I long for people --
Then again I loath them:
End of autumn.
Hito koi she / hito mutsukashishi / aki no kure
(--death poem, by Chogo, died 3sept1806, age 45; in Japanese Death Poems, c.1986, Charles E Tuttle Company, p.153)
Mind as Water, Mind as IceFind yourself there wherever you lose yourself.
The Right Mind is the mind that does not remain in one place. It is the mind that stretches throughout the entire body and self. The Confused Mind is the mind that, thinking something over, congeals in one place.
(—Takuan Soho, "The Right Mind and the Confused Mind")
We have heard this phrase so often that we don't get the existential shock of what "created in the image and likeness of God" is saying about us. If we could believe it, we would save ourselves ten thousand dollars in therapy! If this is true--and I believe it is--our family of origin is divine. It is saying that we were created by a loving God to be love in the world. Our core is original blessing, not original sin. Our starting point is positive and, as it is written in the first chapter of the Bible, it is "very good" (Genesis 1:31). We do have a good place to go home. If the beginning is right, the rest is made considerably easier, because we know and can trust the clear direction of our life's tangent.
The great illusion we must all overcome is the illusion of separateness. It is the primary task of religion to communicate not worthiness but union, to reconnect people to their original identity "hidden with Christ in God" (Colossians 3:3). The Bible calls this state of separateness "sin." God's job description is to draw us back into this primal and intimate relationship. "My dear people, we are already children of God; what we will be in the future has not yet been fully revealed, and all I do know is that we shall be like God" (1 John 3:2).
(--Richard Rohr OFM) http://campaign.r20.constantcontact.com/render?ca=2a176d2f-7dd7-4ad8-9c30-9945fe81e555&c=4d6fbfb0-7972-11e5-9400-d4ae529ce120&ch=4d742c80-7972-11e5-9400-d4ae529ce120It's not what "I" have to reveal, but what "it" has to reveal.
MR. MULDOON: At least they weren’t speaking French
when my father sat with his brothers and sisters, two of each, on a ramshackle bench
at the end of a lane marked by two white stonesand made mouth music as they waited, chilled to the bone
Fol-de-rol, fol-de-rol, fol-de-rol-di-oh
for the bus meant to bring their parents back from town.
It came and went. Nothing. One sister was weighed down
By the youngest child. A grocery bag from a town more distant still, in troth.What started as a cough
Fol-de-rol, fol-de-rol, fol-de-rol-di-oh
would briefly push him forward to some minor renown
then shove him back, oddly summery, down
along the trench
to that far-flung realm where, at least, they weren’t speaking French.
(--from poem by Paul Muldoon, "At least they weren't speaking French", from transcript to "on being" with Krista Tippet) http://www.onbeing.org/program/paul-muldoon-a-conversation-with-verse/transcript/8282It rains in Maine this morning. We've gotten through Christmas -- the culture of creating a dimension unseen but in fantasmic making -- time without appearance.
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Since the Latin language lacks a present active participle for the verb "to be," Tertullian and other Latin authors rendered the Greek noun "ousia" (being) as "substantia," and the Greek adjective "homoousios" (of the same being) as "consubstantialis". Unlike the Greek words, which are etymologically related to the Greek verb "to be" and connote one's own personal inherent character, "substantia," connotes matter as much as it connotes being.
The term is also used to describe the common humanity which is shared by all human persons. Thus, Jesus Christ is said to be consubstantial with the Father in his divinity and consubstantial with us in his humanity.[1]
It has also been noted that this Greek term "homoousian" or "consubstantial", which Athanasius of Alexandria favored, and was ratified in the Nicene Council and Creed, was actually a term reported to also be used and favored by the Sabellians in their Christology. And it was a term that many followers of Athanasius were actually uneasy about. The "Semi-Arians", in particular, objected to the word "homoousian". Their objection to this term was that it was considered to be un-Scriptural, suspicious, and "of a Sabellian tendency."[2] This was because Sabellius also considered the Father and the Son to be "one substance." Meaning that, to Sabellius, the Father and Son were "one essential Person." This notion, however, was also rejected at the Council of Nicaea, in favor of the Athanasian formulation and creed, of the Father and Son being distinct yet also co-equal, co-eternal, and con-substantial Persons.(--Wikipedia). https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consubstantiality
“Who could ever know the mind of the Lord? Who could ever be his counsellor?” (Rom 11:34).
