion is wrong, so is capital punishment. If murder is wrong, so is collateral damage in warfare. No excuse given will be accepted -- not "I didn't know the gun was loaded;" not, "We didn't intend to kill civilians;" not, "We only do God's work when we judge and murder evil people." If 9/11 was wrong, so is blasting bodies to death and gunning down whole neighborhoods in Middle East countries.
Mr. Bush, with his new declaration proclaiming the sanctity of life, is happily admitting he wants to correct any wrong he has participated in perpetuating, especially the habit activity cultivating and enabling a culture of death that haunts his presidency.
Rather than lowering his head to remember Jesus' death during this yearly memorial, he will do well to look straight ahead at the faces and eyes of individuals demolished by policies of death. Rather than caving in to nominally religious political financial supporters, he would do well to climb out from the hole dug by behavior that denies sacred life. Rather than an insincere "Thank you, Jesus for helping me kill and eliminate evil-doers", Mr Bush would come to stand silently in the presence of Christ, experience authentic compassion, and see the face of forgiveness contemporary Christianity has hooded and forgotten.
Let's not worship history. Let's honor, love, and respect all life -- right here, right now, right away.
That would be a holy week!
That would be Terri Schiavo's gift.
Does Mr. Bush see this?
Do any of us?
The Congress and President have passed legislation to keep a woman in Florida alive. "Culture of Life" is their way of saying that all life is sacred and should not be taken away.
I like this notion.
President Bush will soon announce that he was wrong to allow over one hundred executions of death-row inmates while he was governor of Texas. He will apologize for bombing and killing innocent men, women, and children in Afghanistan and Iraq. He will sign a letter of sorrow stipulating he did not know what he was doing when he authorized the taking of life from poor disabled persistive vegetative people in Texas; the taking of anywhere from 10,000 to 100,000 civilian lives in the Middle East; and the taking of life in the name of interrogation at holding facilities during America's time of honoring the 9/11 victims.
He and his newly awakened political colleagues are a courageous flock. His remorse and their conversion come during a holy week in the Christian faith.
Kuei-shan was asked, "Is there any further cultivation for people who have suddenly awakened?" He replied, "If they awaken truly, realizing the fundamental, they know instinctively when it happens. The question of cultivation or not is two-sided. Suppose beginners have conditionally attained a moment of sudden awakening to inherent truth, but there are still longstanding habit energies that cannot as yet be cleared all at once? They must be taught to clear away streams of consciousness manifesting habitual activity. That is cultivation, but there cannot be a particular doctrine to have them practice or devote themselves to."
- Kuei-Shan (771-854)
By clearing away longstanding habit energies whose activitiy kills those who are alive, I am confident that President Bush, as witnessed by his signing of the Schiavo Law, is setting a long needed example for this country.
If abortion is wrong, so is capital punishment. If murder is wrong, so is collateral damage in warfare. No excuse given will be accepted -- not "I didn't know the gun was loaded;" not, "We didn't intend to kill civilians;" not, "We only do God's work when we judge and murder evil people." If 9/11 was wrong, so is blasting bodies to death and gunning down whole neighborhoods in Middle East countries.
Mr. Bush, with his new declaration proclaiming the sanctity of life, is happily admitting he wants to correct any wrong he has participated in perpetuating, especially the habit activity cultivating and enabling a culture of death that haunts his presidency.
Rather than lowering his head to remember Jesus' death during this yearly memorial, he will do well to look straight ahead at the faces and eyes of individuals demolished by policies of death. Rather than caving in to nominally religious political financial supporters, he would do well to climb out from the hole dug by behavior that denies sacred life. Rather than an insincere "Thank you, Jesus for helping me kill and eliminate evil-doers", Mr Bush would come to stand silently in the presence of Christ, experience authentic compassion, and see the face of forgiveness contemporary Christianity has hooded and forgotten.
Let's not worship history. Let's honor, love, and respect all life -- right here, right now, right away.
That would be a holy week!
That would be Terri Schiavo's gift.
Does Mr. Bush see this?
Do any of us?
Sunday, March 20, 2005
It's not whether Jesus dies or lives, goes away or comes back, resurrects or disappears in plain sight. The matter is whether he abandons his self to the consciousness of Christ.
