There’s no place to go, there’s nothing to do; so, we continue going, we continue doing what we are doing.

Cold Mountain is all white clouds Quiet and free of dust A grassy spot makes a mountain home The bright moon its lone lamp A stone couch above a jade pool Tigers and deer for neighbors I love the joys of solitude Remaining a person beyond. - Han shan

Saturday Morning Buddhist Practice takes place in the Merton Bookshed Retreat while residue snow showers add to yesterday’s 8 inches of thick snow as, soon, sun comes burning white atop mountains surrounding meetingbrook. Spring agnostics!

These mountains, under where we are.

Which reminds me: Semper ubi sub ubi!

You’re welcome!

One more thing.

An article in the religion section of The Huffington Post entitled, "Excommunicated Priest Now Faces Expulsion” By Bruce Nolan, Religion News Service, opens with the following:

NEW ORLEANS -- The Rev. Roy Bourgeois, the Louisiana native and peace activist who was excommunicated three years ago for publicly supporting women's ordination, now faces expulsion from his religious order and from the priesthood.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/03/31/excommunicated-priest-now_n_843279.html

All these generations...

Before retiring, I have to post:

It is passing strange that the mythology of the Catholic Church holds that a woman, Mary, enfleshed the Word of God, giving birth to Jesus, and now the church says women are not worthy to proclaim in liturgical re-enactment the ongoing presence of the Christ among us?

Methinks the boys do protest too much.

We might be witnessing the demise of the Catholic Church as it envisions itself, what with their men's’ sexuality akimbo off-kilter, and their idealized stranglehold directing women’s sexual radiance to procreative functionalism.

Meanwhile, under the myopic episcopate radar, the ‘church’ is regenerating and resurrecting into a new phylum of celebration with women at forefront, and nothing the declining men’s club can do will change the transformation.

Have you ever seen such a fight for lifeboats in the chaotic rush to jump from the barque of Peter?

No worries, mates and mothers, the sea is grand place to begin again the healing and mutation of a new living, loving reality, the feminine Kirche, wide-armed with embrace, full of forgiveness for the idiotic notion of inchoate ’sin.’

Fr. Roy, you will find a welcome, certainly, among such a fearless folk!

I’ll keep my lighthouse lens turning sharp for signs of arriving rescue approaching this too-dried shore, waiting with tears welling for the changing on-shore breeze.

...

All these generations of patient, caring, and vibrant celebrants!

...

Missa ab initio, hic et huc et nunc. Veni, procedamus in aequanimitatis!

(i.e. The mass, is, from the beginning, this and here and now. Come-on, let’s move forward in calmness of mind, patience, tranquility, equanimity; goodwill, & favor!)

The snow was wet and heavy. Working on worker's comp numbers all day was slow and heavy. Now the tuna fish with cheese atop sits in toaster oven -- growing closer to each other each second.

The wind arises in the remotest corners of the world. It circulates through the hills and marshes, then wafts across embankments and roads, always expanding and permeating, until it finally flows against your windows, railings, and inner curtains, never to depart. When you lean back on your chair and observe it, is there not something to be learned from it? Its force comes from whatever it runs up against. It does not exert itself and so is never tired. Its shape comes from what it encounters. It does not take on its own shape and so is never exhausted. Try looking at it this way.
- Su Shi (1037-1101)

Neighbor Bob comes by to help get Husky Subaru generator started after we exhaust ourselves pulling cord. Tired fuel from a year ago. He sprays fluid into starting carburetor area, and Viola! -- it starts ...after four more tries. Then the power comes back on. We let the generator shrug off a winter's idleness for a while.

April comes white and heavy.

We are grateful.

Not for having missed both prison and nursing home, but for life itself.

Indeed, grateful!

There’s snow coming tonight.

Tenacity.

Immortality doesn't imply having more or being better, because you'd still need to be constantly keeping up. As humans we can only handle or be into so many things at once; increasing the span of our life does not increase our capacity for experiencing the present...(WHE, student in philosophy, URock, Maine)

Guest from Colorado attends Thursday Evening Conversation of A Course in Miracles. Good meeting. As usual.

Idly, I visited the high monks
Green mountain, white clouds
Next door crying children
On the other side a boisterous crowd.
The Five-Peaks touch the Milky Way
The cobalt sky is clear as water
True, they pointed my way home
Pool of lamplight beneath the moon.
- Shih Te (c. 730)

Deep deadline for Saskia of Worker’s Comp Audits. Nobody gets off free.

Snow doesn’t care that tomorrow is 1st of April.

Neither do I.

We walk up the mountain in afternoon sun. Ski season over. Runways ours.

Moved by their selfish desires, people seek after fame and glory. But when they have acquired these, they are already stricken in years. If you hanker after worldly fame and practice not the Way, your labors are wrongfully applied and your energy is wasted. It is like burning a stick of incense. However much its pleasing odor is admired, the fire that consumes is steadily burning up the stick.
- Sutra of Forty Two Chapters

Way is beyond, behind, before you.

Movement, it is all movement.

Through and through.

Sacred music, sacred chant, just before sleep.

Puts the contentions of wars and bickering in perspective.

Compline completes. When the grand silence arrives there needs be no further colloquy. Ask the Holy Spirit to complete your day, your life, your mind.

And it is.

Done.

It's never tomorrow. It's always and only today.

Look up to heaven and down on earth, and they will remind you of their impermanency. Look about the world, and it will remind you of its impermanency. But when you gain spiritual enlightenment, you shall then find wisdom. The knowledge thus attained leads you to the Way. - Sutra of Forty Two Chapters

 Of course truth matters. Only, not in the obvious way. It matters in that it is what keeps individuals sane. Sane, while whole groups, nations, the entire world, cultivates the prospect that insanity is a reasonable way to live.

No, truth will never be proved. Not the way we'd like it to be. Instead, there is inference, reasonable probability, justifiable action, good will and good faith integrity that refuses to affirm what you know is not true.

Maybe that's it, that's the limit of human ability -- not to know and prove the truth, but to not be diverted into surrendering to what is not true.

A withholding of assent. A standing off to the side as propaganda and illusion barrel down the street. Often, standing alone there.

There is nothing to prove.

There is only a place to stand.

Solitude; now.

Solitariness moving the world.

Found.

Today.

Too many people have died in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

It is time for a greater vision than currently in play.

Cloudy mountains, fold on fold,
How many thousands of them?
Shady valley road runs deep,
All trace of people gone
Green torrents, pure clear flow,
No place more full of beauty;
Birds sing my own heart's harmony.
- Shih-Te (c. 730)

Most of life is opportunity to break out of our conditioning.

War is a condition of the mind that is horrendous and terrifying.

If we choose no war -- something new might occur.