"Selected Exits" is adapted by Alan Plater from a memoir by Gwyn Thomas, a crusty Welsh writer and raconteur who died in 1981 at 67. Established as a writer of novels, short stories and plays, Mr. Thomas became a television celebrity in the 1960's on the BBC talk show "The Brains Trust." That's when this dramatization begins, with Anthony Hopkins grumblingly playing the wittily provocative Thomas. "All writers are liars," he declares, explaining that the lie is a compulsory social tactic. Then, with Hopkins assuming the role of narrator, the story goes back to Thomas's adolescence in South Wales.
Thomas's mother died when he was 6. He describes his father, partial to pubs and denouncing Shakespeare as an imperialist, as "a latter-day Moses who had lost his map." Despite his determination to be a sidelines rebel, the gifted Thomas ends up winning a scholarship to Oxford University, although he continues to insist on being an outsider. He is a shrewd observer of ordinary lives, noting that in his beloved valley in Wales, "from all sides I was pelted by the unbelievable." He pinpoints the theme of his stay on earth: “Get close to an event, hear it breathe, then vanish.
(--from, TV Weekend; A Perpetual Outsider and a New Host, By JOHN J. O’CONNOR Published: October 1, 1993) http://www.nytimes.com/1993/10/01/arts/tv-weekend-a-perpetual-outsider-and-a-new-host.htmlGood way to stay. Then, hearing breath, to go.
The Two Freedoms
Whatever your difficulties—a devastated heart, financial loss, feeling assaulted by the conflicts around you, or a seemingly hopeless illness—you can always remember that you are free in every moment to set the compass of your heart to your highest intentions. In fact, the two things that you are always free to do—despite your circumstances—are to be present and to be willing to love.
—Jack Kornfield, "Set the Compass of Your Heart"
St. John of the Cross...How to Attain PerfectionWhite dog jumps up on bed.
Fourth Counsel
The fourth counsel concerns solitude. St. John says:
“You should deem everything in the world as finished. Thus, when (for not being able to avoid it) you have to deal with some matter, do so in as detached a way as you would if it did not exist.
“Pay no heed to the things out in the world, for God has already withdrawn and released you from them. Do not handle any business yourself that you can do through a third person. It is very fitting for you to desire to see no one and that no one see you.
“And note carefully that if God will ask a strict account from all the faithful of every idle word, how much more will He ask it of the religious who has consecrated his entire life and all his works to Him. And God will demand all of this on the day of reckoning.”
This counsel on solitude is as basic as the previous three. It reminds us that the world is passing. We cannot make its goods exclusive. We must use them wisely as gifts but release our frantic grasp of them.
To be in the world but not of the world in an ex- clusive sense is to become more mindful of the need to take Father’s will into account as Jesus did.
(--from, spiritual life/ Online, continuation of spiritual life magazine Published 4 Times a Year, Winter 2015, Vol 1, No.4
http://files.ctctcdn.com/9fbfacab001/cf85d8fd-168b-43f4-a58b-7ed1d5cb676d.pdf?utm_source=Copy+of+Winter+2015+Issue+spiritual+life%2FOnine&utm_campaign=spiritual+life%2FOnline+Winter+2015&utm_medium=email
Suffering is above, not below. And everyone thinks that suffering is below. And everyone wants to rise.
(p.29, poem, in Voices, by Antonio Porchia, translated by W.S. Merwin)Justice and suffering.
Full Definition of JUSTICE1
a : the maintenance or administration of what is just especially by the impartial adjustment of conflicting claims or the assignment of merited rewards or punishments
b : judge
c : the administration of law; especially : the establishment or determination of rights according to the rules of law or equity 2
a : the quality of being just, impartial, or fair
b (1) : the principle or ideal of just dealing or right action (2) : conformity to this principle or ideal : righteousness
c : the quality of conforming to law 3
: conformity to truth, fact, or reason : correctness
(--Merriam-Webster)We did not want to bring the perpetrators of a deceitful, cruel, and falsely waged war against Iraq in 2003 to justice.
In my silence only my voice is lacking. (p.32)
Human suffering, while it is asleep, is shapeless.