Jesus is liturgically welcomed as messiah today. In a few days we will scripturally allow him to die again with full anticipation of a dawn resurrection three days hence. There's no need to tease the drama beyond formulations carried forward two thousand years. He will die. Emotions will relay sorrow. A day of emptiness will be followed by a retelling of mythic memories from creation's garden through sunrise narrative where new creation calls Mary by name generating revelation of transformed theology.
There will be a suitable period of awe followed by unaccountable materialization -- peripatetic pedagogy, bread breaking beholding, biological beckoning of finger and fist to unveil and prove that what could not possibly have happened did indeed take place. Death, it is asserted, has been penetrated and passed-through.
Then Jesus said to them, "You will all lose faith in me this night, for the scripture says: I shall strike the shepherd and the sheep of the flock will be scattered, but after my resurrection I shall go before you to Galilee." (from Matthew 26)
Of course we lose faith in Jesus. Why not. After palm fronds fall to the dirt, the man himself in a few days will be stepped on and abandoned. His Father in heaven has nothing to say. It is a script we know by heart.
You live beyond
The wards of Blue Gate;
Walking or sitting,
There's South Mountain view.
A safe distance
From the general hubbub,
I'm sure you're at peace
When day ends.
Below the fence
Frogs are calling;
Grass greens
The entrance to your door.
I'm fond of passing by your residence;
It's only sad I must return
At dusk alone.
- Chang Chi (776-829)
This is only Act One. Like most initial impressions and political immaturity there is enthusiasm for heady ideology that goodness triumphs over duplicity, awareness over unconsciousness. We like that prospect.
The week dashes hope that good intention yields good outcome.
The metaphor of a man forced to abandon his self to what itself resides between creation and return.
Jesus goes nowhere. Christ emerges from there alone.
Jesus is liturgically welcomed as messiah today. In a few days we will scripturally allow him to die again with full anticipation of a dawn resurrection three days hence. There's no need to tease the drama beyond formulations carried forward two thousand years. He will die. Emotions will relay sorrow. A day of emptiness will be followed by a retelling of mythic memories from creation's garden through sunrise narrative where new creation calls Mary by name generating revelation of transformed theology.
There will be a suitable period of awe followed by unaccountable materialization -- peripatetic pedagogy, bread breaking beholding, biological beckoning of finger and fist to unveil and prove that what could not possibly have happened did indeed take place. Death, it is asserted, has been penetrated and passed-through.
Then Jesus said to them, "You will all lose faith in me this night, for the scripture says: I shall strike the shepherd and the sheep of the flock will be scattered, but after my resurrection I shall go before you to Galilee." (from Matthew 26)
Of course we lose faith in Jesus. Why not. After palm fronds fall to the dirt, the man himself in a few days will be stepped on and abandoned. His Father in heaven has nothing to say. It is a script we know by heart.
You live beyond
The wards of Blue Gate;
Walking or sitting,
There's South Mountain view.
A safe distance
From the general hubbub,
I'm sure you're at peace
When day ends.
Below the fence
Frogs are calling;
Grass greens
The entrance to your door.
I'm fond of passing by your residence;
It's only sad I must return
At dusk alone.
- Chang Chi (776-829)
This is only Act One. Like most initial impressions and political immaturity there is enthusiasm for heady ideology that goodness triumphs over duplicity, awareness over unconsciousness. We like that prospect.
The week dashes hope that good intention yields good outcome.
The metaphor of a man forced to abandon his self to what itself resides between creation and return.
Jesus goes nowhere. Christ emerges from there alone.
Saturday, March 19, 2005
I would like to applaud the United States' effort to keep the Florida woman alive.
Now, if only they felt similarly about not killing women, children, and men in Iraq and Afghanistan -- some real revelation would be at hand.
We can hope and pray for those this nation kills; and those it demands stay alive.
Politics and morality are such difficult choices.
Let's give up both.
Consider, instead, this.
What does paramita mean?
It is an Indian word and means in
Chinese "reaching the other shore."
It is interpreted as freedom from birth
And death.
Attachment to externals produces
Birth and death,
Just as water rises in waves;
This is called "this shore."
Detachment from externals
Ensures freedom from birth and death,
Like water which flows freely
And uninterruptedly;
This is called the "other shore."
- Altar Sutra
Choose neither birth nor death
Practice no-choice.
Near other shore.
Now, if only they felt similarly about not killing women, children, and men in Iraq and Afghanistan -- some real revelation would be at hand.
