The human heart longs to return home to itself.

Moni dies. Several weeks ago she sat in center of canoe as we paddled the pond near Rangeley Lake. So quiet. She was experiencing back pain on her visit to the double 80th birthday celebration. On the canoe ride, peace and silence.

Reading Dowling Singh at this morning's 'The Many Faces of Death' conversation we wondered about the Ground of Being. Earlier at Lectio the parable of the wedding feast -- which at first and second reading sounds like the resolution just passed by Congress authorizing first strike permission to the president. On third reading it might be metaphor for abandoning ego self for God self -- else, punishing behavior toward everybody, even those gaining access to the mystical oneness of the wedding feast.

Punishment precedes and succeeds the self-aggrandizing posturing of dictators of every stripe, star, and crescent scythe. War cannot distinguish between the self-indulgence of tyrannical leader or democratic leader. All are punished for the evasion rife in willing the world in our own image.

There is sorrow in death, as there is sorrow in the preface to war. Powder is loaded and flint readied for striking.

If we were wise, we would say, “Send innocent and foolhardy peace pilgrims to Baghdad. Let them enter the feast of union, or let them be killed trying.” No one is killed when the innocent die willingly -- taking no life, but allowing their lives to be offered for peace.

But we are not wise. So we prepare to send warriors to shoot and bomb and kill those who do not wish to die.

We who are about to live in the prayer of peace and silence salute you in the name of what is holy. Do not create death by taking other's lives. Create life by abandoning all illusion and false ideology -- whether tyrannical power or executive power. Look for the opposite of war.

Look for what is looking for the human heart.

No war will return the human heart to itself.

At dawn, frost gathers on tent top. Unzipping sleeping bag not heavy enough for autumn in Canada, light glows behind island mountains across from St. Andrews.

Walking path behind Katy's Pond we see mother deer and two young ones at edge of beach across growing expanse of light.

Last night at Christian Contemplative Conversation, we speak of the word ecology. Oikos = ‘home’ in Greek. Logos = ‘meaning’ or ‘wording of.’ Wording of home, meaning of home, or dwelling at home -- this is what ecology is.

Once there was a way to get back home again, went the words of a song.

Now?

As sun peeked over island mountain, lengths of sticks waded in salt stillness near shore.
This is a way of seeing oneself home.

Two people, two dogs, and three deer walked that path one sweet cold morning in Canada.

On the road, two days away.

My home’s in the
flowering mountains.
My joy is purest reflection
in a rush hut by a blue grotto,
at the end of a crazy winding path.
At noon I take a simple meal
and when I’m full
I take my staff
and wander to the
mountain top and gaze.
- Yun-K’an Tzu

What is there to see?
Looking at earth, at nature, at nothing in particular.
Looking as earth, as nature, as nothing in particular.
This cosmotheandric gaze – Earth/Nature, God, Each One of Us.

Nothing in particular?
God is not a thing, no thing, nothing. Is it true? Are we nothing in particular?

I have nothing to say about this. I don't know. God alone knows.
God’s language is earth, nature, each one of us.

God speaks silence lovingly within each one -- and all -- we see.