If it is wakened it takes the form of the waker. (p.33)
In the late 1980’s and early 90’s, when I was a theology student at Weston Jesuit School of Theology, I studied and prayed with the works of Meister Eckhart, a medieval Dominican monk. His fundamental teaching, that we participate in the life of Christ via the process and practice of detachment, has enlivened my spiritual life and brought hope, peace and creativity in its wake. Eckhart’s teaching is entirely consistent with an even older Christian tradition called the apophatic way, or the way of “negative” (not in the sense of bad) theology. God is present to us always, but always in a way that is beyond our thoughts, feelings, images and sensations. Whatever we think about God is NOT God. God is always greater. We can enter an ever-fresh arena of God’s presence by continually letting go of our ideas, thoughts and images of reality and of God. Eckhart named this process, in his native German language, Gelassenheit. I like the sound of it.
(--from Robert Jonas blog, Bread for the Journey, forge institute: I-thou in meditation and prayer) http://www.emptybell.org/blog/?p=4#more-4Gratefully, let God go.
fascist |ˈfaSHəst|nounan advocate or follower of the political philosophy or system of fascism: he went to Spain to fight against the fascists | Eastern European fascists could win power only with support from the Nazis.
• a person who is extremely right-wing or authoritarian: fascists made death threats against immigrants and asylum seekers.
• a person who is very intolerant or domineering in a particular area: I'm a bit of a spelling fascist, but still have blind spots over words like “privilege” or “separate” | if I were being a culinary fascist, I would possibly moan about the overdone cooked tomatoes.
adjectiveof or relating to fascism: a military coup threw out the old fascist regime.ORIGINearly 20th cent.: Italian fascista, from fascio (see fascism).
(--from Dictionary, Apple inc)America is in trouble.
Toynbee believes that the ideas and methods for meeting the challenges for a society come from a creative minority. The ideas and methods developed by the creative minority are copied by the majority. Thus there are two essential and separate steps in meeting a challenge: the generation of ideas and the imitation/adoption of those ideas by the majority. If either of those two processes ceases to function then the civilization breaks down.
If the creative minority fails to command the respect of the majority through the brilliance and rightness of their solutions to the problems and challenges of the society then the minority becomes merely a dominant minority. In the breakdown of a civilization the society splits into three parts: the dominant minority, the internal proletariat (the working masses which are part of the civilization) and the external proletariat (the masses which are influenced by the civilization but are not controlled by it.
The disintegration of a civilization involves a time of troubles, such as a time of wars between the nations which are parts of the civilization. This time of troubles is followed by the establishment of a universal state, an empire. The existence of a universal state such as the Roman Empire is evidence that the civilization has broken down.
Ultimately the universal state collapses and there follows an interregnum in which the internal proletariat creates a universal religion and the external proletariat becomes involved in a Volkerwanderung, a migration of peoples.
(--Arnold Toynbee on Civilizations and Religions, San Jose State, Thayer Watkins) http://www.applet-magic.com/toynbee.htmThe migration is afoot.
The burden of existence from the perspective of sunyata appears instead as a mission or a debt towards all others with whom we are essentially connected in elemental existence. As discussed last chapter, entering the infinity of the present moment allows to see our connection with all other things in the universe, effecting a liberation from karmic conditioning. The moment of time and the present moment, then, appears from this perspective as instead one unit of time, the present moment, “spreading out endlessly before and after with the present at its point of origin.” (267) This conception of time as one moment spreading out infinitely into the past and future correlates with the understanding of the elemental existence of the universe as one harmony, a single whole. Understanding the universe as essentially connected makes self-love ignoring others impossible, as loving ourselves necessarily entails loving all other sentient beings, such that loving thy neighbor “as thyself” “comes about where each and every ‘other’ has its being as other, namely, at its own home-ground; or again, where all things are gathered into one circumincessional interpenetration as a ‘world’ and ‘All are One.’” (279) Self-centeredness gives way in religion to understanding the entire world as its own center, such that love must be directed towards all others. Thus, only from the perspective of religion can we grasp our ethical purpose in loving all others, seen most clearly for Nishitani in Boddhisattvahood in Buddhism and love of one’s neighbor in Christianity.
http://strongreading.blogspot.com/2011/08/keiji-nishitani-religion-and.html
“Take off the garment of your sorrow and affliction, O Jerusalem, and put on forever the beauty of the glory from God. Put on the robe of the righteousness from God; put on your head the diadem of the glory of the Everlasting,” (Bar 5: 1-2).
William Halpin