We can hope and pray for those this nation kills; and those it demands stay alive.
Politics and morality are such difficult choices.
Let's give up both.
Consider, instead, this.
What does paramita mean?
It is an Indian word and means in
Chinese "reaching the other shore."
It is interpreted as freedom from birth
And death.
Attachment to externals produces
Birth and death,
Just as water rises in waves;
This is called "this shore."
Detachment from externals
Ensures freedom from birth and death,
Like water which flows freely
And uninterruptedly;
This is called the "other shore."
- Altar Sutra
Choose neither birth nor death
Practice no-choice.
Near other shore.
Thursday, March 17, 2005
Irish celebrate St. Patrick's Day. He lived during 4th/5th century.
We are all born mad. Some remain so. (-- Samuel Beckett, in Waiting for Godot)
My family on 69th street loved celebrating this day. They've gone to the invisible. They drank a beer or two, boiled corned beef, tolerated cabbage, told stories, and shook their heads at lies heard. Lies are what we tell when threatened by the truth. I've told plenty. Some lies were longer and more hurtful than others. I, then and now, dislike lies. Whether or not forgiveness enters the equation, we are desolate liars. Who are "we"? -- someone will ask. That person, asking, is a liar.
Saying is inventing. Wrong, very rightly wrong. You invent nothing, you think you are inventing, you think you are escaping, and all you do is stammer out your lesson, the remnants of a pensum one day got by heart and long forgotten, life without tears, as it is wept.
(Beckett in Molloy, Part I)
I believe him, I know it's my only chance to -- my only chance, I believe all I'm told, I've disbelieved only too much in my long life, now I swallow everything, greedily. What I need now is stories, it took me a long time to know that, and I'm not sure of it.
(Molloy, Part I, major prose narratives, 1951)
I fancy madness in the way poet Theodore Roethke does. He asks:
What's madness but nobility of soul
At odds with circumstance?
(from poem "In a Dark Time")
The circumstance of contemporary culture in the world is maddening. Perhaps it is a good thing. Maybe as we move to what some call transparency we will more easily be able to see what we couldn't before -- namely, the wall of deceit and falsity created by those who benefit by deceit and falsity. Moving to transparency means passing through cutting shards hanging where wall disintegrates.
I like Samuel Beckett (1906-1989). I grew up with his absurd take on things and life. The way he describes those who don't think as I do:
His plan therefore was not to refuse admission to the idea, but to keep it at bay until his mind was ready to receive it. Then let it in and pulverise it. Obliterate the bastard.
(in More Pricks Than Kicks)
Say what you will, you can't keep a dead mind down.
(in More Pricks Than Kicks
(The volume More Pricks Than Kicks (1934) contained 10 stories describing episodes in the life of a Dublin intellectual, Belacqua Shuah)
I note that Patrick of Ireland suffered what has become an American tactic.
The defining event of Patrick's life was his abduction. Ripped from a comfortable upbringing and forced into servitude, Patrick never recovered from the trauma. Upon his return to Britain many of his friends had gone on to fine educations and prominence whereas Patrick, an outsider as a slave in Ireland, became an outsider in his home society. To his dismay, Patrick was neither a great orator nor did he have a facility with the written word. He wrote late in life "that is why I am now ashamed and am seriously afraid of revealing my unskilfulness, the fact that I cannot hold forth in speech to cultivated people in exact language." As an older man he still regarded himself as a "poor ignorant orphan" and an "exile and refugee" who was "very little educated". After returning as Bishop to the land that had once considered him a slave, he never left again, becoming more closely identified with the Irish people than the British.
As a man, Patrick was devastated by captivity. In his years of slavery he developed a deep faith and sense of conviction in his God which provided him tremendous missionary zeal. Perhaps finding more acceptance among the society of his captors, Patrick dedicated his life's energy to the Irish christian mission and he died there around 460 A.D. with no ordained successor.
As a saint, Patrick is larger than life for those who need him to be. Perhaps this March 17 we can forgo the green beer and the snake charming and remember just the man who overcame great odds to carry out his life's work on the beautiful and cruel island of Eire. (in SAINT PATRICK The man and the myth -- by C. Austin)
In our country we learn how to get along. We worry that what we say will be taken by the government as oppositional, and thereby, dangerous.
