Death drones

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

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

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

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

It wasn't a drone.

How lucky we still are.

This ironic and unrooted time!

What is not being noticed

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

Is “what is” called “thinking”?

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

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

What can this mean?

How has this separation not been noticed?

Can "not being" be noticed?

It is a thought-provoking question.

Practice

Buddha's shadow is entering the fireplace.

Francis' head is lifting itself from the snow.

One dog outside door, one inside door.

We leave our seats.

What is as it is?

Yes, just that.

Reading; poetry

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

A Fixed Idea  

What torture lurks within a single thought    

When grown too constant; and however kind,    

However welcome still, the weary mind 

Aches with its presence. Dull remembrance taught    

Remembers on unceasingly; unsought    

The old delight is with us but to find    

That all recurring joy is pain refined,    

Become a habit, and we struggle, caught.    

You lie upon my heart as on a nest,   

Folded in peace, for you can never know    

How crushed I am with having you at rest    

Heavy upon my life. I love you so 

You bind my freedom from its rightful quest.    

In mercy lift your drooping wings and go.   

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

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

What then...

Reading learns me.

Reading studies me.

Reading teaches me.

That...

There is no me.

Coming south from catholic county

The all-golden vessel,  

the most delectable sweetener of our souls,  

she who bears the manna which is Christ, l 

and uncultivated,  

field unploughed,v 

ine streaming with fecundity,  

vessel most delightful, spring that gushes forth,  

the treasure of innocence  

and ornament of modesty 

--Byzantine sermon

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

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

Tuesday; unveiling

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

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

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

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

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

Apocalypse is not doom and destruction.

It is Tuesday.

not refusing

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

A word replying:

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

Last night at practice we read Thomas Merton: 

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

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

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

We wish each of you . . . well. 

 We are fragile.

And so...

We long for one another’s clear health.

storied; unread

Maybe it’s true.

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

 Could Have

             by Wislawa Szymborska

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

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

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

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

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

 I don’t know.

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

Nope.

Not like anything.

Just absurd and, in mythopoetic dream, likely.

Storied.

Sunday morning

Readiness

Should anyone wish

To remember what is hidden

In the middle of everything