If I have said anything to the contrary I was mistaken. If I say anything to the contrary again I shall be mistaken again. Unless I am mistaken now. Into the dossier with it in any case, in support of whatever thesis you fancy.
(in The Unnamable, L'Innommable,1953)
I watched last night Frank McCourt's visit back to Limerick Ireland where he grew up after moving there from Brooklyn. He's amazed how prosperous and happy everyone seems to be. He'd been poor and miserable. The Irish have a curious relationship with hope.
Better hope deferred than none. Up to a point. Till the heart starts to sicken. Company too up to a point. Better a sick heart than none. Till it starts to break. So speaking of himself he concludes for the time being. For the time being leave it at that.
(in Company, composed between May 1977 and August 1979, is a Beckett lengthy prose fiction)
So much of contemporary history is bald-face lie. Or is it better called farce?
I say farce deliberately, in the hope of covering up for you. That's what our best authors do, they call their most serious works farces, in case no one is prepared to take them seriously.
(Beckett in Eleuthéria)
It is difficult to read the farce of political governance these days. But we might wish to learn how to read through and beyond the words. It might affect our sanity.
And when we become mad, or return to madness, we might find our house empty and friends departed.
Once, we believed we had friends in reporters and journalists -- surely they would tell the truth, investigate through the deception, and champion justice.
...when it comes to those bastards of journalists, I feel the only line is to refuse to be involved in exegesis of any kind. That's for those bastards of critics.
(Beckett, in Letter to Alan Schneider, 1957)
It is a good day to be Irish. So much blather and blarney!
If I was dead, I wouldn't know I was dead. That's the only thing I have against death. I want to enjoy my death. That's where liberty lies: to see oneself dead.
(Eleuthéria)
There's something resonant here with what Ken Wilber said about ego. He said that a good definition of the ego is "The capacity in us to deny the obvious."
Death of the ego, therefore, might result in seeing and engaging the obvious.
There are probably at least two sources for the snakes which Patrick "drove" out of Ireland. A symbol for the goddess worship practiced in Ireland prior to Christianity was the snake or serpent. The conversion of Ireland to Christianity symbolically banished the "snake" from the land. Secondly, the bloody cult of Crom Cruaich in County Caven demanded human sacrifice to a serpent deity and the dismantling of this cult by Christianity is now remembered as the "snakes being driven from Ireland."
(From SAINT PATRICK The man and the myth -- by C. Austin)
Snakes abound in this country. We'd better pray to Patrick.
To drive them out.
Take their green.
Un-metaphor.
Remain mad.
We are all born mad. Some remain so. (-- Samuel Beckett, in Waiting for Godot)
My family on 69th street loved celebrating this day. They've gone to the invisible. They drank a beer or two, boiled corned beef, tolerated cabbage, told stories, and shook their heads at lies heard. Lies are what we tell when threatened by the truth. I've told plenty. Some lies were longer and more hurtful than others. I, then and now, dislike lies. Whether or not forgiveness enters the equation, we are desolate liars. Who are "we"? -- someone will ask. That person, asking, is a liar.
Saying is inventing. Wrong, very rightly wrong. You invent nothing, you think you are inventing, you think you are escaping, and all you do is stammer out your lesson, the remnants of a pensum one day got by heart and long forgotten, life without tears, as it is wept.
(Beckett in Molloy, Part I)
I believe him, I know it's my only chance to -- my only chance, I believe all I'm told, I've disbelieved only too much in my long life, now I swallow everything, greedily. What I need now is stories, it took me a long time to know that, and I'm not sure of it.
(Molloy, Part I, major prose narratives, 1951)
I fancy madness in the way poet Theodore Roethke does. He asks:
What's madness but nobility of soul
At odds with circumstance?
(from poem "In a Dark Time")
The circumstance of contemporary culture in the world is maddening. Perhaps it is a good thing. Maybe as we move to what some call transparency we will more easily be able to see what we couldn't before -- namely, the wall of deceit and falsity created by those who benefit by deceit and falsity. Moving to transparency means passing through cutting shards hanging where wall disintegrates.
I like Samuel Beckett (1906-1989). I grew up with his absurd take on things and life. The way he describes those who don't think as I do:
His plan therefore was not to refuse admission to the idea, but to keep it at bay until his mind was ready to receive it. Then let it in and pulverise it. Obliterate the bastard.
(in More Pricks Than Kicks)
Say what you will, you can't keep a dead mind down.
(in More Pricks Than Kicks
(The volume More Pricks Than Kicks (1934) contained 10 stories describing episodes in the life of a Dublin intellectual, Belacqua Shuah)
I note that Patrick of Ireland suffered what has become an American tactic.
The defining event of Patrick's life was his abduction. Ripped from a comfortable upbringing and forced into servitude, Patrick never recovered from the trauma. Upon his return to Britain many of his friends had gone on to fine educations and prominence whereas Patrick, an outsider as a slave in Ireland, became an outsider in his home society. To his dismay, Patrick was neither a great orator nor did he have a facility with the written word. He wrote late in life "that is why I am now ashamed and am seriously afraid of revealing my unskilfulness, the fact that I cannot hold forth in speech to cultivated people in exact language." As an older man he still regarded himself as a "poor ignorant orphan" and an "exile and refugee" who was "very little educated". After returning as Bishop to the land that had once considered him a slave, he never left again, becoming more closely identified with the Irish people than the British.
As a man, Patrick was devastated by captivity. In his years of slavery he developed a deep faith and sense of conviction in his God which provided him tremendous missionary zeal. Perhaps finding more acceptance among the society of his captors, Patrick dedicated his life's energy to the Irish christian mission and he died there around 460 A.D. with no ordained successor.
As a saint, Patrick is larger than life for those who need him to be. Perhaps this March 17 we can forgo the green beer and the snake charming and remember just the man who overcame great odds to carry out his life's work on the beautiful and cruel island of Eire. (in SAINT PATRICK The man and the myth -- by C. Austin)
In our country we learn how to get along. We worry that what we say will be taken by the government as oppositional, and thereby, dangerous.
If I have said anything to the contrary I was mistaken. If I say anything to the contrary again I shall be mistaken again. Unless I am mistaken now. Into the dossier with it in any case, in support of whatever thesis you fancy.
(in The Unnamable, L'Innommable,1953)
I watched last night Frank McCourt's visit back to Limerick Ireland where he grew up after moving there from Brooklyn. He's amazed how prosperous and happy everyone seems to be. He'd been poor and miserable. The Irish have a curious relationship with hope.
Better hope deferred than none. Up to a point. Till the heart starts to sicken. Company too up to a point. Better a sick heart than none. Till it starts to break. So speaking of himself he concludes for the time being. For the time being leave it at that.
(in Company, composed between May 1977 and August 1979, is a Beckett lengthy prose fiction)
So much of contemporary history is bald-face lie. Or is it better called farce?
I say farce deliberately, in the hope of covering up for you. That's what our best authors do, they call their most serious works farces, in case no one is prepared to take them seriously.
(Beckett in Eleuthéria)
It is difficult to read the farce of political governance these days. But we might wish to learn how to read through and beyond the words. It might affect our sanity.
And when we become mad, or return to madness, we might find our house empty and friends departed.
Once, we believed we had friends in reporters and journalists -- surely they would tell the truth, investigate through the deception, and champion justice.
...when it comes to those bastards of journalists, I feel the only line is to refuse to be involved in exegesis of any kind. That's for those bastards of critics.
(Beckett, in Letter to Alan Schneider, 1957)
It is a good day to be Irish. So much blather and blarney!
If I was dead, I wouldn't know I was dead. That's the only thing I have against death. I want to enjoy my death. That's where liberty lies: to see oneself dead.
(Eleuthéria)
There's something resonant here with what Ken Wilber said about ego. He said that a good definition of the ego is "The capacity in us to deny the obvious."
Death of the ego, therefore, might result in seeing and engaging the obvious.
There are probably at least two sources for the snakes which Patrick "drove" out of Ireland. A symbol for the goddess worship practiced in Ireland prior to Christianity was the snake or serpent. The conversion of Ireland to Christianity symbolically banished the "snake" from the land. Secondly, the bloody cult of Crom Cruaich in County Caven demanded human sacrifice to a serpent deity and the dismantling of this cult by Christianity is now remembered as the "snakes being driven from Ireland."
(From SAINT PATRICK The man and the myth -- by C. Austin)
Snakes abound in this country. We'd better pray to Patrick.
To drive them out.
Take their green.
Un-metaphor.
Remain mad.
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